by Meryl Sawyer
He took the leash. The wannabe reporter stayed right at his side.
“What’s she doing?” the brunette asked.
Damned if he knew.
Jennifer opened the car then took a small square of gauze and a snack size Ziploc bag out of the pouch attached to her belt, along with a pair of Latex gloves. She put on the gloves, unwrapped the sterile gauze, and rubbed the vinyl car seat thoroughly with the gauze. She deposited the gauze in the Ziploc bag and sealed it.
Jennifer asked the mother, “Is Holly afraid of dogs?”
“No. We have a golden retriever she named Redd. Holly loves all animals, even insects. Since she saw A Bug’s Life, she’s been crazy about bugs.”
Uh-oh. Bad news. Remembering Holly chasing a butterfly, he hoped the kid hadn’t tangled with any deadly insects or snakes inhabiting the mangroves.
Jennifer yanked Sadie’s leash from him. “Let’s go. Every minute counts.”
“Stay here,” Kyle said when several people started to tag along.
They headed for the road where cars were barreling down the Overseas Highway. Several slowed when they spotted two people in jumpsuits—in the blistering sun with the temperature hovering near triple digits—and a bloodhound. Kyle signaled for them to stop, then he and Jennifer dashed across the pavement to the other side.
Dense mangroves lined this part of the road, blocking any view of the sea. The heavily wooded area stretched out across unnamed flats and shallow channels of water. Once a home to pirates, and later a haven for moonshiners, the inaccessible area was a favorite hideout for drug runners.
“Why did you ask if Holly was afraid of dogs?”
“I had a child panic once and run away from us. Now I ask so I’m prepared.”
Jennifer knelt beside Sadie and opened the Ziploc bag. Sadie took a snorting whiff of the gauze, then whined.
Jennifer stood, saying, “Seek, Sadie. Seek.”
The dog lunged forward, pulling Jennifer with her. Sadie cast back and forth, moving in a figure-eight pattern along the side of the highway. Cars slowed to watch as Sadie covered ground quickly. Every few seconds, the bloodhound would lift her head and sniff the cat’s paw of wind stirring the mangroves. Suddenly, Sadie veered right and disappeared into the trees.
Jennifer ducked under a low branch, a firm hand on the leash. “Sadie has locked on to the little girl’s scent.”
Kyle dodged the tree and followed them into the thicket. The ground was so soggy that it was like walking on a sponge, and it was dark, the late afternoon sunlight blocked by the tree branches. There was a haunting, solitary beauty to this untamed land with its gnarled trees and wild brambly vines that he would have considered excellent military camouflage—under different circumstances.
“How far do you think Holly’s gone?” he asked, deeply concerned. The terrain was much rougher than it looked from the road. It was hard to imagine a child surviving out here for long.
“There’s no way to know, but given enough time, a person will travel in a circle.”
He knew this from his SEAL training, but he kept his mouth shut. Sadie shot between two low-slung branches. Jennifer barely ducked beneath them, but Kyle didn’t even try. He dodged around, then shouldered his way back to them through nettles and thick vines.
“Children usually get tired at some point,” Jennifer told him. “They curl up somewhere and go to sleep.”
They thrashed their way through the brush. In places they waded in water. Once they were on land, Sadie would go into a figure-eight pattern again to pick up the scent once more. The trail was drawing them deeper and deeper into the mangroves.
Kyle’s training told him the little girl was circling. He’d bet anything she was left handed because most people would have moved toward the right.
“Halt, Sadie,” Jennifer said as she stopped. The dog reluctantly obeyed. “I stop at regular intervals to rest Sadie and give her water.”
Kyle sat down on a cypress tree that had fallen years ago and was half covered by wild magnolias. He took his plastic canteen off the clip on his equipment belt and drank a little. Jennifer squirted water into Sadie’s mouth. Obviously, the dog was trained not to waste a drop.
Jennifer checked her watch. “I must rest Sadie for a full five minutes. I know time’s precious, but Sadie’s not wearing Thermalscan. If she drops from heat exhaustion, we’ll never find the child.”
He saw her glance around the small clearing where a few jack pines were struggling to grow. Other than the log where he was, there wasn’t a place for her to sit. She took off her backpack and lowered it to the ground, then sat on the log, as far away from him as she could get.
Somewhere along the trail, she’d taken off her shades. Turning to him, she asked, “Why would the Navy send Brody Hawke to Cuidad del Este? Drug smuggling isn’t their job.”
She had no idea how sensuous her voice sounded. In the dark shadows below a profusion of growth thrusting upward, relentlessly seeking the sun, they were all alone. The only other sound was a mangrove cuckoo calling its mate from a branch high above them. Jennifer’s low-pitched voice sent a ripple of awareness through his body. All day he’d managed not to think about her except professionally. Okay, maybe he’d slipped once or twice.
“Kyle? Is it a secret?”
“Not exactly,” he hedged, because Brody’s mission probably was classified. Brody had mentioned his destination, not thinking Jennifer would pick up on it. “But don’t say a word to anyone.”
She nodded, glancing down at her watch. The fringe of her eyelashes cast alluring shadows on her cheeks.
“Cuidad del Este isn’t just a mecca for drug runners,” he continued. “A group of terrorists, trained in the Middle East, uses it as a base. That’s why SEAL 6 is involved.”
“It’s the most prestigious of the SEAL units, isn’t it? The antiterrorist unit.”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to tell her how much he envied Brody Hawke. The guy could get himself killed down there. But there was no rush on earth like danger. Christ, he missed it.
“What SEAL unit were you in?”
“The sixth.” He stood up, deliberately cutting off the discussion. “Time’s up. We’ve got a little girl to find before it gets dark.”
They trooped through the underbrush for another fifteen minutes. The compass on his Breitling watch told him that the child was still arcing to the left, but moving into even more treacherous terrain.
Abruptly, Sadie slammed to a halt and he nearly bumped into Jennifer. He put his hand on her shoulder to stop himself. He took his time stepping back. As he did, he looked ahead. They’d come to a channel of water.
“Oh my God, no!”
The anguish in Jennifer’s voice echoed his own fears. The water appeared shallow, but a toddler could drown in a wading pool. There could be an alligator slumbering under ferns growing along the backs. Or water moccasins.
Two lines of worry appeared between her blue eyes. “It’s been m-my”—her voice faltered in a way that alarmed him—“experience that when a child comes to water, they fall in … somehow. Do you think Holly could have made it across?”
“Possibly, depending upon when she was here.” He tapped the military-size laptop slung over his shoulder. “The computer will tell us how high the tide has been. I’m betting it’s high tide right now.”
Jennifer put Sadie on another rest command as he brought the computer out of Hibernate in a few seconds. He tapped a few keys and instantly had the information.
“The tide is still rising. Depending on when Holly arrived here, the water level was lower, possibly only ankle deep.” He pulled the computer case off his shoulder, saying, “Let’s see what we’re up against,” as he took out the computer.
“Fat Albert can’t see through trees.”
“True, but the fat man is equipped with a special infrared system that measures ambient and surface body heat.” He pressed a key to bring the laptop out of Hibernate. “First, I’m going to check the si
ze of that key.”
Jennifer leaned closer to see what he was doing. “How do we know where we are?”
He tapped his Breitling. “My watch picks up signals from the nearest satellite. It’s a type of GPS. I’m entering the lat+lon coordinates now.”
The screen filled with a picture of the dense mangroves.
“Now type m-a-p to get a map of the area.”
The trees and other vegetation vanished, replaced by an outline of a small, peanut-shaped island.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” he said. “Let’s see what’s alive over there.”
She typed the word Infrared on the keyboard. The screen filled with green specks. Most of them were moving, making the screen look as if it had a bad case of jitters.
“Ignore the pin-size dots,” he told her. “Those are just birds or snakes.” He pointed to a larger, stationary dot. “That’s something about twenty pounds.”
“Maybe it’s a Key deer.”
“Or a small alligator.”
His words sent a shudder through her entire body. She gulped air, then responded in a shaky voice, “Holly Block is forty-one pounds. I asked her mother while you were flirting with that bimbo.”
Inwardly, he smiled. She sounded jealous, but he was too troubled by what was on the screen to think about their relationship.
“Could this be Holly?” Jennifer pointed to the largest dot on the screen, her hand shaking.
“Hell, no. It’s over one hundred pounds.” He shook his head, groaning. “It must be an alligator.” He tapped his fingertip on a nearby splash of green. “This is something about Holly’s size.”
Considering the emotional vibes he’d been picking up from Jennifer, he half expected her to panic, but she didn’t. There was a suspicious hint of moisture in her eyes, but she calmly stood back, saying, “They aren’t moving. Holly and the alligator must be asleep.”
If the little girl was still alive.
Chapter 10
Kyle watched Jennifer make a slashing motion in front of Sadie’s face. “What are you doing?”
“I’m telling her this is now a silent search.”
“Why?”
“She usually bays for all she’s worth the minute she sights her target. But if we’re dealing with an alligator, I don’t want the baying to upset him. He might turn on the little girl.”
If he hasn’t already, Kyle thought as he put the laptop on Hibernate and stowed it. He listened in silence as Jennifer demonstrated the basic hand signals. A click of the fingers, easily mistaken for a snapping branch, to get attention. Hand held up as if taking the Pledge of Allegiance to stop. Index finger in the air for trouble.
Danger, he thought, remembering the blotch on the computer screen. He’d bet his life there was an alligator near the child. The moment they stepped onto the smaller key, he’d take the Colt out of its waterproof pouch.
They started down the embankment toward the shallow channel. Jennifer tugged on the choke chain and brought Sadie up short. The two of them stopped in water that came up to Jennifer’s ankles while Sadie’s low slung belly was submerged and her long ears floated on the still water.
The channel was clogged with swamp grass and vines that grew beneath the surface. When the tide retreated, the area would again become a boggy marsh. No doubt, Holly Block had crossed at low tide, if she hadn’t fallen in and floated away.
A water moccasin slithered by, ignoring them. But Kyle wondered about Holly. Would a child’s fascination with bugs tempt her to play with the deadly snake?
He did a quick mental calculation and decided if the little girl had been bitten, she wouldn’t have died immediately. She could have wandered onto the key and collapsed. That might be why the infrared sensor hadn’t detected any movement.
But the child was still alive, or her body wouldn’t have generated enough heat for the sensor to pick it up.
Twice Sadie became tangled in the vines growing in the water and Jennifer had to free her. A dog swam as if it were running on land, all four legs in motion, making it easy to catch a paw in the underwater growth. Kyle could have used his knife to help the dog more quickly, but he saw Sadie and Jennifer were a team. Each time the bloodhound began to struggle, she turned toward Jennifer.
“Watch for sinkholes,” he cautioned Jennifer when they reached the island.
The unnamed key where they’d been searching had been mushy, but here the land was firm, and in places he saw the chalky limestone cap beneath the lush ferns. The ebb and flow of the tide continually sucked water through the porous limestone, eroding it. In some places, the caprock had dissolved enough to form the large pools where alligators lived.
“Ssssh, listen,” he whispered.
The sounds on this key were different. He noted the trill of unseen water as it gurgled under the caprock and crept along in hidden tunnels beneath their feet. The birds competed with the water, singing as they fluttered through the skeins of vines draping down from the upper branches. As he’d been trained, Kyle listened, trying to detect an unusual sound.
Jennifer pointed her forefinger to the sky and twirled it like a starter at a car race. She whispered, “Seek! Seek!”
Sadie turned her head side to side, moving quickly in a figure-eight pattern that had now become familiar. Mostly she kept her head low, but every few seconds, she would lift her nose to test the breeze for little Holly’s scent.
“Sadie!” cried Jennifer softly as the bloodhound stumbled.
The dog’s paw caught in a sinkhole concealed by nettles, and Sadie pitched forward. Jennifer dropped to the ground beside Sadie to check her paw.
“Is she okay?” he whispered.
“Yes, but I need to slow her down or she’ll trip and break a leg.”
Kyle gave Sadie an encouraging pat, knowing that slowing the pace was for all their safety. But if they found the child, they would have to bring her out of the mangroves in the dark.
Their speed measured, Sadie guided them. A cold infusion of danger prickled the fine hairs across the back of his neck.
Someone was watching them.
The warning chill tiptoed up his spine. He eased his hand down to the gun holstered at his hip. The moment they’d come out of the water, he’d removed its waterproof pouch. Something brown flickered in the green undergrowth, a subtle change in color—nothing more—but his training kicked into high gear.
In half a heartbeat he drew the Colt and pressed the voice-activation tab, but he knew better than to fire until he saw what was lurking in the bushes. With luck it was little Holly, heading back toward them.
He tapped Jennifer’s shoulder, then put his index finger up to silently say: “Danger!”
He aimed the Colt, ready to speak to activate the gun, realizing—not for the first time—smart guns were better in civilian hands. The Colt left him without the element of surprise. Yanking back a branch to expose the patch of brown, he opened his mouth to arm the weapon.
Then snapped it shut and dropped his arm.
“Oh, how precious,” whispered Jennifer.
A tiny Key deer, hardly taller than Sadie, stood beside her even smaller fawn, staring at them with melt-your-heart brown eyes wide with fear. In a flash, they pivoted and disappeared into the brush.
“Do you suppose Holly saw them and followed them over here?” Jennifer wanted to know.
He reholstered the gun. “Anything’s possible. Let’s get going.”
Skirting the key, they were still close to the shallow channel they’d crossed—and nearer to the large blotch on the computer screen. He tapped Jenny on the shoulder, and she brought Sadie to a halt with a quick upward lift of the choke collar.
Bending so close his mouth almost brushed her ear, he whispered, “Watch for an alligator. Unless it’s moved, we’re real close.”
As he spoke, he looked over her shoulder at the thicket. Wild dogwood, scraggly magnolias, and a variety of trees he couldn’t name formed a dense canopy over their heads. At ground level, he
saw nothing but lush ferns and ropelike vines clinging to the tree trunks above a large grayish rock.
“Wait.” He breathed rather than whispered the word into Jennifer’s ear. Her body became rigid as her troubled eyes met his. “Listen.”
His training had taught him to constantly pay attention to the sounds of nature, especially the chirping of birds that lived high in the trees above most danger. Perhaps their approach had silenced the birds, but he doubted it. His sixth sense warned him, the way it had alerted him to danger in other situations. He’d cheated death before, yet this time his pulse quickened because others’ lives were at risk.
With Jennifer’s troubled eyes on him, Kyle closely inspected the area. Nothing. Then he saw the way Sadie was trembling. She was obeying the “silent search” command and had not given in to the urge to bay.
Jennifer noticed, too, and silently pointed to Sadie’s quivering tail. Her lips formed the words: “Holly’s near-by.”
The excitement firing her blue eyes was almost contagious. Almost. He held back, wondering what the birds high in the trees saw that he couldn’t. Before allowing them to proceed, he shifted positions, barely missing a treacherous sinkhole that could have injured his bad knee again.
His gaze tracked the direction Sadie’s nose was pointing. On the far side lay the rock almost concealed by a mossy bank of ferns and vines. He turned to signal to Jennifer to move forward. A fleeting motion alerted him.
The stone had blinked.
In the tricky light it was difficult to tell if what he’d seen was shadow play or the real thing. But as he inspected the mossy rock with the expert eye that had spotted enemies hidden in the casbah and deadly foes in the jungle, he realized a full-grown alligator was ahead—not a rock.
From the looks of it, the ’gator was snoozing in a pond-like sinkhole partially concealed by ground creepers and wild ferns. Kyle leaned toward Jennifer, barely moving, trying not to alert the beast to their presence.
“That’s not a rock. It’s an alligator,” he whispered to Jennifer.
Her gaze shifted to the rock, instantly widening as she realized he was right. “Where’s Holly?”