by Cassie Miles
The feed from the camera that faced the edge of the cliff to the south showed a camouflaged figure moving through the trees. He appeared to be carrying a rifle.
If it was only one man, Blake figured that he and Jeremy could easily handle the threat. They’d been in the same eight-man ranger squad for two tours in Afghanistan. The tricky part would be to capture the intruder without harming him. Having backup would be useful.
“Are the twins still here?” Blake asked Maddox.
“They left ten minutes ago.”
He would have preferred using the twins instead of Maddox, who he hadn’t worked with before. “Do you see anybody else on the camera feeds?”
Maddox shook his head. “The intruder appears to be alone.”
“Have you had sniper training?”
“I can handle a rifle.”
“Weapons and ammo are in the front closet. Position yourself on the porch and monitor the camera feeds. If you see another intruder, call my sat phone.”
“What should I do?” Sarah asked.
Once again, they were in the midst of a potentially dangerous situation. This time, he’d keep her on the sidelines. “Stay here. Make sure all doors are locked and don’t let people go near the windows.”
In the dining room, Blake gave a quick explanation to the people around the breakfast table, which now included the band, while Jeremy stole a dramatic kiss from his fiancée. They armed themselves from the weapons cache in the front closet, and Blake gave the orders. “I’ll come in from the north. You take the southern approach. If you have to shoot, don’t go for a kill shot. I want to talk to this guy and get information.”
As they prepared to leave, Alvardo joined them from his bedroom. He immediately deduced what was happening. “I can help,” he said.
“Stay with Maddox.”
Blake might have been able to put him to better use, but he didn’t want to take the time to explain. The sooner they nabbed the intruder, the better. He and Jeremy exited through the door on the far south end of the hallway and pulled it tight so it locked behind them.
They could have taken one of the screens showing the camera feed to pinpoint the location of the intruder, but Blake had a fairly good idea of where he was. “About a hundred and twenty yards away,” he said in low, quiet tones, “near that fork in the path.”
“I know the spot,” Jeremy said. “There’s not much level ground around here, but I think I can get behind him.”
Without further discussion of strategy, they adopted a maneuver they’d used many times before—a pincer with the intruder trapped in the middle. Blake doubted they’d be able to use the element of surprise in the daylight. In their jeans and jackets, they weren’t invisible amid the trees and boulders. Though both men were trained to move with a minimum of noise, the silence of the forest magnified every sound. It wasn’t snowing but the air was ice-cold. A coating of snow from last night covered the ground.
When he had eyes on the intruder, Blake ducked behind a waist-high boulder and watched as the man in gray-and-white camouflage crept timidly toward the house, stopping frequently to look around. His face was covered by a knit gray ski mask. He wore a backpack and carried a semiautomatic rifle.
The forest didn’t appear to be his natural habitat. He was breathing heavily, and he stumbled over twigs and pinecones. He didn’t hold his weapon like a hunter or a soldier, which caused Blake to wonder what the intruder’s plan was. If he wasn’t a marksman, why would he attempt a shooting?
Blake moved to a vantage point uphill from the winding path. Through the trees, he saw Jeremy take his position behind a tree trunk.
The intruder was about forty yards from the south end of the house when Blake fired a warning shot and shouted, “Drop your weapon!”
Instead of obeying, the intruder swung his rifle in a half circle, wildly spraying bullets. “Don’t shoot at me. I’m warning you. Don’t shoot.”
Blake recognized the voice. This was the guy he’d talked to on the phone last night—the kidnapper. “You’re surrounded,” Blake said. “If you don’t drop your weapon, we will open fire.”
“No, don’t shoot.” He threw the rifle into the bare branches of a chokecherry bush. “I’m carrying a bomb.”
“A bomb.”
“That’s right, an explosive device or whatever you military people call it. I was going to plant it at the house.”
Blake stepped out from his hiding place so the intruder could see him, but he didn’t approach the guy. Keeping his voice calm, he asked, “Is the bomb in your backpack?”
“Don’t come any closer.” The intruder waved a metallic blue cell phone. “This is how I detonate it. Come any closer, and I’ll set it off, I swear I will.”
“Come on, man. That’s a nasty way to die. You don’t want to commit suicide.”
“And I don’t want to go to prison. Stay away from me and nobody gets hurt.”
Last night, Blake had thought the kidnapper was the mastermind who hired Farley and his men. But this frightened man didn’t have the attitude or the smarts to be a leader. “Who are you working for? Give me a name. I can cut you a deal.”
“Some names are better left unsaid.” His voice trembled. He was scared. “Leave me alone.”
“Is anyone else with you?”
“It’s just me.”
His answer came so quickly that Blake believed him. There wasn’t a team of assassins. “But you’re taking orders from someone else.”
The intruder shook his head but didn’t verbally deny the accusation. Blake continued, “You’re not the kind of man who hires thugs to do kidnappings. You don’t know how to build a bomb. You shouldn’t have to take the fall for this. If you’re being forced or coerced, I can help you.”
“I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.” He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “I still don’t.”
“I understand,” Blake said. “Take off the backpack, put it on the ground and come with me.”
The intruder hesitated for a moment. He seemed to be considering surrender. Then he looked beyond Blake’s shoulder and saw something that spooked him.
Blake glanced back. Maddox and Alvardo were approaching with rifles held at the ready. They had picked exactly the wrong time to show up. He gestured for them to stay back as he spoke to the intruder. “They’re not going to shoot.”
The intruder turned and stumbled. When he looked up, he saw Jeremy blocking the path to his escape.
“Move.” The intruder waved his cell phone again. “Get the hell out of my way.”
As soon as Jeremy stepped back, the other man bolted. He lurched through the forest, crashing into low-hanging branches and trampling bushes at the edge of the path. Though he seemed to be staying on the pathways, he left a trail that a blind man could follow.
Blake turned to Alvardo and Maddox. “Return to the B and B and keep watch.”
“What are you going to do?” Alvardo demanded.
For a military man, he sure as hell didn’t understand chain of command. Blake was the ranking officer; he gave the orders. “If I need you, I’ll call Maddox on the sat phone.”
He pivoted and jogged down the path toward Jeremy.
“I could have tackled him,” Jeremy said.
“Not worth the risk. You might have triggered the bomb.” Blake looked down the pathway. “Where does this lead?”
“It’s the Cascade Path. It goes downhill and then up to a waterfall that Sarah calls the Cascade. I’m not sure that’s an official name.”
It was a good thing that he’d stopped the intruder. If this guy had managed to set up his explosive and damage the B and B, Sarah would have hunted him down and shown no mercy.
“Can we drive to the waterfall?”
“No.”
“The in
truder must have used a snowmobile to get there.” Because they hadn’t heard an engine, it was safe to assume that the snowmobile wasn’t nearby. “We can’t let him get to his ride. Jeremy, you know this area better than I do. Take the lead.”
He ran behind his buddy, scanning the area as they charged down the path, following the footprints the intruder had left in the snow. He spotted the gray-and-white camo and pointed. “Up there.”
The highest part of the path narrowed to a rocky ledge and was covered with snow, which made the footing difficult. If they couldn’t catch up to the intruder, they’d have to shoot him in the leg and bring him down. Blake wasn’t going to let this guy escape.
Following Jeremy, he powered up the slope. The two rangers were in far better physical condition than the intruder and were closing the distance between them.
Again, Blake tried to reason with the guy. He shouted, “Take off the backpack and step away from it. We can help you.”
“He’s not listening,” Jeremy said.
He was listening, all right, but he was too scared to do what Blake said. The real mastermind—the person who had given the order to plant a bomb—had inspired terror in the intruder.
At the highest point in the path, they were only twenty yards away from the man with the backpack. He stood on a path that went behind the waterfall. Though mostly frozen in jagged spears, water still dripped along the edges and inside the ice, creating an illusion of movement as it descended fifty feet to a rocky pool.
The intruder peeled off his backpack and laid it on the ground. He held up his cell phone. “All it takes to detonate the explosion is for me to hit this button. If I were you, I’d take cover.”
The intruder darted into the cavelike area behind the waterfall. He was hidden by shadow. And they couldn’t risk moving closer. The bomb made a damn effective roadblock.
“He’s getting away,” Blake said. He couldn’t believe this guy had outsmarted him. Jeremy had already moved farther back on the trail. “I’m not getting any closer to that backpack.”
“What’s on the other side of the overhang?”
“I’ve never gone that far.”
Blake descended the path they’d just climbed. He hoped he could find an angle where he could see the intruder well enough to get a shot at him.
A frantic scream pierced the air.
Leaning over the edge of the path, Blake saw the man in gray-and-white camouflage as he tumbled, clawing at rocks and snow, tearing a gash in the steep cliff. He couldn’t break his fall. Momentum carried him the last several feet into the frozen pool at the bottom of the waterfall.
The man wasn’t dead. Sobbing incoherently, he struggled to stand. His bare hands were slick with blood. He’d lost his ski mask and was bleeding from a wound near his temple. The dark red contrasted the white and gray of the rocks and forest. When he attempted to stand, his right leg collapsed under his weight. He sprawled facedown at the edge of the pond.
It was going to take a mountain rescue to get him safely up the cliff. First, Blake needed to deal with the bomb.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Jeremy said, “but he’s still trying to move.”
“Does he have the phone?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Let’s hope not.”
Blake covered the distance between them and the backpack in seconds. He picked up the satchel by a strap and flung it as hard as he could into the forest.
Both he and Jeremy ducked.
They didn’t hear an explosion.
Chapter Eleven
When Sarah got the emergency call from Blake, she responded as quickly as possible. In a storage cabinet in the mudroom, she had the ropes, carabiners, belaying equipment and climbing gear needed for a mountain rescue. It was too much to carry by herself so she called out, “Emily, I need your help.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Sarah gave her a dubious look. “You don’t like rock climbing, and you hate the sight of blood. How come you’re such an eager beaver?”
“Jeremy,” she said simply.
Sarah nodded. “Put together a pack with climbing gear.”
Sarah organized her own pack with first aid supplies and a couple of thermal Mylar blankets.
“First aid,” Emily noted. “Who’s hurt?”
“Blake said the guy they were chasing took a fall. I’m trying to be prepared.”
Alvardo and Maddox stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen. Alvardo said, “We’re coming, too.”
“Not this time,” she said. “Blake wanted help with a rescue that requires climbing. Emily and I know this area.”
“Excuse me, Sarah, but I don’t take orders from you.”
Alvardo sounded as whiny as a kid on a playground. Her standard speech about how she was in charge of whatever happened in her B and B probably wasn’t going to change his childish attitude. “Call Blake on the sat phone. If he gives the okay, I’m fine with it.”
In less than five minutes, she and Emily were geared up and ready to roll. They strode through the kitchen to the front door. Alvardo sat at the dining room table, pouting. Maddox was on the front porch, keeping watch. He waved as the two women rushed into the forest toward the Cascade Path where Blake and Jeremy were waiting.
A combination of adrenaline and relief pumped through her bloodstream. When Sarah had first heard gunfire outside the B and B, she’d imagined the worst. Luckily, the place where Blake and the man in camouflage had their confrontation was within the scope of one of the camera feeds. She could see that he was unharmed. Her fears subsided.
Then Maddox and Alvardo had returned to the B and B and started talking about an explosive device. Her misgivings had taken on a sharper edge, slicing away at her self-control. In the silence that followed while Blake and Jeremy were out of camera range and pursuing the intruder, she’d almost lost it. She felt dizzy. If anyone had spoken to her, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. It had taken a conscious effort to regain her control...and that worried her.
Sarah wasn’t the sort of woman who flew into a panic. Her trademark was holding things together and not getting scared. But the possibility of something bad happening to Blake was terrifying. She barely knew the man. And yet, he was vastly important to her. If he came to harm, she’d be devastated and would probably spend the rest of her life playing sad ballads from Ollie and the Dewdrops about lost loves and lost lovers.
As she and Emily jogged the last few yards to the place where their two army rangers were standing, she envied her friend’s unbridled, passionate reaction to seeing her fiancé. Emily threw her arms around Jeremy and kissed him hard.
Sarah didn’t have the right to embrace Blake. They weren’t in a relationship. But when she looked at him, her heart soared. She was overjoyed to find him safe.
He lightly touched her arm. “Thanks for—”
“Don’t ever do that again,” she snapped, covering her emotion with irritation. “You scared me half to death.”
He wasn’t put off by her gruff manner. Instead, he grinned. “You were worried about me.”
“If you injured yourself on my property, it would have driven my insurance premiums through the roof.”
“You care about me.”
He was teasing, again. And she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing him how much she cared. “What’s this about a bomb?”
“The intruder said he was carrying an explosive device in his backpack.”
“Was he?”
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. I threw the backpack out of the way and it didn’t explode.”
“What was he planning to do with a bomb?” As soon as she spoke, the answer was obvious. “He was going to blow up the B and B.”
“That was his plan.”
&nbs
p; “That bastard!” The threat to her home upset her but not as much as the idea of Blake being in mortal danger. “Then what happened?”
“He tried to run, went through the passageway behind the waterfall. He must have lost his footing. The next thing we knew, he’d fallen.”
From the edge of the path, he pointed down to where the body of a man wearing gray-and-white camouflage sprawled on the rocks at the foot of the waterfall. Red splotches of blood stood out on his clothes. His eyes were squeezed shut. She could see him trembling and knew enough about mountain rescue to recognize the symptoms of trauma.
“He’s going into shock,” she said. “He needs treatment.”
“I put in a call to Kovak. He and the mountain rescue unit will be here as soon as possible.”
“Good,” she said. “We’ll need them to handle the evacuation. I’ve got ropes and carabiners, but I don’t have professional rescue equipment, like an emergency carry litter or a spine board to immobilize the victim.”
“Kovak said you’d had experience with rescues.”
“I’ve taken some classes but I’m not fully trained.” She stared down at the man who had intended to blow up her house. Even though he was the scum of the earth, she couldn’t deny him aid. “We should get down to him and start treatment.”
“You know the area. Where’s the best place to set the ropes?”
“If we go through the passage behind the waterfall, there’s an easy descent on the other side. All hiking, no climbing.”
“How long does it take?”
“Only a few minutes more than belaying.”
She sorted items into one of the large hiking backpacks, including a thermal blanket, water bottles and her first aid kit. As she prepared to hoist it onto her back, Blake caught the shoulder strap.
“Let me carry it,” he said.
She held the strap. “I can manage.”
“I’m sure you can. I’m just trying to be useful.”
There was no point in getting into a tug-of-war. She let go of the pack and watched as he adjusted the straps for his wide shoulders.
