Chapter 17 #2
“I appreciate your business,” Rocky told Spencer over the phone. They’d called the loan shark the second he and Doc had arrived back at Grover’s house. Thankfully, the man had answered right away. He’d verified the amount of money Spencer had given his contact.
“Where’s Devyn?” Lucky growled.
“Got a pen?” Rocky joked. “I’ve got the coordinates.” Then, without waiting to make sure the men were ready, he rattled them off.
Both Brain and Lefty were quickly writing the numbers down as Rocky read them off.
“If I were you, Spencer,” Rocky said congenially, “I’d find another line of work…because frankly, you aren’t a very good gambler.” Then he hung up without another word.
Spencer stood against the wall, his lips pulled into a frown, looking much older than his thirty-one years.
At the moment, Lucky didn’t care one whit about what Spencer was feeling. He was completely focused on his teammates. “Did you get it?” he asked impatiently.
“Yeah, hang on,” Brain said as he pulled his laptop in front of him and typed in the coordinates Rocky had given them. He sat back and frowned at the screen. “That can’t be right. What’d you get, Lefty?”
“The same thing,” Lefty said, looking down at his phone.
“What?” Grover barked.
Brain turned his laptop around and they all stared at it.
“Where the fuck is that?” Lucky bit out. All he could see on the screen was a huge patch of green.
Brain fiddled with the settings and the map changed. Going from a close-up to a more expansive view. Lucky moved to stand behind him. Slowly, what he was looking at registered.
“Holy shit—she’s in East Texas?”
“If the coordinates he gave us are correct, yeah,” Brain said. “The Davy Crockett National Forest. The southern section, which isn’t very popular with tourists because it’s overgrown and there aren’t many hiking trails. The campgrounds are all north of that location. It’s hillier there too.”
“Fuck,” Grover said, running a hand through his hair.
“Colonel Robinson? This is Trigger.”
Lucky turned to see his teammate talking into his phone.
“We need a chopper…I know it’s short notice…we found Grover’s sister…she’s in East Texas…yes, I understand…great, we appreciate it…No sooner? Right…How many? Okay…we’ll be ready. Thank you, sir.”
“What?” Grover asked impatiently when Trigger had hung up.
“That was the commander,” Trigger said unnecessarily. “He’s going to get with the aviation unit and set up a training exercise. We’ll have a chopper in two hours…max.”
Lucky’s heart both soared and sank at the same time. He was glad to have a helicopter at their disposal so they could get to Devyn sooner, but hated to wait even five minutes for it. Two hours would be torture.
“He has to get the paperwork turned in,” Trigger said, as if he could read Lucky’s mind.
“Get approval from the base general. He knows time is of the essence and he’s going to do everything in his power to get us off the ground even faster.
The chopper will only hold four of us,” Trigger said.
“Grover, you and Lucky are in, obviously. I think Doc should go so he can give first aid if necessary.”
“And you,” Lucky said immediately. He trusted all his teammates, but Trigger was their leader, he could get shit done if Devyn was in worse shape than they’d hoped.
Everyone else nodded in agreement.
“I’ll stay here with Spencer,” Oz said. “Look after Whiskers and Angel.”
“Me too,” Lefty agreed. “Brain can go home to be with Aspen, and if we need him, he’ll have his laptop.”
Lucky nodded, satisfied with the arrangement.
It appeared as if Spencer meant it when he’d said he wanted to help, but he still didn’t want the man running off the second he found out his sister was all right—please let Devyn be all right—and having Oz and Lefty stay at the house would assure that didn’t happen.
And Brain needed to be home with his wife.
Lucky hated that this drama was happening in the middle of what should be a happy time for his friends after the birth of their first child.
Though he also knew Brain would never just sit at home and ignore what was happening. He’d do whatever he could to help.
“We’re gonna head over to the post then,” Trigger said. “We want to be ready to head out the second the paperwork is approved.”
Lucky was never so thankful for their team leader as he was right that moment. Trigger knew exactly what to do and how to get it done.
Meanwhile, Lucky felt like a mess. All he could think about was that blue dot on the computer.
In the middle of fucking nowhere. The satellite image showed nothing but trees and more trees.
He hoped like hell the image was old, and there was a cabin…
or something. Because the alternative was unthinkable.
Bodies were dumped in forests. In the middle of nowhere, so they’d never be found.
Lucky prayed they weren’t headed out to find Devyn’s gravesite.
His teeth ground together so hard, he knew he’d have a headache later, but he refused to voice his concerns out loud. Not that he really had to. Each and every person in the room, maybe except for Spencer, knew the odds were low of finding Devyn alive.
Damn Rocky and his henchmen…Lucky would spend the rest of his life hunting the men involved, making sure they paid for their crimes. Permanently.
Looking over at Grover, Lucky could see his friend was thinking much the same thing. Their eyes met, and Grover nodded. Yeah, they were definitely on the same page.
Thinking about what Devyn might’ve gone through—was still going through—both terrified and enraged Lucky, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.
He and the others headed for the door and he picked up his pack along the way.
He had supplies for Devyn in there; he had to stay positive and believe that she’d need them.
Anything else literally made him feel sick.
Devyn was tired. She kept going in and out of consciousness. She wanted to stay alert, just in case, but the entire time she’d been chained to this damn tree, she hadn’t heard or seen anything that might help her escape.
She started counting down from five thousand again, hoping it would keep her awake.
She got to three thousand two hundred and eighteen when she thought she heard something. Looking up past the leaves on the tree, she couldn’t see a thing—but the sound of an engine got louder. Then she heard a whomp whomp whomp.
The unmistakable sound of a helicopter.
It wasn’t very close, but her heart still leaped in excitement.
“I’m here!” she screamed. She couldn’t stand up and wave her arms. She couldn’t light a signal fire. And Devyn knew there wasn’t a chance in hell anyone in a helicopter or low-flying aircraft would be able to see her through the trees, but she still yelled and carried on as if they could.
Her head was on a swivel, trying to spot the chopper, but she had no luck. Within moments, the sound got softer, until she couldn’t hear it anymore.
“No!” she wailed. “I’m here!” she cried. “Right here. Please don’t leave me!”
But it was no use. The forest was silent once more, the damn birds resuming their chirping and flying around above her head, mocking her with their freedom of movement.
Devyn didn’t have any extra liquid in her body to cry, so she closed her eyes and forgot about trying to stay awake. What was the use? She was going to die out here. Alone and afraid.
She had so many regrets. The biggest was, she’d never get to have a life with Lucky. She knew, deep down, that he would’ve made the best partner. Supportive and generous. It wasn’t fair that she’d found him, only to lose him before they had a chance to really start their lives together.
“We can’t land near the drop zone,” the pilot said through the headphones.
Lucky’s eyes were glued to the terrain. He couldn’t see past the leaves to the ground below.
He was holding a GPS and knew they were about a mile from the DZ, the coordinates they’d been given for where Devyn was located.
The pilot had flown in a large circle around their destination and was lining up the chopper to land as close as he could get to Devyn.
“This is gonna be tricky,” the copilot chimed in.
Tricky was an understatement. There were trees and hills everywhere.
The pilot was literally putting them down on top of an outcropping of rocks.
All around them were tall trees, any one of which could snag the rotor blades and send the helicopter hurtling to the ground.
They’d considered rappelling down and using a rescue basket to get Devyn back into the chopper after they found her, but the forest was just too damn dense.
The pilot swore that while landing would be tricky, he could do it.
But Lucky wasn’t thinking about that. The Nightstalker pilots were some of the best in the Army. If anyone could get them on the ground safely, it was these guys.
Lucky strapped his pack on and prepared to climb out of the chopper so he could get to Devyn. Every second that passed was one more second she could be in pain and suffering.
Looking over, he saw Doc had his medical pack on his back as well, and Trigger and Grover were just as ready to head out.
The chopper rolled a bit and the blades kicked up dust and wind as it neared the ground.
The second the landing skids bumped on the rocks, Lucky had the door open and was moving.
His teammates were on his six, then they were jogging through the forest. No one said a word, each focused on their mission.
The underbrush was thick and it was a challenge to get through in places, but the four men never slowed.
Lucky heard the pilots talking through the radio in his ear, but he tuned them out.
Trigger would update them as to their progress, as soon as they reached Devyn.