“That was in B.C.,” said Jack. “This time he’ll be grabbed in the U.S. Even if he didn’t already have a record, he’d be in for a minimum of ten years. I bet he gets more than that now.”

“Gee, and I won’t be able to visit him because I got a record for dealing pot and can’t go to the U.S.” Helen said, smiling.

On Wednesday afternoon, Amanda Evans left Megan with Wendy and went with her brother, Burt, to her apartment. Once they arrived, they quickly walked through the apartment, but Amanda remained in the living room when Burt went into her bedroom.

Amanda found herself staring at the open doorway to her bedroom. Images, sounds, and smells returned. His white face leering down at her. The smell of his sweaty body … the taste of latex and the sharp edge of the knife on her throat when she cried out in pain.

Now, three days after the attack, Amanda began to gasp and hyperventilate. Panic riddled her brain like acid as she fought the urge to run from the apartment.

Her rent was paid until the end of the month, but she could not bring herself to stay. Wendy only had a two-bedroom apartment, but willingly provided Amanda with a cot in her room while the children slept in the other room. The arrangement was only temporary. Amanda had found a new place she could move into tomorrow.

Amanda never told her parents what had happened and made her brother swear he wouldn’t, either. Their dad was in poor health and she was afraid what effect it would have on him. It was a secret that was even more difficult to keep when her mother, after hearing about the attack on the news, had called to warn her to be careful.

“Yeah, this will be a piece of cake,” said Burt, as he walked out of the bedroom and glanced around. “I’ll be here at eight tomorrow morning with the U-Haul. Three of the guys said they would give me a hand. If you and I box up the small stuff today, I bet we will be done by noon tomorrow.”

“This will be costing your friends money.” Amanda frowned.

“Naw, it won’t. The boss man said if we’re back to the construction site by noon, he won’t even dock us any pay. Don’t worry about that crap. Everyone is happy to help out.”

Amanda fought back the tears as she glanced again at the entrance to her bedroom, while subconsciously putting her hand to her throat. She had cried and begged him to let her go. It only seemed to excite him further. He prodded her with the knife and said he would kill her if she yelled. Her pleading had woken Megan who came in and, sensing her mother’s anguish, started crying herself.

Megan’s presence did nothing to deter the rapist. He mocked Megan and made obscene comments about what he was doing to Mommy, telling her Mommy only pretended to cry and that she really liked it.

It seemed so surreal. The man’s face was white and eerie, like a ghost. The knife had a serrated edge on the back of the blade and the rapist liked the added terror it brought when he slowly scrapped the knife across the spindles on her headboard, making a grating sound.

At the time she wondered if the grating sound would be the sound her vertebrae would make if he sawed through her throat. Fear had totally overwhelmed her and she had readily given in to his demands to accommodate his desires. She wanted it to be over and for him to be gone. She now knew it would never be over.

It was eleven o’clock Wednesday night when Jack and Laura walked along Henderson Road. They had parked their SUV a short distance away, inside the entrance to some farmland where it was hidden from sight amongst the scrub brush.

“There’s the broken treetop,” observed Jack. “Time to find a place to hide.”

Minutes later, they hid in the forest on the north side of the road. They did not want to hide on the south side in case Peltier stumbled upon them when he walked into the U.S.

Both Jack and Laura were equipped with flashlights and portable radios, but once hidden, they kept the flashlights turned off and used earpieces so the radios could not be heard.

Unlike undercover operatives on a drug section, who testified in court on a regular basis, members of the Intelligence Unit seldom went to court. Particularly the few members of the Intelligence Unit who were actually trained undercover operatives.

By not appearing in court, it allowed them to mingle with organized-crime figures while keeping their true identity hidden. On occasion, it also provided protection for those informants who had vouched for their credibility.

Generally, once members of the Intelligence Unit had gathered enough information, they would turn it over to the appropriate police units to further the investigation and make arrests.

This investigation was no different. Members from the Vancouver RCMP Drug Section, or narcs, as drug section members were commonly called, were also present. Due to the scarcity of vehicles in the area, the narcs, who also had a member of the Canada Border Services Agency riding with them, stayed about a ten-minute drive away.

Jack had provided them with the minimum amount of information they needed to fulfil their task. He was always extremely protective of his informants and for this investigation, only Laura knew who it really was.

The plan was to have Peltier arrested in the United States. For that purpose, a team of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents had taken up a position on their side of the border. They intended to arrest Peltier when he met with his U.S. contact.

Earlier in the day, other Vancouver Drug Section members had been told to do surveillance on David Peltier. They were told he was expected to have a girlfriend drive him to a storage locker to retrieve multiple kilos of crystal meth for delivery tonight.

So far, the narcs reported that Peltier and a woman who was driving his black Ford Mustang had made the trip to the storage locker. After, they were followed to Abbotsford where they were seen stopping at a restaurant and ordering coffee.

At one o’clock in the morning, Jack and Laura saw a car approaching. The area had been completely void of traffic for the last two hours, so their interest was piqued when a car slowly went past.

“What do you think?” whispered Laura. “The bars are shutting down, so it could be someone coming home … or is it someone checking out the area?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jack as he stood behind a tree and adjusted his binoculars. “If I can get a plate maybe it will tell us if it’s local.” Jack strained his eyes as he slowly focused the dial on the binoculars. “It’s a silver BMW. Cabriolet model, I believe. Can’t make out the plate.”

The BMW continued on and once more Henderson Road was engulfed in darkness. At one-thirty in the morning, the narcs reported that the couple had left the restaurant and were driving in their direction.

Half an hour later, the Mustang arrived and stopped where it was expected to stop. The passenger door opened, turning on the car’s interior light. Jack saw Peltier go to the trunk and get a large backpack before giving Helen a thumbs-up signal and closing the car door. As Helen drove off, Peltier hurried down off the road toward the United States.

Jack used his cellphone to whisper an alert to the U.S. agents and then used his portable police radio to alert the others.

“Want us to grab the woman in the car?” radioed one of the narcs.

“No, make sure Peltier is grabbed in the U.S. before doing anything. As far as the woman goes, wait until she comes back to pick up Peltier, then arrest her.”

“I doubt dropping someone off and picking them up will be enough to convict.”

“I agree with you there,” replied Jack, “but it should be enough to hold her overnight. Maybe she will confess.”