Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Ryder wanted to argue, to fight Maddox, prevent him from separating Ryder and Sarah, but then again, he didn’t want her at the plane, where Maddox had forced him to return with Smith.
And each moment—every movement—he was conscious of the snow-laden cornice hanging above and the avalanche waiting to happen.
At the right moment, maybe.
But he should let it go and focus on what he could control, and right now it felt like exactly nothing.
So next to the faint curve of the fuselage jutting from the mountainside—reminding him of a half-buried skeleton—he planted his boots wide in the crusted snow.
His breath clouded the thin, frosty air.
The wind gusted over the rim and pulled at his coat, nipping at his face.
Smith at his side messing with his equipment, Ryder turned and squinted through the heavy snow that could bury them all—avalanche or no—if they didn’t get this over with soon. White tents had quickly gone up and were anchored with weighted ropes.
This wasn’t just a base-camp shelter—not with the black biohazard emblem stenciled on the sides.
Queasiness roiled through his insides. Gear crates were stacked near the entrance of one of the tents.
Someone ducked through the flap, a coil of hoses slung over one arm—part of the mobile decontamination setup?
The tension in his shoulders grew painful, and the graze at his shoulder ached even more.
Hazmat suits. So . . . they’d truly thought this through, never for one minute doubting that Sarah and Ryder would find the downed plane. His gut tightened. With what waited inside that aircraft, one thing was clear—they weren’t walking into just another mountain plane crash.
And where was Sarah? He scanned the men moving between those tents and searched for her dark hair covered in that gray beanie and her flat-brown parka. The line of her shoulders, anything that he would recognize as the one person he needed to get out of this—no matter the cost.
Pressure coiled through his spine. He was accustomed to danger and facing the risk head-on, choosing to step forward, but this was different.
Then he saw her . . . she was being herded into one of the white tents.
She glanced over at the plane, and for a moment—one split second—he imagined her gaze held his, searching for hope or reassurance.
Whatever it took to get them through this.
Please, hold on to hope, Sarah. And with that thought, he knew he had to as well. Ryder wished he could find a way to use the avalanche risk to his advantage in this impossible situation, but nature held power over them all.
In the meantime, he needed to turn his focus on the best chance of getting them inside without bringing a mountain of snow down on them.
Crouching at the edge of the mound of snow, Ryder pressed a gloved hand against the ice-crusted fuselage.
He suspected the metal remained intact, buried beneath decades of compacted snow.
Over time, the plane had become part of the mountain itself, and any disturbance on their part could be catastrophic in ways none of them could imagine.
Blackspire Mountain wasn’t just any mountain.
For the last several days, the rumblings had seemed to increase, but now the mountain was silent.
Considering the avalanche threat, he should be grateful for peace and quiet.
Snow clouds veiled the summit as the flakes grew thicker and heavier, spiraling down and covering the ground, muting every sound and movement. The wind had suddenly calmed again.
All of it set his nerves on edge.
He stepped back from the fuselage to watch Smith use the compact GPR unit. While Reid hovered, watching too, Smith swept the antenna over the snow-covered shape. Ryder watched the radar screen blink, depicting the grainy cross section.
“There it is,” Smith said.
Smith tilted the device so Ryder could get a better look, as if asking for his opinion, which he gave.
“The fuselage looks intact, but again, we can’t measure the structural integrity.
It’s tilted at a sharp angle. Not sure if that means anything to you, but this thing could slide right off the rim if whatever you do here today disturbs the ice and snow that cements it in place. ”
“The large hollow chamber in center mass is right there. The cargo hold.” Smith pointed. “That’s probably where the payload is stored.”
“Get in,” Maddox said, “and head for the sealed cargo hold, then.”
“You can’t know it’s sealed,” Ryder said. “Nothing on this screen says it is.”
“It’s not collapsed,” Smith said. “If anything’s inside, it’s still intact.”
These guys assumed too much, but then again it wasn’t their skin they were risking.
Maddox wanted Ryder and Sarah to enter the plane and retrieve the vials.
What if they simply refused? Then what? But with her son’s life on the line, she would do whatever these men asked.
Ryder would be right by her side until they could figure out how to get out of this.
With God’s help.
Because Ryder had no doubt it would take a miracle. In the meantime, he had no choice but to make sure he and Sarah had the best chance of survival. He focused on the task set before him.
Get into that plane without killing anyone. “We need to find an entry point,” he said.
“The hatch looks to be just here but under the snow line.” Smith again.
Ryder glanced toward where the forward crew door should’ve been, just ahead of the wing.
With the angle of the plane’s position, the door was practically beneath the plane, buried under several feet of ice and drift, so digging there would waste precious time.
The hatch gave them the fastest shot into the fuselage.
“Then the hatch it is. Can your men dig a trench?”
Maddox got on his radio and instructed his team. Everything they did could risk shifting the fuselage in the wrong direction, then again the ice and snow were packed so solid and hard, maybe not.
Five additional men had joined the group around the plane.
It took twenty minutes of digging to clear a spot before Ryder finally lowered himself into the trench.
He knelt by the fuselage and ran his gloved hand along the iced-over metal to find what he believed was a faint seam that ran along the underside.
Smith stepped forward again, holding the coiled propane hose and a handheld torch he’d pulled from his pack earlier. Maddox had come prepared for digging this plane out of the ice, whatever it took.
Were all these men part of the CIA or simply hired by Maddox or whoever was running this operation?
Why couldn’t they have done this on their own time before Sarah ever got involved?
But he knew the answer—her grandfather and his had left them an inheritance of secrets to confirm the crash and the location, none of which had been known until he and Sarah had broken the silence.
“You need help with that?” Ryder asked.
“This will get us through the top layer,” Smith said.
Not really an answer, but Ryder stood by to assist if needed, and in the meantime, he continued to pray for a way out of this. A way that would allow them to live—to survive.
And a way for Sarah and Jeremy and Sarah’s sister-in-law to live.
But these men had already killed her brother. Ryder didn’t see how they could afford to let Ryder, Sarah, and her family live and carry this secret around, especially when Sarah’s purpose had been to expose them. Her brother had intended as much as well and look where that got him.
The focused steam of heat hissed along the packed ice and drew his attention back to the moment.
“There’s about two inches of ice over this hatch,” Smith said. “I’m going slow, but meltwater could still run down inside the wreck.
Ryder didn’t know how that could happen, and if it could, then it would mean the wreck wasn’t sealed, and if it wasn’t sealed, removing the ice could expose them all to the bioweapon—if the containment compartment hadn’t remained sealed.
This operation was much too risky. He glanced up at the tents, relieved that Sarah was inside one of them, which he assumed was kept warm.
She might be safe—at least for the moment.
He hadn’t known her long, but he knew her well enough—she was using this time to calculate their next moves while he, too, was thinking things through.
He just hoped she didn’t get them all killed.
Her son Jeremy was her kryptonite.
And both Jeremy and Sarah were Ryder’s. Ryder couldn’t let anyone else die on this mountain—not on his watch.
He’d tried to save his father that day and instead watched him fall to his death.
He pushed the morbid thoughts aside, or else they would cloud his thoughts when he had to concentrate on how to save Sarah and her son.
As long as their lives were on the line, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their safety—until the time came for them to escape.
In the meantime, he continued running through all the scenarios and all possible contingencies, formulating a plan—the same as he imagined Sarah was doing.
“I think we should get into hazmat suits before we open this up.” He should have said something to begin with.
Neither Smith nor Maddox responded, their intense focus on melting away the ice around the hatch.
Dean joined them as if he was part of the team.
Ryder wanted to throttle the man for helping Maddox.
And if he ever saw Harlan again, he wanted to rail at the man who’d helped Maddox find Ryder and Sarah at the cabin.
Harlan had been his longtime trusted friend and keeper of horses, or as Mom called Harlan, “Barn Boss.”
Dean gave him barely a nod before focusing in on the work.
“We need to dig a wider trench,” Smith said. “Widen it out and cut a three-foot buffer on either side of this so I can finish the work and we can open the hatch.”
Dean joined one of Maddox’s men, and they took to the snow with saws and shovels, cutting the required buffer on either side of the seam.
Thirty minutes passed, but it seemed like an eternity.
At the bottom of the plane, the snow and ice were thick and not easily removed—ice strata laid down year by year like the rings in a tree.
But the team was getting there, one layer at a time .
. . and Ryder once again glanced up at the cornice, surprised they hadn’t already brought it down on their heads.
Smith finally stepped back and signaled. “This is as good as we’re going to get.”
Maddox motioned one of his men forward.
Ryder took a step back. “That door isn’t going to just open so easily. Besides—”
Smith drew a handheld saw out of his pack.
“Now, hold on.” Down in the trench, Ryder stepped between Smith and the door. “We cannot open the door yet. We need hazmat suits.”
“You’re right,” Maddox said. “Get suited up. You and Sarah can be the guinea pigs.”