She added a flashlight and four chemical light sticks to the pile, then a tarp, two space blankets, a spiral of climbing rope, a bag of climbing paraphernalia, two ponchos, a pair of gloves, and sunscreen.
“You seem prepared,” Mac commented.
She said nothing and added a thermal cap and two pairs of wool socks and a couple packets of chemical hand warmers.
“Were you planning on crashing?”
She stopped, and he instinctively braced himself. “Yeah, absolutely because I think it is oh so fun to be out here, my friend seriously injured, the responsibility of six people on my shoulders. I do it for kicks—take passengers out with the promise to get them to their destination safely, and then I purposely crash the plane. Actually I’m writing a book on psychological responses to stress. Consider yourself a test subject.”
“Sorry . . . I was joking.”
“Not funny. We’re in a world of trouble here, Mr. McRae, and my one thought is making sure no one dies. So, please, help or get out of the way.”
“You’re not in the least interested in anyone else’s ideas? On what we should do to get out of here?”
She actually frowned at him, an expression of confusion that he would have thought funny if she wasn’t so serious. “Yeah, sure. This is a committee. What do you think we should do, McRae? Fish? Hike? Maybe sing camp songs?”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. I just thought maybe we could talk about what we need to do.”
“We will—after we figure out how bad the situation is.” She sighed, and he saw her shoulders sag a little. “I’m sorry, McRae. I know you’re trying to help. Right now, just sit down and try to stay warm. I promise I’ll take care of you.”
Whoa. No one had ever said that to him before with such seriousness. He felt like a first-grader, outside in his shirtsleeves during a fire drill. Everything inside him simply stilled, confused. He’d never not taken charge, and he didn’t do helpless. Never had.
Still, he could see stress shimmer off this woman, and while he’d had his doubts about her abilities, she did appear to have her wits about her, even if she did wear her prickly side out. Besides, he was on vacation, not responsible for anyone, right?
“Call me if you need me.” He sat beside her, watching, wrestling with his ego. He had nothing to prove to anyone.
She pulled out a canister of water, four survival bars, a packet of coffee, a pot, a ministove, and a metal canister with what he assumed held camp gas. She sat back, her hands on her legs. “Oh no.”
“What?” From his first glance, it seemed she’d brought everything but his aunt Brenna’s canning kettle.
“I thought I’d packed a tent.” She put a hand to her forehead, then absently ran her fingers along the bruise. “What was I thinking?”
For a moment, past the can-do attitude and the snippy way she’d drawn the line in the sand, he recognized regret. The expression that said why am I so stupid? zeroed in on a tender place inside him and squeezed. Wow. Okay, just breathe through it. Regret did that—snuck up on him when he least expected it.
Thankfully he was a lifetime away from his job now. The plane crash felt like an abrupt dividing line between the man he’d been—pushed by his job, his goals, his duty—and the man he might be if he gave it all up.
Nobody. Just another dazed passenger emphasized by the way Emma talked to him. He was a guy with a future hauling in salmon or crab fishing on the open sea. Although he respected his sisters’ husbands for their choices and hard work, something inside him had wanted more. To save the world evidently.
In the end, those hopes had only gotten his brother killed. He didn’t know how he expected to face that grief. Or recover and go on doing his job.
Maybe if he finally faced Andy MacLeod and demanded some answers from the pilot, he might begin healing. Maybe he’d quit the bureau, find a wife, start a family. It seemed like a goal Brody might smile at from the heavens above.
His new life could start right now, right here. Learning to live in the shadow. Learning to take orders. Learning to survive, not conquer. Learning to dodge the pain and settle into the cold, dead landscape that was his heart.
Most of all, learning how to exorcise from his life this burden that hovered—more than worry or regret over his choices—the weight of responsibility. The fear that if he didn’t get it right . . . then who would?
Not him. Not anymore. He should keep that thought paramount, especially now.
Emma pushed herself to her feet. “Everyone, listen to me. We need to get to shelter before the storm breaks. Then we’ll figure out where we are and what to do next. Did anyone bring a tent?”
Silence.
Emma winced. “All right, then we need to find shelter.”
“What about the plane?” Ishbane asked. He still held his nose although it had stopped bleeding. Mac noticed him shaking slightly.
Emma must have seen it also, for she grabbed one of her emergency blankets and draped it over his shoulders. “We can’t go back into the plane until we know it’s safe. With all the leaking fuel . . . well, I don’t feel comfortable. Besides, if it starts to snow, we could get snowed under, store up carbon monoxide, and suffocate. Not only that, but it’s liable to get cold tonight— really cold. And the plane won’t keep us warm enough—”
“What if we build a fire inside?”
Emma closed her eyes, as if drawing patience from some deep well.
Mac shook his head. Apparently no one besides him had taken basic chemistry. Spark plus fuel equals big bang. Maybe someone should say that aloud a few times.
Emma sighed. “It would be better to find a cave or construct a shelter.”
Standing there, her hands balled in her pockets, she looked every inch the Scottish lass, her face into the brutal wind as she gazed out onto the Highlands.
What a dunderhead! He was starting to think like his father, who still had pieces of his heart back in the old country. Mac and his siblings had grown up on tales of famous Scottish heroes like Robert the Bruce and Mary, Queen of Scots. This pilot reminded him of Flora MacDonald, a heroine of the eighteenth century. Resourceful and feisty, she dressed an English prince as her maid and helped him escape the clutches of his family’s rule.
Just like this lady might help them escape the clutches of hypothermia.
As if reading his mind, Emma turned and caught his attention. “See what you can find from the debris. Anything. A tarp, a sleeping bag, clothing, rope. Even books. We can use them to start a signal fire.”
The wind picked at the litter, sending papers scattering. Mac walked out into the debris field, found the cover to the belly pod and another sleeping bag. He noticed books fluttering and wondered who among them was the reader. He picked up one that lay open, its torn pages fluttering. Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour. Yes, they might need that one for reference if they hoped to find their way out of here. Despite what Emma had said about the ELT working, he saw a long hike in their immediate future.
More papers blew at his feet, and he stomped on them to keep them in place. They crinkled under his feet, and a torn corner caught his eye. A map. He leaned down, picked it up, and stared at it. He recognized the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System quickly, having memorized the area. Three points were circled in red.
Realization came slowly. The circled areas were weak points in the pipeline, the places due for overhaul. Places where a saboteur might place a bomb or two, enough to blow the line. Horror dried his mouth. No.
He looked at the passengers—Flint leaning over his bruised knee; Nina, now picking through the debris like a woman searching through the remains of her charred home; Ishbane, who sulked under his emergency blanket; and Phillips, diligently searching for a place to huddle for the night.
He glanced again at the map of the pipeline, noting how it had been marked with repair updates and shut-off valves. A route had been highlighted in yellow, another in blue. And right in the middle, northwest of Wiseman, someone had penciled in a
large gray circle around Disaster.
He closed the map and shoved it into his jacket, feeling every nerve tingle, his instincts firing for the first time in three months.
Maybe paranoia had taken over.
He racked his brain for the truth. Hasid had disappeared in June and hadn’t been caught. More than that, many members of his cell had never been fully identified. More and more, terrorists from all walks of life, sharing the same agenda, bonded over one goal—cripple the war on terror. England and America had become their favorite targets, and nowadays customs officials and Homeland Security struggled to sketch an accurate profile of the everyday terrorist.
He or she could be anyone—a hunter, a photographer, a skinny businessman . . . a bush pilot.
Mac glanced over at Emma and her friend, saw the worry etched on the pilot’s face. He wanted to feel sympathy. Instead he felt only dread.
Cold, dark dread.
And from overhead, sleet began to fall like pellets from the sky.
Chapter 4
ANDEE FLASHED THE beam of her flashlight across the crushed instrument panel, examining wires. She’d dug out her radio from the debris, followed the wires into the panel, and spent an hour trying to rewire the radio to no avail.
Outside, sleet had turned to snow, and it sifted from the gunmetal clouds, dusting the hull of the plane. Wind seeped inside through the cracks in the broken windows and made Andee shiver. She should get out of here, but with Phillips and McRae constructing the shelter, she thought she’d attack priority number three and figure out if help might be on the way soon. Not only that, but the panel had stopped sparking, and the threat of explosion seemed more remote. Apparently she’d overreacted when she’d tackled poor Nina.
“Did you get the radio working?” McRae stuck his head through the cockpit door and settled beside her. The cut on his forehead had dried, his bushy hair now hung in tangles about his head. Melting snow in his brown hair glistened in the fading light.
“No. But the ELT is working.” She’d debated taking it out of the plane, but with the electrical panel now quiet and no danger of fire, perhaps it would be safer to leave it in the plane away from the elements.
McRae nodded without smiling. “The shelter is almost done.”
“Great.” Andee squeezed out of the cockpit door after him and trekked thirty feet down the tundra bowl, where Phillips had found a slight indentation in the rocky wall. Flanked on either side by a tumble of large boulders, the enclave made an adequate overnight shelter for the whole group. But with the wash of sleet and now the snow, she didn’t hold much hope of long-term accommodations. Please, Lord, send help.
Someone like her SAR pals Jim Micah or Conner Young.
She shook the thought away. Micah and Conner weren’t here, and just because they had the alpha-male tendency to lead their SAR team’s call-outs didn’t mean that she couldn’t think for herself. Her father had taught her to survive in more ways than even he realized. She simply needed to keep one step ahead of panic.
Thankfully, McRae had calmed down and focused his energies on helping. “I’m sorry I barked at you earlier,” she said to him as she surveyed his work.
With her instructions, Phillips and McRae had used an edging of metal they’d torn from the broken wing and propped it against the top of the rocky wall. They’d draped one of the two tarps she’d brought over the wing piece for a roof. Wedging it into the rocks, they’d hung the other tarp over the entrance, securing it with the duct tape in her bag. It wouldn’t win any survival-school awards, but for now it would keep the passengers out of the wind and snow.
“It’s not pretty, but it’ll hold,” McRae said, voicing her opinion.
She quirked an eyebrow at him, aware that his attitude had changed in the last hour. Hopefully their predicament had subdued him, and he’d start listening to her.
Now that would be a first. A stubborn Scot bending his will to a wisp of a lady. Wow, she thought she’d forgiven her father, Gerard, for his heritage. Apparently she still harbored latent grudges.
She knelt before Sarah, who lay zippered inside her sleeping bag. Flint watched over her. “How’s her breathing?” she asked.
“Okay.”
Andee felt for a temperature, took Sarah’s pulse, checked her eyes. One pupil seemed slightly larger than the other, but in the dim light she couldn’t be sure. She refused to jump to conclusions. With a head trauma, it wasn’t unusual for a victim to fall unconscious, but with each passing hour Sarah’s injury seemed more profound.
She checked Sarah’s bandage. The bleeding had stopped, and from a cursory glance the wound seemed superficial. Still, she could have hit hard enough for an intracranial hematoma, and hanging upside down certainly had to have increased the pressure. Which meant Sarah needed medical assistance, maybe even emergency surgery, as soon as possible.
“Has she made any noises?” Andee asked Flint.
Flint nodded. “Groans mostly now and again.”
Andee felt a flare of relief. Groans or any reaction to pain she’d sing hallelujahs over. “Let me know if anything changes. And if it looks like she might vomit, turn her on her side and get me immediately.”
McRae and Phillips were dragging supplies inside the shelter. Andee ducked her head inside and saw Nina trying to assemble the stove.
“I thought we might need heat,” she said to Andee. Nina seemed to be trying to conquer her fears, and Andee couldn’t help but admire her. She’d be a good ally once the adrenaline and shock wore off.
The gray overcast sky along with the gray tarp turned the inside to shadow. The space inside the embrace of rock allowed for the group to sit comfortably. With Sarah lying prone, it would be a tight fit. Body heat could raise the temperature inside a snow cave up to forty-five degrees. Only they weren’t in a snow cave, and Andee feared for the heat loss as the night closed in.
“We should get inside and stay there.” Andee glanced at Nina, still trying to assemble the stove. “Let’s run the stove only when we’re cooking or melting snow for water. We need to conserve the gas.”
Nina nodded.
“Just how long do you think we’ll be here?” Ishbane entered the shelter, shivering under his blanket.
“Sit down and get warm, Mr. Ishbane,” Andee said. “When we have everyone inside and a fire going, we’ll discuss options.”
“Our only option is to get out of here fast,” he said.
Oh, sure. I’ll just call 911. She battled frustration as she crawled out of the shelter. However, one look at Sarah and Andee had to agree with Ishbane. She briefly surveyed the map. According to her calculations, it was a two-day hike to Disaster Creek. Possibly three.
Sarah could be dead in three days. Andee would give her entire life savings to know if someone had picked up their ELT transmission. Her flight plan didn’t have her checking into Prudhoe Bay until well after noon, and no one except her father knew she was headed to Disaster. Officials in Prudhoe Bay, not to mention her experienced father, could easily surmise, with the temperamental weather, that Andee had landed to wait it out. If she guessed the time correctly, it was nearly four, with night descending fast.
Her thoughts tumbled over each other and threatened to steal her breath, her action. Make a fire. Determine your assets. Concoct a plan.
She breathed through the cascade of events, piecing them out, weighing her priorities. Get the injured inside.
“Mr. McRae, can you help me move Sarah inside?” She turned around and was surprised to see him standing arms akimbo, staring at her. As if before she’d even spoken, he’d already been fixed on her, studying her with a pensive expression. He’d put a fleece pullover on under his lined canvas jacket. The wind shifted and tangled his hair, and she couldn’t put out of her mind the image of some outlaw from the days of legends and Wild West cowboys—or maybe the age of lairds and wars with England and Robert the Bruce. He certainly had the aura of a man on edge.
She’d make sure he slept on the other
side of the cave tonight.
“Mr. McRae?”
He raised an eyebrow as if only just now hearing.
“Can you help me lift Sarah?”
“I’ll help.” Phillips appeared from the shelter and took one end of Sarah’s board. Before Andee could react, McRae grabbed the other end. They carefully maneuvered Sarah into the shelter, while Andee helped Flint. She hated his moans, wishing she had something to give him—even whiskey at this point.
But she needed clear heads and cooperation, and whiskey didn’t exactly encourage sane behavior.
Inside the shelter, the barest of lights lingered to outline faces as people clumped around Sarah and Flint, tucking in their legs so as not to jostle them. The ground, wet from the sleet, felt like a sponge, and dampness seeped into her knees. They needed dry ground. And they needed to eat.
Yes, she needed to figure out what to do if the ELT didn’t call in rescuers. Heaviness loomed over the quiet shifting of snow overhead. Andee tried not to let it find her spirit, but as she slumped against the boulder near the opening, feeling the wind flap the edges of the shelter, she fought the sudden burn of tears. I’m in over my head here, Lord. Way over my head. Please help me.
“We need to get supper going,” she said softly. No one moved. Not that she expected them to, but still, if Micah and Conner were here, they’d already have a blaze heating the shelter like a cabin in the north woods.
No, that wasn’t fair. Micah and Conner had been Green Berets, and Phillips and McRae had both obeyed her instructions without grumbling. Sorta.
But with Micah and Conner she felt safe. Even if the world fell in, they’d be there to help hold it up.
As the wind whistled through the opening and Sarah breathed quietly and five pairs of eyes peered at Andee through the darkness, she had the sudden and overwhelming urge to let weariness overtake her, to put her hands over her head and hide.
Expect the Sunrise Page 6