CHAPTER 53
Havre, MT
Jake and Yoni crawled up to the eight-foot chain link fence that surrounded the all of Kensington’s property. They lay still, waiting for the patrol truck to pass. It took all Jake had not to storm the grounds. The idea that Tom was only a short distance away and in trouble was killing him.
He and Yoni had made a loop around the exterior of the fence to check for patrols and any gaps in the fence. There weren’t any.
Tom was in there somewhere. Jake felt it. He wanted to sprint in and grab him, taking out anyone who got in his way. But he knew that would only sign both of their death warrants. So slow and cautious was the approach.
There didn’t appear to be any motion sensors or electronic surveillance. They seemed to be relying solely on human security in the form of one truck, which was responsible for patrolling the entire perimeter, and a guarded entrance on the northern side of the property.
The low-level security was good news for them. It was much easier to slip pass human security than electronic security.
Watching the truck approach, Jake took a breath, trying to calm the rage building within him.
The truck’s headlights rolled over them as their Ghillie suits blended seamlessly into the landscape. It didn’t stop.
Jake gestured to his watch. “Ten minutes.”
Yoni nodded and moved to the fence with a pair of wire clippers already in hand. He made the first cut and waited. No alarms went off and no guards came running. He made quick work of cutting a hole in the fence big enough for them to crawl through. Once they were through, they repositioned it so that it appeared still intact. Heading north, they kept low to the ground.
It was silent, with only a slight wind. Jake strained to hear the sound of anything. If there were men here, shouldn't they be able to hear something?
Doubts flooded his mind and fear crept through him. If they were wrong, then he had absolutely no idea where Tom might be.
They were only five hundred yards in when his watched beeped. He signaled to Yoni to stop. They flattened themselves to the ground. Seconds later, the lights of the patrol returned. It drove slowly past them.
“Hurry up,” he urged, watching the truck. This was taking too long. They needed to move faster.
When the patrol was out of view, Jake jumped to his feet, ready to start back on their path. Yoni grabbed him by the arm and shook his head. He signaled for him to listen.
Straining, Jake could just make out the sound of a plane. As the noise grew louder, he was surprised to hear that it sounded like a military cargo plane, flying low.
Looking up, he saw the lights of the plane and noticed that the landing gear was down. As it passed over them, he exchanged a look with Yoni. Without speaking, they both changed direction, following the path of the plane.
Moving fast, they arrived at a makeshift landing strip another two thousand yards in. Jake’s heart hammered in his chest. This must be the cargo plane that filed the false flight plan every month. But why were they flying in now? Hadn’t they already made this month’s delivery? Could this operation be even bigger than they realized?
They settled into a small gully two hundred yards from the landing strip. The plane had just rolled to a stop next to a large farm truck and a Suburban. Four armed men exited the Suburban. Two other armed men leaned against the truck.
Jake grabbed his camera from his pack and started snapping away. Yoni watched the scene through his night-vision binoculars.
“It’s opening up,” Yoni whispered.
Jake fixed his camera on the cargo door as it slowly lowered. The commandos stormed into the belly of the plane. Their yells echoed through the open space. Seconds later, shackled men stumbled down the ramp. One man fell as he stepped off the ramp and was kicked in the face by a guard. Jake's grip tightened on the camera. Bastards.
Another man grabbed the fallen man and helped him stand. Then all of the men were rushing to get into the storage truck. Less than a minute later, the truck and SUV were driving across the field and the plane was turning around to take off again.
“I guess we’ve found the missing men,” Yoni said grimly.
Jake placed his camera back in his pack, trying to focus on the task. The anger burning in his chest was making that difficult. This must have been how Tom arrived. He looked at Yoni. “We need to know where they’re going. You up for a run?”
“Always," Yoni replied, already slinging his pack over his shoulder. The two men took off in the same direction as the vehicles. Jake’s boots pounded into the ground. But in his mind’s eye, each step pounded into the faces of the men responsible for this atrocity.
I’m coming, Tom. I’m coming.
Jake could make out a dim light in the distance. As they approached, more trees and shrubberies allowed them to move at a faster clip. They slowed down as the coverage began to lighten. Soon, it all but disappeared. They shifted to an army crawl and stopped at a rock encasement just out of the halo of the lights. Once again pulling out their binoculars and camera, they took in the scene before them.
Sitting in the middle of this barren acreage was a huge wooden structure. There were no lights along the top of the walls. The only available light emitted from inside the enclosure, bathing the area around it in shadows.
Jake noticed movement from in front of the enclosure and saw that the truck had pulled to a stop and all the men had been offloaded. They were now being led into the enclosure. The doors to the enclosure opened, but from his position, Jake could not make out anything inside.
“Jake, you need to see this,” Yoni whispered. He handed him night-vision goggles and pointed to the right of the enclosure.
Jake put on the goggles and looked to where Yoni had indicated. “What the…?”
There was a smaller enclosure of some sort with two guards sitting out front. Inside the enclosure, which looked like some sort of large animal pen, were about a hundred men sleeping.
“Well, I guess we found them,” Yoni said quietly.
“Yeah,” Jake replied just as quietly taking in the ominous structure and the highly-armed guards. “But how the hell do we get them out of here?”