She asked again about Logan, and again Ross told her his team hadn’t heard from the man since the day before. The young guardsman seemed on edge this morning, but then so was O’Dell. She hadn’t been able to relax the knot in her chest. Last night she had the nagging urge to crawl into Ryder’s cot. Even now as she thought about it, she scolded herself and repeated in her head, Careful what you wish for.
She considered talking Ross out of the helicopter. She hadn’t paid any attention to the forecast, but what if the clear skies didn’t last? Did they have another mode of transportation available to come back down the mountain?
But she stopped herself. More than anything, she wanted this over and done with. There wasn’t much time to waste. She reminded herself about Dr. Gunther. Whoever set that fire last night—whether it was Logan or someone else—had meant to destroy what was inside. She had to be next. She knew that.
She didn’t think she could wait for Kunze. She did tell her boss that they needed to find Peter Logan. It wasn’t a coincidence that he’d suddenly disappeared.
All night she kept watch, flinching and rising at any sound that seemed out of place. She didn’t think Logan would risk burning down a gymnasium and taking with it dozens of rescue workers and volunteers. But she’d seen desperate men do desperate things.
It was best that she beat him back up the mountain. She needed to recover the deadly samples before someone mad enough to kill an old woman and incinerate evidence got there. She couldn’t depend on Ben. He had called several times since they talked last night. She silenced her phone and ignored his messages.
O’Dell knew what she needed to do. She only wished she could have talked Creed into staying behind.
68.
The wreckage up there was more severe. Creed was glad he’d brought the mesh carrier for Grace. No way he was allowing her to step foot onto that mess.
To Creed it looked like the remnants of a bombed-out village in Afghanistan. Only rubble left. Stubs of trees stripped of their branches. Pieces of rooflines sticking up out of the ground. An eerie reminder that they were walking on top of the buried building. He imagined hallways still intact underneath. Maybe more bodies trapped down there.
The smell of diesel and propane was dangerously strong and he searched for greasy puddles even as he followed Ross and Maggie.
The pilot had stayed with the helicopter. So far no one else was there to meet them. And Ross didn’t look like he expected anyone else.
“It’s not much farther,” he told Maggie. He glanced back at Grace then asked, “What exactly can the dog find?”
“A number of things. But she hasn’t been trained with any of the viruses we’re looking for.”
If Creed hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Ross looked pleased with that information instead of concerned about Grace’s limitations.
Grace, however, was unsettled again. She had wiggled into the carrier willingly but then stared at him again and fidgeted. Now traveling securely at his side, she pawed at him every once in a while. When he looked down, her nose was twitching, her breathing rapid. She obviously had found a scent she was working.
Multitask dogs were exceptional, even phenomenal. But sometimes they could get confused. The smallest miscue or misunderstanding of what their owner expected could result in a false alert. Creed used different commands and a variety of harnesses and vests for each task. If he didn’t make it clear what he expected the dog to search for, there could be confusion.
But Grace didn’t get confused.
Still, a dog might smell something that they recognized as a scent they’d been trained to search for. When they smelled it—even though they hadn’t been asked to find that particular scent at that particular time—they might alert to it. The landslide had smeared the mountain with enough scent to drive a dog crazy. Was she smelling human decomposition?
Earlier Creed suspected she was alerting to something inside the SUV. Now she was alerting again, staring up at him. The only common denominator was Ross.
He eyed the guardsman’s backpack. Creed watched the fit and swing of his jacket. Did guardsmen always carry weapons?
He looked down at Grace. Her nose was twitching again. She pushed her shoulders out of the carrier to get a better sniff.
“Looks like Grace is onto something,” Maggie said.
And this time when Ross glanced back Creed saw that the man didn’t look pleased.
Creed patted his jacket pocket and stopped. “I must have dropped her special collar when I was getting out of the helicopter,” he said while trying to catch Maggie’s eye.
“Collar?” Ross asked.
“Yeah, no wonder she’s so unsettled. Without it, she’s not really sure what she’s supposed to be searching for. Maggie, would you mind running back and getting it? I’m a little slow after getting banged up the last couple of days.”
But he could see she didn’t understand. She knew Creed used vests and collars to let Grace know which scent he wanted her to find. He wanted to alert Maggie that something was wrong, but more than anything, he wanted Maggie away from there.
“Sure, I can do that,” she said.