Chapter 7 - The Extraction of the Ridge
The extraction took every ounce of strength left in my shoulders. Martha Vance was nearly unresponsive from hypothermia, her skin the color of river ice, her limbs stiff and clumsy as I hauled her over the rough stone lip of the well.
The moment her boots hit the mud, the twins threw themselves against her waist. They didn't speak; they just buried their faces in her wet canvas shirt, their small frames shaking with silent, heavy sobs that finally broke through their seven-month defense.
"We have to move," I said, looking across the clearing.
Caleb had managed to get to his feet, his face gray with pain as he leaned against a rotting birch tree, his hunting rifle now in his hands. His fingers were shaking so violently he could barely chamber a round.
"You won't... you won't make the highway, Brooks," he choked out, raising the barrel toward my chest. "My grandfather... he’s got the gate locked at the bottom. You're dead on this hill."
I didn't answer him. I pulled the satellite phone from my vest, hit the speed dial for the private security firm I kept on retainer for my firm’s logistics wings in Charlotte, and held it to my ear.
"Arthur," I said into the receiver, my voice cold as the mountain rain. "I’m at the old logging yard on the north ridge of Blackwood. I have three civilians with me—one critical hypothermia. I need the Bell 407 helicopter at this coordinate in ten minutes. And call the state police—tell them the Vance logging operation is currently holding hostages at gunpoint."
I clicked the phone off and looked Caleb straight in the eye. The silver watch on my wrist caught the thin, watery sunlight that was finally breaking through the high fog.
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"The helicopter will be here before you can walk a half-mile on that knee, Caleb," I told him. "Drop the gun, or the state police will be digging you out of these woods with a shovel."
Caleb looked at the sat-phone, then at the sky, where the distant, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a rotor blade was already echoing through the upper gaps of the mountains. He let out a long, whistling curse, let the rifle slip from his fingers into the mud, and slid back down against the birch tree, his head dropping onto his chest as the wind from the approaching aircraft began to tear through the clearing.
