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  TRACK DOWN WYOMING

  A Brad Jacobs Thriller

  Book 7

  Scott Conrad

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Scott Conrad

  Copyright © 2019

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  Scott Conrad’s “A Brad Jacobs Thriller” Series takes retired Force Recon Marine Brad Jacobs and his fellow veterans on dangerous and thrilling international search, rescue and hostage retrieval expeditions. Their missions are to “Track Down” and retrieve innocent victims by facing off against fierce, powerful enemies and extremely challenging conditions.

  Enjoy the non-stop action, adventure and mystery with the entire team as they always manage to keep their sense of humor even during the riskiest of operations. Each book is a complete story on its own.

  A Brad Jacobs Thriller Series by Scott Conrad:

  TRACK DOWN AFRICA – BOOK 1

  TRACK DOWN ALASKA – BOOK 2

  TRACK DOWN AMAZON – BOOK 3

  TRACK DOWN IRAQ – BOOK 4

  TRACK DOWN BORNEO – BOOK 5

  TRACK DOWN EL SALVADOR – BOOK 6

  Visit the author at: ScottConradBooks.com

  The Brad Jacobs Thriller Series is a surprising blend of Action & Adventure, Military Thriller, Crime Fiction, Kidnapping, War & Military, Men’s Adventure, Terrorism, Travel, Mystery and Vigilante Justice.

  ____________________________________________

  "Retreat Hell! We're just attacking in another direction."

  - Attributed to Major General Oliver P. Smith, USMC, Korea, December 1950.

  PROLOGUE

  The old C-130 was on a milk run from San Diego to Sherman Army Airfield at Fort Leavenworth, transporting prisoners for long term confinement at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks. The aircraft had made several stops to pick up prisoners from the Corps as well as the other services…the cheap-ass U.S. Government was ‘saving money’ by using collection points to pick up prisoners rather than flying them commercial (even though the prisoners were being charged for the flight.) Harlan Taggart was sick and disgusted, as well as humiliated, by the whole process. Fourteen years in the Corps, and this is what he got for fighting for his country, doing what he had been trained to do.

  The officers and NCOs that had railroaded him out of the Corps were men he had fought beside, men whose asses he had saved on more than one occasion, and in turn had saved his bacon as well. Men he’d thought were his brothers. One little ruckus over some raghead that would probably have gleefully cut their throats, and the men he thought of as brothers had turned on him. Bastards! He’d show them! He’d show them all! It was survival of the fittest now, law of the jungle, and Harlan Taggart was a master of that jungle.

  The first thing he had to do was get away from this pansy-ass REMF guarding the prisoner detail as soon as the plane made the next stop. They were supposed to get an hour exercise in Denver, and that was as good a place as any to make his escape. Lots of people there, and a couple of the other leathernecks in chains were going to throw in with him. They’d have to kill the guard, but that was his bad luck. No way Harlan Taggart was going to spend the rest of his life in chains, making little rocks out of big ones. No way in hell!

  ONE

  Day One, 0821 hours

  Twenty-three year old Nicholas Ainsley, a self-made billionaire tech wizard with a taste for outdoor adventure when he was not brainstorming a new computer application or revolutionary software to sell to the highest government bidder, gazed out over the view from his primitive camp. The land was far more desolate than he had been led to believe, but he didn’t care. The outpost store on the north shore of Fayette Lake was a twelve mile hike away across rugged terrain, but he was below the snow line and the trail was clearly marked. The difference between the Windy River Range and his home in Silicon Valley was astonishing, but he loved the mountains and the fact that the only other people within sight were his friend Simon Perry and his personal assistant, Byron Ashworth.

  Simon was his best friend, and together they had hunted elk in Alaska, lion on Safari in Kenya, and bighorn sheep in Colorado. Simon was an outdoorsman in every sense of the word, and he had the skills to back it up.

  Byron was another story entirely. Pale, anemic, and whip thin, Byron was a scholarly type who hated the outdoors and was only along on this trip because Ainsley wanted to see how far the guy would go to keep his job. He had been surprised at the dogged intensity of the little guy, staggering under the weight of his pack as they’d hiked in to the campsite without complaint.

  He’d actually felt sorry for the guy when he’d seen the mess the hike had made of Byron’s feet when they finally got the tents set up and the campfire going. Ainsley had set his tin coffee pot on the fire and the three of them had settled back to enjoy the warmth. The temperature was dropping fast as the sun began to set. Byron tugged off one boot, and then his sock. Huge blisters had formed and then popped on his heel and the pads of his feet.

  “Jesus Byron, why didn’t you say something?” Ainsley got up from his spot near the fire and went over to check out Byron’s feet.

  “I didn’t wasn’t you to think I was a wuss, Nick. You and Simon seemed to be doing okay, and I didn’t want to hold you up.”

  Ainsley’s opinion of his bookish geek of an assistant went up a couple of notches, though he was appalled that he’d intimidated the young man so much that he’d withheld the fact that his feet had blistered.

  “Simon!” he called out. “Bring the First Aid kit over here. Byron’s been growing blisters and not telling us!”

  Simon brought the First Aid bag over and knelt next to Ainsley, letting out a low whistle as he surveyed the bottom of Byron’s feet.

  “We didn’t expect you to be a regular mountain man yet Byron. It took Nick and I years to build up our endurance and toughness, we didn’t do it overnight. We are a long way from anywhere right now, so you’ve got to tell us when something’s wrong man. That could have gotten infected and you could have died out here.” He got out a bottle of disinfectant. “This is gonna sting a little Byron, but I don’t feel sorry for you. This is what you get for keeping your mouth shut instead of telling us about your feet.” He squirted the spray on the soles of Byron’s feet, which really did look atrocious, and winced when Byron yelled.

  Ainsley chuckled, not unkindly, at Byron’s distress. He wiped the excess spray from the blistered skin and began to slather antibiotic ointment on the tattered soles.

  “Going to have to keep these greased up and covered for the next couple of days or they’ll get infected Byron. You’d better take care of them…I have no intention of carrying you out of here on my back!”

  * * *

  “I think you scared him when you said you wouldn’t carry him out of here,” Simon snickered. They were on the opposite side of the fire, stowing away the First Aid bag.

  “I wasn’t kidding. I will not carry him out of here, he’s going to have to walk out the same way he walked in. There’s not going to be any chopper rescue, I didn’t even bring a satellite phone. Absolutely nobody is going to bother me for the next two weeks, not for any reason. I haven’t had a break in three years.”

  Simon was laughing out loud.

  “Poor baby! Works so hard and all he gets for it is billions of dollars! My heart bleeds for you…”

  Ainsley grinned at his friend.

  “Kiss it Perry. I do work hard for my money…”

/>   “No, you work smart for your money, there’s a difference. I never said you didn’t earn it, I said you didn’t work hard for it. My dad works hard for his money. He sweats and gets dirty, and comes home every night dog-ass tired. What we do doesn’t qualify as hard work in my book.”

  “I don’t have to get dirty to work hard buddy, and you know it…you’re right there with me. I needed this break to clear my mind, we haven’t gotten out and away like this in years.”

  “You got that right. When are we supposed to get our guide?” The State of Wyoming requires non-resident hunters to have a guide or a resident companion.

  “We’ve got to go down to the outpost and meet up with the guy tomorrow. He’s going to show us his outfitter’s license and then he’ll come on out to the campsite a couple of days later. I think, after seeing what the trek out here did to Byron’s feet, I’m going to get him to bring along a string of mountain ponies. This country is rougher than I expected, and if we bag an elk I don’t think an all-terrain vehicle is going to be able to haul it out.”

  That had been the plan, having an ATV on call to haul out the carcass…as good a hunter as Simon was (and Ainsley was just as good,) there was no guarantee that they’d bag an elk. Ainsley expected to get in some damned fine fly fishing for golden trout in the meantime.

  “I guess you’re right, but you’d better check with Byron over there,” Simon nodded at the assistant, who was lying back on his rucksack, his feet elevated, fast asleep. “Might better ask him if he can ride a horse.”

  Ainsley chuckled.

  “He’ll ride a horse all right. I don’t think he’s going to be doing much walking on this trip.”

  * * *

  This place was supposed to be a paradise, but as far as he was concerned, it was as much a hellhole as anyplace the Corps had ever sent him. It was cold, dry, and he was damned if he’d figured out a way to make enough money to support the team he had managed to put together with the money he and the guys had stolen from that armored car in Denver. The score had been big enough to buy a used fifteen year old Suburban in decent shape, and that thing had gotten them to Rawlins, Wyoming before the cops could get organized enough to pursue them. Taggart didn’t think he’d left a trail that anyone could follow, but he couldn’t be certain.

  In Rawlins, Phil Sanders, a former Lance-Corporal and now convicted felon who had been with him when he’d escaped, had contacted one of his brothers who just happened to be a member of a white supremacist group, and convinced him to sell them enough arms and ammunition to outfit the eight of them…the ones who’d escaped the prisoner transport detail at the airport.

  Sanders swore that the Wind River Range near Pinedale was the greatest, safest place in the world to hide out undetected. He was so persuasive that Taggart had agreed to take the team up into the mountains until he was certain that the government was no longer actively pursuing them. There was no doubt in his mind that there would be outstanding warrants on all of them but the truth was, after thirty days the most intense pursuit would be over.

  Along the way from Rawlins to Pinedale, the group had swelled in number to almost twenty, all sympathetic friends and relatives, veterans of the U.S. military who felt they’d gotten a raw deal after their service. For the most part they had brought their own weapons with them, but Taggart had spent a great deal of the heist money to outfit them with surplus GP Medium tents, mess equipment, and crew-served weapons. The crew-served weapon had come from Aryan Nation in Idaho, and Sanders had mule packed them in himself. Along with him came another dozen veterans, dissatisfied with their lives and brothers in Aryan Nation.

  In another month or so, the war chest would be depleted. Small game and fish were abundant in the area, just as Sanders had promised, but staples such as coffee, flour, and salt were only available at the outpost some fifteen miles away…a trip they could only make on foot. What he had also failed to mention was that it was a cold and unforgiving environment, and that firewood was scarce below the snowline. Drinking water was available, but it was a long trek from the stone ruins they were using as a headquarters to the source. Snow was easier to acquire, but it require large amounts of scarce firewood to melt it, and the damned stuff leached minerals from your body.

  The ruins were stone-lined round platforms scratched out of the stony mountain inclines, almost at the snowline. They appeared to be the groundworks of wooden structures Taggart thought might have once been lodges. There were stones tumbled about, and Taggart and his men stacked them up as best they could before setting up the GP Medium tents inside the walls.

  Taggart knew he would have to come up with a way to replenish the war chest or give up on his dream of establishing real fortress and retreat in failure, a word he’d never believed was in his vocabulary. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Those were the words imprinted in him at Parris Island, and he would never forget them…of course, the DI’s had never expected him to use them the way he intended to now. His tours in Afghanistan had schooled him. Do what they taught you to do and they kicked you out on your ass. Nobody ever gets ahead by following the rules.

  * * *

  “You stay here with the others Sanders, I’ll take Jeffries with me and a couple of the other guys that came with you from Idaho…shouldn’t be any wanted posters out on them.” He rubbed the thick stubble of his beard. “I’ll wear a hat and a pair of sunglasses. That and this damned fuzz should make me hard enough to identify.” He heaved an exasperated sigh. “Keep an eye on the guys, Sanders. We’re using up staples way too fast, and I can’t keep making this trip every week…thirty miles round trip is kicking my ass and we’re running out of cash.”

  “Gotcha.” Sanders was a little awed by Taggart, and he was eager to keep his position as Taggart’s Number Two. Most of the time that’s the way Taggart addressed him in front of the others, just like the captain on Star Trek or one of those other TV shows always did. It made Sanders feel important.

  * * *

  The outpost didn’t even have a sign outside with a name on it. The wooden structure was built of fir logs, and it looked as if it had stood in place for a hundred years or more. The stony ground around the outpost was worn smooth by the passage of many feet over time, and there was a battered looking vehicle known locally as a ‘rock crawler’ in a shed outside. Apparently that was how the outpost got resupplied.

  The inside was a veritable mother lode of supplies and equipment, everything Nick could imagine might be necessary to survive in such an inhospitable environment…and it wasn’t cheap, but that didn’t bother him in the least. Nick Ainsley was what the proprietor of the outpost would have described as ‘rich as six foot up a bull’s ass.’

  The guide had not showed up yet, and Nick and Simon entertained themselves by looking at the selection of expensive hunting rifles displayed in a heavily locked case behind the long, worn, hand-hewn slab of wood that served as a counter.

  * * *

  “Jeffries!” Taggart hissed.

  Jeffries, who had been looking wistfully at a men’s magazine in a rack full of them, jerked his head up at the summons.

  “Huh?”

  Taggart waved him over, and Jeffries put the skin mag back in the rack resentfully and moved over.

  “Look at those two guys over there! Recognize either of them?” Taggart asked in a low whisper.

  Jeffries, a little pissed at having to relinquish his magazine, peered at the two men Taggart had pointed at.

  “Sure, the one with the black hair is that computer geek from Silicon Valley. He’s in all the magazines an’ in the papers. Guy’s rich as hell, an’ he’s always got a hot chick with him wherever he goes. Name’s Ansel or somethin’ like that.”

  “Ainsley, Jeffries, the name’s Nicholas Ainsley, and he’s almost as rich as Warren Buffet or Bill Gates.”

  “So?”

  Taggart shook his head. No wonder Jeffries had never made it out of boot camp. The kid was dumb as a box of rocks.

  “Get out of here
, and stop looking at him. You wait for me outside somewhere, but make sure you’ve got a good position so nobody can see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do what I tell you Jeffries, and take the other two with you, quietly…and stop looking at him or I’ll put this size twelve right up your ass!”

  Jeffries didn’t like taking orders from anybody, but Taggart scared the hell out of him…he was a mean sonofabitch. He gathered up the other three guys from the team and unobtrusively slipped past the ornery looking armed sentry at the front door. The sentry didn’t even say goodbye, he was watching the rich guy at the counter.

  Taggart moved closer to the counter, inspecting the fly rods on display and listening to the two men talking to the proprietor. Ainsley was doing the talking.

  “Yes, we’re waiting for our guide to show up. We have to see his license first, we don’t want to run afoul of the Fish and Game people…”