Zack and Adam loaded Eric aboard along with Seth and Teague before they took their seats. Meredith sat on the bench beside Eric and Zack, praying for the man dying at her fingertips and all the men she’d left behind.
In minutes, the chopper lifted vertically. It hovered over the immense sea of emerald green rippling below. Her heart reached through that canopy, wishing for that elusive more with Hunter she never seemed to get.
Meredith wiped a single tear. And she left.
The terror ride wouldn’t end.
Dropping what felt like several hundred feet landed Hunter into a roaring torrent of churning ice-cold water. The subterranean rock tumbler seemed hell-bent on polishing off any part of him of that protruded, like his fingers, his elbows, and his nose. He’d already lost the ACS3 helmet. With no way to see, he thrashed for any handhold to stop himself from the relentless pounding, but he found no purchase. Only water. Thunder. And the most helpless sensation of being ragdolled by the serial killer benignly called Mother Nature.
He tumbled end-over-end while everyone he’d ever held dear flashed through his battered brain. His mother and father. His friends. Meredith. Like Ky, they’d never know what had happened to him. He’d unwittingly become one of those question marks that would forever haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Son-of-a-bitch!
Cursing the universe, he rolled, make that floundered against the current’s merciless grip. He’d only succeeded in cracking his head. Knowing he was close enough to hit a solid edge should’ve offered hope, but it didn’t. Just as quickly as he’d made contact with what might have been his salvation, he’d lost it. Hunter had no choice. The underground river swept him away and away he went.
At last the watery spin cycle ceased. The current slowed. Smooth edges whispered past his fingertips. Stone ground against his chin. Then his chest. His knees touched bottom. The toes of his boots dragged. His battered hands reached for something—anything—with enough substance to support his weight.
Finally! A rock ledge. His fingernails clawed for a solid grip, but the water tugged him away. Kicking for his life, he fought the river until, inch by inch, he dragged his cheek and chin onto a cold, smooth surface. With his boots dangling in the water, he dropped facedown to what felt like concrete but smelled like dirt. It was good enough for what followed the moment he was stationary. Grit-filled water spewed from his throat and nose until he could vomit no more.
Sucking in a searing, labored breath, he coughed and sneezed and sputtered to clear the water out of his burning lungs. His drunken tilt-a-whirl ride to hell was over, but the sensation of falling wasn’t. There was no light in this place to get his bearings. No glimmer. Only a cold black darkness that left him eerily disoriented and dizzier than hell. He couldn’t tell down from up. Hunter clung to the cold rock like a drunk to his sidewalk, while he willed the urge to hurl away.
Everything hurt. For the time being, he seemed to be on stable ground that didn’t move. Well, maybe. Hunter honestly couldn’t see enough to tell for certain where he was. The solid mass beneath his aching ribs declared he’d stopped moving, but try telling that to his stomach and head. They hadn’t stopped rolling from the rock polisher he’d crept out of.
With no strength left to care what happened next, Hunter closed his stinging eyes. How would he get back to Merry now? The din of wherever-he-was deafened, and his head hurt with a magnitude of ten on the migraine scale that ended at five.
Soaked to the core and scraped raw, he toed his boots nearly off, but then worried they might fall in the river. Hunter eased to his butt. There wasn’t one molecule of his body that wasn’t bludgeoned and bruised. Bending one aching knee at a time, he pulled his feet out of the water and removed both boots. He knotted his socks and tucked them inside his boots next. A warrior always kept his footgear dry.
He rolled to his side, shivering as he tied the laces together and hung the boots over his neck to make sure he didn’t lose them. Wet leather had never smelled so good. Exhaustion from that simple survival instinct claimed him, and Hunter went willingly into oblivion. Rest now. Worry later.
He slept until the noisy river woke him again. By then, his tenderized muscles had gone stiff. Breathing hurt and he was certain his eyes were filled with slivers that raked the inside of his eyelids. Wiping a hand over his face confirmed that it was better to endure the pain instead of clearing it away. His eyeballs watered profusely at the contact, but nothing brought relief.
Fear whispered there was light in this deep, dark cavern; he just couldn’t see it.
Holy shit.
Lying there in the dark with his clothes drenched, his body beat to hell, and exhausted to his bones, the irony of his predicament struck him. He’d finally found the one person on the planet he’d ever loved, only to lose her with one lousy misstep? What an unlucky bastard he was.
Hunter hugged his boots while he completed a quick mental self-assessment of what hurt the worst, his back, head, or—hell, everything else. There was no contest. Every muscle screamed at the brutal gauntlet he’d survived. Even his ears were tender, as if the river had sanded his skin. Make that peeled. What now?
Like he had choices. His eyes, if they weren’t damaged, were useless without light. The babbling brook on steroids alongside of him drowned out any rescuer calling to him. If there was a way out of this cavern, it’d be a fucking miracle.
He shivered as his cold, hard reality sunk in. He’d lost every last bit of the ActiveCamouflageSystem. He had no pistol. No holster. No knife. Hell, he barely had fingerprints or fingernails left. This was bad. Really bad.
Falling through the Earth’s crust like he had explained one thing though.
He now knew what happened to Ky.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Meredith didn’t know which city she was in, and she didn’t care. Life came to a standstill while the best physician on staff at the local hospital performed emergency surgery on Eric Reynolds. Seth and Teague were already in a recovery ward after undergoing their own medical assessments. Lee and Zack sat in the tidy waiting room with her. But she’d never felt more alone. She paced the checkered black-and-white flooring, counting how many tiles in each rotation.
Poor Eric. The look in his bright dark eyes had gone from shock to bleak nothingness so quickly. And Masters? He’d bled out in less than a minute, maybe just as surprised by the turn of events as Eric had been.
Meredith turned on her heel to make another lap. She didn’t know what happened to Masters after Seth shot him. She didn’t care that no one ran to his aid. For the first time in her life, she was glad a wicked man had died and died hard. She only wished she’d been the one to put Masters down before he’d knifed Eric.
Now I sound just like Hunter.
But Eric was the sort of man a girl instantly felt a connection with. He was kind and thoughtful, handsome and dashing and...
Is the sort of man. Is kind! Is thoughtful!
She closed her eyes to keep the tears at bay, ashamed she’d used the past tense to describe him. He wasn’t dead yet. He couldn’t be.
Is! Is! Is!
“How is he?” Alex barked the second his boots hit the emergency room floor. But when Meredith turned to face him, his eyes flickered away from her to Zack. “Well?”
Her heart pitched to the linoleum. If you’re here, where’s Hunter?
“We’re still waiting, Boss. Eric’s been in surgery for hours. Seth and Teague are doing well. Do you want to talk with them?”
“I want answers,” Alex shot back at him. “How the hell did this happen?”
Lee growled as he bowed his head. “Then Seth can’t help you. From what we can tell, Masters slipped his cuffs. He grabbed a knife from somewhere, might have had it up his sleeve. Hell, I don’t know.”
“Where’s Hunter?” Meredith asked, her throat tight and her heart pounding.
Hard blue eyes skewered her through. Her breath caught. Alex commanded his men like General George S. Patton w
ith a steady touch of Jesus Christ thrown into the mix. Patton because he knew how to lead. Reputation had it that Alex’s men would literally follow him into Hell. Jesus Christ because, for all his steel and take-no-quarter attitude, Alex was also known to work a gentle miracle now and then. He pulled his ragtag team of soldiers and misfits up by their bootstraps, and his men and women loved him for it.
“Where is he? Tell me?” She hated the pleading cry in her voice. “Alex?”
“I don’t know yet, Meredith,” he answered quietly. “That’s why I’m late getting here. David, Jordan, and I have been all over the jungle searching for him. Hunt’s vanished into thin air, just like Ky.”
Meredith jumped to her feet. “What do you mean vanished?”
“He’s not responding to the sat phone he had. We can’t find any trace of him or Ky, and believe me, we’ve been all over that fenced-in couple of acres looking for him.”
Lee cupped her elbow, holding her in place even as he declared, “We need to go back.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Alex snapped. “We’re all going back. David, Jordan and Adam are still there.”
“But...” Meredith’s voice caught in her throat. “But... where could he be? He should’ve come back with Eric. Why didn’t he?”
Lee’s arm snaked around her shoulder. “He’ll be okay, ma’am. Hunt’s tough. You know that. He’s a scrapper. A survivor. By the time we get back there—”
“No!” She burst with fatigue and stress. “He’s not that way at all! He’s a poet. He writes songs for me, and he’s... he’s kind and gentle and—”
“Hunt?” Lee’s brows lifted like McDonald’s golden arches. “Are we talking about the same guy?”
Tears filled her eyes at the gentle tease. Lee might’ve thought he was comforting her, but these guys only knew the hard side of the man. Meredith clapped her jaw shut and stowed her heart. Turning her back on them, her fears got the best of her. She lifted a clenched fist to her teeth. First Lyle and Dan. Maybe Ky. Maybe Eric. Now Hunter.
The jungle had taken too much!
Lee’s hand on her shoulder brought her around. His green eyes filled with kindness for which she had no resistance. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to upset you. We will find him. I’ll find him.”
That was the last straw. A muffled sob hiccupped out of her as her heart caved in and the floor came up. Down she went to her knees—hard. Lee went with her, but Alex and Zack quickly joined them, all crouched at her side, penitent and striving to shelter her from more grief.
“Lean her back,” Alex ordered. “Give her room to breathe.”
“She’s exhausted,” Zack muttered. “Poor gal. This operation’s been a nightmare.”
And it was Lee again, his palm firmly pillowing the back of her head.
She grabbed onto his hand. “I can’t lose him,” she cried, her heart stuck in her throat.
“You won’t,” Lee promised. “Look at me, Meredith. Open your eyes and look at me.”
She gulped and did as he asked.
“Hunt’s searching for Ky, I know he is,” Lee told her firmly. “Think about that for a minute. Hunt never could leave a man behind. Do you think we’re any different?”
She honestly didn’t know what to think, so she said what came to her mind. “But there are snakes in the jungle. And monkeys. A panther. I saw it. And bugs. Spiders.”
Lee nodded once. “They’d better stay the hell out of his way then.”
That actually—helped. Meredith took a deep breath. She needed to stay strong. Hunter would be back. Lee and Alex would find him.
She knew it to her soul.
Moving—make that crawling—hurt like hell. The wicked river had sandpapered his face to the point it felt like a massive third-degree burn. The continual stream of salt water dripping out of his hair stung his eyeballs and tenderized cheeks. His shirt and pants were reduced to strips of ragged cloth that didn’t do much to keep him warm. He was wet, but he still had his boots.
The cold was good for something. It got him off the ground and kept him moving. Walking slowly warmed him. A little. Until his feet bumped into something and he stumbled to his knees.
“Holy shit,” he cursed out loud—not like he could hear it. The roaring water behind him suppressed all noise. But the thing at his feet was definitely a body. A rigid body.
Hunter lowered to his knees and investigated as little as possible to determine if the corpse might be his friend. Gingerly feeling his way down the length of the stone-cold person, he stopped at the feet. Tennis shoes. Size elevens maybe. It wasn’t Ky. He wore steel-toed work boots, sometimes loggers.
Dragging the guy back the way he’d come, Hunter rolled the body into the river, not willing to share his only refuge with a corpse. Then, because he refused to sit on the wet ground and feel sorry for himself, he recommenced the slow shuffle, listening carefully to avoid the edge. A damp wall finally came within reach. Pitted and hard. Sheer stone.
“This sucks!” he bellowed, finally able to hear himself. “I find the one woman I care about and this is what happens? Shit!”
Edging alongside the wall brought no change of terrain or surface. He kept going because he couldn’t stay where he’d fallen, could he? There might be a way out of there. He had to try, didn’t he?
The ledge seemed to widen. The noise of the river lessened, or maybe he was becoming deaf. At any rate, Hunter continued the journey he’d set his bare feet to. Shuffle along. Grope. Curse. Start again. He was just getting a good temper tantrum up when his fingers touched cloth. And skin. Bare warm skin.
“Shit!” he hissed. Not another body.
Only this one was upright. It felt warmer. Drier. It moved.
Startled, he jerked away.
Two rough hands grabbed the back of his neck. “Hunt! God, it’s you! It’s really you!”
A very dim light flickered across his face. Only then did Hunter realize the river had done its worst. He was pretty much blind.
But he wasn’t deaf. Ky hugged him, crying like a blubbering baby. “Oh, man! I thought I was lost for good!”
Hunter stiff-armed him. Didn’t Ky get it? He wasn’t found. They were both lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They searched the fenced-in area for three days until Alex insisted Meredith go home to Courtney. By then she knew some director out of Japan had ordered the fence built prior to filming the latest, greatest monster movie. The electric fence was a realistic prop the director shut down while the search for Hunter and Ky continued.
“No, ma’am. I’m not going anywhere,” Alex reassured Meredith at the hastily constructed helicopter pad.
Geologists, spelunkers, and other search-and-rescue teams had been brought in to canvass the hidden caverns of the mighty Amazon River. Teams of men with dogs had located the tiny crevice Alex suspected Hunter had fallen through. Alex expended fortunes exploring underground caves and caverns, but still, no sign of Hunter or Ky.
With a heavy heart, Meredith relented. Courtney needed her. “Call me the minute you find him.”
Alex had turned into her most faithful servant. “You know I will.”
She cast her gaze up to the surrounding trees that even now reached tendrils of greenery into what had become another TEAM camp. Zack and Lee had become fixtures, leading group after group into the jungle. They’d set up camp and tents where satellite images mapped a ten-mile radius of the place where Hunter was last seen. Then a twenty-mile radius.
To make her melancholy deeper, Eric Reynolds had survived—on life support, which was a good thing, but still. He hadn’t come to since he’d fallen, and his chance of a full recovery worsened every day he remained in the coma. Airlifted to the States, he now rested in the best hospital Washington D.C. had to offer.
“I hate to leave,” she whispered more to herself than Alex. “Hunter’s here. I know he is.”
Alex didn’t speak, just stood silently at her side until she’d made her decision and
said goodbye to the man she might never see again. The rotors tore tears from her eyes when the helicopter lifted off, taking her to a waiting plane. One layover set her down in Miami, and then she was home.
Brazil seemed so far away.
Ky became guardian angel and provider, something Hunter had never needed and didn’t know how to accept. Alpha males hated weakness with a passion.
Little annoying things morphed into monsters. Bigger things into rage. Had Eric remembered to warn Alex that Meredith and her son were in danger? Who was that Teach guy anyway? What could the CEO of Brinkman EX possibly have against a working mother with a kid? Was he after her because she worked for Jed? But mostly—
How the hell do I get out of here?
“I’m going exploring again. Do you want to come this time?”
Ky had asked the same damned question the last three days. Hunter had yet to oblige. The weak battery in Ky’s penlight had given up the ghost—not like it mattered. There was nothing to see in a world gone bat-shit dark.
And that was another thing.
As regular as clockwork, hordes of bats swarmed down from the ceiling on their way somewhere else. Hunter figured they came and went at twelve-hour intervals. All that flying-silent-with-sonar crap was bullshit. He could hear ’em dropping en masse from somewhere high overhead. In seconds, their parchment-thin, leathery wings brushed over his hair and all but collided with him on their way out. Their squeaks, screeches, and whistles sounded like flying chipmunks drunk on a combination of crystal meth and Everclear. The damned things couldn’t seem to fly straight.
But mostly they annoyed him because they could get out while he couldn’t. They had a life. A goal. Freedom to come and go. He had next to nothing.
“I made it maybe thirty more feet yesterday,” Ky hinted in his non-assuming way. “Straight up.”
“Was it a path out of here yet?”
“Not sure, but I did find another ledge. It looks, I mean, it felt promising.”
Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14) Page 25