Chains jingled as Yacine probed his pockets, finding the ID of Marshal Arlo Phife. Yacine grinned when he found handcuff keys in Phife’s pants. It took a bit of contorting and straining but Yacine succeeded in freeing himself from his chains. Then he looked for the luggage. Suitcases and bags were scattered around the site. Some had been torn open, the contents strewn about. He inspected all he could find then he opened the bags that had survived intact and searched the belongings of his escorts.

It took little time before Yacine had changed from his prison greens into jeans, a button-down shirt, and a leather jacket. Everything seemed a little tight, but it would have to do. He returned to Phife and took his boots, lacing them onto his feet. Snug, but they’d do for this terrain.

“Help me, please,” Phife pleaded.

“Hang on there, partner.”

“Thanks, man, thank –”

Yacine took Phife’s head in his hands, gritted his teeth, and twisted hard, watching Phife’s eyes balloon as vertebrae snapped.

All of them were dead now.

Yacine found binoculars in the cockpit. He climbed to the highest point and scanned an eternity of forests and mountains until he spotted a road and a town, miles off.

Smiling, he started in that direction.

-Chapter 44-

Ice Lake, Washington

The Ice Lake County fire hall, originally a school built in 1953, was a square brick building bordered by a thick grove of lodgepole pine.

Used primarily for responding to fire, traffic and medical emergencies, it was now the command center in the ground search for the crashed plane.

Mel Watson took in the scene.

The walls of its large meeting room were papered with huge, detailed maps of the Ghost Ridge region dotted with colored locator pins. Large tables were covered with radio and phone chargers, new phone lines, fax machines, photocopiers, computers, TV monitors, all for the operation.

The room was already filling with local and state authorities and well-trained volunteers, experts in search and recovery operations.

Watson joined other members of the team scrutinizing maps, concentrating on the search, quietly talking on the radio or phones studying the terrain data on the laptop computers. They prioritized areas of probabilities, outlining sectors to search. She knew they had the very best people out there who knew every ledge and loose rock zone.

Volunteers from surrounding communities all experienced in the territory, and expert in SAR operations, were joining the search.

Cody Neal, was the son of a trapper and had been born in a cabin in the North Cascades.

“There’s an old mining trail through the valleys and basins not far from Ghost Ridge. The trail was abandoned in the 1930s,” Neal said. “Last time I was on it was a month ago. We can get four-by-fours up there and trailer up some horses, that’ll take us in real close and real fast. The horses can take us the rest of the way.”

Watson nodded her agreement.