Crystal Clear (7 page)

Cindy lifted
out th
e pint-sized first aid kit and
noticed a Ziploc bag
with another cell phone inside. A
ll their phones were set up as a
TAC
just for these emergency situations, and could receive a signal from bouncing reception off any satellite. So
,
it didn’t matter that she was in the middle of nowhere. 

“Thank you Luce. O
h God, thank you!”  Cindy cried out for joy, she wasn’t stranded after all.  Dialing, she pulled herself to the nearest tree and leaned back.

“Agent Halverson, who’s speaking?”  The voice on the other end of the line was brisk and business like.

“This is Agent Hawke, I’m down.  I repeat, I’m down.  Location unknown at this time.  Track this call.  I’ll remain on the line.”  Her head fe
lt
light. 

“Right, hang in there Hawke, I believe we have someone in the area.  Just stay put.”  She almost laughed, if her leg didn’t hurt quite so bad she would have. 

Stay put, right.  Got it.  Not going anywhere with this damn leg right now anyway.

She r
est
ed
her
head on the tree behind her, and
waited.  It would take a few minutes, but Agent Halverson would come thru for her.  He may be an ass, but he would come thru. 

Cindy
wasn’t going to pull out, but she needed help.  The mission had definitely become more complicated. 
She s
igh
ed
and reached into her survival kit. R
ight now what she needed was that Snickers bar.

The incessant ringing of the
T
AC
phone interrupted Jack as his mouth closed over
another bite of trout he caught earlier
in the
afternoon.  He debated between answering the line, and taking a
nother
mouthful of the delicious pan fried trout.  His sense of duty caved and he sighed as he picked up, “Yes, Wilde here.”

A
pause
d silence
met his ear, and
the
n
person on the other end answered.  “This is Commander Alex Quade.”

“What’s going on Sir?”  Jack waited in anticipation until the man explained. 

“We’re calling you up.  There’s an agent down.  She’ll be found somewhere near your location.  Help her finish the mission.  It’s become more dangerous than originally planned.  You’ll find the information in the file we’re faxing to you.” 

Jack rubbed the stubble growing on his chin as he thought. 

“Where’s her backup?”  Jack's curiosity got the better of him
as to what kind of organization would send a single agent in without
any
cover.  His fax machine started to hum with an incoming fax.

Commander Quade spoke, “Her backup’s on the way, but will be delayed for several hours.  His plane
grounded due to weather, you'
re the best option.  You’re close, and capable.  He should be able to arrive in about three to four hours.”

Jack walked over to the fax and watch
ed
as the pages came through.  The damn machine had a bad habit of spitting pages on the floor. 

“Sounds like
she got in deeper than planned.” P
icking up the file he started to flip through the file.  He sat down at the table and spread out the pages.

“Her organization got some bad info and didn’t anticipate the enemy to be in the area.  She went down on the river and according to the tracking should be found at the base of the falls.  Her name’s Cindy Hawke. She works for F.I.U.W.”

He’d heard of F.I.U.W. through some of the other SEAL team
s
, but he hadn’t worked with them directly.

Commander Quade continued, “They’re currently working in cooperation with the US and other governments to take out the Jaguar organization.  Find the agent, retrieve the info, time’s of the essence.  ”

“Yes Sir.  Thank you Sir.”  Jack cast a longing glance at the trout still uneaten on the table and moved to gather the pack he always kept ready in case something like this happened.  He looked over the pages in front of him.  Everything Commander Quade told him was outlined in the report.

He flipped to the last few pages and read a quick summary of Agent Hawke.  When he came to a page with her picture Jack sucked in a deep breath.  She was gorgeous, her hair was pulled back in a severe bun and she d
ressed in a strict professional-
looking business suit, but he definitely liked the look of her petite frame and her intelligent
hazel
eyes
which
held a bit of mischief in them.  He felt himself swell, and took a breath at the unexpected reaction he ha
d
from looking at her photo.

It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, and he chalked it down to that. 
Jack s
tash
ed
the
papers in a manila envelope and
placed them in his pack. 
They gave him
clearance authorization as well.  He assumed because she
would
ask about it.

He threw on his shoulder harness, complete with clips and his .45. 

Once a SEAL always a SEAL, they didn’t want to let all
his
training go to waste so he’d agreed to stay on as a reserve remote in the Bend area. 
R
estless energy poured over him as he started to move.  He’d missed the thrill of the
chase
. 

“Come on Copper.  We have an Agent to find.”  Jack opened the door to the cabin and let the dog out.

“Falls Boy, to the falls--”

Copper b
ound
ed
o
ff in front of Jack,
eager for the hunt.  If she had go
ne over the falls, she w
ould be in pretty bad shape.  The agent was lucky she didn’t die.

Copper started moving quickly upstream, Jack followed at a more sedate pace.  The dog wove his way t
hrough underbrush making a path
through trees and over the rocky shoreline. 

It wasn’t often that hikers made it out this far, they usually stopped
at the top of the waterfall. 
That was one reason he liked the area,
the forest
wasn’t too polluted with tourists. 

Copper bark
ed
not too far ahead as Jack moved closer to the river.  He wasn’t sure what his dog found, one couldn’t be too careful. 
Jack p
ull
ed
the gun out of the holster
as
he moved forw
ard toward the area his dog
wait
ed
; old habits were hard to break.  His training prepared him to be ready at all times.

Copper had stopped a short distance f
rom an outcropping of rocks, a
grey raft floated like a dead body in the water. 
The edge caught on a branch which
stuck out into the water four or five feet.  There was a pack tied onto the bow end that floated not far from the bank.

Jack rushed over and pulled
the craft
ashore.  If this was hers then
she had to have taken quite a spill.  It was a two person raft, but could carry one if they wanted to solo the rapids. 
He l
ook
ed around the immediate area, but
didn’t see anyone. 

“
Good boy Copper.
” 

Copper whined, and nosed Jack in the leg. 

As Jack o
pen
ed
the
pack he found several items of interest.  The most interesting to him
,
the .22 caliber packed in a Ziploc bag.  Contained in another waterproof holder was a small personalized laptop.  Not something you would carry on a regular hiking trip.

“Looks like we found some of our agent’s gear,” Jack mumbled as he went back over to the raft and searched the flattene
d side compartment.  A
small hole
perforated
the side.

“Trouble.” H
e followed the line and found three other holes went through the other side of the compartment through the front section. “Yep, definitely trouble.  Let’s go boy.” 

Jack shouldered her gear and set off to
wards the base of the falls. If the agent rafting
survived
,
that was where
she’d
likely end up
.
And a
ccording to Quade, that’s where she was located.  If she hadn’t already been discovered by whoever sabotaged her raft.

Carefully moving his way through the underbrush; J
ack strode onward
with determined steps
. N
o trails
lined
the immediate area, which made hiking difficult.  It was about a half a mile up around the base of the falls, and darkness fast approach
ed
.  The late afternoon sun splinted through the trees, making a curtain of light across the mossy ground of the forest.

This
was Jack’s favorite time of day. H
e stepped eagerly forward full of adren
alin, and ready to face anyone who
dared to threaten the sanctity of his space.  His knee wasn’t causing him any pain, and he passed it out of his mind.

It didn’t matter why the enemy was here. T
he mission parameters stated Jaguar, a terrorist organization, threatened the peace he trea
sured when he came to the cabin-- just o
ne more reason to see this mission through.  He didn’t rea
lly have strong feelings one way
or another about fanatics, but he didn’t want them anywhere near his space. 

Glad to have the assignment, it got him out and would help to cure some of the restlessness he fe
lt lately. H
is stomach growled, and he thought about the trout waiting for him on the table back at the cabin.  Jack gave a little sigh.  He never did get a chance to finish dinner.

Jack
took less than sixty minutes to hike to the base of the falls, it was about a mile from his cabin, but the sun
had already sunk
behind the hills. Unless the sky cleared, the trek back would be dark.

Jack just cleared the trees, when Copper took off barking.  He followed at a more reserved pace not knowing what to expect.  His gun felt comfortable in his palm and he scanned the area prepared for anything. 

It was likely Jaguar would have someone looking for the agent’s body and they would be armed.  You couldn’t do the kind of work he did and not have a paranoid streak.  Copper had stopped barking, and stood facing a tree off to the side of the clearing. 

Jack paused.
B
eyond his dog
sat
a
woman slumped against the tree. A
Snickers candy bar wrapper had fallen out of her hand, most likely when she passed out.  She looked banged up, probably from the fall over the rapids.  Her hair was a wild dark brown mass around her almost pixie-like face, and her clothes were torn.  He noticed the pack sitting next to her, and another .22
which
matched the one he found sitting on her lap. 

Yep, trouble.  Jack wasn’t sure about the best way to proceed.  If he woke her, she might start and shoot at him.  She was a trained agent, despite the fact that she looked
like a wayward pixie
.  He knew she
would
to take out any threat to her or the mission. 

Copper looked back at him and whined.  Jack held a finger to his lips and motioned the dog to be silent.  Copper obeyed, and returned to watching the woman.

Cindy didn’t know what to do.  She had heard the dog and man enter the area.  Her finger itched next to the gun in her lap.  She had fallen asleep after eating the Snickers bar.  She knew
sleeping
wasn’t the wisest course of action, but she had to rest before continuing on and trying to make her way to the satellite.   She had a mission to finish, and she
wasn’t about to let the sharp pains in her
foot stop her. 
S
he heard
the dog whine close to her, and
slid her hand up to the gun in her lap.   Cindy raised her lids, and looked at the dog first, then the man behind him. 

He was large, but definitely something out of her most vivid imagination.  She had to stop herself from shaking her head to see if she still dream
ed
.  His sculpted features reminded her of the jagged terrain nearby, and his eyes
held
the most striking shade of
chocolate brown
.  But she didn’t know him, and had not seen his photo anywhere in the database as far as she could remember.