Page 8 of High Velocity

“All you have to do is draw a line on the map to see that’s where he’s heading,” Vallard points out. “Unless he’s already there.”

It does appear that way.

Dammit, this is hard. Every instinct in me wants to take this on, but I’ve had to hand in my badge and weapon, and I don’t think Bellinger would be too happy if I defied his orders.

If I started messing around in an active investigation without the necessary credentials, I could risk losing my badge altogether.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

Before he can get a word in edgewise, I end the call and power down my phone.

Jackson

“Got a call from the game warden’s office.”

Dan, Fletch, JD, Bo, Wolff, and I were working around the ranch when Jonas put out a call for everyone to meet him at the ranch house. I guess because of the size of the group, we ended up gathering in the kitchen, where Ama already had a fresh pot of coffee on the go.

Jonas waited for all of us to be present before getting into the reason for this impromptu meeting.

“A hunter radioed in from up on Quartz Mountain. He and a friend were on the trail of a bear when he stopped to take a whiz, while his hunting buddy had gone ahead. When he tried to catch up with his friend, he couldn’t find him. The guy had disappeared. He’d been looking for over an hour before calling it in. He thinks his buddy—the name is Juan Pérez—may have tried to cross a stream of runoff water in their path, slipped, and got swept away. According to Buck, it’s probably one of the tributaries feeding into West Fork Quartz Creek which is currently near cresting its banks with all the snowmelt coming down from the mountains.”

“Yeah, I heard a few areas on the north side of town are already dealing with some flooding,” Fletch contributes.

Spring flooding is not uncommon but, with the rapid temperature rise these past few days, it’s shaping up to be a particularly bad year.

I shake my head when Ama comes by with the coffeepot for refills. These days even that first cup of coffee makes my gut hurt. I don’t know if I’m getting old at thirty-eight, or whether drugs burned a hole in my stomach. I don’t take them anymore—some of those medications I was prescribed while I was recovering were pretty heavy duty—but the damage could already have been done.

Whatever the case may be, I’m not in the mood to examine either possibility too closely at the moment. Sounds like we have more important things on the go.

“Yeah, the rivers and creeks in the valley are starting to crest as well. It’ll likely be a bad year for flooding,” Jonas echoes my earlier thoughts. “At any rate, the guy could be halfway down to the Kootenay River by now. Adams wants us to meet him at the cutoff to forestry road NF-4654,” he gets us back on track. “Fletch, if you don’t mind covering the ranch?”

Fletch nods in acknowledgement. He’s been dealing with arthritis for a few years now, making it difficult to be effective on these potentially long searches. Even on a healthy body, a couple of hours in the saddle can be a challenge. The man knows his limitations, the last thing he wants to do is risk slowing down or holding up a search when time is often of the essence.

Sully limits himself to operating the drone and manning base camp communications. Not even Jonas himself goes out much anymore. James and Bo are the only ones of the old guard who still regularly make up part of the tracking team.

Bo is in pretty good shape for his age, plus he’s our field medic, which often comes in handy. As for James, not only is he still the best tracker we have—although JD is a close second to his father—but I suspect we’ll have to pry him off his horse when he dies in the saddle.

It’s mostly up to the younger guard these days, which Jonas confirms when he continues assigning tasks.

“JD, Bo, Dan, and Wolff, gear up; you guys are going out there. Pack the gear, and load up the horses.” Then he turns to me. “Son, I’ll need you to fly the Matrice and run communications. Sully and James should be back from their run to Missoula by tonight, so if we haven’t found him yet, we’ll switch things up a bit for tomorrow.”

Of course I’d prefer to be in the field with the others, but I’m learning to accept every part of an operation is important. Arguably, managing communications and providing intel gathered with the drone to the men in the field could be considered crucial to the team.

I’m good on horseback, my stamina is at par with the others. However, when working in this rugged terrain, there are plenty of times the team has to dismount and lead their horses through some rough spots. That’s where my limitations come in, because traversing rough terrain on my prosthetic leg is tough, and as much as I’d like to claim my equality to the others, the simple truth is I’m not. Not when it comes to agility.

Hence, I’m not surprised I was assigned to man base camp, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little.

“I’m gonna help you set up, but then I have to get back here. I promised your mother I’d take her to that new Brazilian barbecue restaurant in town for our anniversary,” Jonas announces, clapping his hand on my shoulder as we walk down the porch steps. “Personally, I don’t know what’s so special about Brazilian barbecue versus good old American barbecue. As far as I can tell, a good piece of meat is tasty no matter what flag they fly over the grill they cook it on.”

I don’t think I’ll share I heard they have a couple of guys walking around Gaucho—the name of the new restaurant—with a guitar and an accordion, serenading the guests. Ma would kill me if I spoiled her fun.

“Congrats on the anniversary,” I tell him instead. “How long has it been?”

“Fourteen years married and almost fifteen together, Son. Best fifteen years of my life, bar none.”

I remember having had some apprehension at first. I was twenty-three at the time and pretty protective of my mother. Or maybe I was a bit protective of my role as the man in her life. Either way, I had my reservations about Jonas initially but that didn’t last long. Even for me, the man had been hard to resist.

First of all, it was obvious how deeply he cared about my mother, even in the early days of their relationship. Secondly, he was straight-up with me from the start as to what his intentions were. And, of course, last and definitely not least, he was former special ops which—at the time—was the dream career I’d been afraid to talk to my mother about. I didn’t think she’d be receptive to the added risk since she’d already sacrificed a husband to the military.

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