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Hank: Team is flying into Great Falls. Chuck will see your patient to the hospital and stay with him. You’ll join the team and head back.
Judge nodded. It would still take time to fly from Kalispell to Great Falls in the chopper and then back to Kalispell in whatever aircraft Hank had lined up. But it would take less time than driving all that way.
A slim glimmer of hope kept Judge from falling into despair. Maybe…just maybe, they’d get back to the camp before TCW disappeared.
As they neared Great Falls, Judge’s pulse picked up. He leaned forward to look out the window with the bullet hole at the hospital below.
The chopper landed on the hospital’s helipad. A gurney appeared, pushed by men in scrubs. A big guy with hair graying at his temples followed them out to the helicopter and watched as Mud was transferred to the gurney.
Judge leaped down from his seat in the helicopter and hurried to cut off the man with the graying temples.
The man held out his hand. “You must be Judge.”
Judge’s gaze never left the man’s eyes. “I am.”
“I’m Chuck Johnson. Hank sent me.”
Judge gripped the man’s hand. “The teen is being treated for sepsis shock. It’s hit and miss right now, but I didn’t get him out of that camp and sacrifice my cover for him to die.”
Chuck nodded. “I’ll look out for him and advocate with the medical staff.”
“The Chosen Way doesn’t let go of their people,” Judge warned as he and Chuck followed the gurney toward the hospital. “If they can’t bring them back into the fold, they eliminate them.”’
“Noted. I’ll be on my toes to make sure no one gets to the kid.” He tipped his head back toward the helicopter. “You need to get back on board. The pilot will take you to the airport, where you’ll board a plane that’ll take you back to Kalispell.”
Judge stopped at the door leading into the hospital, his gaze on the gurney carrying Mud inside. The teen didn’t stir. His face wasn’t red like it had been. It was now as white as a sheet.
A couple of minutes of staring at the teen’s chest reassured Judge that Mud was still breathing.
“Go,” Chuck said. “I’ve got this. You need to lead the team to the camp.”
And he needed to get back to PJ.
If they were still there, as much as he wanted to walk back into camp as one of the recruits, he knew he couldn’t. He’d cross that bridge when he got there. The chances that they were still there were slim.
Throughout the ride to the airport, Judge worked through sample scenarios in his head. He wouldn’t know which he could use until they got to the camp.
The pilot landed the helicopter at the airport. It was met by a black SUV.
When the SUV’s passenger door opened, Hank Patterson stepped down and met Judge halfway across the tarmac from the chopper.
He held out his hand. “Judge, you don’t how glad I am to see that you made it out of the TCW camp alive.” Instead of gripping his hand to shake, he clasped Judge’s forearm and pulled him in for a hug.
Judge had never been one to show his emotions to strangers. But he couldn’t lie; the hug felt good.
“Come on,” Hank said. “We have a jet airplane that will get us back to Kalispell a little faster than the helicopter.”
He led Judge to the SUV and climbed into the backseat.
Judge slid in beside him. As soon as the door closed, he leaned forward, searching the tarmac for signs of TCW rebels.
The SUV stopped beside an airplane large enough to carry up to thirty passengers.
Hank led him up the stairs into the plane.
The co-pilot closed the door and secured it for takeoff.
Judge nodded to the men seated in the rows. Some of them, he knew from their previous raids on the TCW camps. Others were new to him but not to the Brotherhood Protectors. Hank had a solid team of former military special operations, Delta Force, SEALs and Marines.
