Cold Fear (40 page)

SEVENTY-FIVE

Cool breezes
glided up the sloping
forests, carrying the fragrance of western red cedar, larch and hemlock to
Isaiah Hood, who surveyed the Rockies from his God’s-eye view.

Like a reawakening mountain spirit, Hood inhaled deeply,
drawing power from an ancient force, activating his acute senses of hearing,
vision, smell and animal-like intuition.

He spotted a white-tail deer amid a stand of spruce,
some seventy-five yards off; heard the rustling of a bald eagle’s wings
skirting the treetops of a valley below; detected the sweetness of glacier
lilies; sensed mountain butterflies zigzagging among them.

Hood was home. Free. A king in his kingdom. He pushed on
swiftly.

He had cheated his executioners. Cheated his scheduled
death, as he knew he would. For it was only right. He had given them twenty-two
years for a game. Time for him to take control.

Hood had plans--intricate designs--drafted, polished,
taken apart and reassembled in a million dreams dreamed while living in a
concrete casket. His poster of the Rockies was his portal to his paradise. His
trances, visions and “apprehension of the mind,” the vehicles that got him
here.

A network of ancient Indian, trapper and miners’ trails
existed among the ranges that traversed the U.S.-Canadian border. They were not
on maps but burned into Hood’s heart. He knew them all. Knew them better than
any other human being. He had travelled them as a boy, disappearing for weeks
after a savage thrashing with the hooks. All part of his education. It took him
years to learn who he was and how the world loathed the thing he had become.

The Mark of Cain, some called it. Living with the sin of
the father.

“Don’t you understand?” his sister whispers to him
the night she packs and runs away for the last time. Dad murdered Mom! Dropped
her from a mountain. I’m messed up because of it. Get away from him! Why are
you so loyal? He beats you like a dog. Get away, Isaiah, before he kills you,
too!

In his heart, Hood knew his sister was right but could
not accept it. He was fourteen at the time. She ran away to Seattle; he escaped
to the Rockies, where he would spend days and weeks alone in the alpine trails.
Perhaps in some way he was hoping to prove his sister wrong by somehow finding
their mother. But more likely, it was because he realized that, like his
father, he was afflicted with the malevolent need to have those under his
control plead for mercy, giving currency to his power.

But for Hood, it was a consuming game.

“A psychopath with a destructive psychological
neurological disorder most likely brought on by his father’s beatings.”

That is how the doctors defined it.

It was a game, one he was compelled to play. That is how
Hood lived it.

It started with the dog, the rabbit, the cat. Then the
butterfly girl. No one understood that, to him, it was a game.

He pushed on fast, relishing the gift he had left
behind. The warden, the DOC boss and the Governor, the guards on death row.
Hood could picture them, finger-pointing, ass-covering. He feasted on that one.

Hood was startled, sensing a helicopter in the distance.

Stepping under a thick stand of cedars, he rummaged
through the pack, produced the guard’s radio, flipped the channels. It was
fully charged, coming to life with emergency transmissions from rangers, SAR
and others in the region. He secured it in the holster clipped to the belt
around his waist, inserted an earpiece.

Hood’s nostrils flared. Tracking dogs were in the area
far off, searching.

Quickly, he rooted through the bag: a hatchet, fruit,
water, first-aid kit, pilot’s wallet with cash and credit cards, sunglasses,
several other items. Then he found the lunch kit belonging to one of the
nurses. Had some sliced vegetables, crackers, cheese and cookies. He tore off a
patch of towel in the bag, rubbing it under his armpits, his sweating groin,
his stomach, still oozing blood and puss. He headed into an area dense with
trees for nearly fifty yards, then back-tracked carefully. He placed the towel
down.

Ought to tie up the first dog behind me, he thought
before pushing north.

Dressed in the blue flight suit, wearing the pilot’s
boots, sunglasses, a cap, a utility belt with the radio, a small knapsack,
using a walking stick, Hood resembled someone with search operations. His plan
was to slip into Canada using the most treacherous trail, a long-forgotten
ancient Indian path on the western slopes.

But a message was coming.

There was a critical twist to his plan. The special
reason he came here.

A headache, one of his mega-pounders, seized him.

He knew he possessed the power to find her.

No. I shouldn’t.

Yes. Find her. It is key to the plan.

The message was building. Triggering rage pent-up for
twenty-two years.

Why not find her and play?

One more time.

Anger and adrenaline coursed through him, bubbling into
a dangerous mixture. His head quaked with pain. Twenty-two years. He made one
critical mistake with the butterfly girl. He let her big sister live.

Look what she cost him.

The message was clear now.

The lost one is very near.

SEVENTY-SIX

FBI Agent
Frank Zander was shouting
into a telephone.

“Yes, we know Isaiah Hood was on that helicopter! He
walked away! No, I do not know why he was…Hello? You there?”

Zander lost his connection to the marshals. He swore
while following a park ranger’s finger pinpointing the crash site on the
wall-size map of Glacier National Park.

Radios sizzled with chatter, and cell phones, including
Zander’s, trilled constantly in the command center. Its five TVs blared, each
tuned to a different network’s live report.

“…an incredible series of events unfolding in the
case of…”

“…Montana death row inmate Isaiah Hood, whose
execution was…”

“…has confirmed Hood is a fugitive at large in the
same area…”

At the Ops table, an EMS supervisor spoke above the
bedlam into his radio.

“No, no, no! They are transporting them to the LZ at the
command center now! That’s right! Then ground from here to Kalispell. Three
ships. Yes. Stable. Kalispell’s alerted. Get one of them to stand by at the
command post now until we get our air ambulance back…Yes, the largest one. Just
a standby…at the post--talk to Brady Brook out there--”

Phones were ringing.

The National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Marshals Service, news organizations, urgently demanding information.

“Frank! A quick meeting.” Lloyd Turner was calling
Zander to an urgent, intense conversation with Maleena Crow. Nora Lam and the
other detectives were there.

“All we’re requesting is that you release them back to
the command post, back to their campsite,” Crow said.

“What do you think, Frank?”

“This is not a good time for this discussion.”

“You cannot hold Doug without charging him. Let them go
back to the command post. Consider what they’re going through.”

Zander was wary. The case had taken a dramatic turn, but
he refused to let his guard down.

“They know about the RCMP’s report,” Crow said.

“I told them Frank,” Elsie Temple, answered the question
in his face. “They have a right to hope.”

Zander inventoried the group for allies. Bowman was
absent, searching for David Cohen. Walt Sydowski’s subtle shrug suggested it
would make little difference if the Bakers were under watch at the command
post.

“I do not have a problem returning them for the time
being,” Turner said. “No one has been charged. No one is under arrest or in
custody. It’s an open investigation. No one is suggesting it is concluded,
Frank.”

But Zander sensed that Turner and the others thought so;
they believed events had miraculously cleared the Bakers.

This is exactly what happened in Georgia
. He would not be fooled again.
“You never know the truth until
you hold the facts in your hand.”

Zander felt the decision to return the Bakers had
already been made. “We still have agents at the command post?” he asked.

Turner nodded.

“Frank, let’s see what transpires with these other
events. Let’s just see.”

Zander swallowed. “It’s your call.”

“We’ll send them back with an escort,” Turner said. “But
it will be some time before a helicopter is available. Until then, they are
free to wait in this room.”

Stepping from the storage room, Doug and Emily were
hurled into the maelstrom. Before Crow could alert them to Hood’s escape, they
confronted his face displayed next to their daughter’s on one of the large TVs.

“…death row inmate Isaiah Hood escaped within the
last hour when the air ambulance crashed in the same region the…”

Emily covered her mouth.

Doug was horrified. “Maleena, what is going on? Hood
escaped! But how? Paige. Any sign?”

Crow worked quickly to explain, sitting them down.

Emily searched the chaos for Zander. Was this a blatant
psychological trick? She saw him, looking angry on a phone call, carving notes.
No. It’s real!
She looked at the TV. Saw Doug and Paige, with Kobee
smiling back from it. Then an old photograph of Rachel. Her eyes. Rachel.

Crow could not put it any other way. Hood had escaped in
the very same area where the Mounties found fresh signs of Paige.

Emily groaned, began trembling.

“Doug! It’s happening again. Please not again!” Emily
raised her face to the ceiling. “God, why!”

Doug’s heart nearly broke from his chest; his mind, a
whirlwind of rage, fear, desperation. He pulled Emily tight, as much to hang on
to his sanity as to comfort her.

Paige is alive! At least it appears they have signs
she is alive. God! They have to find her! They have to do something. Anything.
Think, Baker. Time is running out. Damn it. Think. You are not going to sit
here doing nothing. Not anymore.

There had to be a way out of this. Amid the confusion,
Doug was half-listening to Crow telling him about waiting for a helicopter to
deliver them to their campsite, the point from where all the rescue efforts
would be directed. Doug’s military training, his coaching skills, were kicking
in, using the pressure to fuel his thoughts. Holding Emily. He took careful
stock of the crowded room, watching as rangers, FBI Agents, searchers, came and
went.

He
had
to get them out of here. Fast.

Isaiah Hood’s eyes met his.

No other options existed.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

Instinct
compelled Paige to flee for
the goat ledges of the high country.

She could smell the grizzly coming for her. She had
become accustomed to its horrible odor. In her ten-year-old heart, she reasoned
it to be the stench of death.

My death.

Again, she heard it huffing; its jaw clicked, gaining on
her. In what had become a slow, dark ballet, she climbed as swiftly as her
depleted, aching body would permit; the huge carnivore lumbering steadily after
her.

Paige sobbed, scrambling for her life, stopping for a
brief moment, certain she heard a helicopter nearby. Then a distant thud. Then
nothing.

Keep moving. Keep moving.

Kobee had learned now not to bark.

But it didn’t matter.

Paige’s tormentor was an eight-foot one-thousand-pound
mother sow. Pale cream, measuring nearly four feet at its humped shoulders, she
ruled much of the Devil’s Grasp, having fiercely killed deer, goats, wolves.
She was the manifestation of forces as ancient as the mountains. As the victim
of circumstance, Paige continually trespassed in the most intimate regions of
her territory, became enemy prey to be hunted, killed, buried in a shallow
grave, then eaten by her cubs.

Reaching a higher elevation, Paige quickly scoured the
area, finding a small shelter enclosed in rock that was naturally barricaded by
two large, fallen trees. Paige squeezed her way inside with Kobee. The trunks
were huge, but the bear was of nightmare proportions.

Hugging Kobee, Paige waited, realizing she was losing
against a beast determined to kill her.

She began weeping softly. Closing her eyes. Waiting.

Waiting to die.

Paige peeked through the bright cracks between the
trees, seeing only daylight and the snowy summits of the Rocky Mountains. She
began praying.

Please, God. Don’t let it hurt. Just don’t let it
hurt. God, please.

Paige searched her cold dark shelter for
something--anything--with which she could write her parents a final note. A
stick or stone to carve something in the mud, or scratch on a rock.

I’m so sorry I got lost. I love you, P.

She found nothing, and continued weeping until her world
went dark.

The grizzly arrived in silence, blocking the sun,
fouling the air, weaving and bobbing, deciding how it would open the container
to its food source.

Paige squeezed Kobee.

The grizzly reached in with one of its huge paws.

Feeling it brush her, Paige screamed.

The bear groaned, thrusting its paw deeper, just under
an inch from Paige’s face.

It climbed up on the trees, making them creak from its
weight.

“Oh, please, no! Oh, please, please, no!”

The bear growled at the sky, enraged, clawing, pounding
at the trunks, carving into them with its terrifying claws. Paige screamed;
Kobee yelped.

Suddenly, one of the trees shifted as the bear rolled it
away, reaching inside, touching Paige.

The grizzly slammed at the second trunk, nudging,
pushing, shoving it aside. Paige screamed, clutching Kobee, sobbing, pushing
back, deeper into the hole with nothing to defend herself.

No escape.

Paige saw its huge yellow fangs barred, white foam
collecting around its mouth; she smelled its horrid breath and braced for its
attack.

Suddenly, the bear vanished. Daylight filled the
shelter.

Paige remained frozen, her heart beating wildly, holding
her breath.

The grizzly was gone.

I can get out? Run?

She was trembling.

Without sound or warning, everything went black. Faster
than Paige could scream, the monster reached into the cave, its claws locking
into her. It dragged her out, standing victorious over her.

God, please, oh, please don’t let it hurt.

She hugged Kobee.

The grizzly grunted and dragged her out farther. She was
totally at its mercy. Paige did not move as it growled, lifting its head to the
sky, its saliva glistening. It shook its head savagely, nearly standing on its
hindquarters, driving its opening jaws toward Paige.

Mommy, Daddy, please…please don’t let it hurt….

Paige looked to the blue sky…. Suddenly, a glint-flash
of metal blurred into the grizzly’s skull, forcing the beast to suspend itself
as the object was instantly removed then pounded again swiftly into its head. A
second, third, fourth and final time by someone,
something,
forcing the
animal to drop its huge head and neck, landing on Paige’s lower abdomen, its
snout nearly touching her face. An ax was embedded between its ears some four
inches deep into its brain; warm blood erupted from the wound onto her stomach,
its stinking death gasp blowing up her nostrils.

Paige was too stunned to scream.

Someone, a man, lifted the head from her. Paige rolled
clear. The man stood in the sun, a silhouette in a blue jumpsuit.

Her savior.

“You’re safe now,” Isaiah Hood said.