As I turned the raft, I said, “Look on the OnX map. I remember seeing creeks coming into this stretch on both sides.”
Sampson studied the app on his phone and said, “Helen Creek on the east and Snow Creek on the west. Both about four miles downstream.”
“Gets dark soon, but we’ll make it. Which side has more cover?”
“Snow Creek,” he said.
“Good,” I said as the current began to quicken and the roar of the first rapids intensified. “Now get that transmitter out of my belt and find my empty Nalgene bottle.”
Two hours later, with the sun gone behind the mountains and the shadows lengthening, I took the Nalgene bottle with the transmitter inside and set it in the fast water. It quickly disappeared from sight downstream.
We dragged the raft fifty yards into the woods there, went back to the tree line with our guns, and waited. I figured they’d come through before dark, and we’d have a chance to turn the tables on them.
But I could barely see my hands much less the front bead of my shotgun when I heard voices in Spanish and the sound of oars in the swift water. The raft made squeaking noises brushing rocks, but I could not see it.
Then Sampson whispered, “Night vision.”
Peering toward the river through my binoculars, I made out the telltale green glow of four pairs of night-vision goggles before they vanished and we heard their raft and oars headed downriver, chasing a Nalgene bottle.
Chapter
88
It had taken every bit of Matthew Butler’s flying skills to get the bullet-riddled Jet Ranger over the mountains, across Swan River Valley, and to the remote clear-cut in the national forest. He landed the helicopter behind a huge pile of logging slash, which made it impossible to see from the logging road where they’d left the Land Cruiser.
“That’s it,” he said as he shut down the engine and then rocked his head back in relief. “I am never going up in this shitcan ever again. No matter what M says.”
“He’s going to say a lot,” Big DD said. “He owns it now.”
“His damn idea,” said Vincente, who had a blood-coagulant patch pressed to the back of his right forearm, which had been slashed by a piece of flying metal when one of Durango’s bullets ricocheted off the door frame. “He wanted us up there.”
Butler said, “He did. Let’s wipe the chopper down. Everything inside.”
“They’ll find my blood no matter what we do,” Vincente said.
“Don’t matter, JP,” Big DD said, pulling out bleach wipes and starting on the dashboard. “You’re already dead.”
“That’s who we are,” Vincente said. “The living dead.”
Butler wiped down the control panel and the stick, climbed out, and started on the pilot seat. Twenty minutes later, they were hiking back to the vehicle and he allowed his mind to think forward, to anticipate once more.
He knew M well enough to understand that they wouldn’t be leaving Montana anytime soon. His boss had been right. Butler had thought following Cross to find the cartel men was a ludicrous idea, but M’s instincts were correct. Which meant he’d want them all killed, which meant they needed a new plan.
They reached the Toyota before dark and drove the logging road three miles to an improved dirt road that they drove for eleven miles to Highway 83. It was pitch-black out and moonless when they pulled up to the Swan River Lodge, whose sign still bore traces of its former life as a Super 8 motel.
There were three or four other vehicles parked in the lot but none by their three rooms on the bottom floor. Butler had Big DD and Vincente unload the gear, went to the far-right room, and knocked twice and then three times.
A few moments later, the door opened, and he slipped inside. The door shut behind him. He turned to see Alison Purdy standing there, studying him with eyes that had dark bags beneath them.
“Did you get them so we can get the hell out of this dump?”
He shook his head. “We’re lucky we’re alive after getting into it with five cartel men. We took out at least one if not two, but they hammered the chopper good. It’s no longer airworthy.”
“M is not going to want to hear that,” she said, limping over and climbing on the bed next to a night table with five different prescription bottles on it.
“Which is why I need options,” Butler said. “Did you call that shop in Bigfork?”
“And bought them,” she said, nodding. “They’re in the other rooms, charging.”
He felt relief. “How’d you pull that off?”