Up Close and Dangerous Read online

  He hadn’t revealed to Bailey how disturbed he was that they hadn’t been rescued yesterday. A satellite should have picked up the signal from their ELT, and even though the mountain had had cloud cover all day, a rescue team could have been dropped off at a lower, more accessible location, and made it up to them.

  The problem was that an ELT was battery-powered, and would transmit for only twenty-four to forty-eight hours. They’d passed the twenty-four-hour mark yesterday morning, and were fast coming up on the forty-eight; if the signal hadn’t been picked up by then, it wasn’t going to be picked up at all. When a rescue team hadn’t reached them yesterday, he’d started to worry that maybe the ELT’s batteries had been weak and had petered out before a search had even been started.

  He looked up as Bailey made her way through the trees back to the shelter, stopped in front of it, and gave him a determined look. “You have to stay out here a while,” she said, and her tone of voice didn’t give him any options. “I can’t stand it any longer. I stink. I don’t care how cold it is, I have to wipe myself off and put on clean clothes. And after I finish, you have to clean up.”

  “You put on clean clothes last night,” he pointed out, just to devil her. “And I don’t have any clean clothes.”

  “That’s your fault,” she shot back. “I don’t know what made you think you needed only one change of clothes for an overnight trip.”

  “Maybe the fact that one is all I ever carry.”

  “Yeah, well, you have to plan for emergencies. What if you’d spilled coffee down your clean shirt at breakfast? You’d be stuck.”

  He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. Maybe it was the way she stood so ramrod straight, or the mulish set of her jaw, that made him think better of it. But it was funny, listening to her lecture him about clothes. Maybe if she were still wearing the sophisticated pants and jacket she’d worn when she boarded the plane the lecture wouldn’t have seemed so out of place, but her appearance now made bag ladies look fashionable.

  She wore so many clothes she had no shape, and the flannel shirt tied over her head was the crowning touch. No, maybe that would be the socks on her hands. Then again he had her shirts and pants wrapped around him, because he obviously couldn’t wear them. If she looked better than he did, that was really bad. And if he could have gotten her socks on over his hands, he’d be wearing a pair of them, too.

  “You win,” he said, smiling. “I should have packed more. I’m going to poke around the plane while you’re cleaning up, so take your time.”

  Immediately her green eyes shadowed with worry. “Are you sure you’re strong enough—”

  “I’m sure,” he cut in. “I feel a lot better today.” Okay, “a lot” was stretching it, but he’d had all he could take of lying around, and he wanted to check out some things.

  She chewed her lower lip. “Call if you start feeling dizzy or anything,” she finally said, and dropped down to crawl inside the shelter.

  Cam turned and surveyed the wreckage, studying it with the eye of a pilot. He looked at the trajectory, marked by broken trees and debris. He saw where the left wing had dipped and caught a jagged outcropping of rock; that was probably where he’d lost the wing. The plane had then skewed violently to the right, and almost out of the trees into the rocky slope, which would have been a disaster.

  What had saved their asses was that the fuel hadn’t ignited. The impact of crashes were survivable a lot of times, but the resulting fire wasn’t. Even with the engine dead the electrical wiring still could have sparked a fire. Maybe Bailey could have made it out alive, but he certainly wouldn’t have.

  The fuselage wasn’t resting on the ground, but was sort of propped on the broken right wing, and impaled on a tree. The limb sticking through the fuselage was what had anchored the plane, kept it from flipping upside down. As long as the limb held, the plane would stay there. He hoped to hell it didn’t break while he was in the cockpit; wouldn’t that be a bitch?

  He hauled himself up onto what had been the copilot’s seat, before Bailey scavenged the foam pads and leather upholstery, and was now little more than a frame. The first thing he checked was the ELT. “Fuck,” he said softly, as soon as he flipped the switch. The indicator light was off—the battery was dead. The big question was: Had a satellite picked up the signal before the battery died, or had the battery been dead from the beginning? The ELTs were inspected once a year, as per code. The battery could have been dead for months, because the reality was that, other than the yearly inspection, no one checked the damn things.

  If the satellite had located the beacon, he was fairly certain Search and Rescue would have gotten to them sometime the day before. They hadn’t, and now he didn’t think they would, at least not in time. What troubled him most was that he hadn’t heard any Civil Air Patrol planes flying their search patterns, or a helicopter. He’d radioed their location, and though they hadn’t actually gone down there they were close enough that they’d have been able to hear a helicopter searching that sector.

  He knew a search had been organized. A plane didn’t go missing for two days with no one bothering to look for it. So where the hell were they searching?

  He wondered if his radio transmission had gone out. What if CAP had no real idea where to look for them? Mathematically the target area could be mapped out using the amount of fuel and maximum flying distance, but that was a hell of a lot of territory. Logically, he had to assume he and Bailey would have to get themselves off the mountain, something that was much easier said than done.

  The cockpit display was shattered and the radio busted, neither of which was a surprise. He poked around, looking for anything of use that Bailey might have overlooked, but she’d been thorough. Just about all that was left in the cabin that was usable were the seat belts; he pulled the shoulder straps as far out as possible before cutting them. The lap belts weren’t all that long, but they were usable. They were strong, and could be made into webbing to help them carry stuff. It wasn’t as if they could pack Bailey’s suitcases again and roll them down the mountain, but maybe he could use the seat belt webbing and turn one of the cases into a sort of backpack, just for carrying the most essential items. If his roll-aboard case was large enough, it would be the ideal size.

  The flashlight that he always put in the cockpit with him was gone. He was sure it was around somewhere, but likely covered by the new snowfall they’d had, and God only knew how far it had been flung on impact. They needed it, if they were going to walk out of here, but the odds of finding it weren’t good.

  Likewise, he needed his suit jacket, and the trail mix bars in the pocket—the bars more than the coat. The coat would be nice, but he’d be able to get by the way he was doing now; they really, really needed the bars for energy, though.

  Now that he knew the ordeal they faced, he looked at the wreckage with different eyes. Sharp pieces of metal or glass could be made into a crude knife, just in case his pocketknife was lost, or a blade broken. It never hurt to have backup. Maybe he could make some snowshoes, too, using some of the material Bailey had used to construct their shelter. The theory was simple enough. The question was whether or not the terrain was too rough, because snowshoes were clumsy.

  The farther they descended the more plentiful food would be. He was a Texas boy; he’d grown up setting traps for rabbits and squirrels. He’d be able to find food for them then, but they needed food now.

  He made his way to the other side of the plane. The slope was much steeper there, with stretches of almost sheer rock that would have made it impossible for him to navigate if he hadn’t been able to hold to the trees. He followed the path upward that the plane had made coming down, using his upper body strength to pull himself up when there was no footing to be found.

  Snow crunched under his shoes, came up over the sides, and worked its way inside, wetting his socks and freezing his feet. He couldn’t trek out of here wearing dress shoes, but damn if he knew what he’d do. He could ignore the cold for now; h
ell, maybe Bailey would warm his feet against her breasts again. If that didn’t make cold feet worthwhile, he didn’t know what would.

  Debris was scattered all up the glide slope: chunks of twisted metal, torn wiring, broken limbs. If the wiring was in pieces long enough to be useful, he picked it up, wound it into coils, and stuck it in his pocket. He found a bent wing strut, then the twisted and crumpled door from the pilot’s side. Looking at the damage, he could only think that he’d got off easy with a concussion and a gash on his head. Off to the side he could make out a round shape that had to be one of the tires, covered with snow.

  He reached a tree that looked as if it had been struck by lightning, with the bark blown off and limbs broken, except the gash in the wood was new. The damage was about twenty, twenty-five feet up the tree. He looked around and saw small pieces of debris but nothing large enough to have been the wing.

  He climbed higher, curiosity driving him, but found nothing. Finally the cold got to him, forced him to turn back. He was feeling a little breathless and shaky, too, which wasn’t unexpected considering how much blood he’d lost. The only good thing about being too hurt to move was that the time spent had let him adjust to the altitude.

  He paused a moment to orient himself. He was above and to the left of the crash site, with their little shelter lying just uphill and to the right of the site. Bailey had yet to reemerge, so she was still inside with those premoistened wipes of hers, doing away with b.o. and the sticky residue of fever-sweat. He grinned, wondering if she would come rushing out without all her clothes if he yelled for help. She might, but then she’d kill him, so he refrained. He’d see her naked, but all in good time.

  His gaze swept past the shelter, up the mountain, looking for the summit—

  —and saw the wing, about forty yards away.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. He’d been looking on the left side of the wreckage for the wing; he must have assumed that because it was the left wing, it would have landed on the left side of the site, because he couldn’t remember actually giving the location any thought beyond locating where it had struck the tree. Instead, when it was torn off, the wing had flipped up and over, coming down on the right side. It was, in fact, almost directly behind the shelter, but farther back than they had ventured.

  Cautiously he worked his way over to it. By the time he reached it he was seriously tired, but breathing fairly easy.

  Unimaginable forces were at work in a crash. Metal was twisted and bent as if it were made of flimsy cloth, rivets popped, nuts and bolts sheared as cleanly as if they had been cut. The wing had been bent in two by the force with which it struck the tree, the metal tearing open along the stress line. He could see the framework, the yards and yards of electrical wiring hanging from where the wing had attached to the plane, the cables, the ruptured fuel tank.

  Something that looked like a deflated balloon, hanging out of the ruptured tank, caught his attention.

  He stood there, staring at it, the back of his neck prickling with the sudden awareness of danger. Fury swept over him, a rage so powerful his vision misted over with a red haze.

  There hadn’t been a mechanical malfunction. The plane had been sabotaged.

  20

  CAM WASN’T IN SIGHT WHEN BAILEY CRAWLED OUT OF the shelter. She was as clean as she could get without having a real bath and she felt a little shaky, but immensely better. She still had a headache, but it wasn’t nearly as severe as it’d been for the past two days. With the fever finally broken, the only places she ached were where she was bruised. The dizziness and nausea weren’t completely gone, and she definitely felt weak from the combination of fever and lack of food. Overall, though, she could feel a vast improvement in her physical condition.

  “Cam?” she called. There was no answer, and a tingle of worry trickled down her spine. He was too weak to go traipsing off on his own. What if he’d fallen? Alarmed, she followed his footprints to the plane, then saw where he’d gone around it. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Cam!” she called again, louder this time. “Cam!”

  “I’m up here.”

  His voice came from farther up the slope. She turned and caught a glimpse of him through the trees, working his way down.

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “Looking for the wing.”

  What difference did it make where the wing was? It wasn’t as if he could reattach it to the plane and fly them out of here. Maybe it was a pilot thing, wanting to know where all the parts were. What concerned her was that he’d gone so far from the camp, alone, in his weakened condition—and wearing dress shoes. His legs would be soaked to the knees, and his feet would be icy.

  Annoyed, she started up the steep slope to meet him—partly to give him assistance if he needed it, but partly so she could get started blasting him for his carelessness. Her annoyance grew with every step, because each one of them was difficult; she had to hold on to trees, practically crawl over rocks, and once she stepped into a hidden hole and one leg sank thigh-deep into snow. She yelped in shock, then said, “Damn it!”

  “What happened?” Cam asked sharply. He was working his way around a rocky outcropping and was currently out of sight.

  “I stepped in a hole,” she called back, scowling in his direction even though he couldn’t see her expression. She pulled herself out of the hole and brushed the snow from her pants. Some of it had gotten down into her hiking boot; she could feel the iciness spreading on her leg. She pulled the sock off her right hand and began digging under the top of the boot, removing the remaining snow before she got even more wet.

  Cam stepped around the rock; he was using the trees as handholds, just as she was. “Did you twist your ankle?”

  “No, I just got snow in my boot,” she said, disgruntled. She straightened and pulled the sock back on her hand as she glanced up at him. What she saw made her stiffen, as if bracing for a blow.

  She had seen his face cold and expressionless, she had seen the way his mouth quirked when he was amused, she’d seen him grin, seen the wicked sparkle in his eyes when he was making some sarcastic comment. This expression, however, revealed another person entirely. His mouth was a grim line, his gray eyes narrowed and lit with a cold fury that sent a chill down her back. His face was white with anger, making his eyes look all the more vivid and piercing. If she had ever seen anyone with a killing expression, she was seeing one now.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” She stood motionless, her eyes wide as she watched him approach.

  He reached her and took her elbow in his hand, turning her around and drawing her with him. “Someone tried to kill us,” he said, the words terse. “Rather, I think someone tried to kill you. I was collateral damage.”

  Bailey stumbled, shocked speechless for a moment. “What?” she asked incredulously, her voice climbing into a squeak. Her heartbeat leaped into a gallop.

  His strong hand held her as she recovered her balance, his fingers tightening on her elbow. “The fuel tank was sabotaged to make it register more fuel than it actually held.”

  Her thoughts split in two directions. Part of her mind concentrated on the fuel tank, trying to understand how, while the rest of her brain was preoccupied with his bald statement that someone had tried to kill her. “Me? How? Why do—” She clamped her lips shut on the incoherent babble and took a deep breath. “Start over. What makes you think the fuel tank was sabotaged, and why do you think I’m the target?”

  “When the wing was torn off, the fuel tank ruptured.” He paused. “You did know the fuel tanks are in the wings, right?’

  “I’ve never given it any thought,” she said honestly. “I don’t care where they are, so long as they hold fuel.” They reached the shelter and stopped, both of them a little breathless from exertion.

  Cam turned her to face him, holding both her elbows now. His grim mouth curved into a brief, wintry smile as he looked down at her. “There was a clear plastic bag in the tank. Extremely low tech. You fill the bag with
air, close it up, and it takes up volume in the tank. You can trick the valve to show the tank is full when in reality most of the space in the tank is taken up by the bag. And because it’s clear, you can’t see it when there’s fuel in the tank.”

  “But…but—why?” Muted anguish filled her tone. This whole experience had been a nightmare, but she’d coped. She’d handled the terror of crashing; she’d handled being solely responsible for their survival that first day. She’d handled freezing cold, miserable wind, lack of food, being sick and feverish, even being dirty; she didn’t know if she could cope with the idea that someone had deliberately tried to kill them. “Why do you think I’m the one—” Her throat clogged.

  “Because Seth Wingate called J and L the day before we left, asking about your flight,” he said bluntly. “He’s never done that before.”

  The words hit her like a body blow. “Seth—” For all their hostility, she’d never thought he’d physically harm her. She’d never been afraid of him, even though she knew he had a hot temper. She even understood his and Tamzin’s hostility toward her, because she was certain if she’d been in their shoes she’d have felt the same way. That didn’t mean she’d liked it, or them, but she’d understood it. To know that someone hated her enough to try to kill her made her sick to her stomach. She wasn’t an angel, but neither was she a low-life scum who deserved killing.

  “No,” she said numbly, shaking her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, it was that the whole scenario was more than she could grasp. “Oh, no…” In her memory she heard the echo of Seth’s snarled “You bitch, I’ll kill you” the last time she’d talked to him, when she had let him provoke her into taunting him with a possible reduction of his trust fund disbursement. She’d never before responded to any of his jibes and accusations, instead acting as if he hadn’t said anything at all. If that had tipped him over the edge…this was all her fault.