Chapter 3

(Alaska State Police Academy, Sitka, Alaska)

Mike and Mary satisfactorily completed their snowmobile training. The next week would be spent discussing techniques, and procedural things like the various reports and how to secure assistance when needed. How to requisition transportation from one point to another in routine and emergency situations was also discussed. At the instructor's suggestion, Mike signed up for pilot training.

This required more time, in addition to what was required, and by the time he crawled into his bunk, he was totally exhausted. The good news was that when they arrived in Fairbanks, he was almost ready to solo, and the pilot training was to keep them there for a month after they completed the Winter Survival Training. In fact, the WST had to be extended for both of them to include surviving a plane crash.

Kathy was prohibited by the Academy from contacting her family, just in case they were being watched. Nor was she allowed to contact her brother Ricky or find out about him. In fact, her brother had been released from the Fairbanks Jail the month before, and went back to Philadelphia, where Jerry sent him away for being too high profile with the big shipment coming in. Richard had gone to his grandparents in New York, where he enlisted in the Army.

While in Fairbanks, Mike and Mary went twice to the new Chena Too, buffet style restaurant. Once they saw her sister go into the kitchen, but never saw her mother. They were with two other State Troopers, and in her new makeover, nobody there knew her. After they were full-fledged troopers, then she might make contact.

The last two days in Fairbanks were spent at Cantwell where they assisted with a search for a lost hunter, and now a plane with two fellow troopers was missing. The hunter, it turns out was not Louis Montenero. The real Louis Montenero had been bushwhacked near Glennallen, and his ID stolen by someone yet unknown. The man had bought a Caribou hunting license, and then had an outfitter from Healy fly him in for week long hunt in the area east of Denali National Park. The man paid the Air Taxi with Montenero's credit card, which was also used to buy his license and gear.

When the pilot returned to pick the hunter up, he was not at the rendezvous point, and in fact nowhere to be found. As the missing hunter search wound down, a musher (dog-sled driver) in Glennallen found Montenero's body. He was identified from fingerprints since he had formerly worked for the US Postal Service in Juneau, and all postal employees are fingerprinted in the pre-employment phase. This turned the "missing hunter" search, into a manhunt the day the plane with the two troopers and their pilot failed to return.

By the time Mike and Mary arrived in Cantwell with two others in their group, the plane had been located and two troopers in another search plane were able to land. One of the troopers was seriously injured in the crash, caused by a booby-trapped airstrip, and the other shot by the primary suspect now masquerading as Montenero. The pilot also injured was able to subdue the two accomplices separately by hiding out and waiting for the right moment. The accomplice who turned out to be the caretaker of the wilderness lodge killed the injured trooper Burns.

A helicopter had gone in to investigate the crime scene, which had been interrupted before the suspect could burn bodies of the troopers and the plane. Now Mike and Mary were tasked with the part of the trooper team that would recover the troopers and wreckage from the remote lodge. The newest team of Alaska State Troopers was assigned to Sergeant Morris at Cantwell until they had done all they could on the recovery. It would last well into the evening.

The next day Mike and Mary hitched a ride back to Fairbanks to make their way to their new duty station at the remote outpost of McGrath. When they finally retired for the night, at Cantwell, Sgt. Morris told them that Officer Garrett was reporting to King Salmon the next day and they should ask him for a lift to McGrath on his way.

Mary said, "You know when we are on our own in McGrath, we have a lot of catching up to do."

"No kidding," Mike replied, "We should find a preacher and go ahead and tie the knot."

While they may get caught if they were to try be intimate, they definitely stole kisses when they could. The day was a depressing one for the troopers. Mike and Mary didn't know Burns and Collier, but Mike had lost a partner before to the hazards of Police Duty.

They recalled the latest updates on the "Bigfoot" abductions as they lay talking before they fell asleep. The troopers who had been sent to Grayling to round up the "witness" found no such person living there and the address he gave was non-existent as well. The locals just said they knew him as a guy who had a fishing camp somewhere up towards the Innoko River. That was still a lot of territory to cover, but why would a guy volunteer to give an eyewitness description and give a fake address and name unless he was trying to throw the troopers off the trail?

That was their territory now and if they could patrol the area, then they could possibly have a shot at finding the guy. Although Mike was now licensed to fly, the AST Super Cub stationed at McGrath was being overhauled, and the helicopter loaned to Bethel for the Bigfoot manhunt, as Mike was fixed-wing qualified only. He needed to find their own plane, but Mary's mother would now have control over her finances. Until then, they were told to patrol only a twenty-mile radius from McGrath. To complicate the manhunt further, the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race came through McGrath, and they were needed on-site at the checkpoint to monitor the throng of transient race fans, and support teams.

Hopefully they would find Bigfoot before he struck again. It had been eighteen days since he took 9-year-old Karen Brock from Anvik. It seemed every 3 or 4 weeks he took another. They wondered if she was still alive and what kind of shape she might be in if she was. If the guy indeed wasn't "Swine Plus" then there was a chance the girl was still alive. Someone Swine's size would kill her from internal hemorrhaging within a day at the most.

Karen had endured the fantasies of Maurice Trammel for two weeks now. The first time he pulled her to the edge of the table and forced a glob of cold K-Y Jelly into her it caused her to contract around it, making it hurt when he tried to put it in her the first time. Even though he had penetrated her with a candle the first night, removing the obstacle of her maidenhead, he was clumsy and still hurt her.

In his mind he engaged in foreplay with the young girl, first sucking on her nipples, and then he even performed oral sex on her the first night, which she said felt better than the candle. Not that the candle felt good, putting things in perspective. The night he had intercourse with her, he repeated the oral sex to make her wet. Then when he thought she might be "ready" he squeezed a glob of lubricating jelly inside her.

Now he pulled the trembling young girl to the edge of the bed she was tied to, and placed his organ at her entrance, she tensed up again. Trammel was very excited, and had barely squeezed himself into her when he began shooting his semen. At least it was warmer than the stuff in the tube she thought, and relaxed enough for him to push the rest of the way inside her. It was uncomfortable at first, then he started moving slowly, and Karen correctly concluded, "this must be what he wants to do with me."

"If I do this with you, will you let me up?" she asked.

"You will run off if I do," he answered.

"No, I won't," Karen said, "I promise."

"They all promise that," he said, as he began to thrust in and out gradually increasing his speed.

"You like doing this to me, don't you?" she asked.

"Oh yes," he grunted as he neared another orgasm with young girl.

"It feels better now," she said. "I like that better than that cold stuff."

She was trying to coax her freedom, and she figured out this was the "key to the prison that held her." The idea of the creepy man invading her little body with his weenie disgusted her, but she was acutely aware he might kill her if she displeased him. For now she did what he wanted.

Trammel came again inside the girl, and then slowly rose to sit at his table and watch his fluids ooze out from her.

"That felt good Mister," Karen lied. "Aren't you going to do it anymore? It feels like all the warm stuff is running out and I'll get cold again. Will you put more in if I do?"

"You sure talk a lot for a kid," Trammel said. "I guess I should clean you up some."

He walked over to his sink and poured warm water he made hot chocolate with onto a washrag, and proceeded to wash her off now that the semen had almost stopped running out. That made Karen feel less nasty, but her skin crawled whenever she looked at him.

"My name is Karen," she said, "What's your name?"

He knew her name from the kidnap reports on his radio. He had to ask his other victims their name. He never told anyone his.

"You can call me Sam," he told her.

"Sam, are you going to sleep in the bed with me tonight?" she asked. "I don't mind. It will be warmer for both of us." That was not a lie.

Trammel somehow knew she was messing with him, but his organ that got him in trouble to begin with told him "yes, do it."

Karen thought, the more she cooperated, and the longer she may live. Deep inside, she knew when he no longer wanted her; he would take her somewhere nobody would ever look for her, and kill her. The longer she could stay alive, the better her chances of being rescued were.

He untied her but locked the cabin door with a key dead bolt so she couldn't get out during the night. He let her sleep in the double bed with him and he had to agree, as small as she was it was warmer.

"Sam," she asked him, "Can I go potty? I really need to go bad. You can watch to make sure I don't run away."

He shined a flashlight right on her until she returned from the outhouse. When they returned to the bed, Karen said, "Sam, will you give me a kiss good night? My daddy always does, and I sleep better."

He kissed her forehead, and asked, "How's that?"

"Nice," she said. "Sam, will you hold me?"

This was really doing a job on his mind. He held her to him from behind. That is how she woke the next morning. "Sam," she shook him. "I need to go potty again."

"Go ahead," he told her. Then he remembered the door being locked. "Just a minute Karen," and got his key and unlocked the door as she ran towards the outhouse, and stopped short, and then peed in the snow.

"I am sorry," Karen apologized. "I couldn't make it."

They went back inside and Trammel fixed some oatmeal for her and watched her eat. Then she said, "Do you have to tie me up again?"

"I haven't decided yet," Trammel told her. "Can I trust you not to run away?"

"It's too cold out there to run away," she said. "Besides I don't know where we are, so where would I go?"

"I'll still lock the door," he said.

"That's OK, I wouldn't want a bear to come in and get us," she said innocently.

"Do you think you like what we did yesterday?" he asked her.

"It was OK. Did you like it?" she said. "It would feel better not tied up cause I got stiff laying in one position. Are there other ways to do that?"

"Yes, there are many ways to make love," he answered her. "That is what you call it when two people do what we did. We made love."

"Oh," she said, "I thought it was called something else I don't want to say."

"It is if the people don't love each other," he said.

"Does that mean you love me?" Karen asked.

"I guess so," he said.

"Then I guess it's OK that we do it then," she told him. "Only if you use that tube stuff, warm it up first please?"

This is how Karen Brock bought her the several days longer than Trammel usually kept his victims. Even though she hated him passionately, she knew as long as she was alive, there was a chance someone would find her and bring her back to her family. He did feed her and kept her warm at night, usually for his own purposes. She was playing on the depraved man's weakness, and he believed her. That is what bought her the first two weeks of captivity.

Mike and Mary rode to McGrath with Officer who was going to King Salmon, on the Alaska Peninsula. When they arrived, they were briefed on the Bigfoot case by the two they were to temporarily replace. They had a Cessna 180 and were flying to Anchorage in it as soon as Mike and Mary were settled in.

They showed them the facilities, and gave them a quick tour of the village, and then the snowmobiles and the sleds they could tow with extra fuel as well as their gear if they needed to go into the field. Their primary reason for being there was just to baby-sit the outpost, and keep peace during the Iditarod until they got back in four weeks. They had phone and radio contact with the other trooper posts if they needed help.

If they had to investigate a crime they would have to call in someone who could fly to the site, since they didn't have a plane. That would have to change. They would need one if they were going to make it in Alaska. The two regular troopers left in the plane they had.

After they had spent the first two hours in McGrath making love, they cleaned up once again and went to meet the people who lived in the village. They did plow the street in McGrath, so they could go out in their snowmobile boots, and get around fairly well. Under their parkas they carried their .357 magnum revolvers, in case of trouble, and knew they were safer in pairs. After thirty minutes in the cold evening, they started to head back Above them, stretching to the northwest was an Aurora Borealis that looked as if it was pointing to the ground somewhere west of them.

Mary stopped and made a line in the snow towards where the end seemed to wrap around and touch.

"Why are you doing that?" Mike asked.

"I have seen only a few of these," she replied. "The usually move around. That one seems to be touching or pointing towards that one bunch of trees. Look, it did it again!"

"I think you are imagining things," Mike observed. "Maybe it is just a light refraction or something."

"Do you want to go check it out?" She asked. "It's not like we are doing much other than keeping the chairs and desks from walking off."

They went into the shed where the snowmobiles are kept, and checked the fuel. They were supposed to be put up ready to go, but it seemed the other two troopers were the only things "ready to go" and they went! They gassed them up, and checked the oil, and added half a pint to the one Mary was getting ready. Once they were ready they started them and pulled the heavy "sleds" out. Mike them shut the door and locked it.