Cold Fear - Cold Fear Part 51
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Cold Fear Part 51

"Just a quick game?"

She was backing away, shaking her head.

"You are just like your goddamn mother." Hood shouted. Smiling, he revealed his jagged brown teeth. "Guess what I'm going to do."

Hood snatched Kobee, who yelped as he tossed him from the cliff.

Paige screamed.

Hood came for her.

EIGHTY-TWO.

The two FBI agents crouching under the whirling blades of the helicopter looked familiar to Bowman.

Glimpsing them trotting to the old Huey distracted her as she waded into the press camp to retrieve David Cohen.

Curiosity kept her shooting glances in their direction.

Something is up.

Bowman caught a partial view of Cohen's head through a wall of TV cameras. And kept looking at the agents.

Their body composition. Posture. It was gnawing at her.

Cohen was giving impromptu interviews when Bowman got to him.

"Please come now, Mr. Cohen. We need you at the command center."

Seeing the Justice Department seal on Bowman's shirt, Cohen agreed.

"If it's about Isaiah's alleged escape, I am as dumbstruck as anyone. I--"

Bowman was not listening. Working their way to the command center, it dawned on her watching the old Huey lift off.

Doug and Emily Baker. Wearing FBI caps. Dark glasses.

Gripped with concern, Bowman was hurrying now.

What is going on? It doesn't look right. The chopper climbed. Bowman eyeing it while rushing into the Ops room. She sought out Frank Zander, leaving Cohen in the middle of the activity, perplexed.

Zander was studying a report near one of the rangers. "Frank, what's going on with the Bakers?"

"What do you mean? They're over there." He nodded to a corner with a large TV. "They're waiting to be taken back--"

"Superintendent Temple!" A ranger shouted. "Urgent call for you from Communications!"

Zander stepped closer to Bowman.

"Say that again, Tracy?"

"I saw them seconds ago, getting on a helicopter."

"What?" Zander walked to the TV where the Bakers had been. "Tracy, were they escorted?"

"Attention, everyone!" Temple shouted. "The RCMP have a visual on the girl. She's alive!"

Cheers and high fives rippled through the operations room.

Bowman and Zander heard the report, accepting back slaps while grappling with the new Baker situation.

"No, Frank, they were wearing FBI caps and sunglasses. Boarding an old Huey. One of the charter contractors, I think."

"The ancient Huey is Rawley Nash." A SAR pilot overheard them while jotting down the coordinates of the hot Mountie sighting. "He's a character."

"What do you mean?" Zander said.

"A rebel. Likes to bend the rules."

Zander's mind rocketed through a million scenarios. "Are you good to go now?" he said to the pilot.

"Sure, I got the fastest bird out there, but I've been told to wait for an assignment--"

"This is your assignment," Zander said. "You take us to where this Nash guy is taking the Bakers." Zander took the pilot's upper arm. "Now. No discussion. FBI emergency. Come on, Tracy!"

Within minutes, the command center was shrinking beneath them as the new Bell thundered over the lake, then past Howe Ridge, then Heavens Peak.

Zander brushed the handle of his holstered gun, battling the fear eating at him as forests blurred below.

Let me be wrong. Let me be wrong.

Their pilot had reached Nash by radio, confirming the Huey was a few miles ahead. They were gaining on it, bound for the same coordinates. At Zander's insistence, Nash was not questioned on his passengers.

The Bell's radio crackled again. The pilot adjusted it for Zander.

"It's for you."

"Turner to Agent Zander, come in?"

"Zander here."

"We just learned of our subjects' unauthorized departure."

Zander looked at the mountains, leaving the air dead, forcing Turner to continue.

"No one could have foreseen these events, Frank."

That's what they said about the Georgia file.

"Frank?"

"Have you got the right people moving on this, Lloyd?"

"Two sniper teams coming behind you in National Guard rescue aircraft."

Zander and Bowman's Bell roared alongside Flattop Mountain. "Well, sir," Zander said, using the senior agent's words, "let's see what transpires. Over."

Let me be wrong.

How did the Bakers know where to go and when? How? And Isaiah Hood's escape. At this moment? As if calculated? Why did Emily Baker return to Montana? To the same spot where her sister died? Why?

It was horribly tragic. Or horribly obvious.

Right under their noses.

Let me be wrong.

The chopper banked hard. Gravity pulled on Zander's stomach.

Let me be wrong about the Bakers.

Zander was unsure if he could handle cases like this anymore.

When this one was over, he was unsure where to go with his life.

He looked at Bowman, suddenly glad she was here.

He needed her here.

EIGHTY-THREE.

Hilda Sim carefully rolled the gnarled focus wheel of her binoculars.

Levi Kayle gently turned the focus of the telephoto lens on his digital Nikon camera.

Sim's radio received nonstop alerts to the sector, confirming Isaiah Hood as the fugitive convict who escaped the crash.

"It's them." Kayle's face creased behind his viewfinder. "Hood has the girl!"

"Oh my God!" Wilson squinted, her hand shielding her eyes. "Can't we get to them?"

Tory Sky was adjusting her video camera lens. "We're too far away."

The group was a thousand yards off, with a lethal four-hundred-foot gorge between them. Sim grabbed her radio.

Helicopters were approaching.

Through his small binoculars, Tom Reed could distinguish a large figure in blue and a smaller figure. They were near the lip of the gorge. The group's perspective only permitted them to see the upper segment, the edge.

Kayle's camera began clicking.

"Christ, Hood's throwing something over the cliff!" Kayle clicked. "Those choppers better hurry, man!"

Rawley Nash's Huey was first to the cliff area.

Emily Baker was striving to see what was happening through the binoculars vibrating against her skull.

"Doug! It's Paige!" Emily pulled the eyepieces tight to see. "It's Hood! He's throwing--God, Doug, he's--he's--nooo!"

Doug?

Instantly, Nash knew. His passengers were the parents! "Hey, what is--"

Doug Baker saw the horrible scene unfolding. Hood in his blue jumpsuit struggling with his daughter. He shouted at Rawley.

"Put us down now!"

Nash was descending from some two hundred feet when the FBI radioed, ordering him to evacuate immediately so agents could commence a rescue.

"Damn! I can't! I've been ordered out!" Rawley started pulling up.

Emily began screaming at the sight below. Hood was dragging Paige to the cliff edge.

"He's going to kill her!"

"For the love of God, put us down!" Doug thundered.

Emily was screaming. Doug was yelling. The FBI was demanding Nash to clear so agents could land. It was surreal. Nash hovered. Emily screamed, banging, kicking at the chopper's interior.

"Paige! No. God! Drop us! Drop us! Drop us! He's going to kill our daughter!"

Nash witnessed the horror below. Suddenly, he dropped the Huey. The FBI raged over the radio. Hood was struggling with Paige. Airwaves were pulsating. The Huey descending some thirty yards from the cliffside to the small flattop. Emily leaped from her seat before it hit the ground, numb with shock, forcing her legs to pump as Doug rushed behind her.