Cole was shouldering his bag of toys when Janice suddenly took off at a dead run, and jumped as high as she could up one wall. There was a small outcropping forming a ledge about ten feet off of the main floor, and she managed to climb the extra few feet and swing herself over the top of it. Cole and Heather both look sharply up at her, trying to figure out what she was trying to do.
Janice pried a lid open and then picked something up smiling as she showed it to them. "Whoever the guide is might know these caves, but there's only one person in the world that knew about this stuff up here," she said. Cole could only look at her admiringly as she held up the chunk of plastic explosive. He had no doubt that it was the stuff that had come out about two years ago, J-092, stable in all weather conditions, and it had been properly sealed and stored. He really hoped he wasn't going to have to kill her. She thought he was interesting? She was by far the most interesting woman he'd met in years.
"You're not planning on causing a cave-in here?" Heather asked hesitantly. Janice raised an eyebrow at Cole and he shrugged.
"She wasn't trained to be a soldier," he explained. He looked at his niece. "We set them off at the mouth of the cave when we get out. Bad guys get trapped in, and we run like hell back to the resort." Heather looked a little doubtful.
"Won't they have people there?" she asked worriedly. Seattle was the only safe place she could think of at the moment.
"Probably," Cole replied. "That's why they're so determined to get you now. I'm willing to bet by now their people have reported there are two new arrivals that are very worried, very angry, and they know what happened the last time one of them got worried and angry over her kids being messed with."
Janice tossed the explosives and the blast rods down to Cole. She sat down on the ledge. Getting down was always the tricky part. The rocks right on the edge were loose so she had to be careful not to put her weight on one that would give way before she was ready. She knew the ten-foot fall wouldn't kill her, but a twisted ankle from an uncontrolled fall would slow her down and today that would get her killed. The best way to get down was to kneel on the edge, hold onto the rocks, and drop down. She'd dangle for a second, and then let go, falling the additional four feet or so to the floor.
Janice knelt, grabbed the rocks that looked the most stable, and kicked her knees over the edge. The rocks slid. "SHIT!" she yelled as she felt the stones moved out from their place. Not another fall today! Not enough time to…
Arms around her. One second she was tumbling, and then she was still. Cole had caught her. She couldn't help blushing a little. She was normally not clumsy. Well, this wasn't really clumsiness, but, hell, she'd never had a man catch her so easily like this either. Oh God, he was smiling. A real one at that.
"Thanks," she managed to get out.
"No problem," he replied. "You okay?" She nodded. He suddenly realized that he was still holding her, and set her down. Neither of them noticed Heather roll her eyes behind them. They needed to get out of the caves and back into the cold weather. That should be the same as hosing those two off.
Cole suddenly looked away from Janice and had that "listening" look again. "They're getting real close," he said. "They heard something. Yell. Yeah, getting close. Closing off thoughts, getting ready for a fight." He looked back at Janice. "Fastest way out of here?"
She thought for half a second. "Can you climb?" she asked, thinking about his knee. He nodded. "Okay, follow me then."
They grabbed their gear and started to move fast through the caves. Janice knew right where she was heading. There was a sheer wall, difficult but not impossible to climb, and then an opening to the outside. It was going to be harder to do in the dark, but she was familiar with it, and Cole and Heather should be able to see the handholds just fine. The opening was in a different place than where they'd come in, so she was confident there wouldn't be anyone around there. Hell, her and her team had only found the place from the inside last year.
They made it to the wall in a little over twenty minutes. Heather had started to worry about Cole. He was walking funny, like he was hurt or something. Ms. Miller had asked him if he would be able to climb. Did she know something that they didn't want to tell her? Heather knew she wouldn't be able to lift Ms. Miller or Uncle Cole if there was a problem. Maybe a little bit up, but not all the way. Her head had stopped hurting, but it was going to be much worse if she expended herself like that again so soon. Maybe something serious.
The wall was a two hundred foot vertical climb. The wall was rough, forming plenty of hand and foot holds, but it was still two hundred feet straight up, and Janice had never done it before in the dark without any safety lines. Cole wasn't looking very pleased either. He could normally climb anything without difficulty, but he was really hurting and they had a long ways to go. Suck it up, he ordered himself. Pain is not relevant to the mission.
Heather wasn't worried about the climb. She had scaled up the side of Foggle Towers much further than this before when Janna and the twins had decided to interpret Aunt Max telling the trio that they weren't allowed out the front door to mean they could go out a window. Heather had gone after them to get them back in the penthouse before Max or Logan noticed those little hell-raisers were gone. It had been dark then too. At least this time she wasn't going to have to telekinetically hold a twin over the edge of the building and threaten to squish him if he ever pulled that stunt again.
Janice strapped the flashlight to her and then they all started up the wall. Heather easily jumped into the lead, her enhanced vision easily making out the best holds on the wall and her extreme coordination and strength letting her move quickly up it. This was much easier than getting up the side of Uncle Logan and Aunt Max's place. Nobody was throwing anything at her. Uncle Cole might have had tough training, but he never had to deal with Janna and the weasels doing their best not to get caught.
Heather made it up the wall in a matter of minutes. She glanced down. Cole was keeping pace with Janice. Heather frowned. Either he was intentionally going very slowly, or he was hurt. She was willing to bet the latter. Men, she thought angrily. They always have to be tough guys. Can't admit it when they're hurt.
A cold breeze blew in and she took a deep breath of the fresh air. She really needed some fresh air. Uncle Cole would be up here in just a second, so it wouldn't be a big deal if she stepped outside. There wasn't anyone to know they had come out this way anyways. Bedsides, she couldn't yell down and ask for permission. A bad guy could hear her, and they would all come running. She slipped out the opening in the rock into the bright daylight.
She blinked a few times to adjust to the light. The snow had stopped and the sun was out now. She gasped slightly, and pressed herself against the rock. There was a lone man sitting on a snowmobile maybe fifty feet away, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at a small box. He took off his sunglasses, looked at the box again, and then keyed a comm. device hooked to his shoulder.
"Search and Rescue base, this is S & R Hamilton. I'm checking the Deverse Caves before moving on." Heather's eyes widened. It was Jonathan!
Jon had gone back to a ranger station to wait out the storm, and then grabbed a snowmobile to search again. He'd studied maps of the area, and thought that the Deverse Caves would be a good place to wait out the snow for whoever had Heather. It was only a little over a mile from where he'd found her bracelet, and it made sense they would go there. If they knew about the caves. He reasoned that they probably did. Heather had disappeared without a trace, and that showed the kidnappers had planned well. They probably knew the area.
So, as soon as the snow slowed, he'd strapped his skis to the snowmobile, and taken off. He'd come to an entrance, and was checking his map. It was computerized with a GPS unit attached so he knew he couldn't get lost, despite how he was feeling right now. Still, looking at this entrance he decided that there was no way anyone could use this one. There was a small level area and then a sheer drop. It wasn't the way you'd want to go carrying an unwilling person. Unless she was hurt too bad to resist, he thought, a knot forming in his stomach. No, he wasn't going to think like that. He was going to find her.
"Jon?" a voice said from his right. He glanced up, for a moment annoyed that he was being interrupted. He wanted to make sure he was heading the right way to the cave entrance he wanted to check out. He almost fell off the snowmobile. Heather was standing there, alone and unhurt.
He jumped off the snowmobile and ran to her as she emerged from the cave. She smiled big, very glad to see a friendly face. Jon scooped her up in a big hug before he could even think about what he was doing. It wasn't the coolest thing to do to a girl you were interested in, but the situation at hand was breaking down the set-in-stone high school rules of behavior. She hugged him back just as hard, glad to see someone that wasn't trying to kill or sell her.
"Are you okay? What happened?" he asked quickly. "Is Ms. Miller with you?"
Instead of answering she flung both of them to the ground, a spray of gunfire peppering the rock behind them a microsecond later.
