Isolated in the deep Adirondack wilderness...

Their mission—escape!

When Detective Dalton Stevens follows his estranged wife, Erin, to the Adirondack Mountains, neither of them expects to be entrusted with intel that must be shared with Homeland Security. They are forced to begin a harrowing wilderness trek to outrun the terrorists who’ll kill for the secret. Dalton’s real objective—to reconcile with headstrong Erin—happens by chance…when one bullet changes everything.

JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan, on Facebook or at jennakernan.com

Also by Jenna Kernan

Survival Instinct

Surrogate Escape

Tribal Blood

Undercover Scout

Black Rock Guardian

Turquoise Guardian

Eagle Warrior

Firewolf

The Warrior’s Way

Shadow Wolf

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Adirondack Attack

Jenna Kernan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09420-7

ADIRONDACK ATTACK

© 2019 Jeannette H. Monaco

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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This story is dedicated, with love and admiration, to my

mother, Margaret C. Hathaway, who drove me to

school, swim lessons, summer camp, dance lessons, art

lessons, the Adirondack Mountains and the American

West. Who could have imagined the world was so big?

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

About the Publisher

Chapter One

On his first day off in three months, Detective Dalton Stevens shouldered his backpack and set out after his wife. He knew she’d be surprised to see him and possibly furious. She’d tell him that trial separations meant the couple separated. Well, the hell with that.

His wife, outdoor adventure specialist Erin Stevens, was up here in the Adirondacks somewhere. He had arrived last night, but as it was dark and he didn’t know the location of her guided excursion, he’d had to wait until this morning. That meant she was well ahead of him. It seemed like he’d been chasing after Erin ever since he met her, and the woman knew how to play hard to get. But this time was different. This time he really didn’t think she wanted to be caught. She wanted a separation. In his mind, separation was just code for impending divorce. Well, the hell with that, too.

Dalton adjusted the straps on his shoulders. He couldn’t use the padded hip strap because it rubbed against his healing stomach wound.

The group she was leading had already been at it a full day. Normally he could have caught them by now. But nothing was normal since he’d told her he’d been cleared by the department physician to return to active duty.

“Did you hear anything I said?” she’d asked.

“I heard you, Erin,” Dalton said to the endless uphill trail. Roots crisscrossed the path, and moss grew on the damp rocks that littered the way. He’d lost his footing twice, and the twisting caused a pain in his middle that made him double over in agony.

Cleared for duty did not mean cleared for hiking with a fifty-pound pack. It would have been lighter if he’d left the tent, but he knew his wife’s tent was a single. He’d packed one that suited two. Ever hopeful, he thought. Now if he could just get her in there, he was certain the starlight and the fresh air would clear her mind.

She was always happiest in the outdoors. Erin seemed to glow with health and contentment in this bug-infested, snake-ridden, root-laden wilderness. Meanwhile, he couldn’t tell poison ivy from fern, and the last time he’d carried a pack was in Afghanistan.

He stopped again to catch his breath, drawing out his mobile phone and finding he still had no service.

“Nature,” he scoffed. He’d take a neighborhood with a quality pizza joint any day.

Erin’s boss, and the director of the adult adventure camp, had given him a directions to the trailhead by phone and Dalton had picked up a topographical map. If he was reading this correctly, he should reach their second camping site shortly after they did. Yesterday they had used the kayaks to paddle the Hudson River before stopping for their first camp. This morning they should arrive here to await the scheduled release of water from Lake Abanakee this evening. This area of the Hudson was above the family rafting sites and would be wild running tomorrow, according to the director. The director said he would alert one of the rafting outfits to keep an eye out for him tomorrow, in case he needed a lift downriver.

Meanwhile, this trail from O-K Slip Road was all rocks and roots, and he seemed to catch his feet on each one. Recovery time from abdominal surgery certainly wasn’t easy, he thought.

He reached the Hudson Gorge and realized it would be a miracle to find them, even knowing their general stopping point. If they changed the plan and camped on the opposite side, he was out of luck and up the river without a paddle or raft.

Gradually he left the pine forest and moved through birch and maple as he approached the river. He was relieved to finally come upon their camping site knowing she and her group would not be far.

Erin had chosen a rocky outcropping, away from the tall trees and on a covering of moss and grass that spread across the gray rock above the river.

The brightly colored tents were scattered in a rough circle. The trees below the outcropping made it impossible to see them, but he could hear their laughter and raised voices plainly enough.

He didn’t see Erin’s little single tent because she wouldn’t camp very close to her charges. He was certain of that much, because his wife liked her privacy. Perhaps too damn much.

He found her camp in short order and dropped his pack beside her gray-and-white tent.

Erin’s pack rested inside the tent, and her food was properly hung in the trees to prevent attracting animals. The peals of laughter and howls of delight guided him to the trail to the river.

A young man and an older woman headed in his direction, winding up the steep path from the water. The route inclined so sharply that the pair clung to saplings as they climbed. The skinny youth wore wet swim trunks and gripped a towel around his neck. His legs were pearly pale, but his face and arms showed a definite sunburn. The woman wore a one-piece bathing suit with jean shorts plastered to her legs and rivulets of water running down her tanned skin.

“Having fun?” Dalton asked.

The youth pointed a toned arm back the way they had come. “There’s a rock like a diving board down there. Water’s deep and still. It’s awesome!”

The woman held her smile as her brows lifted in surprise. “Well, hey there. Didn’t see another paddler.”

He thumbed over his shoulder. “Came overland. The trail from O-K Slip Road.”

She passed him going in the opposite direction. “Well, that’s no fun.”

He stepped off the trail to let them pass and continued, landing on his backside with a jolt of pain more than once.

“No fun is right,” he muttered.

At the bank of the river, he saw the three remaining adult campers and their leader. He’d recognize those legs anywhere. Firm tanned legs pushing off the gray rock as she climbed, leaving wet footprints from her water shoes as she easily scaled the boulder that was shaped like the fin of a shark, using a climbing rope. It was his wife.

On the pinnacle of the sloping boulder she waited for a young woman in a pink bathing suit, which was an unfortunate match to her ruddy skin tone, to jump off and then followed behind, giving a howl of delight that made Dalton frown. He’d never heard her make such a sound of pure exhilaration.

The single male waded out of the water and came up short at the sight of him. Dalton judged the man to be early twenties and carrying extra pounds around his middle.

“Hiya,” he said.

Dalton nodded and the young man crept past him on the uneven bank. The woman in pink swam and then waded after the man, followed by a lanky female with wet hair so short it stood up like a hedgehog’s spines. Erin emerged from her underwater swim at the base of the rock, scaling the slope to retrieve her climbing rope before making a final leap with the coiled rope over one shoulder.

Dalton smiled as the pinkish woman, her face red from exertion, reached the muddy shore, her cheeks puffing out with each breath.

“Where’d you...come...from?” she wheezed.

“Your camp.”

She gave him a skeptical look and paused, one hand on her knee.

“You don’t look like an adventure camper.”

“No?” He grinned. “What do I look like?”

She cocked her head and her eyes narrowed. “A soldier.”

That surprised him as he had once been just that. But he’d left Special Forces at Erin’s request.

“Why’s that?”

She pointed at the hunting knife that he’d strapped to his belt and then to his boots, military issue and which still fit. Finally, she lifted her finger to the tattoos staining his left forearm from wrist to elbow. The overall pattern spoke of lost comrades, blood, war dead and the corps.

“You sure you’re with us?”

“Erin’s my wife.”

Her entire demeanor changed. Her face brightened and the look of suspicion vanished.

“Oh, hi! I’m Alice. Your wife, she’s wonderful. So encouraging and warm.” Her smile faltered. “You’re her husband?”

He didn’t like the incredulity in her voice.

“Yeah.” For now. His stomach gave a twist that had nothing to do with healing tissue.

“Hmm. Can’t see it.”

“Why?”

“She’s fun and you’re, well, you seem kinda...serious, you know?”

His brows sank deeper over his eyes. He was fun.

The woman glanced back down the trail where all but one hiker had vanished. “She didn’t mention you.”

“Feel free to ask her.”

Alice waved. “See you at camp.”

She moved past him and continued up the trail with her comrade on her heels. This other woman said nothing, just gave him a sullen look and glanced away the minute they made eye contact.

Erin reached the spot where she changed from swimming in the calm stretch to wading. He waited beside the kayaks.

Her tank top clung to her skin, and he could see the two-piece suit she wore beneath, along with much of her toned, athletic build. Her wet light brown hair, cut bluntly at her jawline, had lost its natural wave in the water. Her whiskey-brown eyes sparkled above her full mouth, now stretched wide in a playful grin. He took a moment to admire the view of his wife, wet and smiling.

He had the sudden impulse to hide before she spotted him.

Dalton didn’t know how Erin knew he was there, but she straightened, giving him a moment to study her standing alert and relaxed as if listening to the birds that flitted across the water. Then she turned and her eyes shifted to her husband. The set of her jaw told him that she was not pleased.

Dalton was six-three and weighed 245 pounds, but Erin’s scowl made him feel about two feet tall.

“Surprise?” he said, stretching his arms out from his sides in a ta-da posture.

Her gaze flicked to his middle, where she knew he still wore a bandage though the stitches were out now. She didn’t manage to keep from uttering a profanity. He knew this because he read it on her lips. The Lord’s name...in vain. Definitely. Then she tucked in her chin and started marching toward him in a way that would have made a lesser man run. Instead, he slid his hands into the rear pockets of his cargo pants and forced a smile that felt as awkward as a middle school slow dance.

“Dalton, if that’s you, you had better run.”

He did, running toward her, meeting her as she reached the bank.

He stopped before her, then reached, preparing to swing her in a circle, as he did after separations of more than a day.

She pressed her palm against the center of his chest and extended her arm, blocking him. “Don’t you dare lift me. You shouldn’t be lifting anything.”

He was suddenly glad he’d dumped his pack.

She hoisted the coiled rope farther up on her shoulder and aimed her extended finger at him. Her scowl deepened and her gaze shot back to him. “How long have you been tracking me?”

“Just today. I signed up for your group.”

Her fists went to her hips. “So I couldn’t send you home, right?”

Her two female adults had not climbed up to camp, opting to linger and watch the awkward reunion. Dalton glared, but they held their position, their heads swiveling from her to him as they awaited his reply, reminding him of spectators at a tennis match. Dalton pinned his eyes on his wife, an opponent, wishing they were alone but knowing that the women bearing witness might just play in his favor. Erin’s tone was icy, but she had not raised it...yet.

He grinned, leaned in for a kiss and caught only her cheek as she stepped back, scowling.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, pushing past him and heading up the trail. Her campers scuttled ahead of them and out of sight.

He trotted after her, ignoring the tug of pain that accompanied each stride.

“Did you bring a kayak?” she asked.

“No.”

“You planning on swimming the rapids tomorrow?”

“I thought you’d be happy.”

She kept walking, leaning against the slope. Her calf muscles were tight, and he pictured those ankles locked about his lower back. It had been too long.

“I’m taking a vacation. Just like you wanted,” he added.

She spun and stormed a few steps away, and then she rounded on him.

“You didn’t hear a word I said back there.” She pointed toward a tree that he assumed was in the direction of Yonkers, New York, and their pretty little split ranch house with the yard facing woods owned by the power company and a grill on the patio that he had planned to use over the July Fourth weekend. Instead, he was adventure camping without a kayak.

She continued, voice raised. “A vacation? Is that what you got from our last conversation?”

“I missed you.” He held his grin, but felt it dying at the edges. Drying up like a dead lizard in the sun. She didn’t look back.

“You told me you understood. That you’d take this time to think...” She turned and tapped a finger on his forehead as if to check that there was anyone home. “Really think, about my concerns.”

“You said a break.”

“You knew exactly what kind of a break I wanted. But, instead, you went for the grand gesture. Like always.”

He reached to cup her cheek, but she dodged and his arm dropped to his side. “Honey, listen...”

She looked up at him with disappointment, the hill not quite evening their heights. Then she placed a hand over his, and for a minute he thought it would be all right. Her eyes squeezed shut and a tear dribbled down her cheek.

Dalton gasped. He was making her cry. Erin didn’t cry unless she was furious.

The pinkish woman appeared at the edge of the meadow, stepping beside them as her eyes shifted back and forth between them. She tugged on her thick rope of a braid as if trying to decide whether she should proceed or speak.

Dalton looked at his wife. She hadn’t kissed him. When was the last time that she had greeted him without a kiss?

When she’d left for adventure camp yesterday, he recalled.

An icy dread crystallized around his heart. He would not lose her. Everything was changing. He had to figure out how to change it back. Change her back.

“Erin, come on,” he coaxed.

She was listening, and so was the interloper. He turned to the camper.

“Seriously?” he said, and she scuttled away toward the others, who all stood together facing him and their camp leader, his wife.

Erin faced her group. “This man is my husband, Dalton,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting him.”

The assemble stood motionless, only their eyes flicking from him to her.

Erin growled and strode away. She reached her tent, paused at the sight of his pack and dropped the rope. Her hands went to her hips. She turned to glare at him. He swallowed.

When he gave her his best smile, she closed her eyes and turned away. Then she stripped out of her tank top and into a dry sweatshirt, leaving her wet suit on underneath. He tried to hide his disappointment as she dragged on dry shorts. She spoke, it seemed, to her pack.

“If you were listening, you would have respected my wishes.”

“I heard everything you said. I did. I just...” Ignored you, he thought, but wisely stopped speaking.

“I don’t think listening is enough.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You always listen to me, Dalton. And then you do as you darn well please. My feelings don’t change your decisions. They don’t even seem to weigh into your thought process anymore. You want to go on living like you always have, and that’s your right. And it’s my right to step off the roller coaster.”

“Is stepping off the roller coaster punishment, Erin? Is that what you’re trying to do? Is that why you left?”

“I can’t talk to you here. I’m working.”

“I’ll wait.”

“It won’t matter how long you wait, Dalton. You don’t want to change.”

“Because everything is fine just the way it is.”

“No, Dalton. It isn’t.”

The way she said “it isn’t” froze his blood. The flat, defeated tone left no doubt that she was ready to cut him loose.

Erin opened her mouth to speak, but instead cocked her head. A moment later she had her hand shielding her eyes as she glanced up toward the sky. Her hearing was better than his.

He’d fired too many shots with his M4 rifle without ear protection over in Afghanistan. So he followed the direction of Erin’s attention and, a moment later, made out the familiar thumping drone of the blades of a helicopter.

“That’s funny,” Erin said.

The chopper broke the ridgeline across the river, wobbling dangerously and issuing black smoke from the tail section.

Dalton judged the angle of descent and the length of the meadow. The pilot was aiming for this flat stretch of ground beyond the tents that ringed the clearing. Dalton knew it would be a hard landing.

He grabbed Erin, capturing her hand, and yanked her toward the trees. In the meadow, standing like startled deer amid their colorful tents, her charges watched the approaching disaster in petrified stillness.

“Take cover!” he shouted, still running with his wife. “Get down!”

Chapter Two

Erin cried out in horror as the rails below the chopper snapped the treetops above them. Branches rained down from the sky, and Dalton dragged her against him as the roar of the engine seemed to pass directly over her head. She squeezed her eyes shut as her rib cage shuddered with the terrible vibrations of the whirling blades.

She opened her eyes as the chopper tipped in the air, the blades now on their side rotating toward her and churning upright like a window fan gone mad. It was going to hit the ground, blades first, right there before her.

In the meadow, Brian Peters, the skinny seventeen-year-old who was here because his father wanted him away from his computers for a week, was now running for his life. She judged he’d clear the descending blade but feared the fuselage would crush him. Brian’s acne-scarred cheeks puffed as he bolted, lanky and loose limbed. Behind him Merle Levine, the oldest of her group, a square and solidly built woman in her late fifties, lay prone beside her cheery red tent with her arms folded over her head. Merle was a single biology teacher on summer vacation and directly in the path Erin feared the chopper would take as it hit the ground.

Erin squeezed her face between open palms as the propeller caught. Instead of plowing into the earth, the helicopter cartwheeled as the blades sheered and folded under the momentum of the crash.

Erin saw Carol Walton lift her arms and then fall as debris swept her off her feet. The timid woman had reminded Erin of a porcupine, with small close-set eyes and spiky bleached hair tufted with black. Erin’s scream mingled with Carol’s as the woman vanished from sight.

The chopper careened toward the escarpment, some twenty feet above the river just beyond the meadow. The entire craft slowed and then tipped before scraping across the rock with exquisite slowness.

Richard Franklin, a twentysomething craft beer brewer from Oklahoma, was already close to the edge and he stood, watching the chopper as it teetered. He reached out toward the ruined aircraft and Erin realized he could see whoever was aboard. Then he ran as if to catch the two-ton machine in his pale outstretched arms. The chopper fell over the cliff and Richard dropped to his posterior.

Erin scanned the ground for the flash of a pink bathing suit. “Where’s Alice?”

Not a bird chirped or squirrel scuttled. The wind had ceased and all insects stilled. The group rose, as one, staring and bug-eyed. The sudden quiet was deafening. They began to walk in slow zombie-like synchronicity toward the spot where the helicopter had vanished. All except for Dalton.

Dalton released Erin and charged toward the spot where Carol Walton knelt, folded in the middle and clutching her belly like an opera soprano in the final act. Only Erin knew the blood was real.

Alice Afton appeared beside her, having obviously been hiding in the woods.

“Alice, get my pack. There’s a med kit in there,” Erin said.

Alice trotted off and Erin moved on wooden legs toward Carol Walton, knowing from the amount of blood spilling from her wounds that she could not survive.

Dalton cradled Carol in his lap, and her head lay in the crook of his elbow. In different circumstances the hold would seem that of a lover. His short, dark brown hair, longer on top, fell forward over his broad forehead, covering his heavy brows and shielding the green eyes that she knew turned amber near the iris. She could see the nostrils of his broad nose flare as he spoke.

“I got you,” said Dalton. “Don’t you worry.”

“Tell my mom, I love her,” said Carol.

Erin realized then that Carol knew she was dying. But there was none of the wild panic she had expected. Carol stared up at Dalton as if knowing he would guide her to where she needed to go. The confidence he projected, the experience. How many of his fellow marines had he held just like this?

Army never leaves their wounded. Marines never leave their dead.

“Can I do anything?” asked Erin. She couldn’t. Nothing that would keep Carol with them.

“Take her hand,” he said in a voice that was part exasperation, part anguish. She knew he’d lost comrades in war and it bothered him deeply.

Erin did, and warm blood coated her palm.

Alice arrived, panting, and extended the pack.

“Just put it down for now,” said Dalton, his voice calm.

“Why doesn’t it hurt?” asked Carol, lowering her chin as if to look at the slicing belly wound. Something had torn her from one side to the other and the smell of her compromised bowels made Erin gag.

But not Dalton. He lifted Carol’s chin with two fingers and said. “Hey, look at me. Okay?”

Carol blinked up at him. “She’s a lucky woman, your wife. Does she know that?”

Dalton smiled, stroking her head. “Sometimes.”

Carol’s color changed from ashen to blue. She shivered and her eyes went out of focus. Then her breathing changed. She gasped and her body went slack.

Dalton checked the pulse at her throat as Erin’s vision blurred. He shook his head and whispered, “Gone.”

From the lip of the cliff, Brian Peters called. “I can see someone moving down there.”

Dalton slipped out from under Carol’s slack body and rose. He glanced down at Erin, and she pressed her lips together to keep from crying.

“Come on,” he said, and headed toward the rocky outcropping.

He tugged her to her feet and she hesitated, eyes still pinned on the savaged corpse that was Carol Walton just a few minutes ago.

“Erin. We have to see about the crew.” His voice held authority.

How was he so calm? she wondered, but merely nodded her head and allowed him to hurry her along, like an unwilling dog on a leash.

And then, there they were on the lip of rock that jutted out over the Hudson. Twenty feet below them the ruined helicopter lay, minus its blades. One of the runners was snagged over a logjam that held the ruined chopper as the bubble of clear plastic slowly filled with river water. Inside the pilot slumped in his seat, tethered in place by the shoulder restraints.

“Is he alone?” asked Merle, coming to stand beside Dalton, asking him the questions as he emerged as the clear leader of their party.

“Seems so,” said Dalton as he released Erin’s hand.

“He’s moving!” said Richard, pointing a finger at the river.

Erin craned her neck and saw the pilot’s head turn to one side. Alive, she realized.

“He’s sinking,” said Brian. “It’s at his feet now.”

“We have to get him out of there,” said Alice.

“He’ll drown,” added Richard.

“You have rope?” asked Dalton.

Erin roused from her waking nightmare, knowing exactly what her husband planned. He’d string some rope up and swing down there like Tarzan in a daring rescue attempt.

Except she was the better swimmer. Dalton was only an average swimmer at best and today he was four weeks post-surgery. His abdominal muscles could not handle this. He’d tear something loose, probably the artery that the surgeon had somehow managed to close. She squared her shoulders and faced him.

Erin regained control of her party.

“You are not going down there!” she said.

He ignored her and lifted a hand to snap his fingers before Richard’s face. “Rope?”

Richard startled, tore his gaze from the drama unfolding in the river and then hurried off.

“Dalton, I’m the party leader. I’m going,” she said.

He smiled at her. “Honey...”

Her eyes narrowed at the placating tone as she interrupted. “You might get down there, but you can’t climb back up. Who’s going to haul you back?”

He glanced at the drop and the chopper. The water now reached the pilot’s knees.

When Richard returned with the gear bag, Erin dropped to the ground and unzipped the duffel. As she removed the throw line and sash cord, she kept talking.

“I’m a better climber. More experienced.” She reached in the bag, removed a rope and dropped it at his feet. “Tie a bowline,” she said, requesting a simple beginner knot.

His eyes narrowed.

She held up an ascender used to make climbing up a single belay rope as easy as using a StairMaster. “What’s this for?” she asked, testing his knowledge of climbing.

His jaw tightened.

“Exactly. I’m going. That’s all.”

Erin showed Dalton the throw ball, a sand-filled pouch that looked like a cross between a hacky sack and a leather beanbag filled with lead shot. Its purpose was to carry the lighter sash cord up and over tree branches, or in this case, down and around the top of the chopper’s damaged rotor. Finished, she rose and offered the throw ball and towline to Dalton because he was better at throwing and because she needed him to leave her alone so she could work.

“Knock yourself out,” she said, leaving him to try to snag the helicopter as she slipped into her climbing harness and fastened the chin strap on her helmet.

“How deep is the river here?” asked Dalton.

“Twenty feet, maybe. The river is deeper and wider here, which is why there’s no white water. The gorges close back in farther down and the water gets interesting again.”

Twenty feet was deep enough to sink that fuselage, she thought.

Erin selected a gap in the top of the rocky outcropping for her chock. This was an aluminum wedge that would hold her climbing rope. The climbing rope, on which she would belay, or use to descend and then return, was strong and much thicker than the towrope, which was no wider than a clothesline. Belaying to the pilot meant using this stronger rope and the cliff wall to drop to his position and then return using two ascenders. The ascenders fixed to the rope and would move only in one direction—up. The ascenders included feet loops, so she could rest on one as she moved the other upward.

She set the wedge in place and then set up her belay system. Finally, she attached her harness to the rope with a carabiner and figure eight belay device. She liked old-school equipment. Simple was best.

By the time she finished collecting all her gear, a second harness and the pack with the first aid kit, Dalton had succeeded in snagging the chopper with the throw ball and pulled the cord tight.

“Got it.” He turned to her and grinned, showing her the tight towline.

“Fantastic,” she said, squatting at the lip of the cliff. Then she fell backward. She had the satisfaction of seeing the shock on Dalton’s face before he disappeared from her sight. Only momentarily, unfortunately. When she glanced up he was scowling down at her. Holding the towrope aloft.

“What’s this even for?” he shouted.

“It’s like those spinner things, only for grown men.”

She continued her descent, smoothly releasing the rope and slowing as she reached the river’s uneasy surface. As she approached the chopper, she realized the wreckage was moving, inching back as the rotor dragged along the branch anchoring it in place.

The pressure of the water splashed over the dome in front of the pilot, who turned his head to look up at her. She could see little of the man except that his headphones had fallen over his nose and there was blood, obscured from above by his dark clothing.

Her feet bumped the Plexiglas dome and she held herself in place, dancing sideways on her line to reach the door on the downriver side. It was partially submerged, but the other one took the full force of the current. She’d never be able to open it.

The pilot clutched his middle and turned to the empty seat beside him. He grabbed a red nylon cooler and laboriously moved it to his lap.

“I’m going to get you out,” said Erin, doubting that she really could.

Chapter Three

Dalton watched in horror as his wife opened the side compartment door and gave herself enough slack to enter the ruptured compartment of the wrecked chopper.

The pilot lifted his head toward her as she perched on the passenger’s seat, now pitched at an odd angle. Her added weight had caused the chopper’s runner to farther slip along the anchoring branch. When the chopper tore loose, it would sink and she might be snagged. Cold dread constricted Dalton’s chest as he watched helplessly from above.

If he had been the one down there, he was certain the chopper would already have broken loose. She’d been right to go, though he’d still rather switch places with her. She’d been so darn quick with those ropes. Erin knew he was capable of belaying down a rope. And he could climb back up on a good day, but he didn’t know how to use the gizmos she had in that pack on her back and jangling from her harness. And today was not a good day.

Beside him, the four surviving campers lay on their bellies and knelt on the rock, all eyes fixed on the drama unfolding below.

The pilot was pushing something toward Erin; it looked like a small red bag. Erin was unbuckling his restraints and shoving the harness behind his back.

The water foaming around the wreckage drowned out their words.

Erin succeeded in getting the waist buckle of the climbing harness clipped about him and was working on tugging the nylon straps of his harness under his legs as the pilot’s head lolled back. Erin glanced up at Dalton, a frown on her lips as she exited the compartment and retrieved the towline he had thrown. She was signaling to him with the rope. Pantomiming a knot.

“She wants you to tie a climbing rope to the line,” said the older woman. “I’m Merle, by the way. I used to do a lot of rock climbing before I got pins in my ankle.”

She lifted the coiled climbing rope, expertly connected it through an anchored pulley that she tied to a tree some five feet from the edge, and then tied the larger belay line to the towline. Finally, she signaled to Erin. A moment later Erin was hauling the towline back down, dragging the connected larger rope through the pulley. She continued this until she grasped the belay rope, at which point she quickly tied a loop through which she connected the belay rope to the pilot’s harness with a carabiner. Erin removed the pilot’s headphones and fitted her own helmet to his head.

Merle lifted the other end of the line, which ran through the pulley secured to the tree trunk, and returned to the rock ledge.

“Take this a minute.” Merle offered Dalton the rope. “I know I can’t haul that guy up.” She then motioned to the others. “Brian, Alice, Richard, come take hold. We’ll act like a mule team. Walk that way when I tell you. Slowly.” She folded the rope back on itself and tied a series of loops every few feet. Then the others took hold.

Dalton dragged his hand across his throat while simultaneously shaking his head. This, of course, had no effect on his wife who offered a thumbs-up and then used her strong legs to haul the pilot toward the open side door. For a moment the pilot tried again to get Erin to take the red squarish nylon bag. When Erin rejected his attempts to make her take it from him, he gripped the seat, foiling her attempts to remove him from the compartment. Finally, Erin looped the small container over her arm using the black nylon strap. Only then did the pilot assist in his extraction.

Merle extended an arm and pointed at the struggling pair.

“It’s moving!”

Dalton shifted his attention from his wife to the helicopter runner. He watched in horror as the twisted remains of one blade slipped free from the branch. In a single heartbeat, the compartment vanished beneath the surface, leaving the pilot, in Erin’s helmet, dangling from the rope, half in and half out of the water. With his legs submerged, the pilot was dragged downriver.

Erin’s rope went taut. Dalton’s breathing stopped as he gripped his wife’s rope from the surface of the rock before him and wrapped it behind his legs. He hadn’t done this since he was in active duty. He remembered how to anchor a climber, but he had never had to anchor a climber who was below him. Dalton sat into the rope and pulled.

Merle shouted from behind him. “Pull!”

The pilot began to rise, his legs clearing the churning torrent.

Dalton ignored the pain of his healing abdominal muscles as he succeeded in inching back from the edge. How long could Erin hold her breath? What if she was snagged on something in that compartment? The rope stretched tight as if tied down at the other end. He scanned the water for some sight of her, fearing the chopper had rolled onto her line or, worse, onto Erin.

The rope vibrated. Was the fuselage settling or was that his wife moving? Dalton smelled the fear on his perspiration. If the compartment tipped to that side, she would have no escape. She’d be pinned between the compartment and the bottom. Dalton considered his chances of moving upriver and jumping into the water. He made the calculation and came back with the answer. He had zero chance of succeeding. The river would whisk him past the wreck before he could reach her.

Just then he saw movement on the line. He stepped closer to the edge and a hand submerged again as the pilot rose closer to the lip of rock where he stood.

Dalton tugged and Erin’s hand appeared again. She clutched something; it looked like a metallic gold coffee mug handle. She slid the handle up the rope and her head emerged.

“She’s using an ascender,” called Merle. “Two! Holy cow, she set that up underwater? Your wife is magnificent. If I was ten years younger I’d steal that woman.”

He saw her then, first her arms, sliding the ascenders along the taut rope. One ascender slid upward and her head cleared the water. Wet hair clung to her red face as she gasped. Her opposite hand appeared, moving upward while gripping the second ascender. The device fixed to a carabiner and then to a sling that she had somehow clipped to her harness. In other words, Erin had released her original attachment to the line and then succeeded in attaching two ascenders and slings to the free portion of the rope all while underwater.

Magnificent was an understatement.

Her torso cleared the water and he saw that the red nylon bag still hung from her shoulder, clamped between her upper arm and side.

“Keep going,” called Merle to the pull team as the pilot appeared beside her and was dragged up onto the flat expanse of rock.

Fifteen feet below him, Erin made progress ascending as he leaned over the edge for a better look at her. This caused the rope to slacken and for Erin to drop several inches. Dalton straightened and sat into the rope. He lost his view of his wife, but Merle called the remaining distance to the top as the pilot’s pull team, having finished their job, abandoned their posts to run to the pilot who was struggling to move.

“Five feet,” called Merle, motioning him to hold position. Merle extended her hand and Erin gripped it, sliding the opposite ascender into Dalton’s line of sight. Then she scrambled up onto the rock, rising to stand before them.

She didn’t even look out of breath. He, on the other hand, had lost his wind. Seeing her disappear had broken something loose inside him, and his legs gave way. He collapsed onto the moss-covered rock as he struggled to keep down the contents of his stomach. The climbing rope fell about Erin’s feet, and she released the ascenders that clattered to the stone cliff top.

How had she escaped?

Merle was hugging his wife as Erin laughed. The men patted her on the back, and Alice got a hug as well, weeping loudly so that Erin had to comfort her.

“I’m getting you all wet,” said Erin, extracting herself from Alice’s embrace. She ignored Dalton as she turned to the pilot. “How is he?”

Dalton had a rudimentary field experience with triage and rallied to meet her beside the pilot.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, still not looking at him. “Thanks for your help.”

But she hadn’t needed it or him. All he had done was dunk her as she emerged and possibly speed her arrival slightly by keeping the rope tight.

“Did you get pinned?” he asked.

“Just the rope.”

“How did you get out?” he asked.

“Later,” she said, and set aside the bag that he now saw was a red nylon lunch cooler. Why had the pilot been so insistent that she retrieve it?

Illegal possibilities rose in his law-enforcement mind, but he turned his attention to the injured man, checking his pupils and pulse.

“Where’s your pack?” he asked her.

“Dumped it. Couldn’t fit out the side window.”

Erin dropped to her knees beside the pilot.

“Shock,” he said. At the very least. If he had to guess, and he did have to, because there was no medical help for miles, he’d say the man was bleeding internally. He took a knee beside her and pressed on the pilot’s stomach with his fingertips and found the man’s skin over the abdominal cavity was tight and the cavity rigid.

“His leg is broken,” said Merle, pointing at the pilot’s foot, which was facing in the wrong direction for a man lying on his back.

So is his spleen, thought Dalton.

Chapter Four

“I don’t like the sound of his breathing,” said Erin, her brow as wrinkled as her wet tank top.

The pilot wheezed now, struggling for breath. His eyes fluttered open.

“Captain Lewis, this is my husband. He’s a New York City detective. You wanted to speak to him?” The pilot had given them his name but little else.

The captain nodded. “Just you two,” he said, lifting his chin toward the curious faces surrounding him.

Erin pointed at Merle. “Please go find my pack and get my phone. Then call for help. Brian, go find something to cover Carol up with and, Alice and Richard, can you gather my climbing gear?”

The campers scurried away.

“Now, Captain Lewis,” said Erin. “What in this cooler is so important that you were willing to kill us both?”

Lewis turned to Dalton and spoke in a guttural whisper. “I work for the Department of Homeland Security. Orders to collect this and transfer same to a plane bound for the CDC in Virginia.”

Dalton felt the hairs on his neck lifting, as if his skin were electrified. The mention of the CDC or Centers for Disease Control indicated to him that whatever was inside was related to infection or disease.

“What’s in there?” he asked, aiming an index finger at the bag.

“Flash drive with intel on terrorist cells within the state. Siming’s Army, and those vials hold one of the three Deathbringers.”

“The what?” asked Dalton.

“I don’t know, exactly. Mission objective was to pick up a package, which contains an active virus—a deadly one—and the vaccine.”

Erin moved farther from the cooler that had been dangling recently from her arm.

“So it’s dangerous?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Deadly. You have to get it to DHS or the FBI. Don’t trust anyone else.”

“Who shot you down?” Dalton had seen the bullet holes in the fuselage.

“Foreign agents. Mercenaries. Don’t know. Whoever they are, they work for Siming’s Army. And more will be coming to recover that.” He pointed at the cooler.

“Where’d you get it?” asked Dalton.

“An operative. Agent Ryan Carr. Use his name. Get as far from here as possible.”

“But you’re injured,” said Erin.

“No, ma’am. I’m dying.” He glanced to Dalton, who nodded his agreement.

“Internal injuries,” said Dalton through gritted teeth. Two deaths, and he’d been unable to do a damned thing to save them.

“I thank you for pulling me out. You two have to complete my mission.”

“No,” said Erin at the same time Dalton said, “Yes.”

She stared at him. “I can’t leave these people out here and I’m not taking charge of a deadly anything.”

The captain spoke to her, slipping his hand into hers.

“It’s a dying man’s last request.”

She tried to pull back. “That’s not fair.”

He grinned and then wheezed. His breath smelled of blood. “All’s fair in love and war.”

He used the other hand to push the cooler toward Dalton, who accepted the package.

She pointed at the red nylon travel cooler. “Dalton, do not take that.”

But he already had.

“Get him a blanket, Erin. He’s shivering.”

She stood and glared at him, then hurried off.

Dalton stayed with the captain as he grew paler and his eyes went out of focus. He’d seen this before. Too many times, but this time the blood stayed politely inside his dying body. The pilot’s belly swelled with it and so did his thigh. The broken femur had cut some blood supply, Dalton was certain, from the lack of pulse at the pilot’s ankle and the way his left pant leg was now so tight.

“Tell my girlfriend, Sally, that I was fixing to ask for her hand. Tell her I love her and I’m sorry.”

“I’ll tell her.” If he lived to see this through. Judging from the number of bullet holes in that chopper and the size of the caliber, staying alive was going to be a challenge.

Erin returned with her down sleeping bag and draped it over the shivering captain. Before the sun reached the treetops as it dipped into the west, the captain joined Carol Walton in death.

Dalton stood. “We have to go.”

“Go? Go where? I’ve got two dead bodies and responsibility for the welfare of my group. I can’t just leave them.”

No, they couldn’t just leave them. But there were few safe choices. Traveling as a group would be slow. “Get the kayaks ready. We’re going.”

“I am not taking this group into river rapids ninety minutes before sunset. Are you crazy?”

“Not as crazy as meeting them here.” He motioned to the open field.

“Meeting who?” she asked.

“Siming’s Army.”

Twenty minutes later Erin, now in dry clothing, gathered the surviving campers and explained that the captain’s helicopter was shot down, he claimed, by terrorists who would be coming for whatever was in that bag. She explained that leaving this evening was hazardous because of the volume of water at the forefront of the scheduled release from Lake Abanakee. Finally, she relayed that it was her husband’s belief that they needed to leave this site immediately.

“I’m for that. Staying the night with two dead bodies gives me the creeps,” said Brian.

“You can’t just leave them out here for the predators,” said Richard.

“You rather be here when the predators show up?” asked Merle.

“We called for help. They are sending an air rescue team for them,” Brian said. “We should at least wait until they pick up the dead.”

“We wait, there will be more dead,” said Dalton.

“What do you think, Erin?” asked Brian.

“I would prefer to stay put and wait for help.”

“What’s coming isn’t help,” said Dalton.

* * *

ON EMPTY STOMACHS, the campers packed up their tents and gear, while Erin and Dalton headed down the rocky outcropping to ready the kayaks that had been stowed for their excursion the following morning. Dalton took Carol’s gear and kayak.

“You really sure about this?” asked Erin, her gaze flicking from Dalton, who carried one end of Carol’s kayak, and then to the frothing river behind him.

“Sure about our responsibility to deliver this? Yes.”

“Sure about taking inexperienced kayakers into the roughest stretch of white water one hour before sunset. What if someone upends?”

He lowered the kayak onto the grassy bank. “What would you normally do?”

“Pick them up from the river and guide them to shore.”

“We’ll do that.”

“In the dark?”

“You’re right. We can’t do that.”

“So your plan is to leave anyone who gets into trouble. And here I thought you were the hero type.”

That stung. He wouldn’t leave anyone behind. She had to know that. “Erin, he said they’re coming. Mercenaries. You understand? That means hired killers, and I know they are using high-caliber rounds from the size of the holes in the tail section of the chopper. We can argue later about specific logistics. Right now we need to...”

She was cocking her head again. Looking toward the sky. He didn’t hear it yet, not over the roar of the river. But he knew what was coming.

Dalton looked at the three kayaks they had retrieved from cover. Her gear lay beside her craft, neatly stowed in her pack. Dalton slipped her gear into the hollow forward compartment of her craft and added her paddle so that it rested half in and half out of the opening.

Erin arched backward, staring up at the pink sky with her hand acting as visor. Dalton packed his gear into the bow of Carol Walton’s craft and added the red nylon cooler, which now contained nothing but a river rock. The black case, recently within, held two small vials in a padded black compartment with a thumb drive. This precious parcel now rested safely in the side pocket of his cargo pants.

“They’re here,” she said, pointing at the red-and-white helicopter with Rescue emblazoned on the side.

The chopper hovered over the meadow, then began a measured descent. Erin stepped back toward the tree-lined trail that led to the meadow. Dalton glanced at the kayaks, packed and ready, and just knew he’d never get her to go without her group.

So he abandoned their escape plan and followed her. He could at least see that she wasn’t one of the welcome party.

Dalton made sure he was beside her when they reached the sharply ascending trailhead at the edge of the open field. Before them, the chopper had landed. The pilot cut the engine and the copilot stepped down. Dalton studied the man. He wore aviator glasses, slacks and a button-up shirt. Nothing identified him as mountain rescue and his smile seemed out of place. As he crouched and trotted beneath the slowing blades that whirled above him, Dalton spotted the grip of a pistol tucked in the back of his slacks.

Erin moved to step from cover and he dragged her back.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He held a finger to his lips. “Wait.”

Merle was first to greet the copilot. Their raised voices carried across the meadow.

“How many in your party?” asked the new arrival, straightening now. He was a small man, easy to underestimate, Dalton thought. The relaxed posture seemed crafted, just like his casual attire.

“There are six of us,” answered Merle, omitting the two dead.

“Where’s the crashed chopper?”

Merle pointed, half-turning to face the river. “Went into the Hudson and sank.”

The copilot glanced back to the chopper and the side door slid open. The man within crouched in the opening. There was a familiar metal cylinder over his shoulder and a strap across the checked cotton shirt he wore. Dalton had carried a rifle just like it on many missions while in Special Ops. It was an M4.

“What about the pilot?” asked the newcomer. “He go down with his chopper?”

Brian answered that one, coming to stand beside Merle. “We got him out. But he died.”

Dalton groaned.

“Too bad,” said the copilot.

Alice smiled brightly, standing in a line beside Brian. The only thing missing was the wall to make this a perfect setup for a firing squad. Dalton had a pistol but it would hardly be a match for three armed mercenaries. They’d kill him and, more importantly, they’d kill Erin. So he waited, backing her up with a firm pull on her arm. They now watched through the cover of pine boughs.

Dalton knew what would happen next. He ran through possibilities of what he could do, if anything, to prevent it.

“Do something,” whispered Erin.

“If I do something, they’ll know our position.”

“They’re going to kill them.”

“I think so.”

“So save them.”

“It will endanger you.”

“What would you do if I wasn’t here?”

He glanced at her. “You are here.”

Dalton watched from his position. “Get behind that tree.” He pointed. “Stay there and when I say run, you run for the kayaks.”

“Dalton?”

“Promise me.”

She met his gaze and nodded, then stepped behind the thick trunk of the pine tree. He moved beside her.

In the clearing, one of the new arrivals glanced in his direction and then back to Alice.

“You retrieve anything from the craft before it went down?”

“Yeah,” said Alice,

Dalton aimed at the one with the rifle.

“What exactly?”

“A red cooler. We have to take it to the FBI,” said Brian.

“That so? Where is it now, exactly?”

Brian seemed to have realized that he faced a wolf in sheep’s clothing because he rested a hand on his neck and rubbed before speaking.

“Back by our tents,” he lied. “I’ll get it for you.” He turned to go.

The man with the aviator glasses motioned for the pilot to follow. The copilot lifted his hand to signal the shooter. The rifleman raised his weapon and Dalton took his shot, dropping him like a sack of rags.

By the time Dalton swung his pistol away from the dead man, the copilot had Alice in front of him, using her as a human shield.

“Come out or she dies,” said their leader.

He didn’t, and the man shot Merle and Richard in rapid succession. They fell like wheat before the scythe.

From the brush where Brian had disappeared came the sound of thrashing. Dalton suspected the teen had made a run for it.

The copilot dragged Alice back toward the chopper, using the nose cone as cover, as he shouted to the pilot. Another shot sounded and Alice fell forward to the ground, shot through the head.

“Kill whoever is shooting. Then find the sample,” said the copilot.

“The boy?”

“No witnesses.”

Dalton leaned toward Erin and whispered, “When they find that cooler, they’ll kill us. You understand?”

She nodded.

“Run!”

Erin didn’t look back at the carnage. Instead, she fled down the trail toward the river. Dalton had a time trying to keep up.

At the bank of the Hudson, Erin finally came to a halt. She folded at the waist and gripped her knees with both hands, panting.

“They killed them. Just shot them down,” she said.

Dalton thought he’d heard his wife express every emotion possible from elation to fury. But this voice, this high reedy thread of a voice, didn’t seem to belong to Erin.

“Where’s Brian?”

He wouldn’t get far with two trained killers on his trail.

Erin, who had just belayed into a river and rescued a wounded man. Who had led this group here to disaster. Who had just watched three more people die. The first deaths she’d ever witnessed.

A sharp threat of worry stitched his insides.

She straightened, and he took in her pale face and bloodless lips. He felt a second jolt of panic. She was going into shock.

“Erin.” He took a firm hold of both her elbows and gave a little shake. “We have to go now.” Her eyes snapped into focus and she met his gaze. There she was, pale, panting and scared. But she was back.

“Brian,” she whispered and then shouted. “Brian!” He appeared like a lost puppy, crashing through the brush, holding one bleeding arm with his opposite hand.

Behind him came the pilot. Dalton squeezed off two shots, sending his pursuer back into cover.

Erin and Brian crouched on the bank as Erin removed a red bandanna from her pocket and tied it around the bullet wound in the boy’s arm.

She closed her mouth and scowled as a familiar fierce expression emerged on her face.

“Those animals are not getting away with this.” She glanced toward the trail. His wife was preparing to fight.

“Erin, get into your kayak. Now.” He tugged her toward the watercrafts.

She paused and looked at her pack and the paddle already in place for departure. Then she glanced at him.

“You knew?”

“Suspected.”

She clutched Brian’s good arm. “He can’t paddle with one arm.” She wiped her hand over her mouth. “And you don’t know how to navigate in white water.”

True enough.

The kayaks each held only one person. Dalton took another shot to send their attacker back behind the tree.

“He’ll have to try,” said Dalton.

“Get in, Brian. I’ll launch you.”

Tears stained the boy’s pink, hairless cheeks, and blood stained his forearm, but he climbed into a kayak. Erin handed him a paddle and shoved his craft into the river.

“Now you,” she called to him.

He knew what would happen when he stopped shooting. They’d be sitting ducks on the river.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“Dalton. No.”

“You promised,” he said.

Brian was already in the current, struggling to paddle.

“Go,” he coaxed, wondering if this was the last time that he’d ever see her.

She went with a backward glance, calling directions as she pushed the kayak into the Hudson.

“Get to the center of the river and avoid the logs. Hug the right shore going into the first turn and the left on the second. How far are we going?”

“Get under cover.” They would be sitting ducks on the river once the chopper was airborne. He needed to kill that pilot.

“Got it.”

He moved his position as the pilot left cover to fire at what he assumed was three kayakers.

Never assume. Dalton took the shot and the man staggered back to cover.

Body armor, Dalton realized.

He caught a glimpse of the man darting between the trees in retreat. He took another shot, aiming for his head, and missed. Then he climbed into the kayak. Erin’s graceful departure had made the launch look easy. His efforts included using the paddle to shove himself forward, nearly upending in the process.

He moved by inches, shocked at how much his abdomen ached as he felt the grass and earth dragging under him. The river snatched him from the shore. He retrieved his double-bladed paddle, glancing forward to catch a glimpse of Erin before she vanished from his view. The pitch and buck of the river seemed a living thing beneath him, and this was the wide, quiet part.

He used his paddle to steer but did not propel himself forward. The river began to churn with the first set of rapids. He rocketed along, propelled by the hydrodynamics of the surging water.

Above him, the sky blazed scarlet, reflecting on the dark water like blood. Erin had never seen a dead body. Today she had seen six.

As if summoned from the twilight by his thoughts, he glimpsed Erin on the far bank, towing Brian’s kayak to shore. He tried and failed to redirect her.

Erin reached the rocky shore and leaped out, holding both crafts as Brian struggled from his vessel. He didn’t look back as he ran into the woods and vanished.

Dalton shouted as he slipped past her, using his paddle in an ineffective effort to reverse against the current.

He still splashed and shouted when Erin appeared again, towing an empty kayak. She darted past him, her paddle flashing silver in the fading light. She took point and he fell in behind her, mirroring her strokes and ignoring the painful tug in his middle that accompanied each pull of the blade through the surging water. She hugged the first turn just as she’d instructed him and he tried to follow, but swept wider and nearly hit the boulder cutting the water like the fin of a tiger shark.

She glanced back and shouted something inaudible, and they sped through a churning descent that made his stomach pitch as river water splashed into his vessel’s compartment. He could hear nothing past the roar of the white water, and neither could Erin. He knew this because he spotted the second turn in the river at the same moment he caught the flash of the red underbelly of the helicopter.

Erin’s head lifted as the chopper swept over them and took a position downriver, hovering low and then dropping out of sight. It would be waiting, he knew, low over the water to pick them off when they made the next turn.

Hug the right shore on the first turn and the left on the second. That was what she had told him, but his wife was very clearly making a path to the right on this second turn.

Dalton struggled to follow against the pull of the river that tried to drag him left. On the turn he saw the reason for her warning. There before him loomed the largest logjam of downed trees he’d ever seen, and it rushed right at them. Waves hit the barrier and soared ten feet in the air, soaking the logs that choked the right bank of the turn. The pile of debris seemed injected with towering pillars of rock.

It occurred to him then why most groups did not run this section of the river and never after a release from the dam.

Erin performed a neat half turn, riding a wave partially up the natural dam as the second kayak flipped. The river dropped her back and she pulled until she grasped a branch near the shore. She held on as the river tore the empty craft from hers. The empty vessel bobbed up beyond the logs and sped downriver as Erin struggled to keep hers from being dragged under the web of branches.

He tried to mimic her maneuver but instead rammed bow-first into the nest of branches. The water lifted the back of his kayak while forcing the bow down and under the debris.

“Grab hold,” Erin yelled.

He did, managing to grip the slimy, lichen-covered limb as the kayak continued its path downward and into the debris. He used both feet to snag the shoulder straps of his pack as his watercraft vanished beneath him. His stomach burned and he knew he could hold his pack or the limb, but not both. His current physical weakness infuriated him, but he dropped his pack. It fell to his seat in front of the red cooler decoy. Both his gear and the kayak were pulled under.

He hauled himself farther up on the debris as his kayak resurfaced beyond the fallen tree limb where he clung and his craft was whisked away.

He sighed at the loss, but with his feet free he could now climb to a spot above where Erin was snagged. He help move the nose of her craft back and clear of a branch. Then she dragged and pulled herself toward the shore. Just a little farther and the current calmed. Erin shoved with her paddle and reached the shallows as he scrambled beside the log dam.

How many seconds until the chopper realized they were no longer on the river?

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