The Rescue(66)

His trip through downtown Aguilar ended less than a minute later at San Antonio Avenue, where Main Street turned into the hard-packed dirt road that would deposit him in the foothills. He drove for another minute until he reached the fork in the road he had identified on the satellite maps. Decker pulled over and opened the laptop on the passenger seat, matching a small retention pond near the split to the satellite image.

“This is it,” he whispered, guiding the SUV left at the fork.

Decker drove into the draw between two ridges, the dirt road quickly giving way to a well-worn jeep trail. He stopped a few hundred yards later to activate the GPS unit mounted to the dashboard, studying his position relative to the displayed satellite map. After consulting the more detailed image on his laptop, he turned left, convinced he had made the right decision. The trail took him southwest for a quarter of a mile, through another draw. The ridges stood higher this time, making him wonder if he hadn’t underestimated the topography. The farther west he traveled, the steeper the terrain he’d encounter.

Evenly dividing his attention between the thinning jeep trail ahead of the SUV and the GPS next to the steering wheel, Decker reached the end of the jeep trail fifteen minutes ahead of the original schedule. The poor trail conditions had eaten up half of the time he had gained on the drive up from Albuquerque.

Staring through the windshield at the rising hills to the west, he grimaced. His memory of this place differed significantly from the view in front of him. He’d have to haul some serious ass to get into position by ten. Eleven was more realistic, especially if he hoped to recover from what would undoubtedly be a strenuous hike. Under normal circumstances, the trek wouldn’t give him pause, but at sixty-four hundred feet above sea level, four thousand more than he was accustomed to, he’d be wiped out after the five miles. Decker took the satellite phone out of the center console and called Harlow with the update.

“Are you there?” she said. “The helicopter launches in forty-five minutes.”

“I’m at the first waypoint, but I need to push the timeline back,” said Decker. “Sorry. I know that won’t be cheap.”

“This is already costing me an arm and a leg, so what’s another leg, right?” said Harlow. “Don’t answer that. What’s the problem?”

“The hills are a lot higher than I remembered.”

“You’re kidding, right? I mean—you checked a topographic map?”

He didn’t respond immediately, which may as well have been his answer.

“Dammit, Decker. How long of a delay are we talking?”

“One hour,” he said. “Ninety minutes to be sure.”

“Fine,” she said, after a lengthy pause. “They’ll arrive at their staging area by ten forty-five, in case you manage to gain some time back.”

“Thank you. I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass—or the pocketbook.”

“It’s really not a problem. I’m just a little nervous about this.”

“I’ll be fine. There’s more cover and concealment out here than I remembered, too.”

“That works both ways,” she said. “Be careful out there.”

“I’d say something like ‘careful is my middle name,’ but I think that ship has sailed.”

“Way over the horizon,” she said. “Make sure you check in every half hour. If you miss a check-in by more than ten minutes, I’m sending the helicopter directly to your last reported position.”

“Understood,” said Decker. “I better get moving. I’ll call you at eight with the first check-in. I have a few things to do before I start.”

“Eight o’clock sharp,” she said, ending the call.

Decker pocketed the phone and shut off the vehicle, stepping into the cool, crisp mountain air. At least he wouldn’t be hiking in the heat. The temperature in Aguilar wasn’t predicted to rise over seventy degrees before noon. It would be a few degrees cooler up here. He did a few dozen jumping jacks to loosen up from the long drive, taking a few minutes after that to stretch his legs. The hills would wreck his quads and calves if he wasn’t careful.

After stretching, he made his way to the back of the SUV and opened the lift gate. It wouldn’t take him long to gear up and go. Hungry from the drive, he started to rummage through a plastic shopping bag filled with snacks and power bars, suddenly remembering the two slices of leftover pizza in the cooler jammed in the passenger footwell. He tossed the bag of snacks back into the rear compartment and walked around the SUV to retrieve the cooler.

Cooler in hand, he shut the passenger door and turned toward the back of the vehicle, freezing in place when he looked up. Brad Pierce stood a few feet behind the SUV, pointing a suppressed M4-style rifle at his head. He wore a coyote-brown tactical ballistic-plate carrier over a gray T-shirt, unzipped khaki cargo pants and loosely tied hiking boots completing his outfit. Pierce looked like he had just rushed out of his house. Decker stared at him for a few seconds, careful not to move.

“If I hadn’t known you for more than half of my life,” said Pierce, glancing at the cargo compartment, “I’d say it looked like you had come here to kill me.”

There was no point to sugarcoating this. Pierce had the upper hand, and he’d never been tolerant of bullshit.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Decker.