Hank nodded at her order, looked over his shoulder and punched her arm. “Looks like Manny and Izzy are back.”
Manny Rodriguez and Izzy Walker had been tracking since dawn, alternating between flanker and tracker duties to keep their eyes fresh. Manny was the real deal, but he’d been training his flankers, Booker and Walker, in the field.
“We found a few upturned rocks on the high road,” her tracker whispered. “The dark side was up and hadn’t dried yet. And the indentations in the soil were clean and fresh. Someone has been through here…and recently. I saw boot prints in the mud, with bent grass heading in that direction.” He pointed a hand up the ridge. “But I didn’t see the tracks Kinkaid identified the other day, up or down.
“You see anything else up there?”
“I found machete marks. Frayed and old. Nothing new.”
Alexa listened to Manny as she kept her eyes alert, looking for any signs of movement in the brush around them. A creeping sensation had triggered her instincts. Nothing she could put a finger on, but she’d learned to pay attention to her gut. She wiped her palms down her BDU pant legs and rested a hand on her assault rifle, an edgy habit.
“What did you find on the low road?” she whispered. Her team huddled around Manny and listened. She cast a glance toward Hank, who caught the look and narrowed his eyes. He got her message that something else was on her mind.
“Not much,” Manny said. “Terrain is rough going down, and there’s high water below. They’d have trouble. We pulled a 360-degree sweep looking for tracks. Flooding was bad. No fresh signs.”
“Give me the bottom line, Manny. Up or down?” She leaned toward him. “Your gut.”
She could tell by his expression that the man carefully considered his answer. He’d make his best guess based on instinct, and she’d have to trust him unless she had a better idea.
“I’d take the high road and stick with the ridge. I definitely saw early-morning activity.” He waved a hand toward the peak behind her. “Going up is rockier and harder to track, another reason they’d climb. It would be tougher for anyone to follow them and easier on the women and kids.”
When she turned toward Izzy, he nodded in solidarity with Manny. The call would be hers to make. From what she’d seen earlier, the deep canyon showed signs of others living there, but no indications of hostage movement. It looked less likely that they would have taken the path down. The ridge held more appeal. It had a sheer drop on one side that would protect their asses. And trekking off the worn path below the ridgeline, they could avoid contact with locals while maintaining their good view below. They’d also have a better shot at making contact with Garrett if they stuck with the summit.
“We’ll stay with the ridge for now,” she whispered. “If we don’t cross their path, we’ll circle down into the valley and have a look around.”
Her men nodded. They had a plan.
“Booker and Winslow will keep watch while Manny and Izzy rest,” she added. “Hank? Let’s talk.”
After her team went about their business, she stayed crouched next to Hank. The man locked his gaze on her, waiting for what she’d say.
“The hair on the back of my neck is talking,” she admitted. “I think we’ve stirred up local interest. Someone is watching us.”
“Yeah, I’ve been feelin’ it, too.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Pass the word to the others.” She kept her voice low. “Stay alert. Bonus to anyone sprouting eyes in the back of their head.”
“You got it.” He grinned and headed toward the rest of her men.
They had a fifty-fifty shot at making the right decision. Some might like those odds, but she didn’t. The storm had messed with their best chance at catching up to the hostages. Any delay in finding them meant someone might die.
No, she didn’t like those odds at all.
Kinkaid crept low and steady through the underbrush before he came to a stop in a thicket off the trail. He’d gotten as close as he dared to Alexa and her team. Using his binoculars, he followed the movements of her trackers until they circled back. From experience, he knew they’d make an assessment on what to do next. The trail had split. They were looking for fresh tracks, and Alexa would make the final call.
His head ached, and the infected wound in his belly throbbed with heat. He took a gulp of water with more antibiotics while he waited for Alexa and her team to head out again. He didn’t have to wait long. They took the ridge to the summit, and Kinkaid was ready to follow them.
But something caught his eye.
A glint of light flashed below. And something jostled a tree limb. By the time he turned to get a better look, the flash of light and the movement were gone. He blinked and wiped his eyes before he peered through the binoculars again.
Had he imagined it?
Kinkaid searched the canyon and didn’t see anything out of order. Whatever he’d seen replayed in his mind until he made a decision. Alexa and her men were headed in the opposite direction. Their boot prints would be easy to pick up later, but he had to take the narrow path into the valley to make sure her trackers hadn’t missed anything. If Alexa and her men got to the terrorists first following the ridge, they were equipped to handle them, and he’d hear the skirmish. If her team was headed the wrong way, he owed it to Kate to check out the road not taken, even if it was a risky proposition.
He stowed his binoculars and grabbed his weapon, an HK G3 assault rifle. With a grimace of pain, he stood and carefully made his way to the path down into the canyon. Although going alone into the gorge wasn’t his smartest move, it was worth the risk. If he crossed paths with the bastards who’d taken Kate, he’d make good on his promise to pull the trigger when he got them in his crosshairs.
He wouldn’t go down without a fight. A burst of gunfire from his G3 would be like sending up a flare. Alexa and her team would be within earshot to back him up. It would have to do.
The trail to the bottom of the steep gorge was a series of switchbacks, a narrow worn path cut through dense vegetation. The air was more muggy, and the bugs had multiplied. He kept his eyes alert and his G3 ready. His pace was slow and cautious. If he got ambushed, it would be on this path, when he would be most vulnerable. It was the only way down from the ridge.
Kinkaid crouched and moved through the tree line, sticking to the shadows cast from the thick canopy overhead. He listened for sounds, searched for movement, and sniffed the air for anything that triggered his instincts. Near the end of the path, a bent limb caught his eye. Wind damage from the storm. He almost dismissed the shredded branch until he took a second look. When he got closer, he saw a white cut in the fallen limb. A clean slice. The kind of fresh cut from a machete. The sap had dried. By his estimation, it was no more than a day or two old. It was something.
His heart lifted for the first time that day.
When he reached the bottom of the trail, he hunkered down in a thicket to catch his breath and grabbed his binoculars. He peered through the trees and heavy underbrush. A slow-moving river had overrun its banks, flooding the ground and turning the land into a swamp. Although the clay soil had been saturated, shrubs and grasses protruded from the water, a good indication of where the riverbank had been.
On the air came the smell of death. He searched for the source and found the bloated body of a large rodent near an embankment. Flies buzzed the creature’s swollen belly, and the stench carried on the faint breeze. With the intrusion of the flooding, the rotting smell of the dead rodent mixed with the stagnant odors of the jungle, but he found it hard to believe the foul stench came from one animal.
Something worse hung heavy in the stifling heat.
When motion in the distance caught his eye, it took him a moment to shift his binoculars for a better look. Eventually, he recognized what it was—a flap of a very large wing. The feathers were dark brown, the color caught in the dappled sunlight through the trees. He focused on the sight, unsure of what he’d found. Shadows huddled under a large tree. A dark horde moved as one until it broke apart into frenzy, tugging at flesh and something more.
Vultures were feeding on a carcass.
