Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Glenn had reached the copper mine in the middle of the night and had collapsed on the floor, too exhausted to eat or drink. He woke shivering with his cheek pressed against frozen granite and frost coating his hair.
He groaned and turned over.
Trapper licked his hand, and he pushed the dog away.
He sat up and saw his daughter’s face, so white she looked like a corpse.
“Summer?”
The relief in his heart when her eyes fluttered open felt like a sledgehammer to the chest. “How’re you feeling?”
“Good, Papa.” Her voice was rough, words listless.
“Want to get up and walk around for a while?”
She struggled to push the blanket aside. He helped her to her feet. She was so weak. He’d had no idea how fragile she’d be out here. How vulnerable.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t light a fire as dawn had broken, and even though it was overcast, the risk of their pursuers seeing the smoke was too high.
The chalkiness of her nose and cheeks worried him. Frostbite was a danger, and when you weren’t moving around the way you should, it was hard to stay warm. He touched her forehead and flinched away because her skin felt like ice.
“How about some jumping jacks?” He demonstrated, fighting the heaviness of his own limbs, the fatigue in the worn-out muscles.
She smiled and then did a poor parody of the movement before she stumbled and hit the floor.
She started crying, great wails of misery.
He bundled her up in his arms and pushed her face against his chest to muffle the sound. “Hush there. Hush, baby. The bad men are close. We can’t let them hear us.”
Her nose ran and tears covered her cheeks, but she went quiet except for the wheezy exhale and a single sad hiccup.
One thing was for sure. He couldn’t wait. They had to move. Today.
A rumble shook the mountain, made the rock around him groan and shift. Knocked him to his senses. There wasn’t time to rest.
“Was that the bad guys?” Her grip on his jacket was the strongest thing he’d felt from her or seen her do since they’d left town. It gave him hope. He just needed to get her somewhere she could get warm.
“Yeah. It was. I left them a surprise to slow them down a bit, but we have to move, Summer. Can you do that? I’ll pull you on the sled. Just another couple of miles, and we’ll be in Canada. I have a friend with a house there. We’ll sleep in a real bed in front of a fire.”
Hope and fear mingled on her face. “Really?”
He nodded without meeting her gaze.
“Okay, Papa.”
“You go take care of business, then I’ll find you a protein bar to eat in the sled, ’kay, baby? You have to keep your strength up.”
She nodded and stumbled off down the tunnel.
“Don’t go far.” He hadn’t checked them out this time.
Although the door on the entrance had been shut, it didn’t mean some critter hadn’t found its way in here.
“I won’t look. Promise.” He wasn’t a fucking pervert.
He turned the sled around and poked his head out of the mine entrance.
The grenade he’d attached to a long trip line a few miles back had done what it was supposed to.
Alerted him and hopefully slowed his pursuers the fuck down.
The sky was a pearly gray that looked deceptively peaceful, but he knew a storm was brewing. Another sign from above that he was doing the right thing.
God was definitely on his side.
He heard shuffling behind him. Turned. Saw the frail figure of his daughter climb onto the sled. He picked up Trapper and put the dog in her lap, which made her smile, but Trapper was more of a heat source than a comfort.
He covered her with the blankets and put on his skis. Gritted his teeth as the straps of the sled dug into his sore hipbones. Determinedly, he dragged the heavy sled forward.
Sebastian wrapped his arms around her as if he could physically shield her from the kind of forces Mother Nature might unleash. Nora frantically scanned the area above them for any sign of impending death.
While the two of them and Cas stood paralyzed, waiting for the danger to play out, Ryan Sullivan took off in the direction from where the explosion had originated.
Where Grady and Meghan had scouted ahead.
She held on tight to Sebastian and Chance but didn’t see or feel any snow barreling toward them despite the fact the ground moved.
They were lucky. The hillside directly above them was more or less bare of snow.
She stood there in tense anticipation for about ten seconds before she let out a long sigh of relief.
North of them, where the others had been, the rush and tumble of white had taken out a swathe of the hillside and triggered another avalanche on the other side of the valley. She hoped it hadn’t hit the other squad.
Sebastian’s lips were bloodless as he asked for an update on the comms.
Grady groaned and then swore. “I lost Donnelly.” Emotion coated the words. “She got swept up. We gotta find her.”
Nora grabbed Chance’s water bowl, and they surged forward, desperate to find the missing operator while she still had a chance—assuming she wasn’t already dead.
Sebastian dug into his pocket and pulled out the satphone as he moved. “Novak. Get the thermal drone here ASAP. Explosion triggered several avalanches, and Grady says Donnelly is missing in the debris field. We’re a minute behind them.”
Nora’s heart pounded so fast she felt dizzy. When they got to the edge of the avalanche zone, she saw a white wave fanning out down the hillside, spilling out onto the bottom of the valley in a tangle of tree trunks and ice.
Ryan Sullivan was frantically digging on the other side of the slide. Grady lay on the ground near the tree line. Leg twisted. Digging where he lay.
They were calling Donnelly’s name.
“Quiet!” She yelled, and her voice echoed across the distance. “Does anyone have a scent article for her? For Donnelly?”
Sebastian glanced from her to Chance and then back. Then he undid his skis and ran across the deep uneven snow to where Grady lay. Nora followed. She let Chance off leash because it was faster this way, and every second counted if they wanted Meghan to live.
“Anything with her scent?” She asked the man who was obviously in pain.
He thought for a moment then struggled out of his backpack. “She gave me her mitts earlier. She wore liners and said she was too hot with both. It was easier to put them in my pack than her own.”
He passed Nora a black mitt. The silence was full of enough pressure to make her ears pop.
She made Chance sit then offered him a good sniff of the mitt. “Find.”
Her dog took off down the slope, zigzagging in a wide back and forth sweep that gradually narrowed. She followed him, floundering in the uneven snow but determined not to slow him down.
Chance trotted past Ryan Sullivan, who looked sick with panic. Went backward and forward over an area. Went past it and then came back again. Planted his butt on the snow and gave a bark.
“Here.”
Sebastian and Ryan were already digging away the snow like machines, and she got to her knees to help. Cas joined her.
Please, God, let them find Meghan. This snow was dense and compacted. Heavy as hell. They cleared a foot. Two, and still no sign.
She looked at her dog, and his eyes were shiny with pleasure. She kept going even as hope dwindled.
Then Ryan hit something black.
“Here!”
Her heart was in her throat as they desperately tried to unearth the rest of the female operative.
“Don’t move her neck if you can help it. Clear her airway. Let’s check if she’s breathing.”
Ryan dug like a madman. Donnelly was buried head down. Submerged and unmoving. She appeared unconscious—or dead.
Nora turned to her dog and rewarded him. “Good boy. Clever boy.” She gave him his treat and tossed him a ball. It wasn’t the time, but it was also the reward he got for doing what he was trained to do. Find people. And he’d been sadly lacking in successful finds lately.
Cas cradled the back of Donnelly’s head as Ryan dug the surrounding snow off her face.
Sebastian called on the satphone. “We need a medivac. Two injured. Grady Steel, possible broken ankle. Meghan Donnelly, unconscious and buried for approximately two minutes. Is she breathing?”
“I don’t think so,” Ryan snapped fiercely.
“Don’t move her yet.” Nora dug into Sebastian’s backpack while he was still wearing it and grabbed her first aid kit.
“Hurry.” Ryan looked ashen.
She found the inflatable cervical collar and slid it around Meghan’s neck. Fastened it. Pumped it up. “Move her carefully, and let’s ease her out of there.”
She and Ryan stabilized the head and neck, while Sebastian and Cas supported her hips and legs.
They laid her on the snow, and Nora pressed her fingers into the other woman’s neck.
A rush of relief swept through her even though it was too early to assess the full extent of Meghan’s injuries. “We have a pulse.”
Ryan cleared snow from her airway. “She’s not breathing.” He carefully tilted her chin, pinched her nose, and blew into her lungs, once, twice, three times.
Suddenly, Meghan’s eyes popped wide, and she gasped.
“Fuck!” Ryan fell back onto his heels.
“What happened? I feel as if someone ran me over with a tank.” Meghan attempted to pull off the neck brace.
“Leave it,” Sebastian barked. “That’s an order.”
Meghan slumped back and then stiffened. “Grady…”
“He’s over there.” Sebastian pointed to the man. “Missed the worst of it, but his ski got caught up and twisted his ankle. You both need medical assessment.”
Nora pulled out the Mylar survival blanket and tucked it around the female operator.
“I’m fine.” She went to sit up.
But Ryan planted his hand on her chest. “Move, and I will fucking shoot you.”
“Aw. I knew you cared.” She frowned. “I’m okay, honest. Let me up. Just a bit bruised and battered.”
“You weren’t breathing, Donnelly,” Ryan’s voice gritted out. “We thought you were dead.”
“If it hadn’t been for Nora and her dog, we wouldn’t have found you in time,” Sebastian stated baldly.