Read The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky for Free Online Page B

woman stood looking down at it.
    “We need to get out of here fast,” she said after a moment. “As soon as we kill the two that left on the quads.”
    “There are more besides them?” Travis said.
    “A lot more.” She nodded toward the camp. “These guys were calling in on a satellite phone every hour. When their people don’t hear from them, they’ll know there was trouble. They’ll send reinforcements with a helicopter.”
    The woman took a hard breath, gave her father a last look, then turned away, back toward the encampment. As she did, Travis got another look at her right arm. The set of clamps the torturer had used to pry apart her triceps were still in place, keeping the skin and muscle wedged open at least an inch. Heavy black clots filled the cavity, along with what could only be infected tissue.
    Seeing him stare, Paige turned her arm and saw the opening herself. Travis knew by her reaction that she was looking at it for the first time. She took it well.
    “I wouldn’t pull those clamps out without a doctor close by,” Travis said. “You don’t want to trap those infections inside your arm, away from the air.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be in a doctor’s care anytime soon,” she said, but made no move to detach the clamps.
    She stepped out of the pines and moved into the camp. Travis followed.
    “Can you use their satellite phone to call for help?” he said. “Get the military in here, or whoever your people can send?”
    She shook her head. “These guys had to use a code to make outgoing calls. If I were more of a tech, maybe I could get around it, but I’m not. How far from a town are we?”
    “On foot, fifty miles.” He looked at the remaining two quads parked nearby. “We could cover two thirds of it on one of those, taking the long way around a few ridges. Then there’s a river, and no way across but log bridges and rocks. We’d have to ditch the quad and walk from there, maybe a full day to reach Coldfoot.”
    She considered that, looking more concerned than hopeful. Her eyes went past him to the open valley and the succession of mountain ridges beyond, as if the landscape were an executioner’s scaffold. Travis imagined a full day’s walk over the mostly exposed terrain, being hunted by armed pursuers in a helicopter. The young woman’s expression suggested similar thoughts.
    “This is going to get bad,” she said. She stared a moment longer, then looked at Travis. “My name’s Paige. Thank you for saving my life.”
    The riders were coming back. The engines had started up a minute earlier, and now the two ATVs were just visible past the curve of the valley, maybe a mile away yet.
    Travis kept his M16 steady against a pine trunk. Paige held her own rifle at the next tree over, left-handed—clearly not her natural choice—and braced across a branch. Her damaged arm hung at her side.
    In the silence of the clearing, the distant hum of the engines was no more than an insect buzz. The wind through the boughs was louder. So was Paige’s breathing, each intake more a gasp than a breath.
    Travis wondered at the kind of resolve someone would need to even be standing after all she’d just gone through. Then he wondered at the stakes required to fuel that resolve.
    “You’re worried about a lot more than just your own survival,” Travis said.
    “Yes,” Paige said, her eyes staying on the gun sights.
    “I want to know what all this is,” he said. “I saw the steel container on the plane. And there were details in the First Lady’s note, but not enough. I’m going to help you get to Coldfoot, regardless, but if I’m going to risk getting killed over something, I want to know what it is. I don’t think that’s asking too much.”
    She looked up, met his gaze evenly.
    “What’s Tangent?” Travis said. “What the hell is a Breach entity?”
    Her eyes stayed on his a moment longer, as the drone of the incoming engines rose. Then she lowered her face to the rifle stock