Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Sarah dropped to the ground, winded, when Ryder finally stopped.
She propped her back against a fallen log, no longer caring if she disturbed any creatures.
What animal would be out in this cold anyway?
Exhaustion might be her undoing since they hadn’t gotten rest in the cabin.
They’d been too busy with their discovery and then arguing about the past and the future and next steps.
She gazed out over the landscape blanketed in low-hanging fog. It was then she realized they’d climbed high enough to rise above that fog layer, and it was . . . stunning.
Ryder tugged off his night-vision goggles.
The sky peeked through the clouds and gave off enough light that she took in the beauty of the landscape, wishing that was all she had to think about.
They’d been moving so long and so fast that her body had remained warm, but if she sat in one place too long, she might freeze to death.
“Take a minute to hydrate,” he said. “We’ll be heading out of the woods and to higher elevations as soon as the sky lightens up.”
“You mean dawn.”
“Another way to put it, yes.”
After she caught her breath, drank some water, she said, “We didn’t get to rest in the cabin.
I’m not complaining, but I’m running on adrenaline right now.
” I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
“Are the hostiles still following us? I mean, I don’t even know what to call them.
Operatives? Hunters? Tactical team? Trackers?
Or even a strike team, because it sure felt like it back there.
A strike team. And here, Ryder, I thought you said no one knew about the cabin, and no one could follow you up this trail that only you knew.
You and your deceased grandfather and father. ”
Honestly, Sarah didn’t know what to think anymore. But she had to get her act together. Pull herself together and survive.
“No. They’re not following. They’re racing us. I got the map, but like me, someone probably took a photograph of it, so in essence they have the map. We have to beat them there.”
Sarah sat forward. “I thought you said they couldn’t understand or read the map.”
“I didn’t know they had a guide. He’s the only reason they found the cabin.”
She sat up. “What? Dean? Your competition is helping them? Does he know what he’s gotten into?”
“No. Not Dean.”
“Who, then? One of your Good Adventures guides? I can’t remember their names.” She’d been focused solely on Ryder.
“No. It’s Harlan.”
“Harlan? The horse guy who has a crush on your mother?”
“Maybe he’s one of them. A plant all these years, waiting for this moment. I don’t know.” Ryder shook his head, studied the area from which they’d run.
“Oh, please. He isn’t CIA. I told you they don’t work like that. Maybe he was coerced. We can’t know, but I thought you said no one knew about this cabin.”
“I’d forgotten that Harlan and my grandfather packed horses up here decades ago. Harlan used to be a horse trail guide in his early years too, so he knows the mountain pretty well.”
“Anyone else you’ve forgotten?”
“No. And it doesn’t matter now. We’re in a race against time. I need to be realistic. I’m not sure we can reach the crash site before them, and even if we do, we’re outmanned and outgunned. They have the supplies we don’t have.”
“But you got that extra pack.”
He tugged the pack he’d snatched open and dug through. “Yeah, it’s got survival and tactical gear.”
She heard the distress in his voice. Maybe this was because he’d trusted Harlan to watch his mother. She moved closer to him. “Ryder . . . tell me what I can do.”
“Just rest. We’re not out of this by a long shot.”
“Are we going to try to finish it?”
“Let me think, okay?” He pulled out his inReach as it vibrated softly.
“Who is that?” she asked. “I thought you were concerned about a connection broadcasting our location?”
“The device is set to messages only and location sharing disabled. This is a delayed message from my brother. Finally.”
“Can you read it to me, please?”
“Sure,” he said. “Holt says, ‘Someone made a move on my office. This goes deeper than I thought. Alpha-X is a prototype bioweapon. Experimental. Engineered for extreme lethality—non-airborne but incredibly toxic on contact. Part of a program called Project Deliverance.’”
She sucked in a breath. “We kind of already know that.” Though she hadn’t shared the project name with Ryder. What did a name matter anyway?
Ryder kept reading. “‘I accessed a redacted payload manifest from ’44. This wasn’t a routine transport.
It was bound for a classified containment field test site—mountain dispersal trial.
More info to come. It took three favors and a retired DOE guy who drinks too much to even confirm Alpha-X existed.
But Ryder—whatever you’re walking into—it needs to stay buried. ’”
Ryder typed in a message.
“What’s your response?”
He handed her the device, and she read his text.
Need evac. Have Sarah plus one vial. We’re being hunted.
Sending a location ping now—current position.
I’ll send a check-in with coordinates within the next two to three hours—should be at crash site and will confirm.
You must plan to destroy or render plane & payload irrecoverable. Confirm if you can pull strings.
Relief at Ryder’s resources rushed through her, but that relief was quickly sucked away with the cold blast that hit her face. This was happening. It was far worse than she could have imagined. Sarah clenched her jaw. What if she died on this mountain after all? What about . . . ?
“Ryder?” Her voice croaked out his name.
Behind them, branches snapped.
Sarah and Ryder twisted to peer over the log, but it wasn’t the frantic kind of movement from someone still searching.
“I don’t see anyone,” he said, “but doesn’t mean they aren’t closing in.”
“Could they be getting there another way?”
“This is the only way from the cabin.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s fine.”
“Does Harlan know this way?”
“If he doesn’t, he’ll figure it out soon enough. We have to move.”
They pushed through thick ferns and low-hanging branches until they reached the steep incline where the trees started thinning out.
Ryder paused just long enough to orient them.
“This ridge tracks east. If we follow it another few miles, we hit the glacier basin, which we’ll skirt.
According to the map, the plane should be somewhere along the western rim. ”
“Glacier basin? Do we have what we need?”
He didn’t answer right away. “We’ll find out.”
A fist squeezed her heart, and it pounded all the harder. “What’s the point of going if you don’t know?”
“Trust me, okay?”
Like he’d trusted Harlan? Oh, she wouldn’t say that out loud, and it certainly wasn’t fair, but if you couldn’t trust the old guy who attended the family horses for years, who could you trust? Harlan could have an interesting background that no one knew.
Ryder scrambled up the slope, and she tried to keep up, every snapped twig behind them a gunshot in her mind. Until they hit a narrow ravine and ducked into the rocks. Climbing. Climbing. Climbing.
And the air grew thicker and colder.
But the cloudy sky turned a light gray. Finally, Ryder paused near another ridge. Valleys and gullies, ledges and ridges. Summits and spirals and crags. Terrifying beauty.
Breathless, Sarah collapsed to sit on a boulder.
Ryder checked the communicator again.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You mean he hasn’t confirmed he got your request for help?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Are you worried that someone shut him down since apparently they’re onto him?”
“He can take care of himself.” Ryder sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Yeah? What does he do anyway?” As if she didn’t already know.
“Please. I know what you did before, remember? So you know about Holt’s work, don’t you?”
Ouch. “Okay, yeah, I know.”
He peered through his binoculars at the landscape below them.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nothing yet.”
“Are you sure you got it right and Harlan knows the way?”
“Nothing is for certain.”
“Well, let’s not wait for them to catch up. Listen, I want to check my burner phone. I need to check on my sister-in-law. The thought that Harlan could have been coerced has been bugging me.”
Was Tessa now compromised? Were she and Jeremy still safe?
“But I need your help for that signal. Please? I know that even a ping is a risk.”
“Not sure it matters now.” His forehead creasing, he pulled the Iridium GO! out of the pack and connected her burner.
“Tessa would only text me if it’s an emergency, so I kind of hope I get nothing.” She stared at a message that had come through. Her heart might have stopped. “Oh no.”
“What is it?” Ryder asked.
UNKNOWN
We have the boy. If you want him alive, find the crash site and the bioweapon. You have until the end of the day.
An image appeared. Jeremy. And Tessa? What about Tessa? Was she still alive? If they’d taken Jeremy, why hadn’t Tessa warned Sarah? Unless . . . unless they’d left her incapacitated, tied up somewhere, or worse . . . dead. After all, they’d killed Tessa’s husband. Sarah’s brother.
Nausea erupted. Sarah couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
“The boy—Jeremy, your nephew.”
Her trembling hand clamped over her mouth as tears of fury spilled down her cheeks.
“Jeremy . . . he’s only three. He’s . . . he’s my son.”