Gauntlet (45 page)

She crawled back into the ventilation tunnel for additional cover. “Indy,” she whispered. “Indy, someone’s coming in.”

“Sounds like it,” came Indy’s hoarse reply. “Stay back. Maybe we can learn something here.”

“Yeah, maybe, but maybe that dolt Dennis has told Leon about us and we’re about to be toasted.”

“If that’s what’s going on, we’ll just have to deal with it. Let’s see what happens,” said Indy. “If I hear them putting a key into the lock, maybe I can scurry through the ventilation tunnel at the last moment. But it’s a last moment thing, Cath. I can’t go in there unless I have to. Just can’t.”

“Shush,” said Catherine sharply. “I hear the elevator.” She felt her blood pressure rising as she listened to the squeaking wheels of the rail car approaching. The blood was pounding in her temples as the squeaking passed within three feet of her. No pause, no change in speech. She was imagining the shapes of the thoughts in Dennis’ brain. “Do I tell Leon? Do I deal with it later? Shoot them now? Shoot them later? Kill them slowly? Shoot him, rape her and...?” She tried to stop the free-flowing anxiety, with little success.

But nothing happened. No doors were wrenched open. No execution squad appeared. Instead, she heard outer doors squeaking open at the American end of the mine. There were grunts and the noises of a reloading taking place. There was not much doubt in Catherine’s mind about what was going on. A load of BC Bud, or Afghan heroin, was making its way into the American homeland, within their hearing.

Catherine crawled through the ventilation tunnel and into the small underground money room, where Indy sat against one wall. She sat with him, listening to the sounds of what they agreed was an unloading at the south end of the tunnel. Then they heard the sound of the trolley heading north again, back toward the Canadian end of the mine. Once they heard the elevator, and felt sure that they were alone again, Catherine and Indy began discussing the situation in hushed tones. Soon they began to argue, in whispers.

“I’m going to check it out, Indy,” Catherine was saying.

“Like hell you are. Do you have any idea how dangerous these people are?” responded Indy.

“Well, yes I do, Indy. I’m in the business too, remember?”

“I know, Cath. But we’re dealing with a high-level importing scheme here. This is the border hole, and that means that millions of dollars worth of product goes through here every month. These guys will kill to protect it. The fact that you’re with the Force means nothing to them.”

“But all I’m going to do is go out there, maybe check out the plates, get descriptions, you know, the usual stuff. We may find out who these guys are. At the very least, we’ll know what they’re driving. The FBI will be able to nail them before they’re out of Montana. And I’ll stay hidden. I’m not going to strike up a conversation about the weather with these guys.”

“Fine,” responded Indy. “Go ahead. But please watch yourself. And please, when you come back, find some bolt cutters to get me out of this tomb.”

Catherine wondered suddenly if Indy’s real concern was over her safety, or due to his fear of being left alone in a bedroom-sized space, in the dark, deep within Devil’s Anvil. Trapped, really by his own fears and his memory of his near-death experience in the Fraser Valley, almost 20 years earlier. She sensed his struggle with the phobia, and heard the barely restrained panic in his voice.

“Don’t worry, Indy. If it’s the last thing I do, I will come back for you.” She tried to make her voice as soothing as possible. “I will.”

“Can’t do it if you’re dead, Cath,” he responded.

“I’m a big girl, Indy. I can look after myself.”

They sat silently, side by side, for a few minutes. Catherine held Indy’s hand and put her arm around him. The minutes stretched on and on. In what seemed like hours but was in fact less than 40 minutes, they heard the distant sounds of the elevator. Then the squeaking of the trolley’s wheels become louder, passed by them, and ultimately stopped at what was the Montana side of the mine. They heard the door open, and the sounds of what had to be a second off-loading. After a few minutes, the rail car came by again, heading toward the central elevator and the Canadian entrance. She heard Dennis’ voice.

“Two more loads, buddy, and we can call it a day.”

The other individual, whoever he was, did not respond. She heard the trolley squeak its way by, this time from south to north, presumably going for load three of four. She heard the elevator in the distance.

“Indy, I’m just going out there to reconnoiter,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Over his objections, she wriggled back through the tiny, but now familiar, shaft, into the marijuana room, and darted out the door. She gingerly stepped into the main passageway, looking both north and south. Then she walked to the door of the money room.

“Indy, the coast is clear,” she said. “I can’t pick this lock. I have no equipment, and I’m not nearly as good at it as you are. You have to come through the ventilation shaft to get out. You need to do it now, while they’re busy.”

Indy was no coward. He had been undercover in extremely dangerous situations. He’d been shot at, beaten up, and nearly killed twice, the first time in the Fraser Valley incident, the second, in a high-speed chase. But crawling into a tiny ventilation tunnel deep underground in an abandoned coal mine? No, he would not, could not, do that.

“You go on Cath. You can get out of this mine. Just come back and get me, OK?”

“I’ll be back, Indy. Hang on. If you start dying of thirst, you can make it through the ventilation shaft. Hang on.”

Catherine ran toward the barn-like doors on the southern end of the tunnel. She swung one of them open and stepped into the sunlight of an American dawn. The majestic Flathead River Valley unfolded in the distance. The view was breathtaking. She closed her eyes and raised her face to the sunrise for a moment, ecstatic to be in the open air and out of the tomb-like environment of the mine.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw that backed up to the mine entrance was a five-ton box van with a power tailgate. It was a dirty white color, and the rear doors were open. Row upon row of cellophane bricks, obviously heroin, were stacked there. “Curious,” she said aloud to herself. “They’re wrapping the stuff in red cellophane now. Probably a marketing ploy. Afghan red, they’ll call it.”

The bricks weren’t the truck’s only contents. A couple of large tarps were piled up in a corner. Two large coolers were sitting along one side. She wondered if she had time. Thirty minutes from north to south, by her estimation. Ten minutes or so to load the rail car at the north end, then 30 before they got back here. Sure. She thought she must have a good 15 minutes, still. She hopped up onto the rear bumper of the truck, and from there into the interior. She pushed open the lid on one of the coolers. It took her only seconds to reach for a bottle of water and gulp its contents down. It was only after she had done so that she realized her foolishness, given the nature of the investigation, but her thirst had been overpowering.

She hopped out and ran to the cab, reaching into the glove compartment. The registration was Californian. A numbered company. No Visa or charge card receipts. She flipped open the central console. No surprise there. It was loaded with American bills — tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Made sense, she thought. Just grab a briefcase full from the American money room. There was easily $1,000 in the console. Considering the millions and millions they had stashed in the mine, this was pocket change. Gas money. Fast food money. Play money.

She had no pen with her, and couldn’t see one in the cab, so she took the registration and insurance papers and pocketed them. Then she closed the doors, retreated to a hiding place behind a nearby rocky outcropping, and waited.

Twenty minutes later the mine doors opened, and a man whom she recognized as Dennis Lestage came out, accompanied by another man — smaller in stature, but quicker in movement. She tried to use her training to do a cursory ID of the second man: Mediterranean, perhaps, or East Indian? She watched the two men load the contents of the rail car onto the powered tailgate. It took them ten minutes at most to complete the task, and to stack the cellophane-wrapped drugs in the back of the truck. “One more load,” she heard Dennis say, as the two men retreated back into the mine. As they disappeared from view, she formulated a plan. She thought she had an hour or so before they were back. She waited five minutes, grabbed four bottles of water, and ran back into the mine, toward the central storage area. She opened the door of the marijuana room and scooted back into the room in which Indy was imprisoned. It was easier, psychologically, now that she knew how long the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel was.

“Indy,” she called out as she wriggled her way back into the marijuana room, “here’s four bottles of water. Drink half of it now. Conserve the rest. They have one more load to bring through the mine, they said.”

“Whatcha doing, Cath?” he asked.

“Those guys are loading up a truly massive shipment of heroin. Several tons, Indy. Tons. And it’s weirdly wrapped. In bricks, in red cellophane. Least I think that’s what it is. I’m going to check it out.”

“Are you nuts?” said Indy. “This is a heroin crowd. I’ve been undercover with their sort for years. They’ll put a bullet in your head just because they don’t like your hairdo. Stay here. We can get out the Canadian end of the mine, get to a phone, and get that truck pulled over before it reaches Whitefish, Montana. Stay here. That’s an order.”

“Indy, think about it. We don’t know where that truck is going. The FBI might miss it, even if we give a perfect description. But we know who these traffickers are. If I can find out enough, we can put the entire Lestage/Hallett gang in the big house within 48 hours. We might be able to nail whoever’s at the other end of the pipeline. A shipment of drugs this big is probably headed to California, and there must be some heavy-duty guys at that end. I didn’t get to be corporal with the Force by sitting still. I’m going back out there. I can hide behind some trees. I may get lucky and pick up some more scraps of information. I’ll be OK.”

With that she was gone, this time crawling her way through the narrow ventilation shaft as though it were a school hallway. Back in the main tunnel, she ran toward the southern entrance and clambered into the back of the truck. She had not mentioned this part of the plan to Indy. He would have forcibly restrained her had he known what she was thinking. It occurred to her that she might regret it later, but for now she was set on tagging along. She buried herself underneath one of the tarps and crouched down behind the drugs, as close to the wall of the truck box as possible. Then she reassembled, as best she could, a stack of the red bricks in front of her. There was the odd crack in the pile, which she hoped the smugglers wouldn’t notice.

She didn’t have long to wait. Soon the mine doors opened again, and Dennis reappeared, this time with not one, but two other men. Both men were of the same slight build, and moved quickly. Both expressed supreme frustration with Dennis in their body language. Both seemed to be saying, “Let’s go, let’s hustle, don’t dawdle.” Catherine curled into the smallest ball she could manage, thanking God for her small frame. At one point she could swear that one of the men had touched her, but thankfully, with the poor light inside, and the now bright light outside, she was not seen.

After the reloading, the three of them stood talking for a moment, and then Dennis headed back into the coal mine. One of the strangers hopped into the back of the truck, pulled several of the tarps over the load, and placed the coolers on the edge of the tarps to hold them down. The second man walked a short distance into the woods on the other side of the truck and stopped to relieve himself. Thirty seconds later, she heard the rear door of the truck slide down, and the lock click shut. Then the truck engine started up, and they began a lurching, bumpy ride away from the mine.

Catherine reached into her pocket for the cell phone, which Dennis had, in his sloppy manner, neglected to take from her. Had he seen it, he probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. They were many miles from the nearest cell tower, and had been deep underground. She flipped the cell phone open. A large red icon was blinking, signaling a low battery. Dammit, she thought. Hooped. Oh well, at least she had the... desperately, she searched one pocket after another. No GPS locator. She couldn’t believe it. No GPS. It must have fallen out of her pocket at some point while she was running toward the truck. What rotten luck. Double hooped. No telephone. No GPS. She fiddled through her pockets again, more carefully this time. The only thing of any use was the cigarette lighter that she and Indy had used for light in the subterranean room at Devil’s Anvil.

I
T WAS 7:30 in the morning when Izzy and Ba’al finished the loading and drove away from the southern end of Devil’s Anvil. The day was gorgeous, the sky a bright metallic blue, with the occasional puffy cloud floating by. They were at the headwaters of the Flathead Valley, with the razor sharp peaks of Glacier National Park to the east, and the ruggedness of the Flathead National Forest to the west. The tiny hamlet of Polebridge was only 16 miles ahead of them, but they were 16 rough miles, along the winding and unpaved road that ran parallel to the Flathead River. The first two miles toward the old Peterson homestead were particularly difficult, in that there was no road at all, just a rugged trail, almost completely hidden by the fir and pine trees that covered the lower mountainside. “It’s those damned satellites the Yanks have,” Leon had complained when he first showed them the trail. “They look at every inch of the border, and if they see a trail that shouldn’t be there, presto, instant trouble.” South of the Peterson ranch, the road, though still unpaved, was at least well graveled and easier to travel on. From there it would be a straight shot to Polebridge, where they’d connect with real roads.

The first hour was particularly rough on Catherine, as the truck lurched from one pothole to the next, and in and out of various ruts, sideswiping the odd fir tree. She was able to relax and stop bracing herself against the wall when they finally connected with old skid trails, and relaxed even more a few miles later when they got to the logging road that ultimately led to Polebridge. At Polebridge, a town that consisted of a few houses, a gas station, a store, and a saloon, the road crossed the Flathead River and became Highway 486.