She was looking at John Gibbs.
The man holding a gun on Aiden was her father.
Ω
Aiden watched the man in the ranger uniform and prayed Madison wouldn’t shoot.
“There’s a woman in the woods with a rifle pointed at you. She’s scared and tired and might shoot. Lower your weapon before she does something we’ll all regret.”
The ranger never took his eyes off Aiden.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Ever think of knocking before you break into a ranger station?”
Sweat trickled down Aiden’s back. The man was wisely standing too far back for Aiden to lunge at him. Madison would probably miss if she shot, but the sound would alert Coyote and his men. He’d rather not have a shootout until they had a chance to set up their positions.
“I’m a USCIS agent, and there are terrorists somewhere on the northern slope.”
“There are three men camped half a mile below,” the ranger confirmed.
“We need to set up a defensive position, and we need to do it quickly. I’m going to turn around and call my girlfriend from the woods.”
“No need,” Madison said.
Aiden turned in surprise as Madison walked out of the darkness into the light of the ranger’s headlamp. She was holding the rifle in her right hand, pointed at the ground. The look on her face was unreadable, and Aiden found himself wondering if the ordeal of the climb and last night’s revelations had been too much for her. Perhaps shock had finally set in.
She stopped when she reached his side, never taking her eyes off the ranger.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to drop your weapon.”
She finally turned to look uncertainly at Aiden. He nodded.
“Go ahead. We need to move inside, so I can show him identification. He can call in and confirm what I’m telling him.”
“Won’t be calling anyone. Someone cut all our communication and power lines last night, which is why I slipped out early this morning.” The ranger moved over to Madison, picked up the rifle she had placed on the ground, and motioned for her to move closer to Aiden. “When I spied your friends on the north slope, I came back. Figured they’d make their way here sooner or later. Why don’t we go inside and straighten this out? Both of you do me the favor of keeping your hands in the air until I can confirm you are who you say you are. Ladies first.”
Madison walked into the ranger station. Aiden followed, wondering how long they had before Coyote and his men made their move. If they began hiking up the switchbacks at first light, they’d be at their doorstep in another forty-five minutes.
MADISON WATCHED AS her father removed all of Aiden’s weapons and set them on the desk. He also placed their packs well out of reach.
“Quite an assortment of guns you have here.”
“We should be preparing for an attack. Coyote is an international terrorist who is responsible for the devastation that occurred in Virginia.”
“Is that so? Now what would he be doing climbing a mountain in Glacier?”
The ranger seemed unfazed as he accepted Aiden’s identification and examined it closely.
“I’m an agent for USCIS.”
“I believe you said as much outside.”
“I’ve been following Coyote for two years and was involved with dissolving his plan to blow up ten other North American dams.”
“Anyone would know that from reading the papers.”
“Would anyone know they were also planning to attack the G8 Summit two weeks ago? That plan was stopped by my unit. Yesterday we learned he had eleven ops planned not ten; the eleventh was Virginia. Now he’s cleaning up, and that means he’s after me, which is why he’s on your mountain. You should have received a special bulletin putting the US-Canadian border on its highest alert level from Commander Martin.”
The ranger handed Aiden his identification back. “Thank you, Mr. Lewis. No, I suppose only agents and border crossing guards would have that information. Please keep your hands up in the air for me.”
Madison choked back the hysteria building in her throat, in her heart, as her father frisked her for weapons.
When she pulled out her driver’s license and handed it to him, he looked at the name, paused, and looked at her face. “Knew a Hart once. Sonya Hart from down in Texas. Don’t suppose you know her.”
“Sonya Hart was my mother.”
It was the ranger’s turn to look surprised, confused even. “Well now. It’s a real small world, isn’t it? Sonya Hart is a very special lady. Many times I’ve wondered what happened to her. We used to write, but she stopped about six months ago.”
“Mother died last summer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, real sorry.”
The ranger cleared his throat and turned to Aiden.
“I obviously have no way to check out your story. You’re asking me to take a defensible position, and I assume, kill a group of climbers who are camped out on my mountain, all on your word. You’re asking a lot, son. I want to believe you, I do. But I can’t go out there with guns blazing because you tell me to. I would be hard pressed to put my neck on the line for a local boy, let alone one of you federal boys.”
Aiden had been staring in frustration out the front window of the ranger station where the sky was beginning to lighten. His head shot up at the words local boy.
“You must not go into town much. I’m from Edgewood.”
“Well now, I know there are some Lewis boys from Edgewood.”
“Nate is my brother.”
The ranger’s frown deepened. “Never got to know the boys myself. I did happen to know their father.”
“Gus Lewis was my dad. If you knew my dad, then you know he died on this mountain.” Aiden walked across the room, hands lowered now. He stopped in front of the ranger. “Most people around here know Gus Lewis died on this mountain—a story that was in all the papers. But the papers never reported the whole story, because I never told it. Only the rangers and my family knew a female grizzly killed him, and I pulled him into a cave on Mt. Gould. Then I climbed up to this ranger station. By the time we got back down to my dad, he had died.”
“No. No one else would know those details.” The ranger paused, searched his eyes a moment longer, then held out his hand. “Name’s Tom Gibbs. Always wanted to meet the young man who was brave enough to climb this mountain in the dark at the age of fifteen. I guess now I have.”
Madison watched confusion play across Aiden’s face as her father introduced himself. She didn’t understand either. The name might be slightly different, but there was no doubt in her mind. The man standing before her was her father. When Aiden raised his eyes to hers, she nodded slowly.
“I guess we should prepare for a shootout at the O.K. Corral if what you say is true.” Gibbs moved to his weapons’ cabinet, unlocked it, and began removing gear.
“There are three men,” Aiden said. “They are heavily armed. What’s their exact location?”
Gibbs walked over to a map on the wall. “They were camped out here. Still there thirty minutes ago. If they had left as soon as I did, which I doubt, it would still take them forty-five minutes to come up the face. They don’t know this mountain. It’ll take them at least an hour.”
Aiden looked around the room. “We have a fairly defensible position. Maddie, I want you on the south side, behind the counter. You’ll be protected there, but still able to shoot.”
“Does she have any experience?”
“No, but she climbed Gould in the dark. She can shoot a terrorist if she has to.”
They proceeded to lay out their ammunition and weapons. Twenty minutes later, the shooting began.
WHEN THE FIRST BULLET penetrated glass, Aiden realized the enormity of their situation. He fully expected to marry Madison when he got off this mountain, which meant the ranger firing beside him would be his father-in-law. The word stuck in his mind.
Father.
He had never thought he’d have one
again. Hadn’t thought he deserved one. He was not going to lose another on this mountain.
So he sought the ice that had served him well on every other mission. And he couldn’t find a single shard of it.
In the freezing cold of this mountain morning, at nearly 10,000-feet elevation, high above Going to the Sun Road, he could no longer hide behind the wall of ice he’d often encased himself in. The dreams had become too real, the emotions too raw. Life in all its pulsing reality was filling the room around him, and there was no blocking it out.
Another window shattered.
“Bad guy at two o’clock,” Gibbs muttered.
“I see him. Maddie, keep your head down over there. I don’t want you shooting unless one walks right in front of your scope.”
Madison let out a squeal when glass near her shattered, then let go with enough semi-automatic fire to send anyone or anything on her side of the building with a lick of sense dodging for cover.
“Think you might have problems teaching that one to listen,” Gibbs said.
“So I’m learning.”
Aiden stood straight up from his defensible position. He’d seen one of Coyote’s men streak west and was betting he’d reappear in his line of sight.
He took the shot as soon as the man appeared, aimed to kill. The way the body kicked, then dropped, told him he succeeded.
“Nice shot,” Gibbs said quietly.
“Two more,” Aiden replied. He’d turned to reload the rifle when Coyote appeared at the window, much closer than he should be. “Tom, look out.”
But it was too late. Coyote took the shot, and Madison’s father fell. Blood stained his shirt, seeping onto the floor. Coyote jerked at the same time. Aiden saw him grab his arm, then turn to run.
Aiden knew he had a choice–-look after Tom or go for Coyote. His training took over. He exploded out the door of the station, hit the ground rolling, aimed at the feet he saw running, and took the man down in a shower of semi-automatic fire.
He stood in time to see the final man running for the front slope. Aiden trained his rifle on him, took his time with the shot, correcting for speed and the slight morning breeze.
He could hear his father telling him, “Aim high, the bullet will drop a little.” Always his father’s words in his ear.
“This one’s for you, Dad.”
Suddenly, he didn’t mind feeling again. Even as he saw the man drop and accepted the pain of ending another life, knowing it had to end. Even then, he knew it was better to feel, to hurt, to experience pain and sorrow along with the joy, than to be numb in the cube of ice he had built around himself.
The bullet had found its mark. The man’s body lifted slightly, then fell. Aiden walked around to each body, checked for a pulse, assured himself it was over. Only then did he stumble back into the station, where he found Madison kneeling over her father.
“Step back, Maddie. Just a little, sweetie. How is he?” Aiden moved her ever so gently. If the man didn’t die from the gunshot wound, he’d die from lack of air.
“How do you feel, Tom?” Aiden was relieved to see an exit wound in the man’s shoulder. “Maddie, I need you to bring me the first-aid kit out of my pack.”
She nodded and ran for the pack.
“She tells me I’m her daddy,” Gibbs said.
“Yes, Sir. I sort of suspected as much. She’s been looking for you since she arrived here in August.”
“Feels different. Being a dad. I think I kind of like it.”
“Guess we better stop this bleeding so you can live long enough to get used to the idea.”
“I was shot once before,” he confessed. “Gulf War. Didn’t feel great then either.”
Madison appeared with the first-aid kit.
“Sweetie, I want you over here. Can you help me? We need to cut away this material and stop the bleeding.”
“Ok. Yeah. I can help.” Her hands were shaking, but she was holding together. Sweet Maddie, always holding herself together.
Tom looked at her, tears standing in his eyes, but not from the pain of the bullet. “Sonya never told me. I feel like such a fool. I should have been there all these years. For you and for her. Not hiding out on this mountain.”
“Please don’t talk.” Madison’s tears fell freely as she wiped away his sweat and tears. “Just rest.”
“I’ve been resting all my life. Resting and waiting. Ever since I came back from the Gulf. I should have gone to her then, but I thought she deserved better. Will you forgive me?”
“Of course. Of course, I do.” Madison stroked his hand as Aiden continued to lay out what he would need from the kit.
Tom nodded, squeezed her hand, then turned to Aiden. “I don’t hear any more shooting, so I suppose you killed the rest of those men.”
“Yes, Sir. Your front yard is strewn with bodies.”
“Cecil will be surprised when he comes to relieve me.”
Madison and Aiden exchanged glances as Aiden administered a dose of morphine. They proceeded to clean and dress the wound.
“When is Cecil supposed to be here?”
“Cecil? Well, let’s see. He should be here any time I guess. Wednesday. He comes on Wednesday. Wow. I had forgotten how great morphine is. They had that in the Gulf too.”
“Try to rest now.” Aiden looked across at Madison. “I don’t want to move him. Find a pillow and a couple of blankets.”
They made him as comfortable as possible. Unfortunately, the room was freezing. Coyote had managed to cut the power as well as the communications.
AIDEN WENT OUT TO CHECK the backup generator, came back, and reported it had been destroyed in the gunfight. He brought several loads of firewood inside the station. By the time he had a roaring fire going, Madison had pulled out more food rations and water for them. The morphine had done its job, and Gibbs was sleeping.
“What are we going to do?” Madison asked. “It’s only Monday. Do we wait for them to notice he hasn’t called in?”
“The wound’s clean, but he’s lost a lot of blood. It could take twenty-four hours for the authorities to figure out he’s in trouble up here. It’s not unusual for the power to go out because of storms. They won’t assume he needs help.”
“What about the boys? They’ll have told the authorities we started up the mountains.”
“True, but honey we could have gone any direction. They’ll be searching, but again it’ll take time.”
“You think we should go for help?”
“I think I should go for help.”
“I think you should both go for help.”
They both turned to look at Madison’s father.
“If you think I can’t take care of myself for twenty-four hours, you don’t know how tough old rangers can be.”
“I hate to leave you here alone, Sir.”
“You know the number one rule of hiking.”
“No one hikes alone,” Aiden and Madison said in unison, then smiled at each other. It was a smile tinged with sadness. They had won this morning, but it had come with a price.
“If you leave now, you can hike down this mountain before dark. Storm’s moved on out. They can call a helicopter up here now. You’re sure those terrorists didn’t have anyone else with them?”
“We didn’t see anyone else. The car tailing us only had those three, but we don’t know that more weren’t behind them.”
“Good enough. Leave my weapon within reach. Move me over to the couch where I can watch outside.”
“I’ll need to cover these windows with plastic,” Aiden said. Every window had been shot out, and although the fire was crackling it was still quite cold.
“No time for that,” Tom said.
“You’re going to be fading in and out, Sir. There is some danger.”
“Life is full of danger. I suppose you know that already. Have known since you were fifteen.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Let’s get on with it then.”
They moved him as care
fully as possible. Set water and rations near him. Covered him with blankets, and put his weapon and ammunition within reach in case he needed it.
After they had put on their coats and set their packs by the door, Aiden walked over and shook his hand.
“Take care of Maddie. Take care of my daughter. You hear, Agent Lewis?”
“Yes, Sir. I will.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours.” He turned to Maddie then, and she came to him, kneeling beside the couch. “I’m not going to die while you’re gone. You mean too much to me. I have a lot to make up for, Madison.”
He reached out and touched her face. “You look a lot like Sonya. Your mother would be proud of you.”
“I tried so hard to find you.” She forced the tears back. If she started crying again she might not stop this time. “I was looking for John Gibbs.”
Her father smiled, a genuine smile that suggested better days might be ahead of them. “Guess I didn’t introduce myself properly. My full name is Jonathon Thomas Gibbs. When I came back from the war...well, I saw some difficult things there. Did some difficult things.”
“I know about the Purple Heart.”
“There was that. But there were also Senate hearings, reporters, things I couldn’t deal with at the time. I took this job, hid out on this mountain, dropped my first name, and tried to forget all of that. I kept one post office box open in St. Mary’s under John Gibbs so I could correspond with your mother. I didn’t think anyone else would ever need to find me. I didn’t know about you.”
Madison nodded and kissed his hand. The important thing was they had found each other. Somehow and against all odds. She wanted to stay right here beside him, but one look at Aiden waiting impatiently near the door and she knew she couldn’t. They still had one more job to do.
THEN THEY WERE GONE, hiking down the front of Mt. Gould. It wasn’t such a hard hike, nothing requiring a technical knowledge of climbing.
As they worked their way down, Madison couldn’t help comparing it to their hike up in the darkness. That had required her to completely put her trust in Aiden. The total darkness had been like her life before she had met him.
Coyote's Revenge Page 28
