OOOO

Part 4

"Cocoa?" Harm asked, as he and Mac stood at the impromptu mess hall set up on the compound.

All personnel had been accommodated in tents and although most people were now in bed for the night, a few remained.

Like Harm, Mac couldn't sleep.

"Thanks."

"So, what was the Admiral asking you about?"

"My psychic abilities…if that is even what they are…"

"He wants you to find the little girl using your…abilities?"

"Yep and he even took me to the child's room in the cabin."

"What happened?"

"I struck out…I didn't sense a thing."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Harm reassured her, "You can't just switch it on and off at will. Give it some time."

"It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do," she revealed, "stand there and tell Mattoni that I couldn't feel anything."

They were both silent as they both tried not to ponder what this could possibly mean for Hope Mattoni. Why wasn't Mac sensing her or her location?

"Tomorrow's another day," Harm spoke up again, "At least the weather is warm, tonight. C'mon, let's turn in."

They both finished their cocoa and retired for the night.

OOOO

Hope had managed to crawl through the darkness on her hands and knees and find shelter in the large recess of an old tree. It kept her warm and sheltered, but she had lost the boot on her injured foot in the process. Her ankle throbbed and she barely slept as hour after hour passed, drifting in and out of painful delirium.

OOOO

"Ma'am, can I help you?" Mac asked the wandering civilian as she reported for duty, the next morning. She had split ways with Harriet, with whom she had shared a two-man tent the night before.

"Are you part of the search team?" the shaky-looking woman requested. Mac assumed that she must be the child's mother, judging by her shocked, sleep-deprived appearance.

"I am…Can I do anything for you, Ma'am?" Mac confirmed.

"Can you give this to whoever is in charge of the search? It's Hope's blanket. She can't… she can't sleep without it…"

"I'll give this to Admiral Chegwidden," Mac assured her, "and I speak for the rest of the team when I say that we won't stop until we find her."

"Thank you," the woman near-whispered before disappearing in the direction she had come in.

For a minute, Mac just stood there, closing her eyes and seeing if anything came to her, while she was holding the blanket she had seen in the cabin yesterday. But nothing did.

She reported in, giving the blanket to the Admiral before going to collect her equipment. To her credit, she did not seem to be the only one affected by the sight of the blanket. Even the Admiral seemed a bit introspective.

"You okay?" Harm asked her, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah," she nodded, "just more determined than ever that we're going to cover every inch of ground there is before this storm moves in."

"Well said, Colonel," AJ spoke up, "Okay everybody, we all know what we have to do today. We're on teams of two, take a marker from the board and pick up the corresponding map from the table. This will be your search area. Make sure you're well stocked with fluids and start to make your way to your first search quadrant. The first check in will begin in 15 minutes."

They all gathered their gear together, joined up with a search buddy and chose their respective areas to search.

"Where do you say we go for, Mac?" Harm asked, letting her choose.

Mac didn't take any time to think, just stuck her hand out and grabbed the first marker her eyes came upon. They collected all of their information, topped up their canteens and began to make their way to the first quadrant on their map.

Fifteen minutes later and they were approximately a quarter of the way there. As the phonetic name assigned to them was called over the radio, they reported in to base command. Then they continued towards their allocated search area.

"Why do you think she would have come all of the way out here?" Harm asked, curiously.

"The admiral thought maybe because of the animals," she told him, "and he said something else that really made sense. When you were a kid, how often did your Mom tell you not to wander off in crowds?"

"All the time," Harm told her, revealing, "I had a talent for it."

"And she told you this why?" Mac asked again.

"Uh, because she wouldn't be able to see me and I'd get lost."

"How about if that were during more recent times? Why don't parents want their children out of their sight these days?"

"Because of all of the perverts around today…" Harm said, without even having to think of it.

"Stranger danger," Mac nodded, in confirmation, "Okay, how about the dangers that can befall you in the forest?"

Harm took a minute to think, then came up with, "I'm sure she must have. In fact, she almost certainly did, because I had the know-how once I was old enough to play out on my own…but I don't actually recall an incident where she was telling me not to wander off into the woods, because I could get hurt."

"Okay," Mac nodded, "so if you were a child and you were on your own, faced with the choice of heading towards a large compound where you might run into dangerous strangers or into a deserted woods where there were lots of cute animals playing, where would you head?"

"Assuming that I was a four-year-old girl," Harm chuckled, "into the woods."

"Exactly," Mac pointed out, "In comparison to telling children about stranger danger, safety while trekking in the woods is much further down the 'to-do-list.' But that's becoming the way of the world, nowadays. Cities are getting bigger, more urban and children are losing their sense of survival in more rural surroundings."

"But this little girl is only four-years-old," Harm pointed out, "she probably won't know much about how to take care of herself while out in these surroundings."

"That's why we have to find her quickly, before the storm moves in," Mac surmised, "If only I could get this damn six-sense, or whatever it is, to work!"

"Do you think she really got this far?" Harm asked.

"She could have," Mac nodded, considering it, "especially if she's panicked. The human body, even an infant one, is capable of amazing feats when the adrenaline is pumping. And the terrain isn't too tough. It's just a bit slippery with all of the rain we've been having."

As if the illustrate her point, Mac's foot slid and she landed on her knees. Harm immediately grabbed her arm and went to help her back up. By the time she was on her feet again, her facial expression had become blank, almost reverent.

"What is it Mac?" he asked, concerned, "Are you hurt?"

Mac just shook her head. It had been fleeting, she had barely had a chance to register the image that had flashed in front of her eyes and she was not so sure if the result that registered with her retina had done so accurately.

"I think…I think I saw…sensed…something."

"What was it?"

That was harder to answer. The single flash of imagery had been of the leaf-littered floor of the forest, not unlike the one beneath their feet. But this time, the leaf-litter was wet, puddles were forming and rain came down lightly. But there was something more to it, something within the litter…Pink? It was a flash of pink, almost like something hidden in the leaves. And there was something more about that patch of pink; it was shiny, almost as if it was a puddle of pink rain. What on earth did that mean? When she had located Harm, she had been indicated to a certain position on a map. She had been able to sense that he was still alive, sense his very life's pulse. How come she had not sensed that now? Was she really seeing something important to finding the child, or something completely unrelated?

And that's when another scary thought came; this flash of pink was not a natural shade, like a sea-shell or a fruit. It was something very much manufactured, man-made. And pink was a very popular color with little girls. This little girl was missing in a pink jacket…

OOOO