Page 186 of Scars of Fate

Wynn was the first to understand.

“You’re sending him downriver with one tracker.”

“And an empty raft with the other.”

I held up the backup transmitter.

“We attach this one to the copilot. The aircraft tracker goes inside the raft. Hawk blocks both signals until the river carries them away from us.”

Adam finished the plan.

“Then we release the signals at different times.”

“Two moving targets,” I said. “Meridian won’t know which one has Wynn.”

“They divide their force,” Russ said.

“And we take the middle,” Boone added.

Every man looked at Hawk.

He opened the bottom section of his pack and pulled out a tightly compressed emergency raft.

Wynn stared at it.

“You’ve been carrying a raft this entire time?”

Hawk shrugged.

“I like to be prepared.”

Boone looked toward the river.

“Do you also have a waterfall detector in there?”

“No.”

“Then I feel like we’re missing something important.”

An old maintenance cut ran behind the western wall.

Invisible from the pass.

Too narrow for vehicles.

Wide enough for us.

It led directly to the observation post.

And the post had something we desperately needed.

“A buried emergency cache,” I said.

Adam looked at me.

“Weapons?”

“Ammunition. Medical supplies. Long-range communications equipment.”