16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Day 7 Denali, Alaska
Aiden eased his rigid grip on the cell phone when his fingers cramped. What was going on at Demi’s door? Was she keeping the bastards after him occupied until Tag and Tram could get to her? Sure, Cameron Sotto was camped outside the building with the electronics jammer, but the dude was tech support, with only rudimentary training in self-defense. They’d been lucky he’d left the van to grab a coffee before COPD had swarmed Demi’s surveillance team, but he wasn’t trained for action.
“Relax,” Cosky said from beside him. “It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes since you talked to Demi.”
It hadn’t? Aiden glanced at the clock on the phone. Cos was right. The realization did nothing to ease his fear. He couldn’t breathe properly. That must be why he was moving so slowly—like he was slogging through molasses.
He lengthened his stride, vaguely aware of light gray walls and a dark gray sidewalk. The gray on gray was disorienting, blending into an endless, monotonous tunnel. They’d opted not to grab a utility vehicle. Cosky claimed it was quicker to take the elevator.
Aiden was tempted to hijack the next vehicle that came along. It was embarrassing how much stamina those four days in isolation and the ER had cost him. Hell, his heart was pounding like a motherfucker.
Had Tag and Tram arrived yet? Had they secured the targets? Was Demi okay? If anything happened to her…
“She’ll be fine.” Cosky’s voice was flat. Certain. “Tag and Tram won’t let anything happen to her. They’ll protect her like she’s one of their own.”
Aiden didn’t doubt that. But that didn’t mean the bastards at Demi’s door wouldn’t still prevail and whisk her away.
“Zane and Rawls are meeting us at the hangar,” Cosky said, his tone even, his breathing controlled despite the rapid pace he’d set.
Cosky’s calm breathing sent shame curling through Aiden. Here he was gasping like the little train that could, as he huffed and puffed his way to the elevator.
He took another quick look at the cell phone. Maybe it had rung without him noticing. Nope. The elevator doors whooshed open. He and Cos stepped inside. Cosky punched a button marked HANGAR and the doors snapped closed. The floor beneath his boots vibrated, and the lift rose.
Cosky shot him a knowing look. “Give Tag time. He’s kinda busy right now. He’ll call when he has something to report.”
Aiden grimaced. That advice did nothing to mitigate the frustration of waiting, or the praying for good news. There were no guarantees that Tag and Tram would get to Demi in time. No guarantees that Demi could distract and stall the bastards at her door.
Cosky must have glimpsed his fear, because he squeezed his shoulder. “Relax. Trust your brothers to keep your woman safe.”
That advice brought a scowl. “Yeah? Would you say that if Kait were in trouble?”
With a shrug, Cosky released his grip on Aiden’s shoulder. “A redundant question. She’s here on base.”
Bastard.
“That scowl’s not gonna make things move faster.” The elevator doors snapped open, and Cosky stepped out.
Aiden followed him out, only to stop dead.
There was no corridor ahead of them, just a cavernous space filled with aircraft of every shape and size. The hangar went on and on, as far back as he could see. So did the various aircraft. Directly in front of him was a UH-1Y Venom, to the right of it a Boeing Apache, and behind that, a UH-60 Black Hawk. Further back, a Boeing Chinook and a Sikorsky Seahawk—which was weird as all shit since the Seahawk usually operated off ships.
Did Shadow Mountain have a Navy? Nah, that wasn’t likely. A Navy would be impossible to keep under wraps.
Behind the choppers was a Cessna Citation X+, which was the fastest private jet available. Hell, he’d checked into that model, even come close to picking one up for himself. Thanks to his talent, which showered him with more money than he’d ever need, he could cover the twenty-three-million-dollar price tag. But explaining how he could afford a multi-million-dollar jet, while on an Uncle Sam budget, had nixed the idea.
Other than the money he periodically won through his pseudonyms, which he funneled into various charities, Demi’s condo was the most expensive purchase he’d made. He’d covered his tracks well, making sure everyone, including Demi, thought the condo had been possible because of an unexpected inheritance, one Donnie had come into prior to his death.
The memory brought on a grimace. She’d certainly loved the guy. It was a constant itch that she didn’t have the same depth of feeling for him. In retrospect, focusing on sex had been a poor decision. But he’d been certain the quickest path to her heart was through her bed.
Sucking back a sigh, he glanced back down at his phone. Still nothing from Tag.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .
He wasn’t feeling Demi’s fear though, not like he had three years ago when Chester had accosted her outside the elevator. He’d felt the icy bite of her fear then, even over the adrenaline and exertion of charging down a flight of stairs. This was the first time she’d been in danger since the Chester incident. Why wasn’t he feeling her terror? Was it because of the distance between them? Not just physical, but emotionally as well?
Cosky had stopped next to the Citation X. The jet’s ramp was down. Must be their ride. Aiden lengthened his stride. Although the color of asphalt, the ground felt strange beneath his boots. Soft, rather than hard, as though it absorbed his footsteps. Weird. What was even stranger was how close to each other the aircraft were parked. How did the crew maneuver them out of the hangar and onto the airstrip?
“How do they get anything to the runway?” He joined Cosky in front of the ramp.
“That’s right, the Thunderbird doesn’t have any windows.” Cosky turned to face him. A slow smirk spread across his face. “You never saw the bird land, did you?” The smirk spread wider. “Hell, man,” Cosky grinned. “I won’t spoil the surprise.”
“Flying isn’t new to me.” Aiden glanced back down at the phone.
Still no call. His fingers had gone white again.
“Trust me,” Cosky sounded certain. “You’ve never flown Shadow Mountain style.”
Aiden raised his eyebrows and scoffed. What the hell was the bastard yapping about?
Aiden followed Cosky up the steps. He stopped at the foot of the cabin to stare. His normal flights weren’t nearly as luxurious as this. Eight plush, cream-colored seats, arranged in sets of two, faced each other. Four ran along the right side of the plane and four along the left. The rows were separated by a narrow aisle. Behind the chairs was a couch on one side of the cabin and a couch with a worktable against the other wall. Small, oval windows, with the shades drawn, accompanied each chair. The air smelled fresh and slightly floral.
Nothing about the jet indicated a military bird. Hell, even the carpet looked airbrushed and fluffy.
“Ah, hell,” Cosky’s voice turned sour. “What’s he doing here?”
Aiden followed his brother-in-law’s gaze to the last of the eight chairs. It took him a few seconds to recognize the unlikable and mouthy bastard from Wolf’s exfil team. What had Rawls called him? O’Neill? The dude was slouched down in his chair, eyes closed, apparently napping. At least the asshole had taken a seat far enough away to ignore him. Aiden dropped into a chair across the aisle from Zane and scowled down at his phone.
What the hell was going on? Tag and Tram should have dispatched their targets and contacted him by now.
Forcing his frustration back, he turned to Cosky, who’d taken the seat across from him. “How long will it take the ground crew to haul us to the airstrip?”
Cosky chuckled. Leaning forward, he pulled on the bottom of the window shade next to Aiden’s chair. The curtain rolled up, leaving the window bare. “Buckle up and prepare to be amazed.”
“Right.” Aiden rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to his phone.
“You ever hear that old adage about a watched pot never boiling? Pretty sure it applies to cell phones, too,” Cosky said dryly, although his gray eyes were almost sympathetic.
Aiden clipped his seatbelt together and glanced out the window. Impatience steamed through him. He saw no ground crew arriving to move the jet to the airstrip. Talk about a staging clusterfuck. Why the hell would the Shadow Mountain ground crew park their aircraft like this? It would take hours to maneuver the planes and choppers out of the Citation’s way.
He frowned as a low whine started up beneath his feet. The buzzing wasn’t engine noise or vibration. Maybe the ground crew was finally clearing a path. But when he glanced out the window, the aircraft surrounding the Citation were gone.
What the hell?
He leaned into the window and peered down. The aircraft below were getting smaller with each second.
“What. The….?” There was a sense of ascension now, although it was coming from the disappearing ground, not from the plane itself. “We’re on a lift?”
He craned his neck and looked up, trying to see the ceiling.
“Relax.” A shit-eating grin spread across Rawls’s face, who was sitting next to Zane. “We ain’t gonna hit the roof. A magical portal will open and deposit us directly onto the runway.”
“No shit?” Aiden pulled back, realizing for the first time that everyone in the cabin was watching him with various degrees of amusement. Except for O’Neill, who was still slumped in the back with his eyes closed.
A grating whine sounded, this time from above. He leaned against the window to look up and watched a good chunk of the ceiling split and slide to the sides. Watery streams of light brightened the dark chasm. Within seconds, they were outside; the sun beaming down on them. Blue sky and fluffy clouds were everywhere. No grass, no trees. No buildings. No rolling hills or roads. No people. Just an endless stretch of blue sky.
He leaned against the window again, looking down. Cement. Fuck, they were on the runway. A runway up in the clouds.
Still gawking, he shook his head. “Where the hell is this runway?”
“Now that,” Cosky scoffed, his smirk vanishing, “is an excellent question.”
Aiden absently glanced down at his cell. His fingers had loosened their desperate grip, but still no call. It was too dangerous to call Tag. A distraction at an inopportune moment could prove disastrous. Which meant he had to wait for Tag or Tram to call him.
He battened down his impatience and turned to Cosky. “You don’t know where we are?”
They’d worked for Shadow Mountain for three years now. How could they not know?
“We know we’re somewhere up on Denali.” There was a shrug in Zane’s voice, like he didn’t really care. Zane projected impenetrable calm, which made him hard to read.
“The real question is how the hell they’re hiding this, not just from the climbers, but from the locals.…” Cosky trailed off with a perplexed shake of his head. “This is Mount Denali, for Christ’s sake.”
Cos was right. At least a thousand people climbed Denali every year. Some of those climbers should have noticed planes and helicopters taking off from the mountainside. Hadn’t they questioned where the aircraft had come from? Plus, there were a good dozen towns surrounding the mountain. Denali wasn’t hidden within a remote region of Alaska. Civilization encircled the sleeping giant.
“That’s not the only…irregularity,” Rawls said in that slow drawl of his. “There’s also the weather up here. There’s never any wind.”
“Or snow, or rain,” Zane broke in.
“It’s like the runway sits outside all the weather systems.” Cosky cocked his head, a frown pulling at his forehead. “It can snow up a blizzard in Talkeetna, yet not a flake up here.”
All of which sounded like bullshit to Aiden. An invisible airstrip? Protected from wind, rain, and snow, and sitting outside the regular weather systems, like it occupied a different dimension?
Pure crazy talk.
There had to be some explanation for this mysterious airstrip, a lucid one, regardless of what his formerly rational buddies were claiming.