Trail of Terror, page 51
Joe spied a white light flickering off the walls ahead of them. He pointed to it and whispered, “Somebody is in there…Shh!”
CHAPTER 81
Stick entered the large antechamber first and yelled, “Police! Hands in the air or we will shoot you!”
A woman’s voice screamed.
Joe entered behind Stick and was at a loss for words.
They had entered Bailey’s pack rat’s nest of stolen items from his victims and burglaries. Stuff was piled everywhere: Wallets, camping gear, food, weapons and clothing.
At the far end of the large room was an old dirty mattress with a woman laying on top, with a single old tattered blanket wrapped around her naked body. Two large candles were burning nearby as a source of light.
The scene was surreal, as if it was a picture snapped from the middle ages. The serial killer had her shackled by an ankle to a 20-foot-long chain connected to a steep metal stake he had pounded into the floor of the cave.
When she heard them enter, the woman started to beg and cried out in half-English, half-German, in a thick, guttural voice, “Please, just kill me. I can’t take this anymore.”
“You’re safe now,” Rachel said, rushing over to her. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”
Rachel helped the woman sit up and gave her some fresh water. She appeared to be thin, but otherwise not in a life-threatening condition. Rachel checked her vital signs. She was dangerously dehydrated, her pulse was weak, but her heart was beating steadily. She wasn’t bleeding and she was able to speak clearly, which Rachel always viewed as a positive sign toward recovery.
“What’s your name — do you recognize me?” she asked her, even though she already knew the answer by her accent.
“My name is Hanna Schmitt, I’m from Heidelberg, Germany, and I do remember you — please help me before that monster returns! I saw him kill my sister…it was horrible!”
“We will, for now we need to get this chain off and get you into some clothes.”
The woman dissolved into soft weeping as Joe took a pair of bolt cutters he’d found buried within a pile of tools and carefully snipped the lock on the chain around her ankle.
She gripped Joe’s hand, “Thank you for saving me, I had almost given up all hope,” she said with tears in her eyes.
They located her backpack among some debris with her hiking clothes still in it, and Rachel helped dress her.
Joe and Stick looked all around the interior of the large chamber at everything Bailey had done. It was amazing. The killer had buried wires running from solar panels on the mountainside, into the cave for electricity. He even had a bike-powered generator, a laptop computer, a small television and radio. He’d managed to attach an antenna to a treetop outside so he could get reception on the battery-powered TV.
“He was not only surviving but thriving with all of the different supplies he was able to steal,” Stick said. “The temperature here is pretty constant so he was able to survive the winters obviously, and keep himself warm, it’s stocked full of all of the food he was able to pilfer. The dude was settled in for the long haul — he even chipped at the rocky ground to create a wide, flat bed, and covered it with sleeping bags for a mattress!”
A quick search of more areas revealed even more secrets and evidence, including drugs and guns, along with shovels, rakes, coolers, cooking gear, a coffee pot and toilet paper.
Joe did his own inspection in other parts of the cave. He yelled, “Look at this, will you!”
“What?” Stick replied, rushing over.
Joe pointed to a large pile of pornographic magazines, much of which dealt with bestiality. Next to the sex material were stacks of cash, a few credit cards from his victims, lots of driver licenses, watches, passports, folding-knives and piles of several expensive name-brand satellite radios. “Seems our boy Bailey had a strong fascination with Satan and animals — what a sicko.”
“There’s enough evidence in here to fill three pickup trucks and lock away ten people for life,” Stick commented. “We need to leave everything untouched until we can get a team of investigators and forensic technicians in here to perform a thorough search, then it can all be bagged and tagged.”
“Amazing,” Joe mused.
“What is?” Stick wondered, glancing over at him.
“Not a single person in the world knew where he was…and here he was sitting inside this place, gazing into the lake below like he was king of his own castle,” Joe commented. “Hell, all he had to do was just wait for the next female hiker to come along so he could satisfy his sick fantasies.”
Stick thought for a moment, and replied, “All serial killers want to win…they choose victims they can kill successfully. This whole area was his zone of opportunity. Remember too Joe, in his sick mind it was only murder if we found a body, otherwise it was just a missing person.”
“Yeah, and that’s where he messed up — we started finding bodies,” Joe remarked as they walked over to where Rachel was still attending to Hanna. She had helped the poor lady change into clothes from her own backpack and finished tying her hiking shoes.
He asked her, “You think Hanna is well enough to walk out of here?”
Before Rachel could respond, Hanna stood up and insisted, “Of course I am. I am a German woman, and we are strong.”
“Let’s get out of here, then,” Joe said gently, “I think we’ve all seen enough.”
+++
Even though the rain had nearly stopped, the walk back up the mountainside from the caves on the winding, slippery pathway with all its switchbacks, proved to be much more difficult and strenuous than walking down.
They were all lashed together at the waist with the nylon rope, Stick leading the way, followed by Hanna and Rachel, with Joe bringing up the rear. This time the group truly looked like they were trekking Mount Everest. Their progress was hampered by Hanna’s physical weakness, which forced them to stop every five minutes so she could catch her breath. The woman seemed to stagger over every stone and stumbled in every puddle, but she pushed on as fast as she could and wouldn’t give up.
Worse though, were translucent clouds of fog and mist, at times so thick that Joe could barely see Stick, forty feet ahead of him. Joe thought it seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from Fontana Lake below and those that come down from above.
Water dripped from the tree branches, shrubs and dense rhododendrons, and their pant legs and shoes quickly became soaked and muddy. The mist spread across the forest floor and around the base of trees, blurring distances and spaces, giving everything an ethereal, dreamlike quality. Within a few dozen yards in every direction, nothing was visible. Every snap of a stick on the surrounding mountainside would cause Joe to stop and look and sometimes reach for his pistol. The fog and mist seemed to swallow everything and makes noise and sight unfamiliar.
It took the four nearly an hour and a half to ascend back to the top of the mountain — three times longer than it took to walk down. When they finally reached the top, they all felt as if they had drifted through space and time.
They took a final ten-minute break at the top, untied their ropes and rested before the final push back to the truck. The walk back to Joe’s F-150 vehicle was only two miles away, but it suddenly seemed to them to be ten times that far. Fortunately, the fog and mist had started to burn off as the afternoon temperature gradually started to rise. The sun had begun to shoot thin rays of sunshine in places through the heavy cumulous clouds.
Finally, a positive sign.
They walked 30 minutes on the Lakeshore Trail until they came to the Appalachian Trail junction, and their spirits finally began to lift. Stick announced triumphantly that the truck was only another half mile.
Fifteen minutes later the four finally reached their destination at the parking area next to the huge dam. Then it would be mission accomplished…they could return and pick up Marcy, Wahnetah and Otis before dark. Joe, with Sticks assistance, began loading their backpacks, ropes and gear into the truck bed when he heard Hanna suddenly let out an unearthly scream.
Joe whipped completely around, pulling his pistol and raising it in one smooth motion in a classic fighting stance that he’d used as an Army Ranger. He quickly focused his attention through the mist to where Hanna was pointing.
Hanna became hysterical and shrieked, “It’s him — it’s the monster, he’s coming for me again!”
Joe blinked, then squinted to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. At first, he thought it was a bear and he relaxed. Then, the tension returned when he recognized the apparition.
Sure enough, through the thunderous roar of water and swirling mist of whiteness, limping down the fenced walkway from the top of the dam appeared Daemon Bailey. Joe couldn’t mistake the man’s intimidating proportions in a million years. He had a woman behind him that he was leading, with the end of a rope tied securely around her neck — like a World War II prisoner. Her hands were tied behind her back.
The serial killer appeared ghastly in the dripping mist. He had Wahnetah’s pistol in one hand and the woman with the rope around her neck was Marcy.
Rachel cried out, “He has Marcy — you’ve got to save her Joe!”
Joe had never felt such fury in all his life, his pulse rate, respiration, blood pressure all maxed out at levels they were never intended to be at.
He tossed his truck keys to Rachel and told her and Hanna to get into the vehicle and lock the doors. If he couldn’t free Marcy, he told her to drive as fast as she could to the nearest police station and get help.
“Back me up, Stick,” he ordered the lieutenant, calmly. He handed Stick his M-4 assault rifle with 4 X 32 combat scope. “Do what you need to do, brother.”
Stick quickly loaded the lethal weapon, then crouched behind the truck for concealment. He doubted the killer had spotted him yet. His bowels started to clench, and his palms were sweaty. Practice sniping at a gun range black silhouette was one thing, but really killing a sinister individual was quite another. He took up a classic sniper’s position, aimed his rifle and tried to get his breathing under control.
CHAPTER 82
Joe began to walk slowly forward to meet the killer with his pistol raised in front of him. This would be it Joe figured, it would go no further…one of them would end up dying and he fully intended it wouldn’t be Joe Bird.
When Joe got within 30 feet of the killer, he stopped and planted his feet. He aimed his pistol carefully at Bailey’s forehead…a challenging shot, but he was reasonably certain he could pull it off without injuring Marcy. Not a hundred percent though.
What distracted his aim was Bailey’s appearance. The guy had distorted facial features from multiple fractures, cuts and scrapes to his skull and face. Worse, apparently when the tornado released him from its grips, he’d fallen to the ground only to be impaled by a one-inch branch that had entered through his face, passing deep into his skull to the back of his head. The wooden object had skewered him — literally impaled the killer though his skull into the brain. He was bleeding from one ear and his nose, and cerebrospinal fluid leaked from his other ear.
The only thing Joe could figure that kept his injury from being catastrophic given the vital anatomy along its path, was the stick managed to bypass critical arteries and structures like the eye, brain and spinal cord. As if that wasn’t enough to kill the guy, the killer also had serious cuts injuries to his arms and legs that required stitches.
What to do?
Bird’s Rule Number One: Let the opponent make the first move. Bailey shoved Marcy in front of him and placed the pistol next to her temple. He roared, “You Goddam Injun, you come any closer and I’m gonna blow her head clear to China…lay your gun on the ground and back off!”
Bailey’s breathing was rapid, he had difficulty swallowing, and he was sweating. He had a clammy pallor and his skin was bluish in color.
Joe knew if he placed his gun on the ground he was as good as dead — Bailey wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him through the heart.
Bird’s Rule Number Two: Hope and pray your backup knows what to do and can read your actions.
Joe slowly lowered his pistol and laid it on the path, then quickly rolled to one side in a blur. As expected, Bailey reacted immediately by moving his gun away from Marcy’s head and was trying to point it at the moving target.
Joe heard the ear-shattering BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! sound of an automatic weapon discharging in rapid succession. He closed his eyes and held his breath waiting for the pain in his body as the bullets hit. But none did. He felt nothing.
He looked up and saw that Bailey’s hand that had been holding the pistol was gone — all that was left was tatters of bone, sinew and cartilage. The killer was looking at his hand with his one good eye in disbelief. Blood flowed from the vicious wound.
He dropped the rope, grabbed his injured hand with his only good hand and screamed in terror, “You hurt me!”
Marcy bolted forward like a Triple Crown winning racehorse leaving the gate at the Kentucky Derby.
Without thinking, Joe rushed forward and used the opportunity to attack with his elbows, head and knees. He aimed for the serial killer’s most vulnerable body parts — it had to end here and now.
Joe attacked the killer like a junkyard dog…the human equivalent of razor-wire, full beast mode.
Bailey first attempted to grab him by the arms or shoulders, but Joe swift-kicked him in the groin with all his might. The killer grunted, then screamed with fury, “I’ll kill you for that!”
“Not hardly,” Joe spat, then thrust his elbow into the side of Bailey’s neck, using all 220 pounds of his body weight. Baily was stunned and started to wobble on his feet.
Seeing this, Joe decided to finish him once and for all — he stiffened the fingers on his hand, tucked his thumb underneath, and hit the other side of the killer’s neck like a knife as hard as he could.
Bailey’s eyes fluttered and he dropped like an old bedsheet.
Joe turned and yelled to Stick to bring plenty of rope. They had to hurry and tie the huge guy up before he regained consciousness.
Stick came running carrying two 50-foot coils of nylon rope.
“Good shot Stick, I was worried there for a few seconds that you’d missed, and he was going to cap me,” Joe admitted, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Nah, piece of cake — I practice once every couple of months for shit like this,” he replied nonchalantly.
Another sound caught his attention. They could hear the deep thump-thump-thump sound of a Black Hawk UH-60 military helicopter getting louder and louder. Joe looked up in the sky and noticed blinking red lights descending toward him. The helicopter slowly circling overhead, looking for a place to land.
As it flew closer the sound of its four-rotor blades changed to a familiar whop, whop, whop, and it slowly descended onto the parking lot and landed. They could feel the vibrations of the two General Electric T700-GE-701D turboshaft engines as they spooled down.
The sliding door opened and SBI Special Agent Martin West jumped out, along with three armed men in full SWAT gear. One was carrying a trauma bag and immediately started bandaging Baily’s injuries.
West walked over to Joe and said, “I see you finally got him — congratulations!”
“Give the credit to Stick and Wahnetah in the official report. How’d you know we were here?” Joe asked curiously.
“We’ve been tracking you every three minutes ever since you sent me that text message with your GPS coordinates. The is the first time the weather cleared enough for us to make it here safely. We had to first go and pick up Otis and your buddy, Archie Wahnetah.”
“How are they?” Joe worried, afraid of what he might hear.
“They’re both doing fine, we’ll take Otis to the veterinary clinic in Asheville that takes care of our K-9s, if that’s okay with you. We’re going to drop Wahnetah off at the Murphy Medical Center…he’s got a bad concussion and is going to need observation and some medical care for a few days. Bailey really thumped him good on the head when he went back to the campsite.
We’ll take Bailey and the German woman back with us to Ashville. Bailey will go into protective custody and need surgery to get that stick out of his head. I’ll contact the State Department and arrange for someone to pick up Hanna and get her back home. What about you — need a ride back in the chopper?”
“Nah, thanks. I got my truck,” Joe said. “I’ll take care of the two women hikers in my truck and make sure they’re okay. I’ll get statements from them and send a full report.”
“Make sure you get all of their contact information — I’m pretty sure our investigators and the feds will want to talk to them in the next few days.”
Joe nodded. He knew the drill.
Stick interjected, “Can you drop me off at my car in Robbinsville?”
“Sure, why not?” West shrugged, “it only costs the taxpayers two thousand bucks an hour to run this beast. I’m going to contact the FBI and bring a criminal investigation team and technicians out here tomorrow to conduct a thorough search of the serial killer’s hideout. Will you be available to guide us down to the location?”
“You bet,” Stick replied. “Of course, I’ll have to get our county sheriff and the Cherokee Reservation Police involved…they’ll want to assist and be involved since it’s in our jurisdiction.”
“Absolutely no problem — I’ll make sure the proper people get the credit for capturing this animal. He shook his head in disbelief, “Hard to believe the sonofabitch got sucked up by a tornado, then it spits him out and he’s still alive…he must have nine lives.”
