High Intensity (High Mountain Trackers HMT 2G #2)

Chapter 6

Six

Wolff

Almost thirty-six hours since that plane disappeared off the radar.

The mood turns more somber with every passing hour. Chances any of the seven occupants have survived not only the crash, but the frigid temperatures are virtually nonexistent.

It doesn’t help we’ve basically been sitting on our asses, waiting for even the slightest of indications of where to start looking. Glancing around me, I can tell I’m not the only one it’s getting to.

JD, who drove out here with me this morning, has whittled that hunk of wood he’s been working on to not much more than a sliver, and Dan is pacing like a caged tiger. After apparently spending a good chunk of the night in the hospital with Aspen before she was released, Jonas told Dan he didn’t want to see him until he’d had at least eight hours of sleep.

Sully and Jackson, Jonas’s stepson, are the only two on our team actively doing something. Sully operates the Matrice, our drone, and he and Jackson are scrutinizing the video feed coming in. Jackson has a sniper’s eye and can detect irregularities at great distances.

I get up to stretch my legs and walk out of the shelter we set up. It’s a clear day with stark blue skies, but at this time of year that generally means brisk temperatures. It’s supposed to get a little warmer, but I’m not sure that’ll do much for those poor people out there.

I walk up to one of the two fire drums we set up out here, and warm my hands on the radiating heat as I take in the surroundings. It’s pretty country up here, the crisp white snow covering the dark pines you see most at these elevations. Only the steady hum of the generator outside the shelter disturbs the silence.

Hard to believe this pristine, picturesque landscape hides the ravaged fuselage and victims of a plane crash.

“Anything?”

I watch Sheriff Junior Ewing’s approach. He’s been here since yesterday, coordinating efforts and calling in resources for the aerial search. I can see the strain on his face. Responsibility weighs heavy, and I’m glad I don’t have his job.

“Nothing yet,” I share.

He sidles up next to me and shoves his hands toward the heat.

“It’s not bad enough I have the National Transportation Safety Board sending in a team and having nothing to show them,” he grumbles, “but families of the victims are blowing up my phone, and now I hear from my boys that the press started arriving in town. Everyone is fucking pushing for answers and I have nothing to give them.”

For lack of anything constructive to say, I grunt sympathetically.

The rumble of an engine has both of us turn our heads toward the trail.

“It’s Bo,” I share when I catch sight of his truck pulling up to the camp.

He’s already pulling a crate from the back of the crew cab when we join him.

“Delivery from Ama,” he clarifies, motioning for me to grab the massive thermos on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

“Yes. I’m fucking starving,” JD mutters when he catches sight of us entering the shelter.

“Stew, sandwiches, and coffee,” Bo announces as he pulls a large pot from the crate.

It’s not often we have the luxury of a home-cooked meal when we’re out on a call, but we happen to be stuck at a base camp just over half an hour’s drive over a bumpy forestry road from the ranch.

Over the hearty lunch, I listen to Bo filling the sheriff in on the ramped-up activities in town this morning.

“We even had a KCFW-news van pull into the rescue this morning.” He chuckles. “Lucy had her shotgun out and about blasted them off the porch.”

Bo’s wife is a tiny firecracker with a big attitude and runs Hart’s Horse Rescue, just down the road from the ranch.

“What the hell were they doing at the rescue?” Junior wants to know.

“Never got a chance to ask, but when I got to the ranch after, Ama mentioned they’d been there earlier, looking for the latest on the search. Apparently, the crew was pretty pushy, and were reluctant to leave after Jonas shut them down.” He barks out a laugh. “But they moved when Thomas stepped outside waving the old double barrel shotgun.”

“Guys…I’ve got something.”

I turn my head to catch Jackson pointing at something on the screen. Everyone scrambles to their feet, crowding behind him as he zooms in on what appears to be a couple of snapped tree tops as the drone slowly flies over.

“There’s another one,” he points out. “Can you stay this course but go in lower?”

Sully adjusts the altitude to where the drone almost skims the tops of the trees. The camera mounted under the drone can pan a hundred and eighty degrees, giving us a wide view of the area.

“Right there,” JD pipes up. “Debris on the left of that ridge.”

He points to the downslope of a rocky outcropping at the center of the screen. In the drift of snow at the bottom, you can clearly see discolorations and pieces of torn metal.

“How far is that?” Dan asks, even as Jackson pulls up a map on the second screen.

Our location is already marked and he puts in the drone’s coordinates.

“Two point seven miles as the crow flies,” he informs us.

Normally a distance our horses could easily do in record time, but considering the rough terrain combined with the snow, it’ll likely take us some time to get there.

“Have a look…” Jackson indicates a thin line on the map. “This looks like one of the old logging trails. It runs on the north side of that ridge. If we can find it, that might make the going a little easier.”

These mountains are riddled with old logging trails, a lot of them unused and grown over. However, they generally provide the smoothest passage through what otherwise is unpredictable landscape. A trail would definitely speed up the process.

On the screen it looks like the drone is hovering low over the location, the camera zoomed in on a larger piece of metal, a partial tail number visible. It matches the first three digits of the missing Cessna 560 Citation. Just visible from under the section of the tail is a hand, palm up with the fingers curled in.

Jesus.

Ewing is already on his radio, calling it through.

“All right, guys,” Sully calls for attention. “Get the horses ready. Load up the sled with the medical kit, the second generator, and the floodlights; sundown is only four hours off. But your first order is to look for survivors. Oh, and as you go, make sure to leave clear markings on the trail.

“Jackson, I’m going to need you to take the second sled, load it heavy with logs, then follow them, and tamp down the snow on that trail as best you can. Make a few runs if necessary; we’re going to need vehicle access as close to that location as we can get.”

Less than half an hour later, we start making our way through the deep snow. It’s not only hard work for the horses, but there is a considerable risk they could get injured. One careless step could have devastating results, so despite wanting to rush to the crash site, we force ourselves to go slow.

It takes almost two hours to get to the first evidence of the downed plane—a part of the landing gear sticking out of the snow. Faster than I’d anticipated, but still not fast enough to my liking. At this point it’s safer to leave the horses secured and continue on foot to get closer.

We have seven crash victims to find, and, even though the odds are not good, I’m hoping we can find at least one, but maybe more of them, alive.

With snowshoes strapped to our boots and handfuls of orange marker flags in our packs, we spread out and start moving into the crash site.

“Hello! James Vallard! Captain Alpern!”

My voice is swallowed by the snow and greeted with ominous silence. In my gut I know there is no one left alive. Still, I continue moving, bracing myself for the inevitable as I search.

When I spot a complete seat, upside down, long brown hair from underneath trailing in the snow, I close my eyes and silently pray this isn’t the little girl.

“Bo! I’ve got one,” I call out.

In a previous life, Bo was a nurse, before he joined the armed forces as a field medic. His medical training is definitely an asset to the team and comes in handy out here. He lumbers over and pulls off a glove, reaching under the chair.

“Cold,” he states simply. “Give me a hand.”

Between the two of us we manage to flip the chair upright, the body frozen in place, still strapped in her seat. I wince at the sight of her head, which sits at an unnatural angle to her body, her neck clearly broken. This definitely isn’t a child, but an adult woman. From her apparent age, I’m guessing we’ve found the girl’s mother, Theresa Vallard, but it’s not on me to make that determination.

“I’ll radio it in.”

I’ve just reported the first confirmed mature female casualty to Sully when I hear JD call out.

“Bo!”

While Bo heads his way, I shove an orange flag in the snow next to the body before continuing on my search. I don’t encounter anything else until I come upon the portion of the tail we spotted on the drone’s feed. I already know there’s a body under here, and I can tell from the hand it’s another female, but I need confirmation there is an entire body underneath and not just part.

“I could use a hand over here,” I call out.

There’s no way I can lift this section by myself.

While I wait for Bo, I scan the landscape around me, wondering where the rest of the tail could’ve gone. In the denser trees to my left, I notice a reflection of metal about twenty feet in. I’m going to check that out next.

“JD found a man,” Bo shares when he joins me. “Deceased. What do you have?”

“This is the arm we saw on the screen back at base camp. Looks female.”

Bo crouches down and lightly touches the hand. “Young,” he mumbles, and my heart sinks.

It must’ve shown on my face because he immediately clarifies, “Not quite that young.”

So, that leaves the twenty-six-year-old flight attendant, her name was Sylvia Hansen.

We each carefully grab at opposite ends of the torn metal and lift it aside. I briefly glance at the body it covered, only long enough to confirm it is not the kid. I’m starting to realize this is not going to get any easier until we’ve found all the victims.

Sticking another orange flag in the snow next to the young woman, I point at the trees.

“I think there’s a bigger piece over there,” I tell Bo.

“I’ll tag along,” he offers, and I hear the soft thud of his snowshoes behind me when I head for the trees.

What we find is a substantial portion of the rear of the fuselage. When I looked at drawings of the various layouts for this model Cessna earlier, I noted in all of them the bathroom is at the rear of the plane. When we round the side, we find a big gaping hole where this section was attached to the rest of the plane. The ceiling is caved in, but a single, empty chair still appears to be bolted to the floor, it’s back against what I believe is the wall of the bathroom. The door is open.

“I’m going in,” I announce, brushing aside a cluster of dangling wires.

“Be careful,” Bo rumbles.

Ducking down, I find my way past the chair, taking a deep breath before I stick my head around the bathroom door.

Empty.

“It’s clear.”

Twenty minutes later JD and Dan find both pilots in the nose of the plane, which must’ve broken off on impact. Both are dead. It’s one of the sheriff’s deputies who ends up recovering the matriarch’s body when a few of them show up to join the search.

By nightfall, six bodies have been moved by sled to base camp.

The girl is still missing.