It was approximately 330 miles to Estes Park from the farm, close as we could tell by the atlas. Normally that would take about five and a half hours. We knew we’d be pushing it to arrive by sunrise, ten or eleven hours from now, given the caution we’d have to take and detours we’d have to make around Cheyenne, Fort Collins and Loveland.
We pulled into Custer and, as expected, the town was empty. The plan was to go further south on 89, instead of taking Highway 16 straight west. We stopped at a gas station west of town to top off the trucks and fill four extra ten-gallon containers with gas. We were leaving the station when the radar flashed at us. Unlike last time though, this time we saw the dots, a bunch of them, straight west of us on Highway 16. Then they disappeared. We had to be right on the edge of their range.
We stopped for a moment to see if they were coming towards us, but a few minutes later they still hadn’t reappeared. We continued on and made it about five more miles before the screen flashed again, but this time there was only one dot. With the dial cranked down a notch, to what we now knew was nine miles, the dot was still on the screen. One more notch and it disappeared. That dot was between eight and nine miles away and moving towards Custer north of us. Making valuable use of middle school geometry, A2 + B2 = C2, we determined the other vehicle was about fourteen miles away from us by road. We knew we’d seen multiple dots a few minutes ago. We weren’t waiting around to see if they also reappeared.
According to our map, we would soon be coming up on the intersection of 89 and 18, approximately six miles from Hot Springs. If soldiers were still there, we’d be cutting pretty close to them, and with no other viable side roads we’d likely draw their undivided interest.
As we passed into radar range of Hot Springs, we picked up four dots on the screen, scattered around the town. We were within their range and radar visibility for about five miles, and not one of them headed our direction. We quickly moved on south and west into Wyoming, hopeful we were finally alone for a while.
THIRTY-TWO: (Eddie) “Divine Intervention”
But one of the jeeps did notice the Americans passing and radioed it over to the officers of the two companies camped southeast of Hot Springs at the Angostura Reservoir. The officers there told them not to worry about it, that there was other troop movement in the area. The four men in the jeep were okay with letting those four dots go, until they saw another fourteen dots on the radar screen coming down that same road. That was a lot of troop movement, far more than there should be in that direction. They didn’t call it in this time, for fear of being reprimanded, but decided to go check it out on their own. They got to the intersection behind Eddie’s scout jeep and just before the next thirteen vehicles of the caravan.
Eddie had seen the single dot moving their way from town, and he was weighing what story he should give whoever it was coming to meet them. As Eddie’s jeep neared the intersection, he saw a single military jeep pulling up to cut them off. He slowed the caravan down, and four Middle Eastern men hopped out of their jeep and walked up to his. Here goes.
“What you is be doing here?” one of the men asked him.
And he thought his English was bad. “Trying to catch my men. You see them pass?”
The man ignored his question. “Where you all be go to?”
“Where we going?” Eddie asked, and noted a slight nod back. “Montana,” he stated.
“You come to from the Montana?” the man asked.
“We come from Montana?” Eddie asked again. The guy’s erratic speech was pissing him off. “Yes.”
“Ah,” the man said, glancing up and down the line. “Okay.”
He turned around to walk away, directing the others to follow him. Eddie rolled his eyes. So much for plan A. The soldier was going to call them in and they’d be forced to go with them to talk to the other officers. Not only would that give the Americans an insurmountable lead, but Eddie and his men would potentially be in some pretty hot water. Eddie raised his pistol and shot two of them in the back of the head. Before the other two could get their guns up, his men took them out. He couldn’t leave them there, so he shouted, “Throw them in a truck. Let’s go!”
His men loaded the four bodies in the back of one of the trucks. Another two of his guys hopped in the other jeep. They were no more than ten miles down the road when the radio on the new jeep crackled, and a voice spoke, “Why is your truck not on radar? Where you go?” The two men in the jeep looked at each other but didn’t respond. They had been instructed to disregard all communication. “Hello! I ask. Why is your truck not on the radar?” Again they shared a look but kept going.
On the other end of the radio, back at the reservoir, the officers were gathered around, trying to get a response from the jeep they’d connected with earlier. One of the officers had watched as they’d driven off the radar grid, even after being told to ignore the passing vehicles. He had let it go at the time, curious about what they’d report back.
But now it had been almost half an hour since the jeep had disappeared, and the lack of response was even more troubling. They radioed another jeep in town and asked if they’d seen anything unusual on their radar. One of the men had noticed a jeep leaving town towards a long line of fourteen dots. He communicated he’d seen the one dot stop, and all but one of the other dots do the same. Then after a few minutes all the dots moved on together.
The senior ranking officer there was a major, and he called the nearest base with a drone in Rapid City. He reported his concerns about a potential American caravan passing through towards Wyoming and that he’d lost contact with some of his men who had intercepted it.
The base commander told him the drones were unfortunately down in Denver for the night. However, he did have two Blackhawk helicopters he could send. The major asked him to send two squads of men out in the Blackhawks southwest of Custer towards Cheyenne, Wyoming and told him to be on the lookout for approximately fifteen vehicles traveling in a group. The base commander asked what he should do if they found them, and he was told to stop them. If they fought back, kill them. The major told the base commander he was on his way with another ninety troops, and he would meet the helicopters wherever they found and stopped the caravan. The base commander agreed, and the helicopters were sent out with two pilots and twenty-four soldiers.
When the driver at the tail end of the caravan spotted the low-flying lights closing in on them, he radioed the captain. They had just turned south onto Highway 85, and Eddie could see the lights approaching out his window as well. Those aren’t drones at night. As they flew overhead and circled, Eddie recognized them as helicopters, American helicopters even. He watched them set down about a mile ahead of them, and he ordered his men to a full stop. This wasn’t good.
The choppers lifted off the ground again and spread out, circling wide around them. Eddie could see a dozen small dots on the radar in front of them approaching their position. As the Blackhawks set down again behind him he watched a dozen more dots spread out from them. Then one helicopter passed overhead again, while the other elevated behind them, and a booming voice ordered him and his men to get out of their vehicles immediately. Definitely not American. If they failed to do so, they would be fired upon.