Going Gone. Sharon Sala
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terrain was heavily wooded, with at least four, maybe five, inches of fresh snow, and it all looked alike. He left his gear beneath one of the cots and was second-guessing his decision to go with the ground search when Reno arrived carrying a handheld GPS.
“I’ve got our search coordinates entered in here. They said the temps went down to five below last night. If we don’t find the wreckage today, we’ll go from rescue to retrieval.”
“Shut the hell up,” Cameron said shortly.
Reno blinked and then gave Cameron a closer look.
“Sorry, man.”
Cameron sighed. “No, I’m sorry. Look, this is personal. My girlfriend is one of the missing passengers.”
Reno frowned. “Well, hell, I’m sorry all over again. So let’s get going. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
Cameron held out his hand. “Can we start over?”
Reno smiled. “I’m Reno Brown.”
“Cameron Winger.”
“Nice to meet you, Cameron. You know what to look for out there?”
“Yes.”
Reno handed Cameron a helmet.
“Then off we go,” he said.
They put on the helmets as they moved toward the parked snowmobiles, and one by one, the searchers took off, moving toward the new grid pattern. Once the official search began, Reno Brown’s affable manner disappeared. He was all business as he wove through the thick growth of trees with steady skill.
Their arctic gear was welcome protection against the high-altitude cold, but it also made Cameron conscious of what the passengers in the downed plane would be enduring. He kept his gaze focused on the trees, looking for signs of broken treetops or a snow-covered shape that did not fit in to the surroundings.
The noise of so many engines startled an elk, and it bolted out of hiding and across a small meadow. Cameron watched it bound through the snow then disappear back into the forest.
The sun was bright, which made looking at the vast expanse of snow painful. The dark glasses they were wearing helped deflect the glare, but within a couple of hours he had a dull ache behind his eyes anyway.
The radios in their helmets made communication easier, but it was sparse and depressing. When they finished the search of their first grid, the crew stopped long enough to put new coordinates into their mobile GPS systems and discuss the situation.
As the day rolled on, Cameron’s hopes began to fade. When he figured out that getting a signal for a cell phone up here was next to impossible, it alleviated one fear he’d had: that the reason no one had called for help was because they were all dead.
They stopped just after three to refuel. Reno was eating an energy bar and Cameron was relieving his thirst when they received word from air search of a possible crash site a couple of miles north of their present location.
The urgency of the situation had just risen.
Reno thumped him on the shoulder as he headed for their ride.
“Let’s go get this done,” he said.
Moments later, the snowmobiles and their riders were speeding off in a new direction, desperate to reach the target location before dark.
* * *
Laura was alive between one world and the next, waiting to see who came for her first. Once she saw her mother standing beneath a snow-covered tree, but when she suddenly disappeared, Laura felt abandoned. Then she saw Dan and Marcy in the distance and called out, wanting them to wait, but they were too far away and didn’t hear her. She didn’t understand why everyone was leaving her behind. She was cold and hurt. Why wouldn’t they help? Why wouldn’t they take her with them?
Twice she thought she heard voices and pushed the covers aside each time, crying out in relief.
“Here! I’m here!”
But no one came to help, and the wolves were back. She could hear them digging and yipping, trying to get in.
“Go away,” she mumbled, and then started to cry. “Cameron, please find me. Why can’t you find me?”
A wolf howled.
She pulled the coats back up over her head as her fever pulled her under.
* * *
The vista spread out before them as Reno topped a small rise. From this angle Cameron could see the downward slope of the land, as well as a startling anomaly. Despite the snowfall, there was a very visible and distinct path of broken treetops below.
He thumped Reno on the shoulder and pointed.
“There! Look there!”
Reno nodded, then swung the snowmobile to the left and accelerated, using the radio in his helmet to alert the others to their find.
Cameron’s heart was hammering.
We’re coming, Laura. We’re coming, baby. Don’t give up on us yet.
When they began to see debris, Cameron felt sick. The worse the destruction had been to the plane, the less protection they would have had from the elements. There was a piece of a wingtip caught in a large stand of pines, and an entire wing lay on the ground a few yards farther on. Despite the snow, the heavy tree growth had partially protected it, leaving most of it visible, but they still hadn’t found the plane.
Cameron’s heart was pounding as Reno began confirming their find. All of a sudden the radio traffic that had been almost nonexistent was loud and rapid in his ears.
When they came up on the main crash site and saw the plane, the sound of their engine sent a pack of wolves running.
Cameron groaned. As if the crash itself wasn’t enough to weather.
Between the wind and the wolves, enough snow had been dug or blown away from the fuselage for him to see that it was intact.
Reno wheeled the snowmobile into a vacant space between some trees and killed the engine. He was on the radio, alerting headquarters that they’d found the wreckage, but Cameron had abandoned his helmet and was already off and running.
The doors were half-buried in snow, and no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t get them open. He began circling the plane, and as he rounded the nose and saw the dead pilot through the shattered windshield, his legs went weak.
Reno ran up behind him with a crowbar in his hands.
“The doors are jammed,” Cameron said, then crawled up on the nose section of the plane. “Throw me the crowbar!”
Reno gave it a toss.
Cameron caught it in midair and then used it to hammer at the shattered windshield until it gave way, exploding inward into thousands of tiny pellet-like pieces.
Reno saw the pilot as he crawled up beside him.
“Oh, hell,” he said softly.
Cameron handed off the crowbar and then climbed inside, but when he tried to open the door to get into the cabin, it wouldn’t budge.
“What’s wrong?” Reno said as he climbed inside with him, the crowbar still in his hand.
“Something’s up against the door,” Cameron said. “Probably debris.”
“Here, let me help,” Reno said, and together they threw their weight against it until it began to give.
That was when they realized it wasn’t debris blocking the door. It was bodies. Cameron saw a man’s leg and shoe first and kept pushing, but as the door opened farther and he saw a woman’s ankle and shoe, his heart sank.
God, please, God, no.
One more push and all of a sudden they were in.