A Cache of Trouble: A Cassidy Callahan Novel. Kelly Rysten

by Landon and the three other officers, set out. I climbed the crack again, a little shakier this time, and waited at the top for the group to catch up. I found the tracks and settled into tracking mode again. Our suspect definitely had a destination in mind.

      The ground was hard in this part of the forest. I could see why the team had given up. Tracking was slow. I puzzled over the ground gathering all the clues I could find.

      “Can you give me a description of our fugitive?” I asked, making conversation. “From the trail I know he’s young, slender, lightly built.”

      “Latino, black hair, brown eyes, black t-shirt with a rock band logo on it, blue jeans, tennis shoes.”

      “Skater shoes,” I corrected. “Any weapons?”

      “We’re supposed to consider them armed but so far the grenade is the only confirmation of that.”

      The tracks were puzzling. If we weren’t in a hurry I would have found them interesting. It would have been a fun challenge. With an armed fugitive out running us it was just plain frustrating to slow down.

      “This guy could be home watching a ball game by the time we see where this trail goes,” I complained.

      The forest thickened. The soil changed from rock and hard pack to something more porous. At the same time the vegetation in the area grew up and shed leaves and pine needles obscuring the ground completely. Large trees loomed overhead, blocking the light and making it even harder to distinguish tracks. We startled a deer resting in the underbrush and I wished I’d been alone so I could try stalking it. I’d rather stalk deer than fleeing suspects.

      I kept to the trail until something cued me in to look at my surroundings. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Something triggered a memory. An almost forgotten memory and I looked around suspiciously. What it was, I still couldn’t say. It was so faint.

      “What is it, Cassidy?” Landon asked.

      “I don’t know. Something is familiar to me in a bad way. Something doesn’t feel right.”

      I continued on, looking around more carefully while I tracked the footprints before me. Landon was wary. He’d never quite seen me like this but he seemed to trust my instincts.

      The feeling came back. A smell? Was it a smell I was perceiving? I licked my finger and held it up to the breeze. The footprints were leading into the wind. I sniffed the breeze like an animal but I still couldn’t quite identify it. Something was niggling at the back of my mind.

      “Cassidy,” Jacobsen said, drawing me from my thoughts.

      “Wait,” Landon told him, “This could be important.”

      Niggle, niggle, I could feel the thoughts churning but they were coming up empty. Then, with a disappointed, if silent, curse it fell into place. I looked at the land ahead.

      “Guys, we need to proceed very carefully. Let me scout ahead. I can keep out of sight if I go by myself. If we have to stay as a group we could stumble on something we don’t want to stumble on. We have to see what we are getting into without being spotted.”

      They all looked at me as if I was nuts. They weren’t going to let me go out there alone.

      “Jacobsen? You can hold onto my gun if you want to. I’m just looking.”

      He started to object.

      “Landon, tell him I know how to stay out of sight. Tell him how it took a whole team hours to find me when Trent was after me. I could lose the whole lot of you in five minutes if I wanted to.”

      “Cassidy, you’re serious, aren’t you?” Landon asked.

      “One person can sometimes do what six people can’t. I know what I’m looking for. I’ve seen it before. I’ve observed it and kept out of sight before. I’ve dealt with the people before. We are close. We are close enough to smell it. Give me ten minutes.”

      “Michaels wouldn’t give you two,” Kent Jacobsen said.

      “He knows I can do it though. Who else thinks they can do it? Who knows what we are looking for? Who can stay out of sight, not leave a track and not make a sound? Anybody?”

      They all thought they could stay out of sight but I knew I had them when it came to staying quiet. Tracking with them was like tracking with a herd of elephants behind me. Not one of them would bother hiding their tracks.

      I shed my pack and started removing my pistol but Jacobsen shook his head. I took that as permission to use it if I needed to. I took off my boots, then turned and got a bearing on the trail. Heading quickly in the same direction the footprints led, I ducked into the trees and within a few steps I was invisible to the men behind me. I went into stealth mode hiding my tracks and creeping up to some unknown danger before me. I knew what I was looking for. I’d been in this situation before and was looking for cabins, or small buildings hidden by trees. I was looking for a field of marijuana plants, keeping a sharp eye out for movement of any kind.

      Ten minutes wasn’t much time to scope out a drug lab. My main goal was to locate people. I needed to find our suspect.

      I crouched low making myself small, and continued forward hiding from view, hiding my tracks. It all felt so natural. Like stalking deer except I was stalking people; unknown, unknowing people.

      The field was just as I had remembered, and I was glad it confirmed the niggling in my head. I wasn’t imagining things and really had identified the smell correctly. Circling the small compound, I could identify two people at the site and made mental notes about their locations. I made sure to remember what each person looked like, cataloging their features like a list so I could recite it back if needed. Not liking what the guys would be walking into, I was careful to take special note of exactly where things were, to provide them with as much information as possible. Then I slipped silently back into the woods and circled around to my nervous team. I made sure I came back to the group silently and gently appeared beside them without startling anyone. It’s not wise to surprise a wary group of cops. They were all anxiously looking down the trail I’d taken until I stepped out of the brush beside them as if I’d been standing there all along.

      Removing the sketchbook from my pack, I quickly made a map.

      “Okay, listen up and listen fast. Here we are.” I drew an X. “If you go the direction you saw me head you will come to a field of cannabis. There’s a small building, almost a shed, on the far side of it. When I was there our suspect was standing just inside this building. Another man was over here.” I said drawing another X. “Short guy. Short black hair, very dark complexion, baggy oversized blue jeans, white muscle shirt. Tattoos. I only saw the two men. Of course they may have moved some since I was over there. I don’t like the looks of this. If we get one man the other will escape. We don’t have enough firepower to get both. I’m leaving the rest up to you. They are probably armed. They were last time I dealt with a group like this.”

      “When did you deal with a group like this before?” Landon asked.

      “When I tracked Kelly Green. I ran into a compound bigger than this one. This is a small operation, but it doesn’t mean it’s safer. I don’t like it. It’s going to take more than the six of us to get both these guys.”

      “You’ve done your part, Cassidy. You’ve done more than you should. Michaels is going to lynch the whole lot of us when we get back.”

      I sat down by my pack and started putting on my boots. The guys went into a huddle. I heard radio talk. We waited, the tension growing.

      Jacobsen approached and watched me for a bit while I finished tying my boots. He then sat down on the ground beside me.

      “How far is it to the fields?”

      “Maybe a hundred yards. The field’s maybe a quarter acre. The building is on the far side.”

      “Find a place where you can stay out of sight.”

      “I can stay out of sight