Chapter 17 #3
“Kayden, I want you to put the chopper down well away from the cave,” Sapphire said, her voice clipped through the headset. “I don’t want Frank or Bob knowing we’re coming. We can’t have them taking off again.”
“How far out are we talking?” I asked. “Because they’ll hear us coming from a fair distance.”
“How far can a chopper be heard out here?”
“In the Outback? With no background noise?” I glanced at the empty landscape below. “Three, maybe four miles. Could be more.”
Sapphire swore under her breath. “So even two miles out, they’d hear us.”
“Yeah, they would. But I can drop down on the far side of that ridge,” I said, pointing ahead to a line of rocky hills. “The terrain will muffle the sound. Hopefully, they won’t hear us.”
Cassidy pulled binoculars from her pack, handed pairs to Sapphire and Mitch, and kept one for herself.
“How far would that put us from the cave?” Sapphire asked.
“Five miles, give or take,” I said. “We’ll have to hoof it, but it’s doable.”
Sapphire nodded. “Better safe than sorry. Five miles, it is. So, what can you remember about the cave, Cassidy?”
“Not much. But I do remember it’s easy to miss.”
“How so?”
“There are lots of massive boulders around that area. The entrance is hidden somewhere between two of them. Or maybe it’s behind scrub.
I didn’t pay much attention at the time.
” Cassidy leaned forward, squinting through the windshield.
“We’re coming up on the ridgeline now. See up ahead?
That’s The Narrows. We’ll need to put down on the far side. ”
I scanned the terrain, looking for a suitable landing spot. The ridge stretched out like a jagged spine, all rocky outcrops and scattered vegetation.
Sapphire raised the binoculars, sweeping slowly across the landscape. For a few seconds, there was nothing but the steady thump of the rotors and static crackle in our headsets.
“Shit. Look at that.” Sapphire pointed to our three o’clock.
I squinted in that direction while Cassidy and Mitch brought up their binoculars.
“Is that a car?” Cassidy asked.
“Was a car,” Mitch corrected. “Looks like someone rolled it off that cliff.”
I caught sight of the twisted metal glinting in the sun, crumpled at the bottom of a steep embankment. “That’s a sedan. Who the hell brings a car like that out here?”
“Someone desperate,” Sapphire said. “Or someone who didn’t have a choice.” She lowered the binoculars. “Okay. We’re definitely in the right place. Take us down, Kayden.”
I brought the chopper down in a flat stretch of scrub. The rotors kicked up a cloud of red dust that hung in the still morning air as we touched down. We climbed out, grabbed our packs, and started moving.
The terrain was brutal. Spinifex grabbed at our boots, loose rocks turned under our feet, and steep gullies forced us to scramble up and slide down. The sun climbed fast, and the heat built with it, pressing down like a weight.
My arm throbbed with every jarring step, and my ribs reminded me of just how hard Comet could kick.
Sapphire set a cracking pace that surprised the hell out of me, her boots eating up ground like she did this every day.
Mitch kept up without complaint, his weathered face set in concentration.
Cassidy led from the front, pausing occasionally to check we were still going the right way.
Every mile was a near repeat of the last. Gnarly trees, red earth, jagged rocks.
Only the angle of the ridge line ahead changed, getting higher as we approached.
We pushed through knee-high scrub and skirted around massive termite mounds taller and wider than me.
The landscape was all burnt-orange earth and gray-green scrub, broken by clusters of ghost gums. Their pale peeling bark gave us no shade worth a damn.
Luckily, we’d brought water bottles with us, because this area was dry as hell, just heat, flies, and the sound of our boots crunching over dry ground.
By the time we stopped at the top of a ridge, the sun was a goddamned fireball, but the elevation gave us a clear view for at least twenty miles.
We dropped to our stomachs in a line. I crawled in next to Sapphire, close enough to hear her breathing hard, the first sign that she was actually pushing herself.
We all pulled out our binoculars.
“There.” Cassidy pointed. “See that outcrop? The gum tree with the split trunk? The cave’s just below it.”
I scanned the area through my binoculars. Massive boulders littered the slope like a giant’s playground, some as big as my truck. Thick mulga and acacia scrub grew between them, creating natural screens. There were no tracks, no disturbed earth, and no signs that humans had been anywhere near here.
“You sure this is the place?” I asked.
“Hold on,” Mitch said, his voice tight. “Movement. Behind that boulder on the left. The tall one shaped like a fang.”
I swung my binoculars over. For a second, I saw nothing. Then I had him. A figure crouched low, partially hidden. The glint of metal caught the light. “That asshole has a shotgun,” I said.
“Who is it?” Sapphire asked.
Mitch adjusted his focus. “Son of a bitch. That’s Lyle Henderson.”
My stomach dropped. “Bloody hell. Is he here to finish what his brothers started?”
Sapphire sucked in a breath. “There’s Bob. Six o’clock from Lyle. Behind that big flat boulder that’s leaning against the cliff face.”
I swung my binoculars right. Bob was pressed against the rock, his service weapon drawn and held low.
“What the hell is Lyle doing?” Cassidy hissed.
“Shit,” I muttered, watching Bob shift his position, his gun still ready. “I know what he’s not doing. He’s not planning on a friendly chat with Frank.”