Chapter Twelve
Gabriel
Gabriel stood under the field tent set up that served as the Emergency Management TOC—tactical operations center.
Sitting on a folding metal chair, he watched as teams came in from their task assignment, looking tired.
They were handing in their GPS systems so the information could be fed into the computer.
Every step the team took on that mountainside was recorded, so the managers would know exactly where someone had walked and where the holes remained.
“They have a lot of teams out tonight?” Gabriel asked.
“They had a full call-out for the area searchers,” Reaper said.
“They’ve come in from all over the tri-state area.
Others are still coming in to relieve those who were up all night searching.
Because these are kids, they put out a call for local volunteers, too.
They have a bunch of hiking clubs who know the trails doing the hasties – the quick searches along the marked trails.
That frees up the trained searchers to work through the leaf litter between.
They told me they had their manhunters—the tracking team that follows footprints—out.
But with the light weight of the children, the bare feet on dry soil—I checked it out when we drove up—I don’t think there’ll be anything for them to look at.
The trackers will hang out and link up with a team if the searchers think they found something useful.
” Reaper focused down on Whiskey with her attention on everything going on around her.
“But since they called for Whiskey, I think they’re getting to the edge of hopeful and started looking around for another tool. ”
“I’ve been called a tool a time or two. It’s never been a pleasant conversation after that,” Gabriel said without any weight in his words.
An area map was on the portable screen behind the manager’s table.
There, Gabriel could see the new data populating. This team had walked a grid—out and back and back and out and back—in a tight formation, meaning almost every inch of that task area had been searched.
And yet, when the coordinator asked the team leader his confidence level that they searched that area completely, he said 47%.
It was dark; the fog blanketed the ground, rising to about chest level. It would burn off soon. But the sky was already starting to take on some color. The moon, full and bright, rested on the treetops in the west.
Gabriel stood off to the side with Whiskey between his boots, a long lead folded accordion style in his palm. With the papers signed, they were waiting for an escort up to the trailer. They were in line of sight, but the area had been cordoned off, and only specific people were allowed to approach.
With a nod from a man who looked like he’d spent his whole life bivouacking on the side of the mountain, Reaper started off, and Gabriel trailed behind.
He’d be fine coming along and observing.
This was two kids’ lives on the line. It wasn’t a good time for him to get his feet wet.
Reaper should hold the lead.
Gabriel looked down to see how Whiskey was doing. She, at least, had gotten plenty of sleep, and she looked as bouncy and enthusiastic as he’d ever seen her.
As his boots crunched over the gravel drive, Gabriel took in the row of old tires, painted white and filled with dirt.
Someone must have scattered some seeds, because they were starting to sprout green shoots.
It looked like those might be Gabriel’s mom’s favorite zinnias.
They’d be bright and pretty, hardy under a hot summer sun, a welcome to someone coming home.
Reaper said they’d moved the parents off to a tent where someone would be there to provide support, either the police officer who could answer their technical questions or maybe a social worker. They’d be able to have a few family and friends there, along with any clergy.
This was the kind of night when people reached for the hand of something higher, when prayers were thick with desperation. He’d had those nights towards the end of Daniel’s life. He wasn’t praying for a cure; he wanted his brother’s suffering to be over with.
Gabriel was glad that the parents wouldn’t be at the trailer.
He didn’t want to have to look in the mother’s eyes, to see her assess Whiskey and to focus her hope on their little team.
That was a heavy load to carry. Gabriel would stand there if he had to, but it was better for his energy to be fully focused on accomplishing this task, even though he had no idea how to go about it.
It was a steep mountain and equally steep learning curve—time to pull up his Ranger mojo.
The emergency manager who escorted them to the yard nodded at the officers on guard, then he turned and headed back toward the TOC.
The officer grinned at Reaper. “I recognized you right away, Reaper Hamilton, isn’t it?” He extended his hand for a shake.
Reaper turned with an open hand. “This is Whiskey’s owner, Gabriel Atworth.”
“Thanks for coming up.” As the officer shook Gabriel’s hand, he looked down at Whiskey. “I sure wish I could pet you, good girl. But you’re working. And I know the rules.”
“You have the scents ready?” Reaper asked as his gaze methodically took in the area.
Gabriel wondered how a search assessment differed from his training in hot zones. He’d ask Reaper when it didn’t interfere with their task.
The officer pushed the screen door wide, reached into the trailer, and came back with two gallon-sized self-sealing bags; each contained an article of clothing.
That was interesting, Gabriel thought. He wondered how they handled two different scents at once.
Pick one kid’s shirt, and that might be the weaker scent.
Give Whiskey both, and what does he do if they go in opposite directions and they’re no longer together?
One wandered off, and the other went looking, but their paths diverged.
Whiskey’s gaze was locked on those bags.
She was already on task. Professional as hell. Regal even in the drooping sadness of her face.
“The mom thinks the kids went out the patio door. It was the one she found open.” He pointed at the other end of the trailer where empty plastic flowerpots surrounded a little wooden stoop. “I’m going to check that you’re cleared to go. I’ll be back with a signal.”
After the officer turned the corner, Gabriel followed Reaper to the door.
His job with the FBI had provided him with too many pictures to geolocate that were set up similarly to this.
His expertise lay in examining still images and finding the clues.
That was his mindset. “No one’s considering a crime? ” he asked.
Reaper turned to him. “Let me frame our roles for you. We’re going to stay on task.
Our job is to follow the scent. What that scent will reveal is something we will handle at the other end of this search.
If we’re looking for lost children or if we’re looking for a bad guy that took the children, it doesn’t change how our team approaches the situation. ”
“Is that true for all the teams out here tonight?”
“No. But when you’re with Whiskey, the only thing you do is keep Whiskey safe while she works. Is your gun in reach?”
Gabriel pushed his hand behind his chest bag to pull out the grip of his gun enough for Reaper to see, then he tucked it back away.
“Okay, good. Questions while we wait for the go-ahead?”
“One scent or two?”
“This doesn’t matter.” Reaper held up the two separate bags.
“Their clothes are washed in the same soap and put through the same machine. They play together and sleep in the same bed. Whichever scent I put under Whiskey’s nose, she’s going to smell both kids at the same time.
Funny story: once Cerberus sent a female volunteer out into the woods to be our lost person during a nighttime training evolution.
A search dog found her, leaped over her, dragging a happy tongue across her face, and disappeared.
It happened over and over again. Then this lady heard the searchers in the woods.
They couldn’t have been twenty yards away.
She said they were having snacks and a rest. She was cold and tired and wanted the off-road vehicle to come pick her up so she could go back to the campfire and have her own snack.
She was told not to have anything but water on her because she was alone in the woods and there were bears in the area and she’d been out there for hours. ”
“Brave.”
“And hungry. There she lay as the dog came back again and again and again. And she didn’t understand why the dog hadn’t gone back to signal the find. She could hear that the dog wasn’t signaling the find because of what the handler was saying.”
“Finally, she called out?” Gabriel asked as a squad car pulled in and the security officer went over to talk through the guy’s window.
“Finally, the searchers crossed her path. The K9 trainer was upset that the dog hadn’t found the lady first. The woman explained how many times the dog had come by to check on her.
So many times that she had time to figure it out.
Her husband was on that search team, walking with the dog.
Their clothes had the same water, same soap, same dryer smells.
They used the same soap, same shampoo, and they’d hugged and kissed before she’d gone off in the woods. ”
“The dog thought they were the same person?” Gabriel asked.
“Part of the team. I’m making an educated guess here, but when we go out as Cerberus, we’re in uniform.
The men often prep at Headquarters, same laundry, same shower soap.
The dogs recognize the team members and discount them.
They’re not looking for a searcher. They’re looking for someone who’s lost.”
“Brilliant.”
“Sure enough, the team leader reported that the dog had gone back and sniffed the husband over not once but twice.” Reaper crossed his arms over his chest and looked around as the security officer approached.
“That K9 showed a flaw that hadn’t been considered previously, and they developed a policy that a family member or roommate couldn’t go out with the dog teams. If they wanted to help on the search, they had to be on one of the walking teams.” Reaper nudged Gabriel.
“That’s them giving us the thumbs up. Ready? ”
“I think I should watch and learn.” Gabriel stretched the lead toward Reaper. “Kids’ lives on the line. This isn’t the time for me to mess things up.”
“Besides the poor choice of extra fragrant tick spray, you’ll do fine. Whiskey knows what she’s doing.” Reaper squatted with both bags in his hands, opened them one by one, and held them out together. “Whiskey, scent.”
Whiskey stuck her nose in each bag.
Her nose went up in the air, down to the ground, over to the door, up into the air, and that’s when something caught and shifted.
There was a time when he was in the pool swimming against his fellow recruits, hoping to earn a place in the Ranger lineup.
Everything had been smooth and effortless.
So effortless, in fact, that he stuck his head up to see how far back he’d fallen from the pack.
There wasn’t a single swimmer visible. And he thought they’d all hit the wall, tucked and rolled, and had passed him going in the other direction, swimming the two lengths of the Olympic-sized pool.
He was so far behind that he thought he’d bombed the trial.
He wasn’t going to make it, but he decided to push a little harder anyway.
He was cutting through the water with a sense of peace and the absolute perfection and ease of being there.
That swim was meditative, hypnotic, otherworldly.
This, Gabriel had thought, is what people might call bliss.
Only when he touched the wall did he realize that he’d swum the entire race. And he came in first by a long shot.
He set a record for that swim.
He’d never been able to replicate that feeling.
From Whiskey’s posture and the look in her eyes, Gabriel thought that Whiskey had mastered the ability to enter the Zen state of “search.”
Whiskey was off, her short legs moving faster than Gabriel had been ready for.
“Let the line loose,” Reaper said. “You don’t want to stop her. That line isn’t to keep her near you. It’s so you don’t lose sight of her. It’s on us to keep up.”
Reaper fell in with Gabriel as he picked up his pace to do his duty, keeping a slack line.
“Even though Whiskey’s going to set the pace, you still need to pace yourself,” Reaper counseled.
“She can go all day and night once her nose lights up that way. It’s on us to make sure that she takes breaks.
Every forty-five minutes, we’ll rest for fifteen. ”
“At this rate, do you think we’ll be out here for that long?” They were kids. How far off could they be?
Whiskey had stopped and was sniffing around a rusted tool shed.
“From the way she’s sniffing,” Reaper said. “She’s checking out the scents. Possibly the kids stopped here or played here recently. Some of the volunteers probably already cleared this point. I’m going to look over every nook and cranny. But she’s—”
Whiskey trotted to the back of the shed, then moved into the woods.
“—not looking like she’s very interested,” Reaper concluded. “I’m going to stop and check this out. I’ll catch up. I have her on my radio tracker. As long as she’s in line of sight, we’re good.”
Gabriel raised a hand to indicate he’d heard and understood, but Whiskey was moving at a fair clip, and the terrain needed his attention.
A twisted ankle out here, and he’d require assistance, pulling searchers off their tasks to save his sorry ass.
He decided right then that no matter how far out they got, he’d crawl back to the vehicle rather than take any eyes off saving the kids.
Could the kids have survived the night in only pajamas?
Even though he could see his breath, his exertion was making him warm in his jacket. Unzipping and pulling his arms out, he left it trapped between his back and pack. He’d put it away at their first rest stop.
Gabriel remembered the many nights he and his fellow Rangers had survived the drastic dips in temperature that happen in the desert, where there’s no vegetation to hold the heat to the ground. They’d spooned under their woobies—the warm liners that attached to their ponchos—to help keep them warm.
A woobie could only do so much. Shared body heat plus woobie made things survivable.
So that there were two kids in the woods, it might be better than one.
On the way up to the Sweet Gum—so named for the tree and not a candy—Reaper had said that kids under seven had almost a 100% chance of surviving if they were found within the first 24 hours.
But anything more than twenty-four hours dropped their survival to around thirty-five percent.
Statistics were about zero after seventy-two hours.
Whiskey, I believe in you. You’ve got this.