An irony was that Thomas had found a cave—more like a glacial dump of huge slabs of granite and feldspar that created a cavern-like space—on the path he’d taken from the newly built hide to the ski lodge. He’d made note of it as a potential Plan B shelter—and now that he was in full Plan B mode, it would certainly be better than the hide as the temperature continued to drop.
The sun had long since set and it was dark, but the clouds were finally thinning enough to give a hint of the moon as Thomas narrowed his perimeter circle around the hide. When he was close enough, he gave Tasha the signal they’d agreed upon before he’d left—a double owl, basic, true, because face it, his beach-boy upbringing gave him a masterful seagull, which wouldn’t play well here in the mountains.
The clouds parted for the moonlight with perfect timing as Thomas pulled back the branches of the hide. Tasha’s relief was clearly visible in her wide eyes as he slipped in beside her.
“I knew you’d find me,” she said. “I didn’t know how you were going to do it in the dark, but worst case you’d find me in the morning. Assuming you weren’t, you know, in prison somewhere.”
“I’m sorry I took so long. Are you freezing?”
“Not too badly. The rocks lasted for a while.”
He put the branches in place overhead, and that plus a shift in the clouds plunged them back into full shadow.
But not before she’d seen the hunting rifle he was carrying—and the boots on his feet. Boots that were too small, so he’d cut holes in the toes to give himself the needed room. She was smart, so she surely realized that meant he’d also picked up a knife.
“Whoa,” she said. “You stopped at the 7-11, but you didn’t get me a coffee?” She put her arms around him in the darkness, hugging him tightly. “What happened? Are you all right?”
As Thomas hugged her back, he knew what she thought—that he’d bumped into one of her abductors and took him out. He also knew that killing one of the hostiles wouldn’t put him in his feels in the slightest, butshewas highly sensitive to thetaking livespart of his job description as a SEAL. So he worked to clear that up as quickly as possible. “The compound was deserted—I took time to check. We were right—it’s been burned. There was only one casualty—one man, dead when I found him, in the brush near the driveway, like he was trying to fight back. Bullets to the upper chest.” It was messy, not the double-pop of professionals.
“Oh my God, that’s terrible,” she said, then asked, “But Ted and his family got away?”
Thomas hesitated. She pulled back and he quickly let her go as she came up with alternatives herself.
“Or they were taken by whoever burned the place,” she said. “Or they burned to death in the fire.”
“That last one’s highly unlikely.” He didn’t hesitate this time. “Sure, we could come up with a scenario where the entire security detail—except for one man—was taken out by, I don’t know, some kind of grenade or missile, while they were all—except that one guy—inside the lodge? Yeah, no, security leaders would have placed a team on the perimeter, a team inside, while another team took a break. They’re never all in one location at the same time, and that makes option B less likely, too. The entire security detail, what, surrendered? Nah.”
“Unless the attackers took the bodies, and missed that one guy.”
“There’d be blood on the ground where the others fell.”
“Washed away by the rain.”
“There hasn’t beenthatmuch rain,” he countered. “Believe me. Blood is...” He decided not to finish that sentence. She knew he was a hospital corpsman, and that hisBelieve mecould be taken at face value.
“What if it was an inside job,” Tasha speculated. “And the security team—”
Thomas cut her off. “Theentireteam?”
“Except that one man.”
“Highly unlikely,” he said again. “Even if only half of them were working for the abductors—and I’m sorry, that’s not really possible with the vetting that’s done—there’d be a much higher body count.”
“Unless they tied up the half that weren’t in on it, and locked them in the burning building—” She cut herself off. “Okay, clearly I had too much time to think about this. What else did you find? You said the lodge was deserted, can we go there, find the kitchen, maybe part of the building still has a roof and four walls...?”
“It’s badly burned,” Thomas told her grimly. “There was definitely chemical accelerant involved, for that level of destruction. And what’s left isn’t safe. Because yeah, I was hoping to find us some food, but nope.”
“Well, at least you got a rifle,” she pointed out.
“We’re a little short of ammo,” he said. “I’ve got two bullets.”
“Oh, perfect, one for each of us,” she said.
“Don’t even joke about that,” he shot back.
“Sorry,” she said immediately. “Sorry, I’m... scared, so I try to pretend... I’m not.”
“Yeah, I know,” Thomas said quietly. “But I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” The good news was that the entire time he was out in the woods, he hadn’t heard or seen even the slightest sign of anyone. He’d half-expected the Ustanzian compound to be crawling with hostiles. But whoever had lit the fire and killed the dead man had bugged out. Which didn’t mean entire squads of soldiers weren’t regrouping, three miles down the road. But that was a problem for later. “We need food, we need shelter—and I’m sorry, but not in that order. It’s gonna get cold tonight. I found a cave where we can—”
