You’re telling me, Eric thought silently. He remained silent as Keith opened his eyes and focused his gaze on Naomi. The unguarded look of joy and love on Keith’s face confirmed for Eric everything that Lindsey had told him. For the first time in his life, Eric felt out of place in the company of his twin. After a few reassuring words to Keith, he said his goodbyes and quietly slipped from the room to return to the motel, where Ginger and Mrs. Wilson were waiting.
He had to pass the heliport on the way to the parking lot. Its stark, empty landing pad in the cold darkness seemed to reprove him. With an icy grip around his heart, he forced himself to stop.
Where are you, Lindsey? How will I ever find…?
He stopped, the icy grip on his heart lessening. She still has her winter survival gear on…just like me. I didn’t change at the motel, and Lindsey never even made it there. That means…
His right hand immediately traveled to the avalanche locator beacon that remained attached to his parka.
I know Lindsey! She would’ve turned it on the first chance she had!
Despite the ice and falling snow, he ran back to the hospital’s phones. He had to get hold of Jack Hunter and the chief of police. And then he had to search his gear in the back of the car for the more powerful locator device.
LINDSEY CONTINUED TO FEIGN sleep, not hard to do. Her exhausted body had relaxed under the warmth generated by the sleeping Pam. She tried to guess how long it had been, wished she dared look at her wristwatch, and wondered how soon before Wilson went after Jim. She didn’t have to wait more than a minute or two.
“That son of a— I told him not to take long!” Wilson peered out the front bubble window of the chopper, trying to catch some glimpse of the pilot. “Where the hell is he?”
Lindsey sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Huh?” she said, wishing she was a better actress.
“You stay put,” he ordered with another wave of his gun for emphasis. He hurried to the door latch and lifted it with one hand. Nothing happened. He lifted the latch again. Still nothing. Wilson swore a vicious expletive, pocketed his gun and used both hands. The door remained jammed shut, secured from the outside. Wilson swore again and reached for a large flashlight.
Hot damn, Jim, you bought yourself some time! Lindsey thought as Wilson continued to work at the door, pushing his shoulder against it. Finally the latch popped open at Wilson’s weight, and he fell out, head first, into the snow. No wonder you wanted me to know our present coordinates! You planned on jamming the door all along!
Immediately Lindsey was on her feet, grabbing at the door and locking it securely. She dashed to the front of the helicopter, turned on the battery-operated control lights the way Jim had explained, and reached for the radio. She keyed the mike and spoke into it, using the chopper’s call sign, begging the hospital control desk to answer her with a frantic “Over?”
“Lee Vining Hospital here, Life-flight One. Over?”
“This is Ranger Lindsey Nelson. Your pilot’s escaped and is headed for a nearby hunting cabin. Said you’d know where. I turned on my—” She started to tell them about the transponder and give their coordinates, but the noise of a bullet passing through the Plexiglas of the cockpit—followed by Pam’s scream—cut her off. Startled, she accidentally dropped the radio mike, then froze as she looked straight ahead. Wilson held the flashlight toward himself, and the light showed him pointing his gun straight at her.
Lindsey made no move to retrieve the radio mike. Instead, her hands in the air, she slowly backed toward the helicopter door, unlocked it and let her captor back in as a terrified Pam sobbed on her stretcher.
Hospital flight dispatch room
ERIC LISTENED TO THE dispatcher relate the circumstances of Lindsey’s short radio contact to McClanahan. He’d planned to contact Jack Hunter via radio from the dispatch center, and happened to be there during her frantic call. The sound of gunfire had made him break out in a cold sweat. When the broadcast went dead, he’d instructed the dispatcher to radio the chief, who’d arrived soon after.
“So the pilot’s escaped, and we don’t know the status on the other two hostages?” McClanahan asked the dispatcher.
“Not that I could tell. The transmission was so short—”
“I know what she didn’t get time to say,” Eric said. “She’s wearing a homing beacon. You get me to that hunting cabin, and I can find her from there.”
“You got access to a locator unit?” McClanahan asked.
Eric showed him the personal transponder he had in his jacket. “They’re two-way. Any of us can switch them from transmit to receive. But I’ve got a stronger unit in the back of my truck. Let’s go.”
LINDSEY WIPED AT THE TEARS on one of her cheeks. Wilson had punched her hard in the face when he finally returned without Jim. Already her eye was swelling shut, tearing from pain. Pam continued to wail until Wilson threatened her as well, then she buried her small face in a pillow to muffle her crying. Wilson ranted and screamed, finally ripping the radio mike from the console. Bare wires trailed from the unit as he threw it at her. Lindsey ducked, and it bounced off the locker behind them.
“I hope your pilot freezes his ass off. So, who planned the escape?” Wilson asked, his posture threatening as he hovered over her. “Whose idea was it?”
Lindsey shook her head, unwilling to be honest yet knowing she didn’t lie well. “I didn’t know he was going to latch the door from the outside!” she said honestly. “I swear he didn’t tell me!”
“Lying bitch.” Wilson raised his hand as if to strike her again. Lindsey ducked, covering her head. The blow she waited for didn’t fall. Instead, she heard Wilson click off the safety on his handgun.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you like I killed that last ranger.”
Lindsey cautiously dropped her arms and raised her head, one hand reaching for Pam’s shaking body, the other pressed against her swollen eye.
“But…Keith’s not dead,” Lindsey said, confused. “He’s recovering at the hospital.”
“Not the male ranger,” Wilson said contemptuously. “The female one—the one I buried in the snow.”
“What?”
Wilson smiled with evil satisfaction. “She came across me and Pam earlier, only she was downwind and downhill. Didn’t take much to start that snowslide. Saved me from wasting ammo and the other rangers from learning my location. Until you showed up to replace her.”
This time tears spilled from Lindsey’s eyes. “You killed Eva?” she whispered in horror.
His smile chilled her. “Nope, the snow did that. I just helped it along.”
Lindsey began to shake with fear, willing herself not to give into panic and hysteria as Wilson continued.
“Come daybreak, the three of us are going on a little hike. As long as you carry my daughter, you stay alive. When you can’t…I leave you for the elements. They won’t be able to prove murder, even if they do find you.”
Lindsey thought of the sorrow Eric, Naomi and Keith felt over Eva’s death. Will I ever get a chance to tell them about her? Will I ever see any of them alive again?
Sheriff’s truck
“HOW LONG WILL THE BATTERIES in her transponder work?” the chief asked.
“A good twenty-four hours.”
“I hope that’s enough time for us to find her.” McClanahan nodded, driving the four-wheel-drive truck with the snowmobiles in the covered cab. Another police truck followed, with two more officers. “If we get any more snow, we won’t be able to use the snowmobiles. We’ll have to hike—and leave the dog in the truck.” McClanahan glanced quickly at Ginger between Eric’s knees. He’d insisted on bringing her.
“How much has fallen?” Eric asked, peering through the windshield. Even on high, the wipers were barely able to keep pace with the precipitation.
McClanahan shrugged. “Easily close to five,” he said. “We’ll get more if this storm doesn’t blow itself out soon.”
“We’ve got to get to that hunter’s cabin quickl
y,” Eric told him. “We usually start setting charges and firing the avalanche cannon for every six inches of snow we get.”
“Whaddaya use?” McClanahan asked with curiosity.
“Two-pound charges—anywhere from three hundred to three hundred and fifty of them.”
The chief whistled. “Wouldn’t catch me messing around with that stuff.”
“Keith’s our explosives expert. He’s as good as they come.”
“The parks should close down in the winter, especially to cross-country skiers or snowmobilers stupid enough to risk killing themselves.”
“Can’t. The parks are—”
“Public land,” McClanahan finished for him. “I know. It stinks.”
“We tell visitors about the dangers, do our best to keep the slide risks down, but we’re powerless to prohibit entry.”
“They should change that law,” McClanahan said. “Friend of a friend of mine got killed when a slide caught him on public land. It only moved fifty yards down the slope, but it compacted itself as dense as ice. Guy never had a chance.” He took his eyes off the road for just a second to meet Eric’s. “I won’t order my men into danger. I’ve seen how snow kills.”
Eric thought of Eva. So have I.
“If you’re worried about your men or yourself,” he muttered, “save it. Suicide missions aren’t my style.”
“Then we understand each other,” the cop said. “Frankly, if it were only Wilson trapped out there, I’d leave him to the weather and sleep with a clear conscience.”
“But it isn’t only him. Is it.”
The cop had nothing to say to that, and the two trucks continued on their way in the whirling flakes toward the old hunting cabin.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Medi-chopper
Day 10, dawn
LINDSEY AWOKE SHIVERING from what was already a fitful sleep. The temperature inside the cabin had dropped dramatically. Even with her winter gear on, she was cold. She quietly placed her half of the covers more firmly around Pam, who still slept, and checked her skin. The child’s face felt cold, as did the little wrists above her mittens. Lord only knows what further damage was being done to the girl’s feet, Lindsey thought.
Worse yet, despite the morning hour, it was still dark inside the chopper cabin. She confirmed the morning with a glance at her lighted watch face. A heavy layer of snow, so heavy that it blocked most of the light, must have covered the cabin’s Plexiglas. She couldn’t hear anything clearly. Lindsey almost pounded on the nearest glass to try to dislodge the snow, then stopped.
In the background she could hear Wilson’s soft snoring. He was still in the front of the cabin, while she and Pam remained closest to the chopper hatch. Lindsey stared at the sleeping girl, her throat tight.
This idiot’s never going to let his daughter go. He’d kill us first. I’ve got to try one last time to get out of here. If I can get free, I know Eric will find us.
Lindsey had no elaborate plans. The most she hoped was that she and Pam could get out the door before they were shot. If Wilson woke up, she’d say they needed to relieve themselves after the long night. If they did make it outside, Lindsey planned to wait under the chopper, then tackle him as he came out.
Maybe I’ll get his gun. Maybe he’ll fall and hurt himself. And maybe I’ll win the lottery today and fly off to Hawaii for a suntan.
She knew her plan was risky and would probably get her another black eye or a bullet in the back. But all her instincts—instincts she’d always trusted to keep her alive as a ranger—told her it was now or never.
Lindsey said a quick, desperate prayer, then placed her palm over Pam’s mouth to wake her. The child’s eyes flew open as Lindsey bent and whispered in her ear, “Shh. We’re going outside.”
She gave no other explanation, nor did Pam ask for one. Lindsey helped the girl sit up and wished she had boots or shoes for her heavily bandaged feet. After allowing herself a final thought of Eric, she grabbed the child’s waist with one arm, reached for the door handle, pushed down on it…
And threw herself and the child headfirst out the open door.
Wilson’s roar of anger filled her ears even before she and Pam hit the deep, soft snow. Out of the corner of her good eye, she saw him come after her, gun pointed. His heavy frame hit the side of the hatch, shaking the helicopter. All of the night’s accumulated snow, which had covered the chopper, fell on top of him and knocked the gun out of his hand.
Lindsey did the first thing that came into her head at the sight of this miracle. She bounded as fast as she could through the snow, Pam in her arms. She kept going, expecting to feel a bullet slam into her back at any second. Behind her, she heard Wilson cursing as he searched for the gun, but it was just dawn, the light was faint, the snow deep, and Wilson hadn’t been awake long enough to be fully alert. By the time he found his gun, Lindsey had made the cover of a small copse of trees.
The first bullet Wilson fired at her missed.
Lindsey dropped to the ground, the tree trunks between her and Wilson providing shelter. She prayed Eric and the authorities were close enough to hear the noise, then she heard an ear-splitting crack—not the sound of a bullet, but the ominous sound of snow shifting and groaning, layers of ice and snow splitting.
Oh, God, not again! She hunkered even lower with Pam on the downside section of the copse of trees. Then the heavy blast of the displaced mass of air tore at her body, followed by the stinging needle-sharp fierceness of moving snow and ice.
ERIC, MCCLANAHAN AND ONE of the cops made their way through the hilly expanse of snow, which continued to fall in what looked more like chunks than flakes. Earlier they’d discovered the pilot in the hunting cabin. He’d brought them up to speed regarding the hostages and their situation.
“You’re not that far from the chopper. Shouldn’t be hard to spot it when the sun comes up, especially with that big red cross on the side,” Jim had said, then wished them luck. Accompanied by one of the officers in the second truck, he’d retreated to the warmth of the vehicle while the other three had gone on.
The new snow was deep, but the snow beneath it had frozen to a hard crust that supported the three men and Ginger. Eric towed the ranger sled with medical supplies and snowshoes, in case the crust grew unstable in the warmth of the day. For now, he preferred the hard footing for speed. Lindsey’s transponder was still beeping strongly, and the local authorities knew their way around this popular hunting area even in the faint light.
“How much farther?” Eric asked McClanahan, when they’d stopped for a breather. While the chief checked his navigation, Eric searched the area ahead with his binoculars.
“I figure another fifteen minutes or so. We should make good time with the sun fully up. With the ground cover and all, maybe we can take—” McClanahan never finished his sentence.
The sound of a discharged firearm filled the air, followed by a second cracking that grew into the earsplitting roar of an avalanche.
None of the three men moved. They were off to the side of the moving snow. Eric thought he heard McClanahan yell, “We’re safe,” but the thundering roar made speech impossible.
“Lindsey…” His lips formed the words in horror as he watched the night’s accumulation of snow on the nearby slope—and the layers below, made slippery by lubricating meltwater—cover the wooded area where the chopper was hidden.
Before the snow had even stopped moving, Eric reached for his watch and set the chronometer to tick down from fifteen, the average number of minutes an avalanche victim had before suffocation set in. He hoped it might be more, since the three were inside an enclosed aircraft. Please, God, let the chopper stay upright and intact. The slide wasn’t that big…. It didn’t travel that far….
He heard McClanahan say to the officer, “No sense taking the covered route to the hostages now. Let’s head straight on in.”
But Eric was already leading the way, his receiver picking up stronger and stronger signals as the party moved a
cross the crust of undisturbed snow to arrive at the slide area. Quickly they changed to snowshoes, the receiver still beeping.
They advanced to the edge of the slide, then cautiously climbed upward to continue their trek. The pinging noises weren’t coming close enough together for them to dig, yet, but Ginger suddenly stopped, her whole body quivering.
“Come,” Eric commanded, but the dog stayed where she was, nostrils flaring.
“What’s going on?” McClanahan asked. “Do we dig here?”
“I don’t know….” Eric said uncertainly. “The slide couldn’t have moved the chopper this far, could it? It wasn’t that big.”
“What, the helicopter or the slide?”
“The slide—the slide wasn’t that big.” He checked his receiver. The pings still weren’t signaling their usual X marks the spot.”
“Maybe the dog smells some rabbits,” McClanahan suggested.
“Come on, Ginger,” Eric urged again. Ginger paused, then ran toward the area at the bottom of the slide, where just the tops of the trees showed. Eric yelled the dog’s name, and she froze, unwilling to return, but uncertain about continuing.
“That chopper couldn’t have been dragged into the trees—not with the pines standing straight up like that,” McClanahan said.
“Or could it?” the other officer asked.
Both policemen swiveled toward Eric, who held the receiver in his hands. “Which way?” they asked. “Where do you want us to dig?”
Eric took in the snow before him, the waiting dog, the shovels strapped onto the sled. He heard the beeping of the receiver. Then he looked at his watch, and saw that five of his fifteen minutes had already gone by.
“What’s the word, Ranger?” McClanahan repeated. Eric was the avalanche expert. They looked to him for orders.
For the life of him, Eric didn’t know what to say…what to do…as the minutes ticked on.
LINDSEY FELT WARM BLOOD from her nose seep onto her face as she started to dig a breathing space in the dark silence that had descended on her. That movement sent shooting pains through one arm—pains that meant the serious injury of broken bones. With her one good hand, she frantically felt for Pam’s face and managed to clear the girl’s nose and mouth.
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