Chapter 20
With a quick glance at the cell phone, I check the GPS app the organizers are using to track the hunters.
Three dispersed hunters are converging from the north, working downhill toward the bunker. The pair from the southeast is tighter, moving together.
The helicopter is still circling. The sound changing when it swings around, running a search pattern.
The navigation lights flash through gaps in the canopy each time it passes overhead.
If they have thermal imaging, we’re lit up like campfires.
Nothing I can do about that.
But thermal doesn’t tell you who is on the ground, and right now that confusion might work in our favor.
I leave the app running. For the moment, whoever’s monitoring the field and the players probably thinks I’m the guy I took out.
Slipping it into my pocket, I settle into the scope and start glassing the terrain below.
“One of the hunters should be entering my field of view within minutes. If he held his course,” I tell her, so I don’t startle Jade when I fire.
There’s no doubt she knows what I’m doing. Also knows I’m wearing a dead man’s shirt.
There’s no way she will want me when this is done. She’ll know exactly what I am and what I’m capable of.
That digs in, claws attacking my stomach. For a second, I let myself look at her.
Huddled in the darkness, bravely looking into the forest. I want nothing more than to keep her.
Forever.
But to do that I have to save her first.
I settle my breathing. Slow the heart rate. Let the scope become an extension of my eye the way it has hundreds of times on deployments.
Two minutes pass. Maybe three.
Movement flickers in the trees at the bottom of the slope, about two hundred yards out.
There’s a shape working between the trunks, moving with the careful stop-and-start pattern of someone hunting. Or evading.
Medium build. He’s got a rifle in his hands. A darkened headlamp on his forehead.
He’s smart enough to not use the light. Not smart enough to check his high ground. Course, he’s not expecting to be hunted.
I track him for three more steps, let him clear a tree so I’ve got an open lane, and put the crosshairs on his chest.
Clear shot.
I exhale half a breath and squeeze.
The rifle kicks against my shoulder. The suppressor takes most of the report, but it’s still loud enough to send birds scattering from the canopy above us.
Through the scope I watch him fold. Clean hit, center mass. He drops behind a fern and doesn’t move.
Two hunters down. Four left. Plus Trevor, Vesuvius, and the men who grabbed us at the wreck, which I think are the same men who were around the staging area.
Jade’s staring at the spot where the man went down, her face unreadable in the dark.
“You okay?” I ask, but it’s a stupid question. She’s in a live-action nightmare.
“Good.”
The helicopter swings back over us, lower this time, close enough that the rotor wash shakes the ferns around our blind. Jade ducks instinctively and I cover her with my body until it passes.
“I need to know who’s in that bird.”
The satellite phone is a risk. The second I power it on, the signal could compromise our position. Anyone monitoring can triangulate. But sitting here blind while an unidentified aircraft circles overhead is worse than any signal risk.
I pull the phone from my pocket and power it up.
Longest twelve seconds of my life as it connects to a satellite.
When it’s live, I dial Agile’s encrypted line from memory.
Mako picks up on the first ring and he’s not alone, another voice cuts off in the background when he says, “Identify yourself.”
“Richter scale.”
A gust of air crackles over the line. “Jesus Christ. We’ve been searching for you. Are you together?”
“Affirmative. There’s a helicopter circling our position and I need to know if it’s ours.”
He responds instantly. “It’s ours. Hotchkins and Cardiff. They’ve been searching for you for two hours. Confirm your coordinates.”
Relief knocks the wind out of me. I give Jade a thumbs up.
I don’t have time to tell the team how they knew we were here. It doesn’t matter.
“Patch me through to Hotchkins.”
A click is followed by static. Then a voice comes on I haven’t heard in years but would recognize in my sleep.
“Ryker. Goddamn am I glad to hear your voice.”
“Hotch. I need you to listen. I’m on the northeast face, about three quarters up, in a cluster of downed trees against a rock outcrop. I’ve got Jade with me. She’s injured, dehydrated, needs medical attention.”
“Copy. We’ve been making passes. Haven’t been able to ID anyone specific on thermal because we don’t know who’s who down there.”
“Four hostiles still on the mountain. Two are southeast, probably paired up. Two are north, working downhill. I just took my second one so they may have heard the shot. I need an LZ.”
“There’s a clearing on the south face. Mudslide scar.”
My pulse kicks up. “I know the one. I’ll bring her to you. Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Copy. We’ll hold until you’re close, then drop in.”
“Hotch. I’ve got electronics off one of the hostiles. Sat phone and a cell with a tracking app showing hunter positions. I need signal blocking bags waiting on the bird. Have them ready.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“That’s it.” I watch Jade, my damned heart crammed into my throat. “Thanks for coming, man.”
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else, brother.”
I kill the call and power the phone down.
“It’s our chopper,” I crouch next to Jade, rubbing my hand up and down her back. “Agile sent it. Thane Hotchkins, a buddy of mine is up there. He’s been looking for us since we went dark.”
Tears glisten on her cheeks, she’s silent, and after a beat, she lifts her head and wipes her face with the back of her hand.
“What do we do?”
“We move to a clearing. We’ve got fifteen minutes. I’ll be with you the whole way.”
I ease the shotgun out of her hands, check it and hand it back.
“Four men are still out there. I’ve got the tracker on them now, but the same rules apply. You see someone that isn’t me, you don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t.”
“We’re almost out. Hang on a little bit longer. You’re doing so good.”
She makes a disbelieving sound. “Good. I ran.”
“That’s okay. I found you.”
I pull her to her feet, sling the rifle, and take point. She falls in behind me, staying close.
We move faster, motivated by the pick-up. I’m navigating by terrain, cutting along the contour of the mountain. Every fifty meters I stop, listen, scan. Check the app, then we move again.
Jade keeps up. It’s the final push, I don’t slow down as long as I hear her steps right behind me.
The clearing opens at exactly twelve minutes. The mudslide scar is a pale stripe against the dark mountainside, wide enough for a bird to put down if the pilot’s got steady hands.
Thane and Colt Cardiff wouldn’t be flying with any losers.
I use the sat phone one more time and this time the number rings straight to the helicopter. “We’re at the tree line. Ready for pickup.”
“Visual on the clearing,” Thane replies, “coming in now.”
The helicopter drops from above the ridge, nose tilted, rotor wash flattening the brush at the clearing’s edge.
Debris pelts everything, but the blacked-out Robinson settles down fast, skids touching dirt, the side already open.
Thane is in the door, one hand braced on the frame, the other extended toward us.
“Go,” I tell Jade, putting my hand on her low back, just to feel her, to remind myself she’s safe and whole. “Run. Stay low. I’m right behind you.”
For a second she glances over her shoulder at me. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
She bolts. Head down, hair whipping in the rotor wash. Thane grabs her arm and pulls her inside in one motion.
Looking for any threats, I sweep the tree line one last time. Rifle up, scanning for movement.
Clear.
Thane gives me a thumbs up. The ground is uneven, rocky as I sprint into a cloud of dust and debris.
Finally the open doorway is right in front of me.
Thane slaps the frame twice before I’m all the way inside, and the ground is left behind, the engine spooling up.
Jade’s safe. Buckled in. Medic attending her.
Relief swallows me whole. God.
We survived.
The mountain drops away fast, the trees shrinking to nothing, as the dark forest becomes a black, contoured mass below us.
Muscle memory kicks in as I buckle up and Thane passes me a headset. But I never take my eyes from her.
The only woman I’ve ever loved.
Ever will.
“Here are the blocker bags.” Thane tosses me two electronics bags and I drop the cell phone and the satellite phone inside and seal them up.
A former SEAL named Colt Cardiff is already opening his kit, caring for her wounds.
In the midst of the noise and darkness, when she looks at me, it’s a physical punch.
“She needs fluids,” I tell Colt.
“Yeah, yeah.” He gives me a sharp look. “I got your girl, don’t worry about it. Just sit over there and decompress.”