Читать книгу Adirondack Attack - Jenna Kernan - Страница 13

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.