“Stay here,” Professor Kanosh hissed. He looked half drowned, his gray hair plastered to his skull. His dog climbed onto a boulder, still standing belly-deep in the stream.
“Why?” she asked, her teeth already beginning to chatter, both from the cold and the terror.
He pointed up.
She searched and spotted the helicopter vanishing over a ridgeline to the west.
“Body heat,” the professor explained. “It was how they were tracking us so well through the woods, why we couldn’t escape. Hopefully they’ll chase Mariah’s big sweating rump deep into the woods. ”
Kai understood. “And the cold water here . . . it helped hide us.”
“A bit of sleight of hand. What sort of Indians would we be if we couldn’t outfox a hunter in the woods?”
Despite the terror of their situation, his eyes smiled. She felt warmer for it.
“Let’s go,” he said, and helped haul her out of the frigid stream.
His dog clambered out after them and shook his coat, spraying water, as if nothing had happened.
Kai tried to do the same herself, shaking her hair, then her jacket, seeking to shed as much of the chill from her body as she could. One of the gold plates fell out of her jacket and struck the ground. Professor Kanosh’s eyes fixed to the plate, but he made no move to take the burden from her. So she retrieved it and returned it alongside the other in her jacket.
Professor Kanosh pointed downhill. “We need to keep moving, keep warm.”
“Where can we go?” she asked, her teeth still chattering.
“First, as far from here as possible. That trick will fool those hunters only until Mariah breaks free of the forest. Once they see her saddle’s empty, they’ll come backtracking, and we want to be long gone.”
“Then what?”
“Back to civilization. Look for help. Get ourselves surrounded by people on our side.”
He headed down the mountain, following a thin deer trail, but she read the worry in his face. She also remembered the call he had interrupted when he found her. Uncle Crowe was some bigwig in Washington, something to do with national security. He was not actually a close relative, but a half uncle on her father’s side—whatever that meant. She had met him only a handful of times, last at her father’s funeral. But all of the Pequot tribe was an extended family. The entire clan was a tangle of bloodlines and family relationships. She had a thousand aunties and uncles. But everyone knew if you were in big trouble, a call to Uncle Crowe could help smooth feathers.
“I know someone who might help us,” she said.
As she walked, she reached into her pants pocket and removed her cell phone. Water dripped from it after the dunk in the stream. It wouldn’t power up. She scowled and shoved it away. She doubted she could’ve gotten a signal anyway. She’d been lucky earlier to get a single bar when higher up the mountain.
Professor Kanosh noted her efforts. “Okay, then the first order of business is to reach a phone before the hunters regain the scent of our trail. Even if it means turning ourselves over to the state police or the National Guard.”
She tripped a step. “But those were the ones who were trying to kill us.”
“No. I got a look at their uniforms. They were certainly soldiers, but not with any National Guard unit.”
“Then who?”
“Maybe it’s still the government, or maybe a mercenary group looking to cash in on some bounty. Either way, I know only one thing for sure.”
“What’s that?”
His next words chilled her more than the dip in the icy stream. “Whoever they are, they want you dead.”
Chapter 8
May 30, 9:18 P.M.
Salt Lake City, Utah
“Did she at least leave a number?” Painter asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of a Chevy Tahoe with government plates. It sat on the tarmac near the private Gulfstream jet they’d flown from D.C.
Kowalski already sat behind the wheel, cranking the seat back to accommodate his large frame. Their third teammate, Chin, had transferred to a National Guard helicopter heading up to the blast site in the Rocky Mountains—but before Painter could direct his full attention to the anomalous explosion, he had another matter to address.
Kat’s voice sounded tinny over the encrypted line. “That’s all I could get out of your niece. But she sounded scared. And paranoid. She called from a disposable cell phone. But she did leave the cell’s number and asked for you to call her immediately after you landed.”
“Give me the number.”
She did, but she had more news. “Commander Pierce also reported in.” From the grimness of her tone, it didn’t sound like good news. “He’s with Seichan.”