Sam leaned his head back against the inside wall of the helicopter and tried not to think about how the movement of the helicopter was playing havoc with his concussion headache. He kept his eyes closed so that the visual information not matching the movement his inner ears were detecting didn’t rile his nausea any worse than it already had. Beside him, he heard Ethan sigh softly and wondered very briefly if Miss Parker’s half-brother were empathic at all.

There were eight men in this helicopter – another eight in the second chopper. Together, there would be sixteen men hiking down from above the tree line through the snow to the crash site. It would be a long, hard haul – the plane had come down on the western slopes of the Wasatch Mountains well into the thick pine forest. There was no clear or flat place near the site for choppers of this size to land.

Sam folded his arms and very inconspicuously checked that his gun was still securely in place near his left armpit. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to use it – guns called attention to themselves and the men who carried them, especially in the silence of a wilderness – but he wasn’t taking chances. He had no idea what kind of excuse he could concoct to justify the necessity of shooting a fellow rescuer – short of, perhaps, pointing out that the rescuer in question also had a gun and the pictures of two of the passengers on the plane, and verbal instructions to make sure they didn’t survive. He’d probably end up spending the night in jail himself – but it would be worth it, if that meant Miss Parker and Sydney made it down off that mountain in one piece.

“Here we go,” he heard the leader announce brusquely just before all of the chopper’s movements ceased except the slight vibration from the powerful rotor motors. “Everybody out!”

Having climbed into the helicopter just ahead of the Centre sweeper, he had the ability to quietly signal Ethan to wait until their unknowing nemesis was already up and ready to disembark before they got to their feet. The air turbulence from the landing chopper had cleared away most of what looked to be nearly twelve inches of snow from the barren rock; and the moment the last of the rescuers were out of the vehicle and the stack of metal baskets for carrying any injured survivors was off-loaded, the rotors began spinning more powerfully again as the helicopter lifted itself away to make room for the other chopper.

Once all sixteen rescuers were gathered around Kevin Grossman, the search team leader, he began giving directions. “OK, people, the crash site is just below us – about seven hundred yards down the mountain. I want you to pair up, and each pair take charge of one of these rescue stokes. We’ll head down the mountain in single file, after me. Ready?”

Ethan took hold of one end of a basket, while Sam took charge of the other. Each basket had a packet lashed to the bottom that included a thermal blanket and other emergency items. The rescue team formed up and began the slow walk down the mountainside, and Sam maneuvered their team until they were the last team in line. When Ethan would have complained, he turned and calmed the young man by saying, “This way, I can keep my eye on the other sweeper – just in case, you know?”

Ethan didn’t reply, he simply nodded acceptance of Sam’s thinking and followed Sam’s lead as they took up their position at the end of the line, walking in a trail already well-blazed through the snow for them by those who had gone before. The snow was deep enough, the leader in front was in no hurry and taking no chances in his or any of the others’ tripping or falling over something buried in the snow.

It was going to be a long hike.

~~~~~~~~~*

Al Douglas felt the metal basket bumping against his backside rhythmically with every step he took, keeping a very careful three paces behind the man in front of him. This had been almost too easy – his experience in Vietnam years earlier as a corpsman as being enough to qualify him for entry into the rescue team hadn’t been questioned in the least.

Still, he wondered just what it was that the Ice Queen herself had done to warrant the Tower issuing a termination order on her. In fact, he wondered that there had been no copy of that termination order presented to either him or Tom before their being sent on their way northward into the mountains – no code name of the issuer, nothing that resembled SOP at all. This entire set of orders from Blue Cove lately had reeked of impropriety – and perhaps, the orders to take care of Miss Parker and the old psychiatrist that had been her colleague for years now was part of an internal power struggle in the upper echelons as the result Raines’ murder. It was entirely possible that following the order would land him in as much serious trouble as not following it would – and he wondered briefly if anybody had ever posed this kind of dilemma to those training sweepers. He knew damned well he’d never heard of anything like this during his first days at the Centre.

Al didn’t often think of the days when the Centre recruiter had come to talk to him at the halfway house a week after his release from prison anymore. Making that decision to come, train and then work for the Centre had turned his life around in the most dramatic way – dramatic enough that remembering his past and the direction he’d been heading was no longer pleasant. Before then, he’d been a petty thief, a drunk and a drug addict, not so very good at committing burglaries to support his burgeoning drug habit as not to get caught at it – and getting desperate enough that mugging pedestrians would have been the next step on his slow slide into perdition. The Centre had found him recovering from a drunken stupor, taken him, brought him to Delaware, cleaned him up, stuck him in a gym with Miss Parker – who was at that time the head of Sweeper Training – and given him the skills that had served him well over the years. Miss Parker had been a tough but fair trainer, and he had no beef with her at all. In fact, he admired her – it was her tough, no-nonsense and yet intelligent posture that he’d always aspired to emulate himself first as a sweeper and then later as a cleaner.

He’d heard through the grapevine that was the ever-fluid contingent of sweepers and cleaners to cycle in and out of the various satellite bureaus he’d been assigned to later that first Miss Parker had been assigned to Corporate, to be the director of SIS for the entire organization. Several years later he heard that she’d been given the plum assignment of heading the retrieval team to hunt down the escaped Pretender, Jarod. More recent reports had been of the pressure put on the now-two retrieval teams, courtesy of Triumvirate pressure on those in the Tower to bring profitability back as a Centre asset.

Obviously, something must have happened just recently to change her position within the upper hierarchy after all of that. Still, one would have thought that being the daughter of the former Chairman would have held at least a few perks – the least of which being not thrown to a pack of cleaners.

And what would the old psychiatrist who had been Jarod’s trainer have done to deserve liquidation? That kind of experience was valuable – one nurtured and cherished the one possessing it, one didn’t casually toss it in a dumpster.

Al shook his head and focused his attention on the back of the man ahead of him. These were the kinds of questions he’d been trained NOT to have. The Centre had been very good to him these last fifteen, twenty years – it was the height of disloyalty to start trying to second-guess the purpose to anything the Tower decided. The Tower speaks, and those who exist below scramble to comply – that was the image that had been ground into him since very early on. Sweepers didn’t think – they did as they were told.

It wouldn’t do to start thinking for himself at this late date – no matter how things weren’t adding up. That was the way his name would end up on a similar termination order. Nope. He wouldn’t question. Someone in the Tower wanted Miss Parker and Doctor Green dead – by God, dead they’d be, if he had anything to do with it.

~~~~~~~~~*

“Special Agent Stein of the FBI to see you, sir,” Sung-Li’s melodic and yet clipped voice told Lyle through the telephone receiver.

Lyle sighed. Phil had warned him – best get this over as quickly as possible. “Send him in, and hold all my calls until my meeting with Agent Stein is finished, please.”

“Very good, sir.” Lyle could hear her telling the FBI man to proceed as she put down her end of the receiver.

The plate glass doors pushed in, and a tall man with a flowing overcoat walked briskly into the office. “Mr. Lyle Parker?” he asked in an almost frustrated tone.

“Yes.” Lyle rose and extended his hand across the desk. “I understand you’ve been very anxious to meet with me. My assistant…” he paused to point at Phil, who now stood at silent attention behind the desk at Lyle’s right hand, “…informed me that the matter was apparently of some great urgency. I apologize that matters of import had me out of town for so long.”

Stein wasn’t interested in platitudes. He pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it to the man behind the desk. “Do you know this man?” he asked tersely, and only then seated himself.

Lyle stared down at the picture in his hand and slowly sank into his own chair. Yes, he recognized the face in the photograph well – he’d spent years with Colin Arnham in Nairobi and Johannesburg in his youth, training in various methods of assassination and counter-intelligence. “Should I know him?” he asked in response, putting the photo down in order to watch the FBI agent’s face closely.

As he both expected and desired, Stein’s face flushed just a little more. Still, he had to admire the professionalism of the FBI man for keeping his voice from showing just how agitated he was. “Our forensics database tells us that the bomb that killed William Raines was made by this man – his name is Colin Arnham. Phone records indicate that you had several conversations with him just before the bombing – one two days before, the other just a few hours before the bomb blast.”

“That’s right,” Lyle nodded. “I believe that I had been given that name in connection to consulting with him on some securities work that the Centre required. My phone calls were merely setting up payment arrangements for his time and expertise.” He didn’t even blink. “I’ve never met the man in person – just spoken to him. I had no idea he had a side business of setting car bombs.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with Mr. Arnham?” Stein asked bluntly.

“No,” Lyle answered honestly. “If you’ll notice, those phone records indicate that the calls you mentioned were initiated on Mr. Arnham’s end, not in this office.”

“You weren’t making arrangements to have Mr. Arnham deposit one of his little creations in Mr. Raines’ automobile?”

Lyle sat back in his chair comfortably and folded his hands over his chest. “Why would I want to do that?”

“To get into this office,” Stein suggested suspiciously.

“For your information,” Lyle stated sourly, “my appointment here is provisional. The consortium that controls most of the upper level decisions here at the Centre is awaiting word on my sister, who was in that plane crash in Utah. If she survives, then I will be only a co-chairman.”

“How convenient that your sister is most likely dead then now too, is it not?” Stein commented in an equally sour tone. “In fact, that’s one coincidence too many, for my money. I suggest that you not leave the area without making sure that you can be reached again.” He rose. “I’m sure we’ll be having more questions for you as our investigation continues.”

“Just call my secretary – she’ll be the most informed about my whereabouts on any particular day.” Lyle rose and once more put out his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Special Agent Stein.”

Stein stared at the outstretched hand without moving a muscle toward shaking it. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised, and then turned on his heel and strode purposefully to the office door and vanished.

“I told you…” Phil began.

Lyle waved his sweeper into silence. “There is absolutely nothing that ties me to Arnham besides suspicion. Payment was made in cash through intermediaries – there’s no paper trail for them to trace. The man’s bluffing, and he knows it. Give him and his men access to everything they want to see – providing it isn’t any of the higher security computer access. Be cooperative and friendly – even helpful. I want them to leave here with doubts about their own information, is that understood?”

Phil’s face didn’t soften. “Yes, sir.”

“What about Angelo? Have you got him yet?”

“Not yet, sir. We’re only getting the gas masks distributed – we have to work around a bunch of FBI agents paying attention to everything we do, you know…”

Lyle sighed and sat back down. “Damn, there is that. OK, hold off on gassing the ventilation system until the FBI has gone – and then do it immediately. We’ll deal with those who didn’t get the masks in time when we find them. I want that man found and in a nice, secure box.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“No.” Lyle turned in his chair and stared out the window at the ocean in the distance. Yes, there was something he needed – the time to go home and finish his ritual, the time to think through what had happened the night before. How many times had he heard “be careful what you wish for – you just might get it?” He’d wished so long and so hard for the right to sit in this chair and direct the actions of the Centre – and now that he had that right, all he wanted was the ability to walk away from it for just a little while.

Damn.

~~~~~~~~~*

“How long do you think it’s going to take them to get here?” Natalie wondered aloud when the sound of the whomp-whomp of the helicopter once more drew near and then faded away.

“They’ll get here when they get here,” Bennings snapped at her. He too was anxious that the rescuers get there quickly – and not only because he was cold and ready to go back to living comfortably inside warm buildings.

It seemed like over an hour since he’d brought little Emily back into their fold, and in that time, three of his fellow survivors had visibly failed. Parker was now shuddering nearly non-stop and had the pink flush in her pale cheeks that spoke of a fever still on the rise. For that matter, George had started shivering now too and had become non-responsive to direct address. Sydney had long since stopped talking to anybody, and he leaned heavily against Parker’s undamaged shoulder with his eyes closed and face deathly pale.

The fire that had made their ordeal so much more bearable had become nothing but a pile of red embers. To keep it going for much longer, someone would have to leave the shelter and gather more of the shattered remains of the trees broken by the crash – and that would mean digging through the snow with unprotected hands. Bennings knew that HE didn’t want to do that again – and he was fairly certain that Natalie couldn’t be convinced to do it either. The only alternative to that would be to throw some of the piled luggage into the center of the embers and pray that the resulting flame would last long enough.

Emily, tucked under Natalie’s arm once more but knowing the woman to be thinking about anything except actually taking care of her, sniffled loudly for the third time in as many minutes and stared with big, blue eyes at him. Bennings bit his tongue to keep from barking at the child and then wondered what had happened to his legendary good humor. He was good with children, he reminded himself – normally he could be surrounded by a small cloud of boisterous and bouncing school kids and deal with both the noise and the level of interruption. But this little urchin that the crash had left in his care – his, because nobody else was in any physical or emotional shape to really take care of her – could get on his nerves with but a single, soft sound.

“Come here, honey,” he said finally, putting out a hand to the terrified child, “you can come sit with me.”

“No!” Natalie snapped, her arm closing around the child restrictively. “It’s my job to keep you all safe – she needs to stay with me!”

Emily began struggling to get free of the stewardess’ grip. “Let her go,” Bennings told the stewardess sharply. “She wants to come to me.”

“Sit still,” Natalie told the girl angrily. “I don’t want you to get lost again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous – she’s going to be sitting only four feet away from you,” Bennings tried to reason with her. “I won’t let her go outside without one of us going with her, I promise.”

Natalie seemed to waver. “If you’re sure…”

“She’ll be perfectly safe,” Bennings put out his arm again. “Let her come to me.”

“For a little while, I suppose…” Natalie’s arm lifted from Emily’s shoulders, and the little girl scampered quickly over to Benning’s side and climbed into his lap.

Emily sighed when she felt the man’s arms close around her, and she snuggled down as close to him as she could get. “The fire’s going out,” she said with a small shiver. “Are we going to freeze?”

“No,” Bennings reassured her. “The people who are coming for us will be here long before that.”

“I wanna go home, to my Mommy.”

Bennings smoothed her hair slowly. “I know you do, sweetheart,” he said softly.

His eyes lifted to the portholes in the fuselage, willing himself to see the movement of human figures moving outside the little shelter. Come on, guys, he thought toward the snowy scene outside, where he knew the rescuers had to hike in through the snowdrifts. Hurry up. People here need to get out of here before they die.

~~~~~~~~*

There was no doubt that they were getting close – there were visible signs of the trees in the area having been clipped at their very tops by something that had sent a shower of snow clumps and splintered wood to the forest floor below. The progress of the human chain that had slowly made its way down the mountainside slowed even more in order that none of the rescuers would be injured. There was a clearing ahead – and it didn’t look like a natural one. Al once more adjusted his grip on the metal basket that he and the man behind him were carrying as they waited for the next short spate of progress.

Fifteen minutes later, the head of the rescue party pushed through past the last standing tree into a huge clearing and got his first look at what was left of the center section of the plane, over the wings. The entire area smelled of spilled and burnt jet fuel, and the signs of the limited fireball that would have happened upon impact were all around. The charred and melted fuselage was scattered, as were seats that had been torn away from their mooring from the violence of the crash. Bodies that remained in the scattered seats all bore several inches of snow, a veil that in some ways minimized and hid the horror.

“Hello!” the leader, Vince, shouted into the eerie silence that enfolded the crash scene. “Hello! Is anyone there?”

As each pair came into the clearing, Vince pointed for them to head off in another direction – and soon the entire area was filled with men calling and listening carefully for voices that could be weak from the cold and injury.

Inside the shelter, Bennings’ head came up sharply. Had he heard something? His movement brought Natalie’s head up as well, and she immediately looked in the direction of the entrance to their sheltered cabin. “What is it?” she asked, suddenly worried, with her brow wrinkled and her eyes darting in alarm.

“Wait here for me,” Bennings told the little girl in his lap and then rose, handing her back into the stewardess’ keeping. He pulled the blanket a little tighter around his shoulders, for he’d learned his lesson the last time in diving out into the open without that extra bit of protection, and walked to the entrance and stayed just behind the one panel of aluminum, out of the wind.

There it was again – and the call was echoed by another voice. “Hello!” he called back, frustrated when his voice didn’t want to carry very far. “Hello! We’re over here!” he tried again, gratified that he was able to summon a little more volume from his throat.

It was Sam, just coming out of the forest into the clearing, who heard that faint answer to the echoing calls from the rescuers. “Hey!” he shouted to the rest of the men in the clearing, milling around aimlessly. “Listen!”

The millling about stopped as if turned off by a switch, and the clearing fell silent again. “Over here!” came the faint call again, and Sam pointed down the mountainside from where they had entered the clearing.

“Down there!” he shouted and, with Ethan easily keeping pace, started making his own path down the mountainside a little further, skirting the edge of the crash scene and trying not to see all of the grisly reminders of the magnitude of what had happened here.

Al too had heard the faint call, and led his partner in the same direction, only on the opposite side of the debris field.

“Hello!” Sam yelled out again, and when his answer came a little louder and from considerably closer, he homed in on the noise. “This way,” he shouted to the others, who by now were all moving as quickly as they dared through the field of death.

Bennings felt the first sight of another living, breathing human being making their way down the debris field toward him as if it were a blow to his stomach. Tears rushed to his eyes and he stepped away from the sheltering aluminum, waving his arms madly. “Over here!” he shouted again, and rejoicing when the sound of his voice had a face immediately turning in his direction.

This time, it was Vince who shouted directions to his party and then waved his arms at the blanket-wrapped survivor to let him know that he’d been seen.

Bennings ducked back behind the aluminum. “They’re here!” he shouted joyously to those within. “We’re saved!”

“God!” Natalie rose quickly to her feet, nearly dumping Emily onto the floor in her hurry. “We’re saved!” She pulled her blanket around her and, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t put her shoes back on, made a dash for the outside.

Bennings heard the small sound of hurt and shock as Emily’s backside hit the ground, and he put his arms out to the little girl so that she had someone to run to. With her in his arms, he couldn’t hold his blanket as tightly around them both as he would like, but she seemed willing to make up the loss of one hand with her two.

Al could hardly believe his eyes. A woman was running toward him – a woman wrapped in a blanket, blonde hair straggly with a makeshift sling for one arm and limping slightly from what he finally was able to make out were only stocking covered feet. “Miss!” he dropped his end of the stokes basket as she drew near and caught her in his arms as her strength seemed to fail as she reached him and she stumbled. “You’re safe now, Miss…”

Natalie’s arm had wrapped itself tightly around the sweeper’s neck, and she clung to him as she sobbed as if her heart were breaking. “Hush, Miss,” Al said awkwardly, motioning with his eyes for his partner to clear the emergency supplies from the basket and to spread out the thermal blanket for her. “Hush! Is there anybody else alive?”

Vince was already on the radio to the hovering helicopter. “We have survivors, Chopper One. Send down a line for pickup…” He turned and shouted to Al, “Douglas, you and Phillips get that survivor ready for transport. Anybody else?”

“In there,” Natalie pointed finally toward the leaning panels of aluminum that hid the shelter from the wind and the rescuers.

“We have more survivors,” Al shouted to the rescue leader after he’d gently deposited the shivering woman into the basket and pulled the shining thermal blanket around her body until the only thing that could be seen was her face. “She says they’re over there somewhere,” he pointed in the same direction Natalie had.

“Atkins, Russell, go check it out – you too, Fender and Gonzalez!” Vince brought his basket over next to where Natalie was being tucked and secured into her basket for being hoisted into the air and into the helicopter for a quick trip back to civilization.

Sam followed the pointing finger and saw a man emerge from behind a sheet of aluminum that had been ripped from the plane’s fuselage – and the man had a small child in his arms. “Over here, Sean!” he shouted. “C’mon, Ethan!”

The two men trotted as fast as they could over to Bennings, who looked Sam in the face with complete and utter gratitude. “Thank God you finally got here!” he sighed and let Sam take the little girl from him before his arms gave out. “I don’t know how much longer we could have held out.”

“Are there any more alive?” Sam demanded, handing the child back to Ethan after seeing that the basket had been emptied of emergency equipment and that the young man was already spreading the thermal blanket to receive her.

“In there,” Bennings pointed at the leaning slabs of aluminum and then propping himself with hands on his knees. “They’re the ones who are in the worst shape.”

Sam glanced over at Ethan, who looked up at him from tucking the thermal blanket around the little girl, and saw the same look of almost desperation in his eyes as he imagined were in his own. “We need more stokes over here!” he yelled and then walked over to where Bennings had pointed. He blinked when he saw how the pieces of torn fuselage had been leaned against an intact part of the fallen aircraft to create a small shelter that was out of most of the wind, and moved past the first piece and then the second until he could see into the cabin.

“Miss Parker!” he gasped and rushed to the woman’s side. Sydney was leaning into her and neither of them looked to be in good shape at all. “Miss Parker,” he repeated, touching her free shoulder with a gentle hand.

The sudden weight on her injured shoulder brought Miss Parker partly out of her stupor with a low groan, and she stared up into very familiar blue eyes almost incomprehensibly. “What are you doing here?” she mumbled and blinked, trying to focus her eyes. “God, I must be having hallucinations…”

“No, it’s really me, Miss Parker,” Sam sighed in relief and smiled broadly. “Ethan’s outside…”

“Sydney…” Miss Parker tried to look over at her injured colleague and couldn’t – her neck had stiffened from being in one position for too long. Her left hand patted at his in a futile attempt to rouse him. “Syd… C’mon – wake up. Sam’s here – time to go home…”

“Is there anybody else?” Sam asked gently, his brow furrowing. It was obvious that both Miss Parker and Sydney were in desperate need of medical attention immediately.

“George,” Miss Parker pointed vaguely, and Sam stepped around the odd-shaped metal in the middle of the shelter to find another man supine beneath two blankets, shivering badly. He bent over the man and lifted the blanket carefully, and then winced at the long, bloody mess of a dress shirt and the sight of a bandage that looked as if it had been on for too long and with not enough sanitation, not to mention legs that looked as if they were made of spaghetti.

“We have to get you out of here,” Sam mumbled to himself and turned. The rescue leader had finally found his way into the little shelter, followed by Ethan and the Centre sweeper. “We have three seriously injured in here, sir,” Sam reported to him, his eyes never leaving the face of the sweeper, whose eyes had widened when he’d caught a good look at who was sheltering in that half-demolished cabin.

Vince nodded and turned. “Douglas, get three more stokes in here on the double,” he ordered, and then frowned when Al didn’t move immediately. “You did hear me, didn’t you?” he asked the sweeper.

Al tore his eyes away from the faces of his prey with difficulty, first to look into the eyes of the rescue leader and nod agreement, and then to look over at his fellow rescuer. In that moment, Al knew that his mission was in jeopardy – for his fellow rescuer was well-known in sweeper circles and almost notorious to him by now. This was Sam Atkins, the man he was supposed to have taken out two days earlier and the personal sweeper of the woman he’d been ordered to terminate. As if that wasn’t enough, it was obvious that Sam had just gone into full protect mode.

“Douglas, move it!” Vince yelled, confused as to why the man was still standing there. “You’ve seen injured people before, man – get a move on! Russell, you give assist to Atkins there…”

Al dropped his gaze from where it had been held captive by the intense glare from the other sweeper and turned away. He made his way past the leaning aluminum and called to other team members to bring their baskets closer, his heart pounding hard in his chest. From the glare he was getting from Sam, there was going to be no chance in hell of his fulfilling his mission – at least, not up here. By some fluke of fate, both Miss Parker and Dr. Green had survived the crash, and now were very capably guarded by one of the top sweepers in the entire Centre organization. Tom could complain up his ass, but there was no way he was going to make any attempt on either life for the time being.

Sam heaved a small sigh of relief as the other sweeper vacated the cabin, and he stepped over to Miss Parker again, whose eyes had once more drooped closed. “How is she?” Ethan asked as he stepped closer.

Sam shook his head. Very carefully, hoping not to awaken or disturb her, he pulled back the blanket from where she had it clutched and peered beneath. She was wearing several layers of clothing – they all were – but the sling that held her right arm as immobile as possible was hard to mistake, as was the fact that there was a wet and oozing spot on her right shoulder that marked a deep wound. He pulled his glove from his hand and brushed her cheek – and pulled away rapidly. She was burning with fever.

“Vince, we gotta get these folks outta here ASAP,” he announced, straightening. “We have two with high fevers and possible infections from injuries – God only knows what’s wrong with S… the older fellow there, he’s unconscious.”

“Hurry up with them stokes,” Vince called again, and then stood aside as three pairs of rescuers made their way one by one into the cramped space.

“Easy now…” Sam cautioned as one pair very carefully lifted Sydney by the knees and the shoulders from his perch next to Miss Parker and laid him in one of the baskets where the thermal blanket was already spread and ready to receive him. “You might want to put a cervical collar on that guy,” he directed with some concern before turning. “Your turn, Miss Parker.”

He slipped his hand beneath her knees and behind her shoulders and lifted, putting her good shoulder into his chest. Still, the movement was enough to make her cry out weakly in agony. “We gotta get you into the basket,” he explained to her urgently and softly. “You need to have a doctor look at you.”

“Sydn…”

“He’s already being carried out,” Sam told her, noting that the old psychiatrist’s basket had already vanished. “Your other friend is almost ready to go too.”

The grey eyes opened suddenly as she felt herself cradled in a metal nest and yet another blanket being tucked around her. “Thank you,” she said with complete lucidity. “I was beginning to think we were dead.”

“Not as long as I’m around,” Sam told her firmly. “You just hang on.” He glanced up at the man at the other end of Miss Parker’s rescue stokes – Eames, he thought he’d hear the man called – and nodded. “Let’s get her out of here,” he said and lifted his end at the same time as the other lifted his.

Outside, the scene was of organized confusion. Two rescuers were controlling the ascent of one of the baskets into the chopper hovering above with guide lines from the head and foot of the stokes. The sandy haired survivor had yet to be hustled into a basket, shaking his head and waving off efforts to get him to lie down in a stokes already prepared for him. Sam carried Miss Parker’s basket over to where three others – Sydney, George and Emily – were still awaiting the return of the winch line from above. As he settled her basket back onto the ground, his eye caught Al’s again.

With a curt gesture, he summoned the other sweeper closer. “Look,” he snarled softly enough that nobody else could hear, “I don’t know what your game is, but if either Miss Parker or Sydney suddenly comes up dead…”

Al blanched and threw up his hands. “Hold it. I’m only following orders…”

“Whose orders?” Sam demanded harshly.

“All I know is the word came from Delaware – both to try to find you and your friends at the airport, and then yesterday to head out at first light to take care of a termination order on Miss Parker and the shrink.” Al wished he dared back away from the sweeper, but the movement would draw attention to the two of them that neither of them needed. “That’s all I know – honest.”

“What was the code name on the termination order?”

Al shook his head. “There wasn’t one. I never even saw any of the paperwork.”

Sam stared. “And still your shop commander shipped you out?”

“We figured things were probably still in an upheaval after Raines’ murder…”

“Douglas!” Vince yelled again. “Quit your jawing and help Gonzalez see if there are any more survivors – maybe in the tail section. Atkins – you’re the one with medical experience, you go with the worst injuries into the chopper, and then head back out here when you have them loaded into ambulances.” He beckoned to Ethan, who had walked from the makeshift shelter behind his sister’s rescue basket. “Russell, you stay here with the folks yet to be picked up – I want all of them to be under medical supervision from this moment on.” Vince turned away again and began barking orders over the radio to the pilots of the rescue choppers.

Sam’s glance met Ethan’s and he nodded. This would work out well – he could ride in with Miss Parker and that George fellow, and take care of the sweeper left behind before he knew what was coming. Ethan could watch out for Sydney. All that was left was to make sure the sweeper, Douglas, knew the stakes. He stalked over to where Al was and grabbed him by the elbow. “Am I going to have to worry about you?”

“No, sir,” Al answered honestly. “I don’t know whose order it was, but I know it was an improper order. We’re not supposed to question orders, normally, but…” He gazed at Miss Parker’s sweeper. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t like it. My partner, however, doesn’t have much in the way of scruples…”

“I’ll take care of him,” Sam told him in a quiet voice, and Al’s skin crawled. He knew Tom was a dead man. “I just want to make sure I don’t’ need to take care of you when this is over too.”

“No way, man. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Douglas! Now!” Vince was starting to sound genuinely angry. “You too, Atkins. This ain’t no social visit, girls!”

With a single backwards glance, Sam stalked back over to where the winch line was being attached to Miss Parker’s basket. He bent over her. “I’ll be up there with you before you know it,” he promised her. “You’re going to be all right.” The grey eyes opened again, but the look this time was a fevered one that saw little that made any sense. He brushed his fingers against her cheek before he could stop himself, and then the basket was away from the ground and moving steadily upward toward the chopper.

Ethan touched his shoulder as he craned to watch the retrieval process. “I’m staying with Sydney – I’ll probably ride in with him and the others. Take care of my sister for me.”

Sam nodded. “You know I will.”

The young man glanced over his shoulder at the other sweeper, who had moved off and climbed the hillside back toward the larger debris field. “What about that sweeper? Do I need to be on my guard?”

“Just keep your eye on him,” Sam suggested. “He says he’s ready to back off – but you never know.”

“What about the other one?”

Sam’s face grew grim, and Ethan knew better than to ask any further. “See you, then,” he waved his hand.

“Stay alert,” Sam called as he caught the boson’s chair that had been lowered to him. “Take care of Sydney for me.”

~~~~~~~~~*

Tom Coachman was sipping coffee with the rest of the people who had turned out to offer assistance in the rescue of any survivors of the United flight when the word came that six survivors had been found – and that they were being flown directly in to the Ogden hospital. A cheer went up from the crowd of men and women that had gathered around the ranger’s station waiting for news, and some immediately jumped into vehicles to race back into Ogden – Tom was among them.

His face was grim. If Al hadn’t had the opportunity to take care of Miss Parker or Sydney up on the mountain – IF they had actually survived – then it would be up to him to take care of them in the hospital BEFORE anyone could identify them and/or place guards around them. The Tower was depending upon him to make sure that the termination order was followed, and he was damned if he was going to let either of those two slip through his fingers.

Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that Al had turned soft on him. Al had been trained in Blue Cove, after all – where he’d trained in Los Angeles. Al had often mentioned his days in Delaware, and how much he’d admired the Chairman’s daughter as a model of how a Centre sweeper should act and perform under pressure. He’d seen the slightly disquieted looks that Al had worn when he thought that Tom wasn’t looking. Al was a liability to the code of absolute obedience to the Tower if he put his personal feelings above unquestioning response.

Hospitals were easy to infiltrate – and a termination order on an already seriously hurt human wasn’t very hard to carry out. All it took was a little creativity, knowing hospital protocol and how to control IV drip machines, and a pair of latex gloves to leave no telltale evidence behind. All of these, Tom had in abundance.

~~~~~~~~~*

Jarod’s fingers tapped an impatient tattoo on the arm of his seat, and he turned to stare out the window at the rolling, snow-covered mountains below him. Somewhere down there was Carl, Sydney and Miss Parker – and Ethan and Sam, if there was any luck in the world at all. There were Centre sweepers down there too, hunting at least three of them. And there was an assassin on the plane, who had been paid a large amount of money to see to it that Carl never arrived in San Francisco.

This was ridiculous, he shook his head at himself. He’d turned his back on this entire scene – walked away from them all, with the exception of Ethan. And yet here he was, flying in to try to lend a last-inning assist. No wonder Emily could get so disgusted with him. As much as he’d tried, as far away as he’d managed to take himself from the Centre, there was no way to completely flush the Centre from him – it was a part of who he was, who he had become.

All was in a holding pattern in Philadelphia. A conference call to the trustees had put the entire organization on stand-by, pending his call either confirming Carl’s death or announcing his having survived the crash. Hendricks was under lock and key in the Philadelphia jail, awaiting arraignment on a variety of charges, and Blair either had already joined him by this time or soon would be joining him behind bars.

He should have been at least satisfied that part of the puzzle had been taken care of – but he wasn’t. His heart was pounding and he was having a hard time sitting still. As an afterthought, he hauled out his current favorite Pez dispenser and snatched one of the tiny fruit-flavored sugar cubes from the exposed stack, thinking that a small taste of comfort food might help.

It didn’t.

The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “We’re making our descent into Salt Lake City, where the outside temperature is a brisk…” Jarod stopped paying attention to the normal drivel. He wanted to be on the ground, and he wanted to be in his rental car heading to Ogden.

It simply wasn’t happening fast enough.

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