Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
“You’ll find the rest of it inside the wreckage—or what’s left of it.” Her grandfather’s voice from the recording stayed in her thoughts and mind and wouldn’t let go.
Honestly, it didn’t sound like him—she’d never heard him sound so terrified, so broken—but it was him, no doubt there.
When had he even made that recording? And why hadn’t her brother left the recording in the safety-deposit box with everything else instead of letting Tessa find it and hear what was on it? It didn’t matter now.
Standing at the woodstove, she rubbed her arms and looked around.
Was something actually hidden here? Or were they searching for a hidden compartment that didn’t exist?
The whole thing creeped her out—this cabin included.
Sure, it held good memories for Ryder—she suspected plenty of bad ones too.
All of which added to the eerie feeling that a dangerous force was closing in around them.
A bioweapon. On the plane. Buried on the mountain.
What were she and Ryder even doing here?
Sarah didn’t have time for doubting her choices.
She shook off the sense of foreboding. She’d set out on this mission without once considering the darkest possibilities.
Oh, she’d imagined danger, sure. But not this.
Not biological weapons. Maybe she should have considered that in this very state where a top-secret site had been established during World War II—Hanford was located along the Columbia River.
The government produced plutonium for those first atomic bombs.
Hanford had been surrounded by rumors of classified research and, unfortunately, radioactive waste, and the public was never meant to know about the experiments conducted so close to home.
So, sure, she should have thought darker.
She could have connected the dots. She should have.
But she hadn’t. Maybe because the truth was too heavy to carry.
She could unpack her reasons for avoiding the darker side of mankind later.
Right now, she needed to find something. What, she wasn’t sure.
Ryder had given up on that shelf—for now, at least—and chosen to search the opposite end of the cabin. Was he lost in the same kind of murky thoughts too? Nausea rippled through her insides at the thought of a bioweapon. Not created by the Nazis but by the US government.
Malcolm had warned her. Tried to stop her.
Had he known what was on the mountain? The whole of it?
If he had, then he could have tried harder.
The sooner they got out of this cabin, the better.
The sooner she got off this mountain and back to family, the better.
Crouching near the woodstove, she brushed a loose board along the floor.
The board was blackened but hadn’t burned. Probably nothing.
Still. “Ryder? Could this be something?”
“What is it?” Focused on looking under the old sofa, he made no move to join her.
“It’s a blackened plank in the floor. I know that sounds like nothing, but it could . . . you know . . . mark the spot.”
He stood, a troubled, contemplative look on his face.
Then he made his way to her, the floor creaking with his rushed steps.
He pressed his boot against the plank in question.
Then crouched. Ryder tugged a pocketknife out and slid it into the slot between the boards, prying it loose.
He lifted the plank and then put it aside.
Pulse ramping up, Sarah shined her flashlight into the hollow in the floor. “It’s a box.” About the size of a lunch box. “Looks like Army-issue,” he said.
“It’s all dented.” Like it might have survived a plane crash. That was conjecture. It could be dented for a lot of reasons.
He reached inside, his hand hovering over the box, then hesitated before finally lifting it out. “I recognize this box.”
Was that good? Bad? “So . . . it’s nothing? Why hide it in the floor?”
“Gramps used to keep bullets in one like it, so maybe it’s not the same one.”
“And if it is, let’s hope instead of bullets, we find answers.”
Slowly. Carefully. Ryder lifted the lid. It squeaked open. Sarah held her breath while she focused the intense beam of her light onto the contents inside. Fear could get the best of her.
A paper scroll. Items wrapped in cloth.
He tugged out the paper—aged and stiff, decades old—and unrolled it on the floor. “Another map.” He sounded disappointed.
“Only more detailed. I don’t get it. Why not give us this information, this level of detail, on the first map?”
Sarah studied the hand-drawn map. The ink had faded to sepia, but she could still make out the detailed ridgelines and trees. Even a mountain lake. She glanced up at Ryder. “There’s a lake near this cabin. Is this the same lake?”
Ryder didn’t answer as he focused on the map, his index finger seeming to follow an invisible line as it sped over a rocky outcropping and then stopped. He drew in a quick breath. “This looks like the plane’s wing jutting out from the snow, and with the letters SO circled.”
He lifted his gaze to hers and held it.
“Sentinel One.” The name of the downed plane croaked out of her. “This is it. This is where it is.”
Ryder gently grabbed the map and the box and put the items on the table. He moved the kerosene lamp closer. He sat down to get a better look, and Sarah sat on the opposite side. He had that contemplative look again, and she’d wait for him to spill.
“It would seem the initial map led us to the cave,” he said, “but I think my grandfather moved whatever was important here. I think my grandfather drew this map. It looks like his scrawl along the side.”
“But why?” Sarah shook her head. This did not make sense to her way of thinking.
“If we hadn’t been driven in this direction, we might not have discovered this.
It’s like one of those ridiculous treasure-hunting shows where the clues are so outrageous and impossible.
I’m saying how could he expect anyone to find what he’d hidden? ”
Crossing her arms, she stared at the open box. Ryder was staring too. There was more inside. They’d been too interested in the map to look. Sarah shined her flashlight and reached into the box, but Ryder pulled her hand back.
“Careful,” he said.
Ryder hesitated, then he lifted the cloth-covered item and held it flat against his palm as he unwrapped it.
Sarah gasped at the small vial. “This is what I was afraid of.”
“It’s sealed with wax,” he said, as if that would reassure her.
The tube contained a cloudy substance. Yellow, thick, and oily.
She shared a look with Ryder. “If this is it, if this is the bioweapon, why in the world would he place it here? This is just irresponsible and hazardous.”
“If this is the bioweapon, he wouldn’t have left it here without a good reason. Maybe it’s a decoy or he knew that proof was needed to convince someone where to go and to proceed with all caution.”
“This was beyond reckless, Ryder, and you know it.” Sarah stood, regretting the animosity that had crept into her tone, especially after Ryder tried so hard to defend his grandfather’s actions.
He wanted to think of the guy as a hero, just like she’d thought of her grandfather.
She wasn’t so sure what to think about either of those men at the moment.
“Maybe Gramps didn’t want anyone to find it.
” He looked down at the box. “Maybe he hid the map and the vial here, moved them from the cave where your grandfather had left them, because some things weren’t meant to be uncovered—not until the right moment, and only into the right hands.
He believed God’s timing was perfect and that what was meant to be revealed would be, when the time was right.
If and when the silence breaks, that’s because it was meant to. ”
“I’m not sure I follow you entirely,” she said.
“In other words, if it’s meant to happen, nothing can stop it. And if it’s not, nothing can force it. Maybe that’s why he left the map and the vial—so only the one meant to find them ever would.”
In God’s perfect timing, of course. Those were some deep thoughts from her wilderness guide.
“You’re saying that when the truth comes out, it’s because it was meant to, and it was ready to be heard.
” She’d need to mull it over on a quiet night, without the weight of the world bearing down on her.
Still . . . “That’s so cryptic. How could he know or think you—or anyone, for that matter—would find the other half of that coin or what’s in this cabin?
This is . . . it’s irresponsible.” She bit her lip.
She could blame her own grandfather as well.
She stood and paced, dragging in the dusty, smoky air.
“Believe what you want, but if he wanted it hidden so no one ever found it, he wouldn’t have left this information, well, for someone to find, deliberately or accidentally. He would have destroyed it.”
Great. “Then why not just tell the authorities decades ago?” Maybe each of the men was scared and didn’t know who they could turn to or trust. Maybe they were waiting for that person.
That day. That moment. Like Ryder had already said in his philosophical view of this situation, which she found difficult to grasp.
She had no idea what to do with this. Her brother had been murdered. She was one step ahead of the killers, or maybe two steps behind.
“You holding that vial is all kinds of wrong. Please put it away.” I have to think!
Ryder placed the vial back in the box and closed it.
“So now we have a map to the plane that wasn’t supposed to have crashed on the mountain,” she said. “A vial that could be filled with a deadly toxin. Someone following us. Shot at us.”
“You wanted me to guide you up the mountain in search of the plane if it existed and could be found. You didn’t know what you were searching for, exactly. But now you do. What was your plan after you got the answer you sought?”
He asked a good question. Her grandfather’s words came back to her. “I died on that mountain.”
She understood now that her grandfather had changed his name and become Walt Ellison, leaving his old self for dead.
But unlike Grandpa Walt, she had no intention of dying on this mountain.