Page 89 of One Last Chance

A gust of wind sailed over the top and sent snow funneling down over them like a waterfall. Axel tried to brace himself, but the snow whipped him back, turning him, tangling him in his line.

The chopper ripped away from its perch, jerked him, and in his peripheral vision, he saw the line rip away from the mountain. One man hung on, inside the yoke, safe.

The other hung onto the yoke with both arms, dangling.

“Get them in, London!”

The chopper dragged him, snow crammed into his visor, blinding him.

And then he was hanging. Simply twisting in midair, eleven thousand feet in the air, nothing but a carabiner saving him from a plummet to the earth below.

He shoved up his visor, tried to clear his eyes even as the wind whipped through his ears, freezing his body. Shouts came from the duo on the line as London tried to reel them in.

Moose, in his ear, talked over London, fighting for control of the chopper.

Then, “The hoist is breaking free!“ London shouted.

No, no?—

And Axel’s safety line might be next?—

Moose’s voice came through, even, calm. “We’re going to put down on the pass above Motorcycle Hill. Hang on, Axel.”

What—he was going to dowhat?

But the chopper suddenly lifted into the air, some one thousand feet, and he swung like a trout on a line, deaf from the wind, his eyes burning, nearly frozen shut as Moose angled them toward the pass.

Snow swirled up under him as he skimmed over the plateau, Squirrel Hill rising in front of him. “Put me down!”

As if he heard him, Moose descended, the snow a tempest, churned up by the blades.

Then the chopper started to spin. Axel looked up, saw it fighting the wind that churned over Squirrel Hill, spinning and bobbing. The bird dragged him through the snow as it descended.

He lost sight of the climbers as he tunneled into the drifts, his body tugged along by the failing chopper. Please, let him not crash into a granite outcropping. He rolled, trying to get his hands on the carabiner, but snow crusted his gloves and?—

And then, suddenly, he stopped.

He rolled over.

Then everything inside him died as he watched the chopper disappear into the mountain in an explosion of snow and ice.

CHAPTER10

“What just happened?”

Flynn stood behind a man named Barry Kingston, Dodge’s father, who manned the radio in the office at the ranch. Not a big office, but the window overlooked the runway as well as the cloud-shrouded Denali range.

Now, Flynn stared out of it as if she might see the red chopper caught somewhere on the mountain.

“Did they go down?”

Barry wore glasses, but she sensed that his eyesight might not be clear, given the way he ran his fingers along the walls when he walked and feathered a touch over the dials and radio equipment on the desk. An icon spun on the computer, and a map of the area, including the individual peaks of the Alaska Range, hung on one wall, a collage of pictures on the other, most of them of his three sons in various outdoor settings, one of his daughter standing in front of a small airplane.

He reminded her of the older version of Indiana Jones, worn wisdom in his leathery face, salt-and-pepper hair, heavier on the salt. He wore a denim shirt and a pair of jeans, leather loafers, and he sat in an office chair listening to the chatter, a microphone in his hand.

Barry held up a hand to her question.

She said nothing, just listened to the static. Finally, he lifted the mic. “Air One, this is Sky King Base, come in.”

---