Page 4 of Heston
“Don’t worry, Boss. Decker’s got us covered. Talk to you soon.”
“Copy that,” Mark said. The connection ended.
Asher growled from the rear-facing seat across from Heston. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Fuckin’ bad.”
Heston nodded. He had the same ugly feeling. A limp body floating in a glacier-fed river stood little chance of survival, no matter how warmly that body was dressed. Hypothermia was a silent killer. Once a body lost heat faster than it replaced it, hypothermia didn’t take long to do its worst. Normal body temp was ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit. Anything less than ninety-five would be deadly. There were five stages, eachmore critical than the previous, ranging from mild to moderate to severe, ending at irreversible hypothermia and—death. If Alex and Kelsey were still in that river…God, help them.
Heston squeezed his eyes shut to block the blowback from karma that came from throwing negativity into the universe, from even thinking Kelsey might be dead. That he and Asher were too late. Alex and his wife needed all the hope he could send them. So Heston prayed the prayers of his Mama, Bellisa Contreras, the humblest woman on the planet, the one who’d taught him to trust the Lord when all seemed lost. The lady who’d taught him that, more than anyone else, Christ was able.
Heston bowed his head and begged for Divine intervention. Because this mission was sounding more and more like body recovery than rescue.
The helo dropped Heston and Asher swiftly at Jed McCormack’s private terminal at SEA-TAC. A sleek, forest green Forest Service helicopter sat waiting on the tarmac, its rotors spinning. Egress was a quick run across the tarmac, quicker introductions to the pilot, whose name Heston instantly forgot, then lift-off and a sharp veer eastward. The flight from Virginia had burned enough daylight.
Heston continued to refuse the cold, hard logic that shadowed every hopeful prayer and wish he sent heavenward. More than anything, more than The TEAM he’d created, maybe even more than his children, Alex adored Kelsey. One had only to look at the way they treated each other, how their eyes lit up when the other was around, to know that. They were the stuff romance novels were made of. They were genuine. They were everything Heston wanted in his life, but didn’t have a clue how to get. Kelsey had to be alive. Somehow. She just had to.
Because Heston knew what heartache was. He knew the opposite of true love. The cold, hard slap of desertion. He knew the death of dreams. The beginning of lonely, empty nights,of too many TV dinners and take-out. Too many fast-food wrappers, empty plastic drink cups, smashed lids, and broken straws littering the floor of his truck. The unending looks of pity from friends and family. He didn’t wish that on anyone. Surely not on Alex.
The flight to Rainier took them northbound over I-5 to SR 7. From there, the helo followed a river Heston couldn’t identify. The upper Nisqually? The Puyallup? Didn’t matter. Mount Rainier’s glaciers fed both.
Before long, strong northerly winds from the approaching storm buffeted the elite helo. Damn. Bad weather could officially end the search for Kelsey before it started. Not like Heston cared what officials decreed. He didn’t work for them. Just Alex. Just Alex and Kelsey.
An idea struck hard and in seconds, he’d fingered his commlink, hoping his call to Mark Houston could get through at the altitude the helo was flying. It did. Mark had no more than answered, “Houston. Talk to me,” when Heston ordered, “Bring the dogs, Mark. Whisper and Smoke. Get Alex’s dogs to Washington right damned now. They’ll find Kelsey. I know they will.”
“I should’ve thought of that,” Mark shouted. “Damn straight. Should’ve sent them with you and Asher, damn my stupid—”
“Damn your stupid nothing,” Heston retorted, watching Asher come to life across from him. This mission had been one bleak clusterfuck after another, but for the first time, something that felt a lot like hope unfurled between him and Asher. Mark needed to send the two former EOD K-9s that adored Alex and Kelsey to Mount Rainier ASAP.
Whisper was a pure black, fierce-as-hell, unpredictable GSD known for his over-protective snarl and his sharp as shit canines. The older he’d gotten, the testier he’d become whenever anyone approached Alex’s kids. Smoke was a silver Malinoisand as obedient as the day was long. Both had been utilized as trackers before when others had been lost. They were the answer today, not the two bone-headed agents still too far from Rainier to do Alex and his wife any good.
“Copy that,” Mark replied with a little more enthusiasm than before.
“You heard back from the rangers on Rainier yet? Any word on Alex or Kelsey?”Please say yes.
“No, nothing,” Mark replied. “Hope that means they’re too busy searching to get back to us. See you soon.”
“God, I hope so,” Heston murmured to himself when the call disconnected.
The helo banked a hard left that took them around Mount Rainier’s southwestern flank, up to the Northeast side of the mountain and Emmons Glacier. Heston swallowed hard against the hollow pit in his gut, the feeling that this was a suicide mission. He needed to throw up, but swallowed the bile creeping up his throat instead. The men and women on The TEAM were each made of tougher stuff than most soldiers, sailors, Coasties, and guardsmen and women. The TEAM had done good all over the world, some in combat-torn countries, some in clean suburbia. So had he. Heston steeled his heart, denying the strong emotions that linked him with his boss, compartmentalizing the fear of losing the man who should be king, and the wicked pain of not getting to that man’s queen in time.
Whisper and Smoke might be what they needed to locate the Stewarts, but the cold hard truth was—the inescapable fact of Nature was—even two highly-trained dogs might not be able to locate Alex and Kelsey. Not if those rivers froze and not in what looked like upcoming blizzard conditions. It might already be too late.
Heston bowed his head and stared at the floor mat between his boots. His feelings didn’t matter. He was no different than those dogs. He’d signed on with Alex to be just another resource, another highly-trained machine with a damned hard job to do today. Nothing more. Nothing less. And just like Alex’s dogs, if necessary, Heston would give his life to save his boss and Kelsey.
Chapter Three
Thunder rumbled and crashed around her. She was lost inside a giant kettledrum. Wicked vibrations bounced her to the right, then left. The terrific noise inside the kettle pounded her into a ragdoll. There was nothing to grab or hold onto. Nothing to stop the endless battering. Just noise, pain, and mayhem.
Ice slashed the skin on her face and hands with razor-sharp teeth. Her body rolled and dipped on this ghastly, out-of-control carnival ride. What the river couldn’t steal, hidden boulders, logs, and relentless grit did. Like tentacled sea monsters, the churning current dragged her down, then shoved her back up, through and into whatever lay in her path. She’d become unwanted flotsam banging against rocks and branches on her way to nowhere. Too warm to keep. Too limp to fight back. Caught in Mother Nature’s evil web, the maker of grand canyons and steep, widow-making crevices, the supreme breaker of mountains and stone, she went unwillingly in unwanted directions. Her body was literally being ripped apart, as if the river couldn’t decide whether to keep her or throw her back, like a dead fish it had no use for.
There was no way to fight back, no weapons to fight with. No way to stop the assault or keep her head above water. No way to save herself.
Caught in the maelstrom, fighting for the simple miracle of breath, she prayed for the will to live. All she found was an ice-cold grave and the cruel hand of death at her throat. Her burning lungs had already sucked in more ice water than air. Living was not possible. Not anymore.
The frigid river had stolen everything.
Her breath.
Her strength.
