Winter Hawk

by Rachel Grant

  His face was swollen. He’d taken several blows in addition to the gash on his temple that bled profusely. She dropped to her knees at his side. She had no choice but to holster the pistol to check his vital signs.

  His pulse was solid even though his breathing was shallow. It was likely a blessing that he was unconscious, because if he were awake she’d bet his head would hurt like a sonofabitch.

  What to do? Whoever had done this to him could return. But if she left him here, unconscious, vulnerable, he could die. No. Would die. There were too many scavengers and predators in the area to believe he could survive, bleeding, unconscious, and alone.

  But then, he could be the villain in this. Drug dealer. Poacher. Criminal on the run. This could be his just reward. She searched his pockets for a wallet with ID, but came up empty. His clothing didn’t argue for poacher. His clothing—business casual slacks and a blood-saturated button-down shirt—didn’t belong in these woods at all.

  She checked his mouth, looking for rotting teeth, signs of drug use, anything that would indicate she had something to fear from helping him. But his teeth’s perfect alignment could only be attributed to orthodontia. Bright white and nary a silver filling.

  She opened his shirt, searching for other causes for his blood-soaked clothing besides the gash on his temple. All she found was hard muscle. Whoever this man was, he took good care of himself.

  Given his build, in spite of his city clothes, he could be a Raptor operative who’d strayed from the compound. That thought had her considering leaving him. The bears and wolves could have him. Or whoever had done this to him could come back and finish the job.

  She shook her head, knowing her thoughts were unfair. Not all the operatives on the Raptor compound were rotten. She got along with most of them and was even drinking buddies with Nicole. But she knew without a doubt a few operatives were up to no good, and she had a serious problem with their boss. But then, it was hard to have kind feelings for the person who might have covered up her brother’s murder, especially when yesterday would have been that brother’s thirty-fourth birthday.

  She had to assume, given this guy’s condition, he could be one of the operatives involved in dirty deals. The fact that she didn’t recognize him only made him more suspicious.

  She stood and slowly turned in a circle, scanning the woods. What should she do?

  It was a five-mile hike—at least half of that uphill—to her truck. No way could she carry an unconscious man that far. Hell, there was no way she could carry him thirty feet.

  She pulled out her first aid kit and dropped to his side again. She’d tend the head wound while she decided what to do. Using precious water from her water bottle, she dampened a pack towel and cleaned the gash on his temple. Given the blood, bruises, and welts, she’d have trouble recognizing him even if he were a regular at the Roadhouse, but she was fairly certain she’d never seen him in town, nor was he one of the operatives she’d met when she’d interrupted the live-fire training exercise and been arrested.

  Her hands shook as she cleaned the gash, and she paused to steady her breathing and get the trembling under control. She scanned the woods, wondering if this man’s attackers lurked nearby. Every instinct said to flee, but she couldn’t abandon him.

  He couldn’t be a soldier attending a Raptor training, because after months of effort, she’d successfully gotten the government to shut down the compound’s military training program while they investigated the company’s safety measures. The weekly influx of soldiers had halted two months ago. But still, to be certain, she checked for dog tags and confirmed he wasn’t wearing any.

  Breathing under control, she swabbed his cut with alcohol again and applied antibiotic ointment. She closed the gash with three butterfly bandages.

  Unless he had internal injuries she wasn’t aware of, he’d probably be okay—as long as he wasn’t left to die unconscious and alone.

  She considered her options. She had plenty of parachute cord and a small but sturdy tarp in her backpack. With long, strong branches, she could build a travois-type stretcher and drag him to shelter.

  But still…five miles, much of it uphill. She closed her eyes, thinking of the surrounding area. After surveying this parcel of woods for the last four days, she knew this section of forest. Where could she take him?

  There were a few very old caches, but she could no more haul him up into a cache than drag him five miles to her truck. However…Raptor land abutted the state forest about a half mile away.

  She pulled out her USGS quadrangle map of the survey area and studied it. She’d checked the state database for historic and prehistoric sites on Raptor land as part of her search for Vincent’s cave and had recorded all known sites—of which there were pathetic few—on her field maps, including this quad.

  According to her map, there was a 1906 settler’s cabin about a mile away.

  She’d never been to that part of the compound; the closest she’d come was about a mile west. She couldn’t be certain the cabin was still there, but she’d managed to find a few previously recorded sites in the parts of the compound she had explored, giving her hope that the historic cabin would also be extant.

  After the live-fire training incident, the company CEO, Alec Ravissant, had acquired a restraining order to prevent her from stepping on Raptor land. But surely she wouldn’t get in trouble for bringing an injured Raptor operative to the cabin, especially if the action saved his life? Of course, she couldn’t admit how she knew the cabin existed, but she’d deal with that little problem if the time came.

  But what if this man’s attackers were in the cabin?

  She didn’t really have a choice. The cabin was his best hope. There was no cell coverage out here, and satellite phones were so horrifically expensive, she couldn’t afford one. The hike to her truck plus the drive to where she could get a signal would take more than two hours. Help, in the form of emergency responders, would take another two hours to return. She had a feeling this guy didn’t have that sort of time. Especially given his head wound and the evening wind, which was just beginning to kick up.

  She dropped her hand to the gun at her hip. If there were men in the cabin, she wouldn’t be helpless.

  Before she could drag him a mile, she needed a travois. She set to work building it. Because she had a tarp, she didn’t need most of the crosspieces; she could get by with one near the top and one at the bottom.

  First, she used her knife to strip two six-foot-long branches, then she rolled the prepared branches into the opposite sides of the tarp at an angle, so it flared out, making it wider at the bottom, like a traditional travois. With the parachute cord, she lashed a short crosspiece to the top and a much longer one at the bottom, stretching the tarp tight in both places. The process took far too long for her peace of mind, but in the end she’d created something between a travois and a litter and could only pray the contraption would work.

  She muttered an apology to the unconscious man as she rolled him onto the makeshift stretcher and strapped him between the poles using more rope, running it under his arms and over his shoulders. It would pinch and probably hurt like hell, but it was better than being left for dead, so he’d have to forgive her.

  The man didn’t make a sound, which increased her anxiety over his condition. With one last check of his pulse—still strong, thank goodness—she picked up the end of the travois and dragged him the first few steps.

  Holy hell, he was heavy. She adjusted her grip and pulled another few feet, then stopped. She’d positioned him too high on the tarp, forcing her to lift too much of his weight. The poles should act as sled runners of sorts, but couldn’t at the current angle.

  She set him down and adjusted his position, lowering him until his legs hung off the tarp and the travois only supported his head down to his hips. Good thing he was unconscious, because he was about to be dragged across a whole lot of rocky ground, with nothing but a pair of cotton slacks to protect his skin.

&nbs
p; After a hundred yards, she hit a snag. His sleeve had caught on a root because his arms dragged on either side of the tarp. With a short piece of cord, she secured both hands to his hips, running the thin rope through his belt loops instead of winding it around the travois and potentially causing even more hitches.

  She stopped to rest often and quickly ran out of water. At least she could refill her water bottle from a stream indicated on the map—please let it still be running this late in the summer—and she had plenty of purification tablets. The aching, miserable, difficult, one-mile trek took two hours, but at last she reached the small meadow and spotted the cabin twenty yards away.

  She paused on the edge of the woods. She was an archaeologist, not a police officer or Raptor operative. How should she handle this? Scout the cabin first with her gun drawn? Or was she more likely to get shot if she crossed the meadow obviously carrying a gun?

  She decided to leave the gun in her holster and walk up to the cabin casually—a curious trespasser, not a suspicious vigilante.

  The cabin was empty, and, given her difficulty in opening the door on rusted hinges, it had been for some time. But still, it had a floor—even if wavy, uneven, and soft—and a roof. One window held intact glass, but the other was broken. The single room was completely bare except for a stone fireplace on the back wall, and the hearth appeared sound. If she needed to, she could build a fire.

  Most important, a crystal-clear mountain stream flowed ten yards away.

  Shelter and water would get her and the injured man through the coming cold night.

  She always carried the ten essentials and then some in her pack, so she had emergency rations to see her through the next twenty-four hours. Of course, if the man woke and was hungry, she’d run out of food much sooner. But then, if he woke, he could walk his own sorry ass out of the woods.

  She settled him on the wooden floor in front of the hearth, still strapped to the travois, then went to the stream to refill her water bottle. She splashed the chilly water on her face, overheated from the exertion of dragging a two-hundred-plus-pound man nearly a mile across hilly terrain.

  Her shoulders burned, her knees ached, and her head throbbed with dehydration. She dropped a purification tablet into her water bottle but only waited a minute of the required thirty for the purification to take effect. She’d take her chances.

  The water was crisp, cold, and tasted like iodine, but it was still the most refreshing drink she’d had in forever.

  It was now after eight, long past the time she should have called the office to let them know she’d completed her survey for the day. Would anyone notice she’d failed to call in? Would anyone in the DNR office care if they did notice?

  She pulled out her phone and typed out a quick text message. It failed to send; not enough signal. She’d expected that but knew there were places on the compound where the signal was too weak for voice calls, but texts still went through. She believed Vincent’s last text message had been sent from such a place. For that reason, she always sent herself a text when she managed to stray onto a new area of Raptor land.

  A noise in the woods—a stick cracking as if it had been stepped on?—startled her. She set down her phone and reached for the bear spray.

  What the hell was she doing? The wind was kicking up as evening settled in, and she was stuck in the woods in one of the most remote forests in the United States. Worse, she was trespassing on the primary training ground of a paramilitary mercenary organization—which happened to be the one place on earth she was forbidden by court order from entering—and she had an injured stranger to watch over. Her first aid skills were rudimentary at best, and she didn’t even know if the man was worth saving.

  She studied the woods beyond the stream. Porcupine, wolf, caribou, bear, or any of a dozen other animals could have caused the sound. But there was also the chance it was a human predator.

  It was a few weeks before the fall equinox, so even though the sun would set in a few hours, it wouldn’t get completely dark, which meant if she built a fire in the hearth—and a clogged chimney didn’t smoke them out—the smoke would be visible to anyone searching the area.

  Which meant she couldn’t build a fire for warmth, no matter how cold it got.

  She toyed with the idea of leaving the man here and going straight to her truck. By herself, she could make it in two and a half hours. Three at most.

  Isabel tucked her water bottle into the side pocket of her pack and stood with the bear spray still in her hand. Her knees wobbled, weak from the exertion of dragging the man through the woods. No way could she hike another six miles tonight. She’d go back inside the cabin, get out of the chill wind, check on the man, and rest for a few hours. She needed sleep. When her brain was clear and her head didn’t throb so much, she’d be able to figure out what to do.

  * * *

  It had taken all of Alec’s will to feign unconsciousness when he first came to as he was being dragged across jagged ground. His head hurt like hell, and he couldn’t open one eye.

  Who was pulling him? Where were they taking him?

  How had he gotten here to begin with?

  He thought back, trying to remember. He wasn’t in Maryland. He’d gone on a business trip. Not for the campaign. It was Raptor business.

  Where?

  Not Hawaii.

  Alaska. Yeah. Alaska. He peeked through one slitted eye and glimpsed a blurry forest canopy.

  Definitely Alaska.

  The compound was set to reopen. Next week.

  That’s right, I’m here to oversee the first training.

  How long had he been here?

  One day.

  Had he even gone to the compound yet?

  He didn’t remember being there. He’d had a meeting scheduled, a one-on-one with Nicole, followed by a meeting with Falcon Team.

  He remembered arriving in Fairbanks and driving south. And…that was it. Nothing after that. One moment he was driving, the next he was here, being dragged through the woods, none too gently.

  His captor stopped at several points, but he didn’t dare open his good eye when he was lowered to the ground. His one advantage was the fact that his captor had no clue he was conscious. It slowly dawned on him that his abductor was a woman, identifying the grunts and groans and curses as she struggled to haul his deadweight as that of a woman’s voice.

  What the hell?

  Why was a woman hauling him through the woods? Why had she attacked him to begin with?

  How had she attacked him?

  The throbbing in his head told him whatever she’d done, it had been effective.

  Tied down and being dragged, this wasn’t the time for him to make a move. He’d wait, bide his time. Strike when just the thought of moving didn’t make him want to vomit.

  At last she dropped him inside a small, ancient, rotting cabin, and stepped outside. Once he was certain he was alone, he gingerly moved his arms and legs. No problem there. He turned his head. The room swam and nausea rose, but he could do it.

  He felt at the ropes. He was tied to a tarp on a tree-branch frame. Clever. But she’d made a mistake. His hands, while bound, weren’t immobilized. It didn’t take much effort for him to slide free of the binding at his belt and work the knots that secured him to the travois until he’d freed himself.

  Slowly, he rose, his balance wobbly, like a damn newborn colt, but again, he could do it.

  “You sonofabitch! You made me drag you a mile when you could walk the whole time?”

  Dammit! He’d been so focused on getting upright, he hadn’t heard her approach. His Ranger buddies would laugh their asses off over this screwup.

  To hell with the throbbing in his head. This wasn’t a time to hesitate. This was a time to fight through the nausea and pain. He lunged for her, grabbing her by the throat.

  It didn’t matter that she was a woman. No room for mercy given what she’d done to him.

  She screamed, but the sound cut off as his grip tightened
.

  Blinding pain seared his good eye. His lungs burned. Then she landed a blow to his nuts. He released her, falling backward.

  He doubled over and tried not to puke.

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  Acknowledgments

  This book wouldn’t have been possible without plotting help and support from Serena Bell and Gwen Hayes. Both authors also provided beta reads, for which I am eternally grateful.

  Thank you also to Gwen Hernandez and Toni Anderson for their valuable feedback after beta reading an early draft.

  Thank you to the man who shared his experiences as a driver assigned to pick up and deliver people home after they’ve been fired, inspiring this story.

  Thank you to my children, because you make my world a joyful place. And thank you, as always, to my husband, for continuously showing me what happily ever after means.

  Copyright © 2019 Rachel Grant

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  All rights reserved.

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  ISBN-13: 9781944571283

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  Copyediting by Linda Ingmanson

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  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

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  All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.