Chapter Thirty-One
CAM RACED THROUGH the woods, shoving aside low-hanging branches, leaping over fallen logs, and ignoring the need to move without sound. His heart pounded against his chest as he sprinted through the night.
Faster. He had to move faster. “She’s out here alone against a professional assassin and who knows how many of his cronies. Move it.”
“Cam.” David glanced at him as they ran side-by-side. “Get your head in the game or you’ll end up on the ME’s steel table.”
“You wouldn’t say that if Emma were the one out there against these odds.” He knew the minute he said it he was out of line. Cam held up a hand. “Sorry.”
His boss snorted. “No, you’re not.”
On his other side, Elliot said, “Look, man, we get it. At least once while we were dating our future wives, each of us was in a dangerous situation much like this one. We were called out by the others, and that yanked us back in line before something tragic happened.”
“Consider this a calling out,” David said. “So, back to business. Do you trust this Eddie kid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope you’re right, Cam. If you’re wrong, Sedona’s life is forfeit because we won’t have time to regroup. She’ll either be gone or dead.”
Cam wanted to hurl. He knew the kid wasn’t lying to him. However, that didn’t banish the tiny seed of doubt that Eddie was playing him for a fool.
But he trusted his gut. He and The Thunderhawks were alive today because he’d gone against logic and trusted his intuition.
This time was the same. Logic said the kid was in this for himself.
Cam believed the teenager told him the truth.
The markers had been in his voice and eyes, the earnestness of his expression.
Eddie hadn’t been lying or blowing smoke.
He’d bared his soul in terse sentences, giving the information to Cam as fast as possible, including Sedona’s last message.
He didn’t know what he did to deserve her love, but he’d take it and shelter her and her heart for the rest of their lives. The first step was to rescue his girlfriend. “I’m sure, sir.”
“Then let’s do it. We have an assassin to catch and a woman to save.”
Five minutes later, Cam and the others shoved their way through the thicket and stepped out into a clearing. Three hundred feet ahead of them, two men were closing in on Sedona, who stood with her back to the edge of a cliff.
Cam broke into a silent run, David step-in-step with him. Together, they sprinted, hoping, praying they reached her before it was too late.
“Lady, stop,” shouted one man, who reached out to grasp her arm.
Sedona stepped back into nothing. She gasped and attempted to shift her balance, and failed.
“No!” Cam poured every ounce of speed into his run, shoved the men aside, and dropped to his knees at the edge of the cliff.
His teammates automatically spread out. Rhys took comms. Isaac scanned the terrain.
Dario checked for secondary hazards, while Spencer marked the fall point and the safest descent line.
All normal and familiar, but this situation was anything but normal. The stakes were too high to lose.
He peered over the side and couldn’t see anything. This was the darkest part of the morning hours, just before the sun moved toward the horizon. Didn’t matter. He was going after Sedona. “Anchor team, set. Medical, prep. I’m going over.” No one would stop him.
Cam shrugged off his Go bag and retrieved his powerful flashlight.
As he searched the side of the cliff and prayed for a miracle, he ignored David and Elliot reading the Miranda rights to the two thugs.
He didn’t care what happened to those two men.
As far as he was concerned, they had forced Sedona over the cliff.
They deserved whatever happened to them.
He turned on the powerful flashlight and trained the beam on the side of the cliff where she’d fallen.
Spencer knelt beside him. “Where?”
“About where you are. You look right. I’ll look left.
Look for drag marks, broken branches, indications that she slid down the steep slope.
” Cam refocused his beam along the cliff to the left of where he was and searched the area in a grid pattern.
Panic reared its ugly head when he saw no sign of her.
Where could she be? If she was injured in the fall, every second could mean life or death.
He refused to consider that she might not have survived the fall.
“There.” Spencer pointed to a small tree growing from the cliff about one hundred feet down.
Oh, man. The tree looked as though it might give way any minute. “Sedona,” he called out. Why was she holding on with only one hand?
“Cam?”
“Yeah, Tiger, it’s me.”
“I could use a little help right now.”
“Give me a minute, and I’ll come get you. You’ve got this.”
“I won’t have this much longer,” she said tartly. “I think I sprained my wrist on the way down here. I’m holding my body weight with my left hand.”
Alarm raced through him. Sedona was right-handed. “Wrap your right arm around the tree limb, Sedona. That will help distribute your weight more evenly.” It might help her hold on a few more minutes.
“I’ll try.” A moment later, she called out, “It worked.”
Thank God.
“You still need to hurry, Cam. I can’t hold on much longer.”
“You’ll hold,” he said, voice firm and sure. “If you need to, think of that as an order.”
She laughed. “Do you think that will work?”
Dario and Isaac established a redundant anchor using a large tree with deep roots, and built a main line, Cam’s rappel rope, and a belay line, his backup safety rope. At the same time that was happening, Rhys set up the lowering system or haul system for extraction later.
While his teammates built the system, Cam put on his harness, helmet, and gloves. Forcing himself to follow the safety protocols, he checked his buckles and straps, and clipped into the main line. Spencer double-checked the device threading and knots.
The mission clock beat loudly in his ears as he tested the rope with a weighted lean.
Dario and Isaac became edge attendants and lay prone near the cliff’s edge. Their job was to manage rope friction, prevent snags, and keep visual contact with Cam during his descent.
Dario said, “Rope clear. Line’s good. You’re set, Cam.”
“Copy that.”
Cam backed toward the edge of the cliff, keeping weight on the rope. His teammates controlled the belay line from above. He went over the lip smoothly, legs braced, brake hand locked.
Despite the pounding need to get to Sedona before she fell, he moved deliberately, scanning constantly for hazards that would delay or hurt him or Sedona.
As he continued to move down the side of the cliff, Dario and Isaac fed him the rope and called out hazards.
“Loose rock below your left,” Dario snapped.
Cam adjusted the path he took to prevent kicking loose rocks that could cascade down the cliff and injure Sedona. He navigated over ledges and overhangs and maneuvered around vegetation. “I’m coming to you, Sedona. Stay still, and hang on, all right?”
Seconds later, Spencer’s voice came through the comm device in Cam’s ear. “Trauma kit, hypothermia gear, and splints are ready.”
“Copy. Hold.” He would assess Sedona’s injuries. If she needed medical help before moving her, Spencer would rappel down the cliff face. Otherwise, Spencer would treat her at the top of the cliff or at the foot.
After what seemed like forever, but was in reality only a few minutes, Cam stopped his descent beside Sedona.
“Hi,” she said, voice soft.
“Hi.” He found a comfortable stance and locked off his rappel device, then clipped into a secondary anchor so he could work with Sedona hands-free. Much as he longed to touch her, he waited until she was safe from a further fall.
Spencer’s voice came over the comm. “Rescuer stable. Proceed with the assessment.”
“Copy.” After helping her into a spare harness, Cam attached Sedona’s harness to his system and clipped her into the main rope so she couldn’t drop. “I’ve got you, Tiger,” he said. “You’re secure. There’s no way you can fall.”
She glanced down at the harness and rope, then took a deep breath and relaxed against him. “Thank you for coming to get me.” Her voice sounded choked.
He cupped her chin with his gloved hand and tilted her face up to his. “I will always come for you.”
Cam performed a rapid medical assessment. Her airway and breathing appeared normal. No major bleeding that he could see. He wasn’t a medic like Spencer, but he was trained to do the SAR neuro check. She passed with flying colors. Amazingly, her only problem appeared to be her wrist.
He tapped his comm device. “Suspected wrist fracture, Spencer.”
“Copy. On my way.”
“Rhys here, taking over comms.”
Cam took a minute to pull Sedona to him and hold her in his arms. Gratitude filled him. He could have lost her.
Seconds later, Spencer rappelled down the cliff, stopping on the other side of Sedona. “I hear you might have a broken wrist. Is it all right if I look at it?” While he examined her wrist, the medic went through a more thorough neuro field exam.
When he finished, Spencer said, “Well, I think your boyfriend is right. We won’t know for sure until we get you to the hospital and x-ray your wrist, but I’d like to put a splint on it.
Even if it’s not broken, limiting your movement will reduce the pain you’re in.
Is it okay if I put a splint on your wrist? ”
“Do whatever will make it hurt less.”
Spencer said into the comm device, “Neuro exam complete. No neuro deficits. Wrist injury suspected. I’m splinting her wrist before we move her.”
“Copy. Preparing haul system.”
The medic grabbed a vacuum splint from his mike bag and quickly splinted her wrist. “Does anything else hurt, Sedona? Don’t try to tough it out until we’re off this cliff. We don’t want to risk causing more injury by not stabilizing a sprain or a broken bone.”
“I’m hurting all over.” She gave a wry smile. “The tumble down the cliff was painful.”
“But no pain out of the ordinary?”
She shook her head.