Hi everyone and thanks again to those of you who reviewed.

Special thanks to MBooker for going back and reading Carnival Town and sending me such nice reviews. I love knowing that people are still reading my old stuff and I LOVE getting reviews!

So on to Chapter 3 and the plot begins to thicken…

Chapter 3

The air was cool and the sun was just peeking through the trees and into the clearing where the Almeida and Bauer children had slept almost as peacefully as if they were in their own beds. Mason had begun to stir. He stretched and started to roll over when a rustling sound in the brush jolted him awake.

The excitement of being rescued and going home to one of Loretta's hot breakfasts was overwhelming. Even the knowledge that he was going to be subjected to an angry lecture first from his father and then likely again from Uncle Tony didn't upset him.

"We're over here! Over here!" he called as he jumped to his feet and waved his arms above his head. He turned toward the sound expecting to see a smiling rescue crew grateful that they could report a successful completion to the mission and happy that they no longer had to tramp through these godforsaken woods.

The noise Mason made woke Rico and he had just started to sit up when he saw Mason drop to the ground almost on top of him and clamp a hand over his mouth. Stunned, he looked at his best friend whose blue eyes were huge with fear. Rico turned his head to look in the same direction as Mason and had to swallow hard to contain his own urge to scream. Less than a hundred feet away, a large female brown bear was making her way through the brush with her cub. They were probably looking for something to eat and had stopped at a bush to pull some sort of berry off of it. The cub ate the berries contentedly, but the mother looked nervously toward the children. She growled a long, low growl of warning and sat up on her hind legs.

Mason took his had away from Rico's mouth. "If we leave quietly maybe she'll leave us alone," he whispered.

Rico agreed. He had no intention of sitting still while the bear considered which of them to eat first. The two boys grabbed the towels they had been lying on and threw them over their shoulders. Then they shouldered backpacks and moved silently to wake up their siblings.

Rico knelt next to Lucy and shook her gently. "Lucy, wake up," he whispered. "Don't make any noise," he said as she opened her eyes. "Just get up slowly and grab your things. We got to get out of here."

Mason woke Ryan in much the same way and soon the four were stalking stealthily away from the bear. For her part, the bear took a few steps forward and growled a little louder. The cub was now interested and took several steps toward them and imitated his mother's growl. If they hadn't been so scared, it would have been cute.

The children continued on taking care to look back occasionally and make sure the bear wasn't following them. They eventually put enough distance between themselves and the bear that they allowed themselves to relax.

"Do you think she'll try and follow us?" Lucy asked. "It wouldn't be very hard for her to follow our scent."

"I think if she was interested in us she would have come after us right away. She was probably more concerned about her cub. Once she knew we weren't threatening him I don't think she was that interested in us," Rico said with some confidence. He loved animals and was particularly interested in bears. He read a great deal about them and thought that he understood their behavior pretty well. He was smart enough to know that he might be deluding himself but at the moment preferred to think that he knew what he was talking about.

They pressed on for about another hour before Mason suggested that they sit down and eat. They finished what was left of the hard boiled eggs and the trail mix and shared the two remaining bottles of juice. They ate silently all of them old enough to understand that at this point they had no more food and only empty water and juice bottles. Springs and streams dotted the area, so there was a good chance that they could refill the bottles with water but food was another issue entirely. Other than some wild berries, there wasn't much to eat out here. If they weren't rescued soon they were going to get awfully hungry.

Once again Jack and Kate's home had become a beehive of activity. Tony had arrived around midnight and although Carmen slept most of the night in his arms, none of the adults got more than a brief nap while reclining on chairs and sofas in the family room. Jack and Tony both became extremely restless as soon as the sun rose. They wanted the police to resume the search as soon as possible and were upset when the officers hadn't arrived at the crack of dawn. They relaxed a bit as the officers began arriving around 7 o'clock. Loretta was bustling around making coffee and cookies for the search teams as they paired off and headed toward their section of the grid.

Jack approached the commanding officer, a state police lieutenant named Wes Grimes. Wes knew Jack and Tony from a security upgrade that they put into place at the Seattle airport. Grimes division also headed up the local security for the airport facility.

"Wes," Jack started. "Tony and I want to help. We can go out with one of the teams and cover twice as much ground."

Wes looked at Jack and shook his head. "Jack, you know the drill. This is a state police operation. We've got the cooperation of the local police and the natural resources police so we have plenty of manpower. I can't have civilians tramping around out there. It becomes a liability for my men."

"Give me a break, Wes," Jack said coldly. "Tony and I are hardly untrained civilians. We were in this business for years. How can you consider us a liability?"

"It's been a long time since you were in this line of work, Jack. Things have changed. Some of our techniques have changed."

"Which is why I want you to send us out with your officers. We'll follow their lead. We won't be in the way," Jack told him. "They're our kids, Wes and we want to be part of the search."

"We're wasting time here. I don't know how to say this any nicer Jack, so I'm just going to say it," Wes looked down at Jack's leg. "You are not in any shape to go traipsing through the woods. You're a liability and you're going to slow my men down."

Jack was livid. "I walk in these woods with my boys all the time, Wes. Yes, I use a cane on uneven terrain, but I'm in better shape than a lot of your guys. If I fall behind, so be it. I can take care of myself. I'm not asking for them to help me. I'm telling you that I can help them."

Tony stepped in at this point. "Look Wes, you said it before. We're wasting time here. Jack's right. We're capable of helping. If Jack falls behind, I'll stay with him and your men can go ahead. You've got kids, Wes. Put yourself in our shoes. It's driving us crazy just hanging around here."

Wes sighed. "Alright, you win. Go with Winchester and Finney. They have the southwest section of the grid. It covers the most ground, but the terrain is easier to manage. There's extra gear in the truck."

Jack and Tony each grabbed a backpack and made their way to the back porch where Nick Winchester and Chris Finney were waiting. Neither of them was particularly happy that they were being forced to take the fathers of the missing children with them, but Lt. Grimes had given them no choice.

"They both know too many people in high places," Grimes told the men. "Bauer will be on the phone to the superintendent of the state police or worse yet, his father-in-law, Bob Warner, is a personal friend of the governor. Warner will be on the phone with the governor in a hot second. Either way, I'm going to be told to let them go along. So I might as well do it without getting my ass kicked by one of my superiors." Finney and Winchester agreed grudgingly but decided quickly that at the first sign that Jack couldn't keep up, they would dump the two of them.

Jack and Tony said tender goodbyes to their wives and to Carmen. Both hated to leave them behind but wanted desperately to participate in the search for their children.

"Jack," Kate said with tears in her eyes. "Do you really think it's best for you to be involved in the search? Why don't you just stay here? I need you here."

"Sweetheart, those kids were my responsibility. It's my fault that they're missing. I was supposed to be watching them. I need to be a part of the search and rescue." He dropped his eyes. "I will never be able to forgive myself if anything bad happens to them."

Kate hugged and kissed him not sure if she quite understood how he felt but knowing that there was no point in arguing.

Tony said goodbye to Michelle, who was actually happy that he was part of the search team. It made her feel better to know that he would be out there lending his expertise to the operation. Carmen, on the other hand, couldn't stop crying when she found out that her beloved Daddy was going out into the woods to try and find her brother and sister.

"Rico and Lucy are already lost," she wailed, "now Daddy will be lost, too."

Tony held her and tried to comfort her. He explained that he had communication equipment and that they would never be out of range of the police but it didn't help. Carmen's little body shook with sobs as she pressed her face into the crook of her father's neck. She was breaking his heart. Tony loved his children equally, but something about Carmen made his relationship with her different than with his older two children. Rico and Lucy were cut from a different mold than Carmen. Tony tried to tell himself that it was just that they were older, but knew that wasn't the whole reason. Carmen had a naïveté that neither Rico nor Lucy ever had. They were both more like he and Michelle. They viewed the world with a critical and somewhat cynical eye even at their young ages just as he always had. They both had a quick wit and it Lucy's case, that wit could be biting. Carmen's world was one of beauty and love. Tony wished that he could view the world through Carmen's eyes sometimes, but by the same token, worried that when she was forced to learn some of the world's cold, cruel lessons that it would destroy her beautiful spirit. He prayed that the day for learning such lessons hadn't already arrived.

As Carmen cried in his arms, Tony could feel tears fill his own eyes. He knew when he saw Michelle turn away that she was crying now, too. He waited until Michelle was able to compose herself and turn back before putting Carmen into her arms and giving them both one last kiss.

Carmen wriggled out of Michelle's arms and ran across the room to the open door to watch Tony leave. She stood staring out of the door for a long time with tears streaming down her face and her thumb now planted solidly in her mouth.

Kate and Michelle stood behind her each with a hand on one of her shoulders. Frankie, the Border Collie, seemed to understand that something was going on. He left his post in front of the fireplace to come to the door and watch, too. They all watched in silence as Jack and Tony met with the officers and started off. Neither Kate nor Michelle said a word, but both were concerned with Jack's ability to keep up.

"I'm glad Tony will be with Jack," Kate said after a long moment of silence.

Bob Warner walked up behind his daughter and put his arm around her. "They'll be fine, Kate. With Jack's determination there's probably nothing he can't do if he puts his mind to it."

Kate nodded wanting to believe her father but worried none the less.

The day wore on and the sun got higher in the sky. The children found a clear steam and sat down to take long drinks of water and fill their empty bottles to the top. Without realizing it they continued to wander deeper into the woods and farther away from the search teams. They considered staying in one place for a while, but they were all getting hungry and were hoping to find some blueberry or blackberry bushes. It wasn't much, but it was something to stomachs that were used to eating on a regular basis.

It was almost 5 o'clock when the four children stopped again to drink from a stream. They had been unsuccessful in their quest for food and all four were starting to worry about having to spend another night in the woods. Their run in with the bear and her cub that morning had bothered them more than they were willing to admit. They were sitting next to the stream when Lucy tipped back her head and sniffed the air.

"Do you smell that?" she asked.

"Smell what?" Rico asked in reply.

"Food. I smell food cooking. Like hot dogs over a fire."

"You're dreaming, Lucy," Rico scoffed. "You're just so hungry that you're imagining it."

"No," Mason said. "I think she's right. I smell it too. When the breeze blows this way," he pointed east, "I can smell it. Somebody must be camping nearby. Maybe they have a radio and we can call the police and give them our location."

All four children were standing now and sniffing the air frantically. They followed the smell walking slowly in an east bound direction. The aroma of food and a cooking fire became stronger and stronger as they walked a couple hundred yards.

"Hello," Mason called. "Hello, can anyone hear me? Hello."

There was no answer but seconds later the children stepped into a clearing where someone had clearly made camp. Two large tents were pitched and a fire was burning unattended inside a circle of rocks. Disposable plates and several beer bottles sat a few feet away from the fire.

Mason was just about to shout again when a woman stepped into the clearing from the tree line a few feet away. The woman gasped, clearly startled to see anyone here. She was a thin woman, so thin as to look ill, with stringy ash blond hair and pale skin. She looked worn and tired and maybe older than she really was.

"I'm sorry we scared you, ma'am," Rico said.

"It's okay. I'm fine," the woman said as she tried to relax and force her breathing to return to normal. "I just didn't expect anyone to be out here, that's all. What're you kids doin' here?" She had a deep southern accent. "Are ya campin' near by?"

"We were playing and we got lost," Lucy said. "We've been out here in the woods since yesterday. Do you have a radio so we can call the police?"

"Sorry, we don't have a radio. When we go campin' we kinda like ta git away from it all, ya know," the woman laughed nervously. She looked around as if she expected something to happen. "You kids better git outta here. My husband's gonna be back soon and he ain't gonna like it if he finds ya'll hangin' aroun'."

"Ma'am, we don't want to cause any problems, but we've been out here in the woods since yesterday. We're tired and really hungry. If you could just help us find our way out so we could get in touch with our parents, we would really appreciate it. Our parents are probably really worried by now. Can't you please help us?" Rico told her hoping that she would be sympathetic to their plight.

"Ya been gone since yesterday?"

All four of them were nodding. "Yes, ma'am," Mason said politely. He was sure that Rico had hit a nerve with his pleas and that the woman was going to help them.

"Ya think you're folks have got the law out lookin' for ya?" she asked anxiously.

Rico and Mason smiled knowingly at each other. "Our dads probably have the police, the FBI and the army looking for us," Mason said. "They used to be federal agents. They probably have helicopters and satellites tracking us down."

"And when they find us we're gonna be grounded for life," Ryan added morosely.

"Look, I'm sorry I can't help ya, but ya gotta git outta here. My Vernon's gonna be real mad if he finds ya here." The woman had clearly gotten more nervous. "Go! Ya gotta go," she said as she put her hand on Mason's shoulder and started to turn him around and direct him out of the clearing.

"Ma'am, please, we really need help," Lucy begged as she started to cry.

The woman didn't have time to answer when a loud voice called from past the tree line. "Woman, who're ya talkin' to?"

The woman became anxious and her lip started to tremble. "It's nobody, Vernon."

"Only a damn fool talks to theirself. I didn't know I was married to a fool, Peggy." the voice was closer now.

"Get outta here! Do ya hear me? Go an' don't look back!" she whispered urgently to the children.

"Who the hell're they?" An overweight man in a stained tee shirt and well worn jeans came into the clearing. He, too, had long, unkempt hair and his face was covered by a bushy beard. He smelled of beer and his swaying gait made it clear to even the children that he was drunk.

"They're just some kids, Vernon. Leave 'em be."

All four of the children involuntarily took a step backward. The man was big and frightening and contrasted sharply with the small meek woman who stood before them. He also was drastically different than the children's fathers who, despite their strong personalities, were really quite mild and gentle particularly with their wives and children.

"How the hell did you kids get here?" he demanded.

Rico found his voice first. "We're lost, sir. We were playing in the woods behind their house," he pointed at Mason and Ryan, "and before we knew it we couldn't figure out how to get back."

"What's your name, boy?" he said as he looked Rico up and down.

"Rico," he said quietly now clearly frightened by the man.

"Rico! What kinda candy ass name is that?" the man roared.

"Vernon, leave him alone," the small woman pleaded.

"It's a nickname, sir. It's short for Ricardo."

"Ricardo. What's you last name, Ricardo?" the man said each syllable slowly for emphasis.

"Almeida," Rico told him.

"That you're sister?" the man asked pointing at Lucy.

Rico nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Where you from, boy?" the man asked.

"I live in Seattle, sir," Rico answered politely.

"I mean, where was you two born, boy?" Vernon asked impatiently. "Are ya'll in this country legally?"

"We were born in Seattle," Rico said. At some point he stopped being afraid and started to get angry. He understood now why he was being interrogated by the man; it was because of his Hispanic heritage. He had never personally experienced any racial prejudice before but his father talked about other kids making fun of him when he was little because of his parents' accents. Rico decided to defend himself. "My father was born in Chicago and my mother was born in LA. We're American, just like you."

"Goddamned smart-mouth spic!" Vernon spat as he moved toward Rico.

Rico instinctively ducked as the man lunged for him. The woman screamed and grabbed Vernon's arm. "Stop! Vernon, no! He's just a kid. Leave him alone," she begged. Vernon's attention and anger quickly turned from Rico to the woman.

"Run!" she screamed at the children. "Run!"

They knew they should run and they all wanted to but they couldn't manage it. All four stood transfixed as Vernon began to beat the woman.

"Don't you never touch me like that, you bitch!" he bellowed as he reared back and slapped one of his big bear paw-like hands across her face.

The woman fell backward and started to cry. A large welt was already raised on her cheek. "Vernon, stop! Stop!" she begged. "I'm sorry! I'll never do it again. I swear. Please don't hit me." She curled into a fetal position to protect her face and vital organs all the while begging the man to stop but he continued to kick her.

"Vernon, what are you doing? That's enough! Stop it now!" came yet another voice from the other side of the clearing.

The voice belonged to a medium sized man dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. The children didn't know who he was, but they noticed that Vernon stopped immediately when the man told him to. He dropped his head like a contrite child and stepped away from the woman who lay curled up and crying on the ground.

This new man appeared to be a few years older than Vernon and for whatever reason, Vernon seemed to be afraid of him. "I had to do it, Roger. Peggy was interferin'. I was just tryin' to teach this smart ass little wetback some respect for his elders an' she tried to stop me."

Roger was down on the ground checking out Peggy's injuries. She had stopped crying but remained on the ground whimpering. Roger helped her up and instructed her to get some ice to put on her face. She nodded saying nothing and limped slowly away before disappearing into one of the tents.

Roger turned his attention to the children. "Lost, I presume," he stated matter of factly. He didn't have the southern accent that the other two adults had.

The children merely nodded and stood rooted in their positions. All were too afraid to speak.

"It's okay. You can talk. Don't let Vernon scare you. He gets a little out of control sometimes but he'll listen to me. I won't let him hurt you. And Peggy will be fine. She'll have a few bruises, nothing that won't heal in a few days. How did you get lost?" Roger asked. He seemed genuinely nice. At least he wasn't as frightening as Vernon. His speech and manners were far more refined.

"We were playing near my house," Mason said, "and we got too far into the woods and couldn't find our way back. Can you help us get out? We just want to get to where we can call the police."

"Of course we can help you, but we can't do it tonight. It will get dark before we can hike out and get you to the proper authorities. In the meantime, you can stay with us. There's a little place not too far from here where somebody else who was camping built kind of a lean-to shelter. I'll have Peggy take you there with some extra blankets. That will be a good place for you to spend the night. In the morning we'll take you out to the nearest road and find someone who can help you."

The four children felt relieved but Ryan suddenly remembered how hungry he was. "Do you have any extra food? It's been a long time since we've eaten."

Roger frowned. "We really only brought enough food for ourselves but I'll see what I can scrounge up." Roger turned and went into the same tent that Peggy had retreated into earlier. The children stood silently watching Vernon and hoping that he didn't "get out of control" again, as Roger had described it.

Peggy stood in the tent gently dabbing a wet rag against the side of her rapidly swelling face. The rustling caused by Roger entering the tent startled her and she gasped and protectively covered her head.

"Oh, stop it, Peggy. I won't hurt you," Roger said in a voice that was less empathetic than it had been minutes ago. "We can't have those kids hanging around. Get some blankets and take them to that lean-to we saw about 100 yards to the west. They can sleep there for the night."

"What happens then?" Peggy asked.

"While they're sleeping, we'll have to move camp so they can't find us in the morning."

"Can I at least give them some food?"

"No, we don't have any extra."

"Sure we do, Roger. We only need enough food to get us through Sunday. After the bombing we need to get out."

"And go where, Peggy? To the Holiday Inn? I don't think so. We're going to be on the run for weeks. We'll be sleeping in tents and hiking. I don't know when we're going to find a grocery store to resupply. I'm not going to starve just to fill the bellies of some rich brats from Seattle. The houses that border this section of woods are million dollar houses. Let them go without food for a couple of days. We have more important things to worry about. This whole operation depends on us."

Peggy nodded and said nothing. She gathered up blankets and went to get the children. Roger watched her go and shook his head. Peggy was a weak link. He only brought her along because that stupid oaf Vernon had told her of their plans before they left and Roger was afraid that if he left Peggy behind, she might go to the authorities and spill the beans. He pushed his way through the tent flap and into the clearing where he doused their cooking fire with a bucket of water. He couldn't take the chance of the fire attracting any more attention.

"Hey, why'd ya do that? I ain't done eatin'. I was gonna cook another coupla hot dogs," Vernon complained.

"Shut up, Vernon. We've got a bigger problem here than your stomach. Those kids can identify us."

"What're we gonna do about it?" Vernon asked through a mouth full of food.

Roger looked over his shoulder to make sure that Peggy and the kids were well out of earshot. Then he turned cold eyes back to Vernon and spoke coolly and deliberately. "We're going to wait until they're asleep and then we're going to kill them."

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