They ran together toward the clearing created by the slide, facing the massive mud pool.
They stopped as close as they dared to the unstable earth, and Jae dropped his pack and pulled out a rope. “I’m going in for him.”
“You a good swimmer?” Luke asked.
“Good enough.”
“Let me, then. I’m more than good enough, and I’ve swum in water almost this thick.”
Jae wanted to argue, but he wasn’t a dumbass. Their best shot at saving Xavier was the former SEAL and current NOAA lieutenant commander whose entire life revolved around swimming and scuba.
Luke quickly rigged a rope harness, which they wrapped around a tree, then hooked to Jae as anchor. He’d pull both men in once Luke reached Xavier and tied him on.
Audrey forced her sobs away as she continued upward. Focus on the mission and forget everything else.
The mission. As if she were one of the team. She didn’t begin to know how to cope with all that had happened. On his last op, Xavier had been shot and lost two team members, but he hadn’t given up. He’d instead focused on what he could do to prepare the teams for nightmares like the one he faced. And Flyte had been on the same mission and was still fighting the fight.
All she wanted to do was curl into a ball and give up, but she wouldn’t shame Xavier’s faith in her that way. She wouldn’t fail the team.
She would complete her mission.
With the aid of a walking stick she’d picked up a half mile back, she reached the tree-covered ridgeline that was the upper boundary of the Lake Olympus drainage. She planted the stick with each step, using a piece of the wilderness she loved to pull her forward. She crested the ridge and began the descent into the new drainage. Here the air would be free of signal-jamming frequencies, protected by ridgeline and trees.
It was well past noon and darker on the east-facing slope. There were no gaps in the thick vegetation of the thriving forest.
This drainage transitioned from temperate rainforest to montane forest. Here she would find an abundance of silver fir trees that thrived in the moist, higher elevation. The shrubs were salal, Oregon grape, and devil’s club and not the epiphyte and understory ferns and mosses of the rainforest.
She descended into the well of this new woodland, the ground slightly less saturated as the ridgeline deflected some of the rain clouds. The rain, which had reduced to a sprinkle before she crossed the ridge, was now just a vapory mist passing by.
She focused on these details, as they kept her from falling completely apart.
She checked her bearing and adjusted her trajectory. She should intersect with the Lost Goat Trail in a quarter mile. It didn’t take long for her to reach the narrow trail, a strip of mostly cleared ground cutting through deep woods.
One end of this serpentine trail led to a trailhead just inside the park near Highway 101, and the other continued up and up on a twisted path to the top of Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the Olympic range.
She’d hiked the full trail in her early twenties with a group of college friends. They’d spent a full five days enjoying the long loop. It had been exhilarating.
She’d never imagined approaching the path by climbing overland from the lodge and wouldn’t recommend it in her trail review. She could also do without the bloodshed and danger.
She swiped at another tear and kept moving. Another quarter mile or so and she’d reach the southern ridge, where there was a decent clearing at the top of the rise and a wide flat where one day an emergency shelter and cellular antenna would be constructed. The flat was wide enough for construction materials to be flown in by helicopter, and the antenna would rise above the trees—itself made to look like a large tree so as not to be a blight on the view—and hikers in this area would have the safety of calling for help and posting photos of their adventure on social media.
At last, she stepped into the clearing, her breathing heavy after another steep uphill climb—but at least this time it had been easier walking on a trail, and not a slog through heavy mud.
She looked up at the cloudy sky and hoped the cover was thin enough. She had a military-grade satellite phone, the best of the best.
It had to be good enough.
She lowered her pack and pulled out the phone, while placing her other hand over the Glock loaded with paint pellets holstered at her hip. She could be ambushed again here, but she had no choice but to step out into the open. It was the best chance for a strong signal.
She powered on the phone and entered the pass code. She’d had a full tutorial, and the numbers she was to call were all programed in as well as written on a cheat sheet with the list of code words she’d need to get Naval Special Warfare Command to take her seriously.
She dialed the first number on her list, and it was answered immediately. She uttered the emergency password and issued her first mayday call. It took only moments for her to be on speakerphone with the top NSWC brass as she tearfully told them of the mercenary attack on Lake Olympus Lodge and the toll it had taken on a platoon of SEALs and their trainers.