Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (18 page)

T
he whole world looked green. Murky, liquid green with
limned highlights in bright silver as the figures moved about their business,
unaware that they were being observed.

Erin Parker
adjusted her night vision goggles, tucking an errant lock of blonde hair behind
her ear as she did so. When she woke that very morning, she had no idea she was
going to end up on a stakeout, lying on the damp cold ground with bugs and
insects — she hated bugs and insects — crawling all over her, pine needles and
leaves falling from the copse of trees behind her, seemingly determined to find
their way into her hair, ears and down her collar, making her itch like crazy.
And if that wasn’t enough, the very dirt upon which she lay was drawn
inexplicably into every tiny opening in her blouse making her feel gritty and
disgusting. Had she known all that, though, she could have saved herself an
hour in the bathroom performing her usual shampoo, hair conditioner and
straightening iron routine.

She couldn’t
begin to imagine how she looked. As much as she wanted to believe she looked
sexy and badass like Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanova, she knew that in
all likelihood she looked less like that and more like what her mother would
call ‘the wreck of the Hesperus’. Her disheveled hair was festooned with leaves
and twigs — and bugs. Totally not sexy and definitely not badass at all.

That’s the
price you pay for being a deep cover spy and having to keep the bad guys under
surveillance, my girl,
she thought, flicking
another fat, ugly, black legged, iridescent shelled bug from her shirtsleeve.

I
n
reality Erin was about as far from being a deep cover spy as it was possible to
get. Curvy and not the least bit toned or athletic, Erin looked nothing like
the Black Widow, despite her active and overly romantic imaginings. Not to
mention the fact that she was actually a reporter. An intern reporter, at that.
Worse still, an intern reporter assigned to the social beat — reporting on
breaking news like other people’s tragic social lives, when she didn’t even
have one of her own, tragic or otherwise.

More often than
not, her job involved following a bunch of pointless hashtags on social media
to stay abreast of ‘what’ and ‘who’ was
trending
. Hardly the explosive
exposé of political and criminal conspiracy, intrigue and scandal she’d hoped
to write about in her chosen career as a hard hitting, undercover investigative
reporter.

Soon, though,
all that was going to change. Erin Parker, who co-workers had nicknamed ‘Nosey’
Parker behind her back, was on the cusp of her big break. Her exclusive,
once-in-a-lifetime scoop. A story so big that it had the potential to blow the
lid clean off something insidious that had, amazingly, been going on right
under our noses for a very, very long time. If only she could capture the
evidence she needed to prove it. She knew it was there and she knew she’d be
the one to find it — right here on Big Bear Mountain.

Of course, she
wasn’t supposed to be on Big Bear Mountain. She wasn’t supposed to be on
any
mountain at all, in fact. Her given assignment was to interview a bunch of
twenty-something’s at a symposium on the ‘connection between culture, language
and technology in a digital world’. Just saying it nearly put her to sleep and
made her want to stab herself in the eye. With a blunt fork.

The promise of a
really big story was something she just couldn’t ignore. Impetuous was the word
her editor had used to describe her. In fact, she recalled that every teacher
she’d ever had in school and every college professor had used a similar word to
describe her. Impulsive, reckless, headstrong. The list went on. Well . . .
she’d show them. There was something going on in Big Bear Mountain. She knew
it. She could
feel
it. Her editor and colleagues were too short sighted
to see it. They were a bunch of asshats. Erin could see the big picture and she
knew that the statistical probability of the recent events happening in the one
place were a zillion to one. If only she could get the proof.

“Coincidence.
Just a stupid bunch of tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense.” Kevin Harris, her
editor had snubbed her research, barely glancing at it through his coke-bottle
glasses. With only a small tuft of hair atop his bald pate, Kevin looked every
bit like his Minion namesake and Erin was determined to show him how wrong he
was.

Viper attack
helicopters, Hellfire anti-tank missiles, Russian Mi-28 ‘Havoc’ gunships, more
H&K MP4 tactical machine pistols and C4 demolition charges thrown in just
in case that wasn’t enough.
Coincidence my ass.
All hell was breaking
loose on this mountain and I’m going to find out why …

Then Erin was
shaken from her reverie —

S
uddenly
the ground shuddered. Literally an earth shattering
whoompf
that punched
her in the gut and echoed through every bone in her body.

Her view of the
goings on below her hiding spot was suddenly blocked by something  large.

Something large
and very fury.

Right in front
of her face. Only inches away.

Close enough to
see the massive claws protruding from the enormous, shaggy bear paw. Long,
deadly claws which she knew, from her many hours of background research, were
capable of decapitating a large elk with one swipe.

And as full
bodied as she was, Erin was a whole lot smaller than any elk.

T
he huge
rescue helicopter bobbled and bumped violently as its rotor blades fought to
generate lift in the impossibly thin air near the top of the mountain. Each
time former Navy pilot Lt. Jim ‘Spider’ Webb gained a few feet in altitude by
white knuckling the collective and pulling it as far up as it would go, the
normally elegant graceful Sikorsky would drop a couple of feet as the blades
clawed at the air like Wylie Coyote just to stay aloft. With each stomach
lurching fall, Spider would boost the power a little more in the hope of
regaining the lost altitude. It wasn’t working.

“You’re going to
have to set her down,” shouted Jarrad, the High Mountain Ranger who always
volunteered to fly these hazardous rescue missions with Big Bear Mountain’s
most experienced chopper pilot. “I can climb the rest of the way and bring them
down the mountain for evac.” Even with the comms headsets, both men had to
shout to be heard over the screaming engines.

The original
plan was to reach the fallen climber in the chopper and lower Jarrad using the
winch, then winching them both to the safety of the hovering aircraft. They
didn’t really have a Plan B. That’s not how they rolled. Failure was not an
option for this team.

With the muscles
in his forearms corded like steel cables as he wrestled the controls ‘Spider’
nodded reluctantly. The climber was badly injured and time was critical,
especially with the chill factor at this altitude, but Jarrad’s idea was their
best shot at a successful mission.

But there was
nowhere to put the ungainly bird down. Although they were above the snowline
and the heavily wooded forest lay below them, there was still too much
vegetation for a safe landing at that altitude.

“Looks like
we’re going to have to do a little hedge trimming to make an LZ,” Spider called
out, pointing to a flat, lightly wooded area below. It wasn’t the perfect
Landing Zone, but it was all they had to work with.

“Are you doing
what I think you’re doing?” Jarrad said with as much disbelief as admiration in
his voice.

“Yee-Haa!” laughed
Spider over the cacophony of the thrashing blades and whining engines. “Ready
to turn this baby into a giant buzz saw?”

Clutching his
harness, Jarrad’s eyes widened with a mixture of exhilaration and sheer terror
as Spider dropped a little closer to the trees and pushed forward on the cyclic
stick to tilt the struggling chopper into a nose down attitude. Within seconds
the tips of the spinning rotors were gnawing at the treetops as the chopper
spun on its axis, creating a large makeshift helipad on the side of the
mountain.

“They didn’t
teach you
that
in the Navy, I’m guessing?” Jarrad quizzed, undoing his
harness as the helicopter settled its skids on the uneven ground.

“My Granddad
flew Huey’s in Vietnam during the seventies. He told me a few tall tales,
including how they used to do that. Guess it was one of the true stories,
then.” He winked at Jarrad.

“You mean you
didn’t know if that was going to work?” Jarrad’s jaw dropped.

“But it did,
though, didn’t it.”

As far as Spider
was concerned, that’s all that mattered. He was all about the mission.

“Now, I’ve done
my amazing pilot stuff, you go do your High Mountain Rescue thing and bring us
back another successful ‘save’.”

With that,
Jarrad nodded firmly, grabbed his pack and tumbled out of the chopper’s cargo
door. Jarrad was one big unit. Even next to the imposing bulk of the Sikorsky,
his size was still impressive and one of the main factors that caused the
aircraft to struggle to maintain altitude. But Spider didn’t want Jarrad to
know that. It wasn’t his fault he was built like a Russian tank.

 Stooping as low
as he could to avoid the still rotating blades, Spider kept the engine idling
ready for a fast take off, Jarrad threw his pack and climbing gear over his
shoulder and made his way to the nearby cliff face. Until now, he’d been
nothing more than a passenger. Excess baggage, as he saw it. Now, it was time
to go to work.

I
t was
times like these that Jarrad wished he could just shift into his bear form and
jump out of the chopper midflight and land where he was needed. His body could
handle it and even if he got hurt, his miraculous shifter healing abilities
would have him repaired and ready for action in minutes. But that wasn’t how it
was done. Too much risk of people finding out about his bear and if that
happened, the other shifters would be at risk, too. Big Bear Mountain was a
safe sanctuary for his kind and they had a pact to keep it that way, too.

Besides, Elle
had cubs on the way, so now he had a family to think about. A family. Just that
thought alone would have weighed heavily on him six months ago. Now, it warmed
his heart, uplifted him and gave him joy and a sense of purpose that had been
sorely missing from his life. For the first time, he had responsibilities and
someone other than himself to think about, worry about and share his life with.
Both his own life and that of his bear. Elle accepted and loved them both.
Jarrad was her lover and friend and father-to-be of the cubs and his bear was
her fierce protector. The bear would never let anything happen to his fated,
lifelong mate.

But now was not
the time to allow such musings to become a life threatening distraction. He had
a job to do and a mission to complete. A life was at stake, as there nearly
always was when you were a High Mountain Rescue Ranger. It was more than just a
job. For Jarrad and Spider, it was a calling and they took their duty
seriously. Protecting others was in their DNA. That’s how both men found their
way into the military, using their specific talents and skill sets to protect
others.

No time to be
dwelling on the past
.
Focus!

Jarrad raised
his head toward the sky and sniffed at the air. His bear recognized the scent
ozone. Bad weather wasn’t too far away and closing in on them. The weather and
time were conspiring against them. He began to climb the face of the cliff at a
pace he hoped would have him lowering the injured climber down for Spider to
pick them up before the storm front hit.

Distant
lightning cracked like a whip and lit the sky with jagged fingers. Thunder
rolled along the valley toward the mountain, issuing a dire warning.

S
pider took the Sikorsky as low as he dared. Too low
and he’d lose valuable time climbing back up to reach Jarrad and the injured
climber. If he stayed too close to the evac point, he’d burn too much fuel
trying to maintain position in the rarified air and he was of no use to anyone
if he ran out of gas. There was nowhere to set her down, so he maintained
position and hoped that Jarrad would give him the call before his fuel
situation became critical.

If he were flying strictly by the rule book, he’d have
been forced to turn back by now to refuel. But up in the high mountain ranges,
making the ‘save’ was more important than following a bunch of rules put
together by desk bound pilots or the ‘chair force’ as Spider called them. They
couldn’t make the ‘saves’ he made if their lives depended on it.

Suddenly, Spider caught a glimpse of something from
his peripheral vision as he jostled the control stick and tweaked the collective
to keep the chopper in position as a sudden updraft swept up the mountainside
from the valley below.

Muscle memory and years of flying in some of the most
hazardous warzones on the planet kicked in and before he had even processed
what the contrail speeding toward him meant, he was altering his altitude and
flying toward the lethal, heat seeking Ataka missile at full throttle. This was
no time to be conserving fuel. He needed to close the gap between himself and
the aptly named Russian missile. Who said the Russians didn’t have a sense of
humor. Naming one of their fastest and most deadly heat seeking missiles
attack
made up in giggle factor what it lacked in originality. Spider only hoped he
got the last laugh by living long enough to jam one of these things up the ass
of the guy who fired one at him.

Not a man to swallow coincidences easily, Spider
quickly joined the dots. They were back. For months Spider, Jarrad and Elle had
been trying to convince themselves that the cabal of East European criminals
had got the message to leave Big Bear Mountain well alone. They really had
convinced themselves that their message had been received loud and clear. This
is our mountain . . . don’t come back.

Apparently not and the hurtling missile with the wispy
contrail seemed to punctuate that point quite strongly.

Full throttle and nose down the unarmed rescue
helicopter flew headlong toward the missile. His only hope of beating the thing
was to close the gap and come within range before it armed and locked onto his heat
signature. It’s one weakness was a safety feature to prevent friendly fire
incidents in which the missile might accidently lock onto a nearby friendly
aircraft before it reached the designated enemy target.

If Spider could close the gap, the missile should
bypass him as a ‘friendly’ and explode harmlessly on the mountainside. Then two
thoughts stuck him simultaneously. The mountainside. Jarrad.

“Oh, shit!” But even as the words left his lips, the
sleek Russian made missile streaked past him as if oblivious to his presence
and continued on toward the mountain. Toward Jarrad.