She felt absurdly like weeping. For Jack. For the demons that were haunting him. For his reality that made this weapon a necessary part of him.
“Keep it close, Sophie. Keep it. And when they come, you’ll be safe.”
She nodded, knowing he wanted that assurance.
“Like I promised you,” he added. “Safe.”
He closed his eyes.
Chapter Five
It was Roscoe Kent’s first assignment as team leader and he didn’t want to waste the occasion looking for tiny pieces of a tiny plane that nobody in the world seemed to care had disappeared off the map five days before. Well, someone cared enough to goose the Jackson County Search and Rescue and the Colorado Mounted Rangers into action but hell’s bells, the plane went down near the New Mexico border. Yet some idiot with power to spare had Roscoe P. Kent wasting jet juice up near Wyoming.
He adjusted his sunglasses, wondering if he should take them off. It was a shitty day, anyway, with the clouds keeping everything dirty and miserable. The green tint in the helicopter canopy added more misery. But he kept the glasses on because, well, it just seemed to be more appropriate that the point man for the operation look the part.
They’d been flying around for an hour or so now, following a standard grid search pattern, four helicopters chatting away between each other, with nothing to show for their trouble but a gas bill and the same old stupid jokes as last week.
Harvey Myers was at the controls today and that was another thing that Roscoe wasn’t too thrilled about. Harvey was a civilian, not even a Rangers’ volunteer. But he might as well have been sworn in as a member of K Troop because they called on his services more often than not. Roscoe would have just as happily done without him if he’d been able to figure out a way to get the helicopter up in the air by himself, because Harvey was a spoiler.
He’d spent way too much time watching the paid police go about their business and had soaked up far too much of the legal ins and outs of the trade. But instead of bringing Harvey over to their perspective, instead of giving him an understanding of how sometimes things had to be the way they had to be, Harvey had become a spoiler. He was always on the watch for sloppy procedure, for mistakes, slip-ups or more. He’d lean against the canopy of his chopper, his arms crossed, a witness to all that went down and sometimes he would comment. “Hey, Roscoe, you’re a bit quick on the handcuffs tonight, huh? Roscoe, did you remember to write up that bloody nose you just handed out?”
What Roscoe couldn’t figure was why Harvey was so goddamn popular. He was practically worshipped. The younger Rangers would trade for the chance to ride shotgun with him.
Harvey was swinging the chopper around now, banking and sliding in a way that made Roscoe’s stomach flip. “Hey!” he protested.
“Saw something, farther south.” Harvey’s voice in the headphones was cool and polite.
“That takes us off the grid.”
“We’ll get back on the grid. Relax, Roscoe. I just want to check this out.”
Roscoe fumed while Harvey pushed the stick forward and the chopper dropped its nose and leapt ahead, heading down the long thin valley that had opened up before them. On the left, the long downslopes rolled endlessly on, one after another, after another, almost identical to each other. Harvey kept close over the top of them. Roscoe had flown with him enough times to know that he was prudently avoiding the sometimes vicious updrafts that could slam a chopper into the unforgiving east walls if they got too close.
Suddenly, Harvey was slowing, easing up on the stick, letting the nose turn gently to the left, to face the east.
“Holy shit,” Roscoe breathed.
A long scar was gouged across the face of the slope. Between the trees it ploughed through were glimpses of white and glittering silver, scattered all along the path of the gouge. It was fresh and deep.
Roscoe’s pulse leapt. Maybe, after all….
“You wanna call it in, big fella?” Harvey asked, tapping the radio.
Roscoe licked his lips. “We’d better get closer, check it out. Don’t want to drag everyone off the grid only to find out it’s just bears going ape shit.”
Harvey glanced at him. “Okay, boss,” he said, his face expressionless. “How close you wanna get?”
“Close. Down by those trees, where the big patch of white is. Can you get down there?”
“You wanna land?” Harvey sounded surprised.
“Sure.” Roscoe leapt on the idea, although that hadn’t been his meaning at all.
Harvey considered, his lips pursed. “Well, it’ll be tight—all those trees. I might have to land you higher up where they thin out more. Figure you can cope with walking a mile?”
Roscoe ignored the sarcasm, his attention on the long scratch on the landscape as it slid toward them. By the time they were over the top of it, Harvey had lost enough altitude that the white patches were recognizably aircraft wreckage.
“Jesus,” Roscoe breathed. There was barely anything left of it but bits and pieces.
“Two-four, two-four, come in two-four,” Harvey was intoning.
“What the hell are you doing?” Roscoe flared.
“Calling it in. It’s the plane, ain’t it? You’re supposed to bring the others, ain’t you?”
Roscoe swallowed down his fury. Sure, let them come. He’d be in charge, after all. “Okay. You do that.”
Harvey didn’t respond to him directly but Roscoe thought he saw the older man’s eyes roll before he turned his head away to watch the wreckage below him as the chopper circled. He gave the location with quick, neat details and let them know he was going to land—again, all standard procedure.
The landing was totally without fuss, despite Harvey’s doom and gloom forecast. He found a spot that he liked and settled the bird.
Roscoe hung his headset over the second joystick and climbed down to the ground, stooping over despite the knowledge that the blades were high enough that he’d have to jump off a spring board to hit them. It was instinctive to bend over. It was also what they did on TV.
He came around the canopy just as Harvey climbed down to the ground, carrying the big, heavy first aid box that usually traveled strapped to the wall behind the back passenger bench.
“What the hell you doing with that?” Roscoe asked.
Harvey shrugged. “Dunno. Just in case.”
“You’re coming?”
“Thought I might.”
“Well, all right then. But stay well back and out of trouble, you hear?”
“Oh, I hear ya,” Harvey acknowledged.
Roscoe set off at a brisk pace, his heavy snow coat whispering against the twill of his trousers. But he’d forgotten about the altitude. Within minutes his breath was heaving in his chest and threatening to break out through his sternum. He was sweating heavily.
Harvey was obediently following along behind and it didn’t sound like he was having too much trouble with the pace despite the monster box of goodies he carried. Roscoe kept up his speed, ignoring the tight band around his chest.
Then, abruptly, they were there. The churned up ground opened up before them, pock-marked with pinkish yellow fresh tree stumps and cracked trunks, twisted, unrecognizable metal, plastic, glass and more.
“I figure that there’s what’s left of the cockpit,” Harvey said, pointing to the smaller piece of wreckage far to their right. It had wrapped itself around a tree and marked the end of the long trail of debris.
Roscoe tilted his head, studying the wreckage. “There’s something not quite right about this,” he said.
“That’d probably be the footsteps all over the new earth everywhere,” Harvey said.
Goddamn, Roscoe breathed to himself. The man was right but did he have to point it out aloud? “Think we got us a survivor.” He looked at Harvey, at the box he carried. “You knew.”
“Yeah,” Harvey agreed.
There was no way Roscoe was going to ask him how he knew but Harvey volunteered the information an
yway. “No bodies,” he pointed out. “No body parts. The plane carried seven and the two pilots. If it made it down in pieces this big, there had to be bodies too. But I didn’t see any from up there. Figured someone’s already seen to ’em.”
“Then why the hell didn’t they stay with the wreck? What, we’re supposed to go look for them now?”
That was when the sound of the gunshot cracked through the air behind them, the sound bouncing off the east walls of the valley and echoing up the hillside in a dying whisper.
Roscoe jumped almost a foot high. “Jesus!”
“Guess they’re telling you where to find them,” Harvey said.
Roscoe’s heart was thudding hard. The gunshot was shocking in its unexpectedness. He found his hand on his sidearm, twitching to draw even though there was no enemy to be seen. Despite his six years with the Rangers, he’d only heard gunshots on the range. There weren’t too many gun-toting madmen to be found in northern Colorado.
From the north they heard the sound of another helicopter. The rest of his team was arriving.
Harvey smiled. “Going to check it out?”
Roscoe was too shaken to dredge up a snappy answer. He headed off at a run in what he thought was the direction of the gunshot. There was a thicket of trees ahead, maybe there…
He ducked under the lower branches and almost ran full tilt straight into the grizzliest find yet.
“Oh Jesus Christ goddamn!” He backed up rapidly.
Harvey ducked around the shielding branches and stopped, his face grim. “Yeah, I kinda thought so,” he muttered.
Laid out in formal lines were five bodies, already decomposing. Their faces in death were ghastly. Roscoe swallowed.
“One of the pilots.” Harvey pointed to the epaulets on the shirt of the last body in the line-up.
That was when the second gunshot sounded. Despite having heard it once already, the flat crack and volley of echoes made Roscoe flinch. This time, the direction was more certain.
Harvey was already heading down the slope.
“Hey, get back behind me!” Roscoe demanded, taking off after him.
A little farther ahead, the slope stopped dead and dropped down into a ravine that slashed through the side of the mountain and out into the main valley.
“Somewhere here,” Harvey commented. He was walking along the slope, hefting his box.
“Here! Down here!” The cry floated up from their feet.
“We’re coming!” Harvey shouted back. He pointed a little to his left, at one of the trees close to the edge. “My, my, look at that. Someone’s been real busy.”
Roscoe stared, his eyes widening. “What the hell…” It was a multi-colored rope, twisted around the base of the tree and snaking its way over the edge of the precipice.
“Wire. They used wire.” The admiration in Harvey’s voice was unmistakable. He moved to the deep crease at the edge of the drop-off where the cable disappeared.
“For heaven’s sake, Harvey, they’ve got a gun! You can’t just walk right up to them.”
“What, you gonna shoot back?” Harvey demanded. “They’re survivors, for crissake.”
He picked up the strange rope and tested it, backing up to the edge of the ravine, his first aid box in his left hand.
“At least let me go first,” Roscoe said.
Harvey stood aside. Letting the man with the gun go first was only common sense after all. Roscoe picked up the rope and studied the runnel. “Hey, there’s almost steps in this damn thing…” He went down facing forward, the steps giving him confidence that he wouldn’t end up hanging in midair. They led somewhere.
The runnel curved around a big outcropping, leaning to the right. He worked his way around it and found himself on a ledge a good twelve feet wide.
Then he saw her and got his third deep shock for the day. She was young and might even be pretty, washed up and dressed right. But for right now, she was holding a gun on him and it was cocked. Ferocious green eyes were fixed on him, almost feral in their stare.
“Jesus!” he breathed. Before he even thought about it, his own gun was out and trained on her.
“Drop the gun!” she screamed. “Drop it!”
“Lady, you’re on the wrong side of the law to be giving orders!”
“Roscoe, for god’s sake, she’s scared witless,” Harvey said, next to him. “Put your toy away.”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Tell me who you are!”
“Jesus, lady, who do you think we are, wearing this uniform? The Salvation Army?”
“Who are you?” Her hand holding the gun was shaking but that feral gleam in her eyes held Roscoe motionless.
“Colorado Mounted Rangers, K Troop, ma’am,” Harvey said, his voice low. Soothing.
“Bullshit! Prove it!”
Prove it? Roscoe felt his eyes bug out. Prove it?
Harvey held up his hand. “I’m a civilian, ma’am. I just fly the helicopter. Your man there—he’s hurt. Bad, by the look of it. You too. We can fly you out of here. In fifty minutes, we can have you in a hospital being treated.”
“Don’t you come near him!” she cried as Harvey took a step toward her.
The man on the chair next to her—would you look at that, they dragged themselves an airplane seat down here—the man was slumped against her and even from here, Roscoe could see blood on his head.
“He needs help,” Harvey said reasonably.
“And you might be here to kill him. He said you would act like friendlies.”
Roscoe recognized the military term but understood little else in her cryptic comments. Harvey, it seemed, was following it all just fine. He held out his hand to Roscoe. “I know he don’t look too friendly but you’ve got a gun trained on him and he’s actin’ by instinct. But you can trust me, ma’am. Really. I’m just along for the ride here. In about five minutes, this hillside is going to be crawling with rangers and three more choppers.”
She was wavering.
“Listen,” Harvey said, cocking his thumb up. Overhead, the lap-lap of rotors was distinct. “Do you figure that someone who wants to get rid of your friend would bring along so many witnesses?”
The gun listed. Lowered. She covered her face with her other hand, her shoulders shaking.
Roscoe’s relief was so great his bladder cut loose with a hot rush. He sank to the ground, shivering.
Harvey hurried over to the pair on the airline seat and dropped the box. He bent over the guy, feeling at the neck for a pulse.
“He’s dead,” she told him hoarsely.
“Nope, I don’t think so. But he’s pretty far gone. We’ve gotta hurry, ma’am.” Harvey looked back over his shoulder toward Roscoe. There was nothing Roscoe could do to disguise his disgrace. He hung his head.
“Roscoe, if you’re going to wimp out on me, at least give me your goddamn radio and get out of my way.”
His humiliation complete, Roscoe unclipped the radio unit, gave it to Harvey, then scurried up the channel and back to the chopper before any of the others saw him. Behind him, he heard Harvey giving short sharp commands into the radio, organizing getting the pair up onto solid ground, directing the rangers who were already on foot on how to get to the ledge to work the ground end of the lift.
It took a little longer than fifty minutes, in the end. Harvey had consulted with one of the more senior rangers on the scene, figuring times and distances. It would be quicker for him to take them to the hospital himself than risk waiting around for a medevac helicopter to arrive on the scene. They could alert the hospital, work it that way.
They’d carried the man and woman to his chopper as quickly as the sharp slope would allow. The man they laid across the back bench, bending his knees to get him inside the craft. The woman they’d set on the co-pilot seat, her leg thrust out stiffly in front of her, pushed up against the glass.
Harvey went around to his side of the canopy and saw Roscoe standing under a tree just to one side of the chopper. Hiding. Harvey cou
ld feel his lip curl down. Ignoring the ranger, he climbed into the helicopter and put on the headset. Let Roscoe find his own way home.
Harvey smiled at the woman next to him. “I’m Harvey.”
“Sophie.” She tried to smile but barely managed it. Beneath the grime her face was white. There were clean white patches around her eyes and trailing down her cheeks.
“Sophie, you’ve been through shit and back and I don’t even want to start imagining what it was like.” Five days they’d been down, stuck on that ledge. He mentally shivered and continued, “But for a little while longer you’re going to have to help me. If your friend needs attention, you’re going to have to take care of it. I’ll be flying this thing, okay?”
She nodded and he saw her swallow. “Just hurry. Please.”
Harvey got her airborne as fast as he could. The rangers had already radioed ahead. The news that one of the survivors had a head trauma got him the request to divert directly to Boulder.
Harvey glanced at his fuel gauge, reckoning distances again. It’d be tight but speed was the critical factor now. Not that he was formally trained in medicine but he’d seen enough over the years to know that the sooner the guy in the backseat of his bird was handed over to doctors, the better his chances.
He glanced at the woman. “Okay?” he asked. She nodded.
* * * * *
Doctor Peter Radchuk knew who Isobel was as soon as he saw her. She stood staring out the dark windows of the waiting room, blatantly smoking despite the signs on all four walls. She wore a black business suit that screamed New York chic and a halo of Nordic blonde hair. Rail thin—five pounds above organ failure if she was lucky.
As he got closer, he was amused to realize that she was chewing her nails with compulsive nervous energy.
“Isobel?”
She spun, wide dark eyes pinning him to the spot, taking him in. “Doctor.” Her voice was one of those low throaty ones that seemed to reach into the pit of your stomach and stroke the nerve ends there. “Will he make it?”
“We don’t know yet. It’s too soon.”
“Damn.” She spun and looked out the window again.
Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Page 6