The man wasn’t dead. Sobbing incoherently, he struggled to stand. His bare hands were slick with blood. He’d lost his ski mask and was bleeding from a wound near his temple. The dark red contrasted the white and gray of the rocks and forest. When he attempted to stand, his right leg collapsed under his weight. He sprawled facedown at the edge of the pond.
It was going to take a mountain rescue to get him safely up the cliff. First, Blake needed to deal with the bomb.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Jeremy said, “but he’s still trying to move.”
“Does he have the phone?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Let’s hope not.”
Blake covered the distance between them and the backpack in seconds. He picked up the satchel by a strap and flung it as hard as he could into the forest.
Both he and Jeremy ducked.
They didn’t hear an explosion.
Chapter Eleven
When Sarah got the emergency call from Blake, she responded as quickly as possible. In a storage cabinet in the mudroom, she had the ropes, carabiners, belaying equipment and climbing gear needed for a mountain rescue. It was too much to carry by herself so she called out, “Emily, I need your help.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Sarah gave her a dubious look. “You don’t like rock climbing, and you hate the sight of blood. How come you’re such an eager beaver?”
“Jeremy,” she said simply.
Sarah nodded. “Put together a pack with climbing gear.”
Sarah organized her own pack with first aid supplies and a couple of thermal Mylar blankets.
“First aid,” Emily noted. “Who’s hurt?”
“Blake said the guy they were chasing took a fall. I’m trying to be prepared.”
Alvardo and Maddox stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen. Alvardo said, “We’re coming, too.”
“Not this time,” she said. “Blake wanted help with a rescue that requires climbing. Emily and I know this area.”
“Excuse me, Sarah, but I don’t take orders from you.”
Alvardo sounded as whiny as a kid on a playground. Her standard speech about how she was in charge of whatever happened in her B and B probably wasn’t going to change his childish attitude. “Call Blake on the sat phone. If he gives the okay, I’m fine with it.”
In less than five minutes, she and Emily were geared up and ready to roll. They strode through the kitchen to the front door. Alvardo sat at the dining room table, pouting. Maddox was on the front porch, keeping watch. He waved as the two women rushed into the forest toward the Cascade Path where Blake and Jeremy were waiting.
A combination of adrenaline and relief pumped through her bloodstream. When Sarah had first heard gunfire outside the B and B, she’d imagined the worst. Luckily, the place where Blake and the man in camouflage had their confrontation was within the scope of one of the camera feeds. She could see that he was unharmed. Her fears subsided.
Then Maddox and Alvardo had returned to the B and B and started talking about an explosive device. Her misgivings had taken on a sharper edge, slicing away at her self-control. In the silence that followed while Blake and Jeremy were out of camera range and pursuing the intruder, she’d almost lost it. She felt dizzy. If anyone had spoken to her, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. It had taken a conscious effort to regain her control...and that worried her.
Sarah wasn’t the sort of woman who flew into a panic. Her trademark was holding things together and not getting scared. But the possibility of something bad happening to Blake was terrifying. She barely knew the man. And yet, he was vastly important to her. If he came to harm, she’d be devastated and would probably spend the rest of her life playing sad ballads from Ollie and the Dewdrops about lost loves and lost lovers.
As she and Emily jogged the last few yards to the place where their two army rangers were standing, she envied her friend’s unbridled, passionate reaction to seeing her fiancé. Emily threw her arms around Jeremy and kissed him hard.
Sarah didn’t have the right to embrace Blake. They weren’t in a relationship. But when she looked at him, her heart soared. She was overjoyed to find him safe.
He lightly touched her arm. “Thanks for—”
“Don’t ever do that again,” she snapped, covering her emotion with irritation. “You scared me half to death.”
He wasn’t put off by her gruff manner. Instead, he grinned. “You were worried about me.”
“If you injured yourself on my property, it would have driven my insurance premiums through the roof.”
“You care about me.”
He was teasing, again. And she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing him how much she cared. “What’s this about a bomb?”
“The intruder said he was carrying an explosive device in his backpack.”
“Was he?”
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. I threw the backpack out of the way and it didn’t explode.”
“What was he planning to do with a bomb?” As soon as she spoke, the answer was obvious. “He was going to blow up the B and B.”
“That was his plan.”
“That bastard!” The threat to her home upset her but not as much as the idea of Blake being in mortal danger. “Then what happened?”
“He tried to run, went through the passageway behind the waterfall. He must have lost his footing. The next thing we knew, he’d fallen.”
From the edge of the path, he pointed down to where the body of a man wearing gray-and-white camouflage sprawled on the rocks at the foot of the waterfall. Red splotches of blood stood out on his clothes. His eyes were squeezed shut. She could see him trembling and knew enough about mountain rescue to recognize the symptoms of trauma.
“He’s going into shock,” she said. “He needs treatment.”
“I put in a call to Kovak. He and the mountain rescue unit will be here as soon as possible.”
“Good,” she said. “We’ll need them to handle the evacuation. I’ve got ropes and carabiners, but I don’t have professional rescue equipment, like an emergency carry litter or a spine board to immobilize the victim.”
“Kovak said you’d had experience with rescues.”
“I’ve taken some classes but I’m not fully trained.” She stared down at the man who had intended to blow up her house. Even though he was the scum of the earth, she couldn’t deny him aid. “We should get down to him and start treatment.”
“You know the area. Where’s the best place to set the ropes?”
“If we go through the passage behind the waterfall, there’s an easy descent on the other side. All hiking, no climbing.”
“How long does it take?”
“Only a few minutes more than belaying.”
She sorted items into one of the large hiking backpacks, including a thermal blanket, water bottles and her first aid kit. As she prepared to hoist it onto her back, Blake caught the shoulder strap.
“Let me carry it,” he said.
She held the strap. “I can manage.”
“I’m sure you can. I’m just trying to be useful.”
There was no point in getting into a tug-of-war. She let go of the pack and watched as he adjusted the straps for his wide shoulders.
Emily eased up beside her and whispered, “Sometimes, it’s nice to let somebody else carry the load.”
The symbolism wasn’t wasted on Sarah. “I’m not used to having help.”
“Accept it and smile,” Emily advised. “There’s nothing wrong with being treated like a lady.”
“As long as he knows who’s boss.” She stepped back and started issuing orders. “You and Jeremy stay here and wait for Kovak. Blake, follow me.”
The space behind the waterfall was a miniature cave that was open across the front. The path was about twenty feet long, and the ceiling was only six feet tall at the highest point. Blake had to duck to avoid hitting his head. With the additional bulk of the backpack, he barely fit inside. He didn’t complain.
And she didn’t point out that it would have been easier for her to carry the pack. Emily was right. Sarah didn’t have to do everything by herself.
Inside the cave, the air was cool, quiet and mysterious. She’d always loved this secret hideaway. In the warm days of summer, rainbows danced in the glittering water. In winter, the falls formed a jagged, icy curtain.
She picked her way carefully across the frozen granite floor. “Watch your step.”
“It’s beautiful in here.”
She turned to face him. Though it was urgent for them to reach the injured man, she wanted to make a memory of her and Blake in a place that was special to her. An odd blue-tinted light filtered through the ice and shone on his high cheekbones and sharp jawline. She blinked, taking a mental snapshot of this moment. Softly, she confided, “I used to come here when I was a kid and hide from the rest of the world.”
“When you got in trouble with your parents,” he said.
“That wasn’t the reason. I don’t run away from trouble. If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll stand up and take my punishment.”
“Why did you need to hide?”
Talking about herself wasn’t Sarah’s favorite thing. She’d never gone to a therapist, and she kept a distance between herself and most other people. Sharing made her vulnerable. “There isn’t time right now for me to explain.”
His blue-eyed gaze locked with hers. “You can tell me anything, Sarah.”
“Maybe I will, but not right now.”
She emerged on the other side. The path clung to the side of the steep, rocky cliff. A few yards away, they could see the place where the intruder had stumbled over a protruding, slanted rock at the edge.
“Looks like he plummeted straight down,” she said. “That scraggly pine tree broke his fall, but he didn’t stop there. He bounced off the rocks the rest of the way down.”
“There was blood on his head,” he said, “but he was conscious when he hit the bottom.”
“He could still have a concussion,” she said. “We need to hurry.”
Moving quickly but cautiously, she followed the narrow path on the cliff around a fat, jutting boulder. Someday, she hoped to improve this path enough for her guests to explore this area. For now, she kept it blocked off with warning signs.
On the other side of the boulder, the path widened and the descent was more gradual. A thicket of pine trees marked the beginning of the forest. She stepped off the path and went into the trees, clinging to branches to keep from slipping. Though the waterfall was to the west, she went in the opposite direction where the land was more level.
At the edge of a four-foot drop, Blake joined her. “How much farther?”
“There’s the creek.” She pointed. “We follow that, and we’ll be at the waterfall in a couple of minutes.”
“Is there a place around here where he could have parked a snowmobile?”
“Anywhere,” she said. “The snow is kind of light under the trees in the forest, but you don’t need tons of snow to use one of those nasty things.”
“Not a fan of snowmobiling?”
“They’re too loud. They scare the animals. And they tear up the landscape.” She paused. “But it’s kind of fun to ride really fast.”
They slipped over the drop and covered the ground quickly, walking side by side near the creek. Blake didn’t seem to have any difficulty keeping up with her pace. “The elevation doesn’t bother you,” she said.
“I’m acclimated,” he said. “Much of Afghanistan is mountains.”
The terrain in that foreign land on the other side of the globe hadn’t occurred to her. She’d never left the United States, hadn’t spent much time away from her native Colorado. Afghanistan sounded unbelievably exotic. His life was very different from hers. “Are you going to miss the travel after you retire?”
“I can still travel,” he said, “and the best part is being able to visit places I want to see. The army didn’t give me a choice.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Australia,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve never been there.”
“I’d like to go to Naples and see the ruins at Mount Vesuvius.” She’d read a book about the eruption of the ancient volcano and the excavation at Pompeii. “After that, I’d tour the Mediterranean, especially the Greek islands.”
“Have you done much traveling?”
“It’s hard to get away from the B and B.”
But she had always dreamed about faraway lands. When she was a kid hiding inside her cave behind the waterfall, she fantasized about opening her eyes and seeing a whole different world. And she would be different, too. No more practical, down-to-earth Sarah. She would be sophisticated and smart, like an artist in Paris or an archaeologist in the tombs of ancient Egypt or an explorer on the Amazon. Childish dreams, she’d never shared them with anyone.
As they came around the last curve in the creek, she saw the fallen man in gray-and-white camouflage fatigues and hurried toward him. He lay on his side with his arms pulled up against his chest. His right foot twisted at an impossible angle, probably due to a broken ankle. The red smears of blood from a head wound contrasted his ashen complexion. His lips were blue.
Before she reached him, Blake stopped her. “Let me do a body check for hidden weapons.”
He shrugged off the backpack on the rocks beside the barely conscious man and knelt beside him. In a thorough pat-down, Blake found the man’s wallet and a hunting knife in a belt sheath. Not that the injured man appeared to be capable of attacking them.
She glanced toward the place where he’d fallen and saw a flash of metallic blue. Crossing the rocks, she picked up a cell phone and held it so Blake could see. “Do you think this is his?”
“Be careful with that.” His tone was sharp. “Don’t press any numbers.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“That’s the detonator for the bomb.”
Not what she wanted to hear. Handling the metallic phone as carefully as an egg with a cracked shell, she tiptoed across the rocks toward him. “Most of a phone number is already on the screen.”
“If the last numbers are punched, I expect the bomb to blow.”
“Where is it?”
“I’m not sure.” Standing, he took the phone from her, turned off the power and stashed it in the pocket of his leather bomber jacket. He was casual as though he handled bombs on a regular basis, which he probably did.
But she didn’t. A shudder went through her. She tried to tell herself there was nothing to fear. Even if the bomb exploded, the fire wouldn’t spread in this damp air. Controlled explosive charges were common in the mountains. The ski patrols used them to control avalanche danger and to clear landslides.
“Do you think the bomb is nearby?”
“I threw the pack from the high point on the path. It’s probably over that way.” He pointed over his shoulder. “Are you going to help me with this guy or what?”
“Of course, I am.”
Being with Blake had triggered her imagination, and she couldn’t afford the luxury of dreaming. She needed practical focus. In the backpack, she found a thermal blanket that was a little more heavy-duty than most of those thin Mylar sheets. Keeping him warm was the first step in treating shock. When she tucked the silver blanket around him, he winced and moaned.
“I’d like to get the blanket under him,” she said, “but I don’t think we should move him.”