Phoenix Inheritance Page 16

  “The counselor you want Charlie to see can read minds?”

  Daz nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I want Charlie to see her right away. She could tell us for sure exactly what’s going on inside his head.”

  Renee brushed the hair back away from her face. “I need coffee. I need lots of coffee.”

  Turkey, Nine Years Ago

  Daz stayed only one step behind Renee to watch for signs that her injury would catch up to her. There was still time for her to faint, though that was probably unlikely. She’d handled the bear and her injury as well as one of his own men. But once the adrenaline wore off, there was always the possibility of a collapse.

  Gabe had already slowed his pace to accommodate her. Daz suspected Renee would be pissed if she noticed they were being so careful with her. She’d think she was letting them down.

  Let them down? She and her dogs had saved him.

  He couldn’t get that image of her facing the bear with a damned stick out of his mind. No hesitation, no visible fear, she’d just jumped directly in front of a charging bear to defend her dog.

  He’d worked with freakin’ SEALs who’d have hesitated in front of an animal attack. Now there she was hiking ahead of him, on what she worried might be a wild goose chase, on the off chance she could still help someone because helping people was a good thing.

  No wonder she was hard to impress. She set some damn high standards for herself. And he’d thought her wearing the Wonder Woman T-shirt was silly. From all he could tell, she was Wonder Woman.

  They stopped in another hour and ate, mostly in silence, preserving their strength. He could easily go longer even with carrying two packs but Gabe was showing a few signs of fatigue. The rookie needed more muscles on those bones. Renee petted her dogs and insisted she was fine to go on.

  Gabe headed them in the right direction and they trudged on. Nice place to hike, he thought, and he would’ve appreciated these mountains more if, twice now, something here hadn’t tried to kill him.

  They halted at the crest of a ridge. Daz put his hand up. “Hear that?”

  “Engines,” Renee said.

  “That’s the road down there,” Daz pointed. “Let’s back up and figure out the next move.” No telling who was on that road. And soon, they’d have to decide what was next. Stop for the night, go on in the morning or even head back? Renee, despite being stoic, was moving slower and slower with each step.

  She took the break as a chance to sit and settled on a tree stump. He handed her more water and an energy bar. “Drink and eat some more. Otherwise, you might go into shock.”

  “Hah,” she said but did as ordered. The dogs had already refreshed themselves by tromping through a stream about an hour ago. Gabe knelt down to look at Thor’s back.

  “How is he?” Renee asked.

  “So far, so good,” he answered.

  “We need to decide which way to go, when to stop or if we’re going to head back,” Daz said.

  “We didn’t come all this way to go back,” she said.

  “You’re the one in charge, Lieutenant,” Gabe said.

  “Yep. So, tell me, how close are we to the last known location?”

  Gabe help up his gizmo. “Within a mile, as the crow flies.”

  They’d made some damn good time, all things considered. “Okay. Let’s get closer to the road and see who’s on it. I might spot some local who heard the crash or saw the plane go down.”

  “Didn’t you say there were guards on the road?” Renee stood. “I think we—”

  Whatever else she was going to say was cut off by loud barks from Thor and Loki. He and Gabe raised their guns.

  Renee put her hand on his elbow. “Those are friendly barks.”

  “Friendly? Who do your dogs know out here?”

  A bark sounded from a distance. “Another dog. One they know.” She rose to her feet. “It’s got to be one of the dogs from Jake’s team.” She shaded her eyes, straining to see into the distance.

  Gabe raised his binoculars. “Looks like a black lab. He’s running along the crest of the ridge headed straight for us.”

  “Let me see.” Renee snatched the binoculars from his hand. “That’s Sirius! Sirius! Here, boy!” She pulled her dog whistle from under her shirt and blew it.

  “Sirius?” Daz asked.

  “Sirius is one of Jake’s dogs.” She grinned. “He must have survived the crash, just like I hoped.” She handed over the binoculars and knelt down, apparently to greet the dog at his level.

  The black lab nearly bowled her over as he arrived, licking her hands and face, and making nuzzling noises. Daz grinned and wondered if she ever offered humans the same affection as dogs.

  “Oh, good boy, Sirius.” She hugged him. “Good boy.” She glanced at them. “He seems in good shape. No injuries that I can find. That’s good, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Daz said, though all it told them for certain was that a dog survived the crash.

  Thor and Loki gathered around the new arrival, sniffing and wagging their tails. Renee tossed Sirius some treats. He snatched them up faster even than the German Shepherds.

  Daz knelt down to get a good look at Sirius. He sniffed.

  “He smells pretty damn healthy for a dog that’s been in a plane crash,” Daz said. “No gasoline or smoke traces.”

  Renee grinned. “Yeah, he does, doesn’t he? Maybe they landed safely.”

  “Maybe.” But if so, why hadn’t the plane radioed for help? There was more to this story. “So what now, search-and-rescue expert?”

  Renee stood. Sirius head-butted her knee. “He’s trained to seek and retrieve help back to his original location. That’s the signal that I should follow him. And that means someone sent him out and that has to be Jake.”

  “I can’t argue with that logic but why send the dog out and not a person?”

  “They have some injuries and can’t spare a person?” Renee guessed.

  “Maybe,” he said again. He scanned the ridge with his binoculars. No one was in sight. “Sirius came over the ridge and I don’t see anyone in that direction, so that route should be okay.”

  “Should be,” Gabe said. “Doesn’t mean it is.”

  “I know.” Too many questions, but all they could do was go forward with extreme caution. “All right, let’s get this wild goose chase back on the road.” He clapped Renee on the back. “Good job, Wonder Woman.”

  “Thanks.”

  Renee knelt again and whispered something in Sirius’s ear. The lab glued himself to her knee. “He’ll stay with me and lead. It might be faster for him to run ahead but it’s starting to get dark and I don’t want to lose track of him.”

  “You’re the SAR expert, Renee. We follow your lead, so long as it seems safe. Just go slow. We want to be sure of what we’re walking into.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  They set off bunched together, Renee flanked by her two armed protectors.

  “Wouldn’t Sirius have been safer with his owner?” Daz asked. “Why send him out? They have to assume people are already looking for them.”

  “This is what he’s trained to do,” Renee answered.

  “Yeah, but you usually search with your dogs, right? This Jake sent his dog alone.”

  “That’s a good question. It could be Jake is injured.”

  “Sorry to have to bring that up,” Daz said. If he could have spared her that kind of worry, especially after today, he would have. But they all needed to be prepared for what might happen.

  “I understand. I have to be ready for anything.”

  “You have been so far.” He curled his hand lightly around her forearm, hoping to comfort.

  “Thanks.”

  Point made, Daz let it go. But his mind ran through possible scenarios. Only a desperate man would send his dog out blind lik
e this. Injured or menaced? Either way the end of this journey was going to hold some nasty surprises for Renee. And she knew it.

  They picked their way over the spiky terrain on the edge of the ridge. Daz kept them under the cover of the trees, though Sirius obviously seemed to prefer the cleaner trail in the open as he kept roaming over to it.

  “They must need help, fast.” Renee took out her radio. “I’ll going to call Kim and let her know that I have Sirius with me and she can zero in on us. That will decrease their search radius once the helicopters are in the air.”

  “Don’t,” Gabe said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if we do have hostiles out there, they could be monitoring all radio frequencies.”

  “That’s paranoid,” she said.

  So she still held out hope this could be a regular crash rescue. He hoped so too but his job was to be ready for the worst-case scenario.

  “Paranoid is when you have no reason to fear,” Daz said. “We had rocket launchers used against us out here two days ago, one of us was shot less a day ago, and a plane went down out here for no reason less than twelve hours ago. We’ve plenty of reasons to fear trouble.”

  “Damn. You’re right.” She clipped the walkie-talkie back to her belt loop. “But any more delay could be fatal for injured survivors.”

  “Give us a chance to find the site and make sure it’s secure,” Daz said.

  “Okay.”

  But he could tell she wouldn’t be patient for very long.

  Sirius began to vibrate, a sure sign that he scented someone ahead. Thor and Loki sniffed the air and came to full alert as well, their heads held high, their noses in the air.

  Sirius barked, three times. “Quiet!” she told him. Daz obviously wanted them to stay quiet and his paranoia had infected her too.

  “They’ve scented people,” she informed Daz and Gabe. “We’re close.”

  Daz put his finger to his lips, signaling for silence. They viewed the situation as hostile and she’d go along for now. She prayed they were wrong.

  They crept to the top of the ridge, just above the tree line. Daz lay down on his belly, crawled to the edge pulled out his binoculars and looked over the valley below.

  “Shit,” Daz said.

  Dammit. She crawled up to join him.

  In the valley below, armed guards surrounded a small cargo plane sitting in the middle of the road. A steady stream of people were offloading boxes from the plane and loading them onto several nearby trucks.

  The plane was intact. That meant it had at least landed safely. The people being guarded must be the plane’s passengers, meaning they survived. But why were they being used like this? How had the plane landed intact? And who were the guys with the guns?

  “What the hell is this?” she whispered.

  Daz handed her over binoculars. “I’m not sure. Tell me if you recognize anyone down there.”

  She adjusted the lenses and focused on the prisoners. She spotted Jake with one of the heaviest boxes. His other rescue dog, Orion, was at his heels.

  Jake was alive. Thank you, world.

  She shifted the view from Jake to the guard. He wore fatigues and he carried what she thought was a snub-nosed machine gun. Other guards seemed to have full-size automatic weapons. Another scan revealed Butch, Kim’s fiancé, also alive.

  Relief and fear mixed in equal parts made her throat go dry.

  “Well,” she rasped out. “I can see we have good news and bad news.”

  “I didn’t expect an intact plane but it makes sense,” Daz said.

  “How?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to make a plane disappear, but one of the easiest ways is to have the cooperation of the pilot.”

  “Damn good pilot too to land that plane on this road, in that deep a valley,” Gabe added.

  “You’re sure the pilot is in on this?” Renee asked.

  “Yeah,” Daz and Gabe answered.

  “Kim did say she had to find a new one at the last minute,” Renee said. That hadn’t seemed ominous at the time. But she supposed it should have. “But why would someone kidnap a whole plane of relief workers?”

  “They didn’t want the people. They wanted the supplies,” Daz said.

  “They’re awfully organized for thieves,” Renee said.

  “That’s for damn sure,” Daz said. “But those trucks look familiar. I bet it’s the same crew that shot Zach.”

  “So who are they?”

  “That’s what I would love to know.” Daz shook his head. “Let’s get off this ridge, regroup and assess. We need a plan.”

  Once back in the forest, they settled under the shelter of a tall pine tree. Renee relaxed with her back against the trunk, sick to her stomach. Her hand injury throbbed in a steady beat with her heart. The pain pulsed in and out with it. “I thought—no, I hoped—that we’d be dealing with a downed plane and injured survivors. Not this. I never expected to have to deal with armed men.”

  “You expected danger. That’s why you brought us. Which was a very smart move,” Daz said.

  “But there have to be at least ten guards down there and there’s only two of you.”

  “Thirteen guards that I spotted, plus they have two trucks, some of which could be hiding men,” Gabe said, sounding unconcerned.

  “So why don’t you seem worried?” she asked.

  “Because we’re SEALs. This is what we do,” Daz said. “Just like SAR is what you do. First step in a plan is information. So, Renee, tell us everything you know about who and what was on that plane.”

  She closed her eyes and searched her memory for everything Kim had ever said about the supplies. “The drugs are mainly antibiotics and painkillers, along with splints, bandages, sterile surgical materials, and ordinary items like Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment.”

  “Painkillers?”

  “I’d expect there to be a lot. What we’re doing at the relief camp hospital is stabilizing people and then evacuating the seriously injured to a better facility, and that requires morphine.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Food and clothing, supplies for temporary shelters.”

  “Okay. Tell me about the passengers,” Daz said.

  “There’s Jake. He’s a retired Marine who taught me SAR work. There are four to five members of Doctors Without Borders plus some International Red Cross specialists.”

  “And then we have the pilot and whatever crew from the plane, who might be hostile,” Gabe said.

  Sirius head-butted Renee. The poor dog was vibrating with tension, eager to finish his mission.

  “He knows his owner is down there. Sirius wants to go back to him and complete the mission. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep him quiet.” She scratched his ears. “It’s okay, boy, we’re figuring out the best way to help him.” She sighed. “What will the guards do to the passengers once they have all the supplies loaded from the plane?”

  Daz took a while to answer. “I’m not sure.”

  That was an answer all by itself. “You think they’ll kill them?”

  “That would be the easiest way to cover this up. Then again, they could have killed them already and just taken the supplies. They haven’t. I’m not sure why.” He shook his head. “It’d be easier to form a plan if I knew who these people were and what they wanted.”

  “We have to do something and soon,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “First, we prioritize. People over supplies. Agreed?”

  She nodded. “Obviously.”

  “So here’s my idea. The easiest way would be to take control of one of those trucks, load everyone up somehow and take off,” Daz said.

  “Sounds simple when you say it that way,” she said.

  Gabe snorted.

  Daz continued. “But we do i
t that way, that leaves them with the other trucks and a means to pursue. Now, if I knew how to fly a plane, we could organize the passengers, get them on board and take off. Once we neutralized the guards.”

  “Neutralizing the guards would have to be a pretty necessary part of the plan,” she said.

  “Lieutenant, any direct attack on them could be suicide,” Gabe said. “And they might kill the hostages at the first sign of us.”

  “Absolutely,” Daz said again, as if this was a small matter. “We’ll have to do it under cover of night. Renee, can you drive stick shift if those trucks have a manual transmission?”

  “I own a truck with a stick,” she said.

  He smiled. “Naturally.” Daz pointed to her hand. “And you can still handle it with your injured hand?”

  “Oh.” She’d forgotten about her hand. “Luckily, it’s my left hand that’s hurt. I’ll be fine.”

  “Good, that’s the best option: you drive the truck, Gabe and I handle the rest.”

  “The rest?” Gabe asked.

  “I’ll explain later. But the first thing is we need to do is let the hostages know someone is out here so they can be on alert to move.”

  “I could send a note with Sirius to Jake,” she suggested.

  “They might read a note,” Gabe pointed out.

  “Right.” She looked over all three dogs. “What if I switched collars between Sirius and Loki? They’re both black collars, but Loki’s has his name on it. It’s something that only Jake would probably spot. Once he sees it, he’ll know I’m out here.”

  Daz nodded. “Good idea. You don’t happen to know what your Jake did in the Marines?”

  “A gunnery sergeant. He’s got combat medals.”

  “Excellent,” Daz said. “Then we can count on him to keep his head and also organize the rest of the passengers when we attack.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Daz, you’ll be killed in a direct attack!”

  “Which is why we don’t attack directly. Trust me, Renee.”

  “I do trust you.” She squeezed his hand. His rough calluses rubbed against her palm. “But you’re outnumbered at least six to one. What if we call in help with my radio?”