Mac looked around a little wildly, wishing he wasn't so certain of his map skills as Gio's glare cut into him. "I … um … Yeah, we're, um, we're here."
"Spread out. Find it!" the boss snapped, keeping a careful eye on Mac.
"Gio, there's nothing here!" Emma called.
Gio shoved Mac and nearly sent him sprawling. "You led us to the wrong place!" He cracked Mac in the ribs with the butt of his gun for what felt like roughly the seven thousandth time.
He gasped for breath, bent over, resting his palms on his thighs. He forced himself to look up at Giovanni. "I did not." He swallowed against the strong desire to just throw up from the combination of being hit in the middle repeatedly as well as the fear-fueled adrenaline that was telling him he was a whisker away from death by this murderer's hand. "Look," he panted, gathering his thoughts, developing a plan to stay alive, and wishing his team was already here, hopefully with half of Phoenix and every park ranger between here and the Canadian border. "The geographical location this is ex …"
Giovanni struck him again. This time Mac went down in one knee, but forced himself back to his feet quickly, thinking fast. "Yeah, yeah," Gio said aggressively. "Either you screwed up, or you're playing games."
"I didn't," Mac insisted. "And I'm not."
"I don't believe you." Another blow nearly had Mac on the ground, and Gio was clearly prepared to keep up the beating. If he didn't put a stop to it now, Mac was pretty sure that's how he was going to die, beaten to death by an unhinged criminal.
"Wait," he gasped, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Wait." He frowned trying to get his brain rolling in the right direction again. "Is what you're looking for nailed to the ground?"
"What kind of question is that?"
The tone said it was time to really talk fast. "'Cause if it wasn't, it's possible that a flash flood took it away."
"Explain," Gio barked.
Mac pointed, flinching just a little when he moved his arm. Oh, good, those ribs are definitely cracked … But you're still alive dumbass, so quit your bitching and keep this guy on the hook, Angus. "See the dried mud on the rocks right there. It's a waterline, and it's a recent one. If you tell me the size and the weight of what you're looking for, I may be able to determine …" Apparently he wasn't talking fast enough because Gio hit him again and he never even saw it coming. He pretended like it never happened and just pushed on. "where the flood took it."
Looking a little impressed at Mac's stoicism, Gio looked at him levely. "I'm looking for $18 million." Once Mac started to tease out that there was a 400 pound crate of cash out here, he thought he might be able to do something about it. He might not be able to find it, but he could at least buy himself some time. Gio pulled back like he might hit him again and demanded, Now, where is my money? Getting pretty sick of asking you."
Getting pretty sick of you trying to beat the answer out of me. Bad enough when somebody does it and I actually know it, you son of … I know, I know, if I say any of that out loud more beating is the best case scenario. Keep him talking, keep him looking for his payday and I might just make it out of here alive.
"Okay, look, I can I can use the erosion rate of the soil to determine the speed of the flash flood's water. Then I can solve for direction and distance traveled by the crate, as long as I can figure out the missing variable here."And that is? It's the, uh, angle of the slope of the ground we're standing on right now."
After a little more back and forth that fortunately didn't result in Gio or any of the other members of the gang whaling on him any more, he built a rudimentary surveying theodolite. He thought the eighteen degree angle measurement was pretty accurate, and he was fairly confident in his estimate of the rate of erosion and water speed based on what he'd learned from Freddie and from the National Weather Service.
"So if I can calculate the flood time and water speed using the erosion rate …" he said, half to himself, half to buy a little more time for the necessary mathematical gymnastics that were tough to complete in your head fully hydrated with a full stomach and not hurting all over. Gio's face said he'd gotten all the time he was going to get though. "... That means the crate would've floated about right there." He pointed again.
Gio gave him a hard look. "You better be right."
The group started fanning out to search the new location. Mac watched them warily, hoping almost desperately that he might see Jack, Boze, or Riley peering back at him out of the tree line.
0-0-0
When Riley finally got the radio tuned to a federal bandwidth she was searching for and they heard the crackle ofan incoming transmission, the group experienced a small moment of elation. As Riley spoke to the voice on the other end, Jack's face creased into a hundred lines of worry.
"Alright!" Bozer enthused. Help is on the way!"
"Finally!" Riley agreed. Then she frowned at Jack. "What is it, Jack?"
Jack gnawed on the inside of his cheek for almost a full minute. "That guy sound like any fed you've ever talked to?"
Her frown deepened. "Well … no … but he's a park ranger. That's different, right?"
Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets in an effort to not just start gesticulating wildly. He wanted them on the same page, not ramped up or freaked out. "Yeah, it's some different. But fish and wildlife folks, are still law enforcement. There's … I don't know how to describe it."
Bozer was nodding now. "Our neighbor back home was a game warden. He definitely always seemed like a policeman to me."
"So what do we do?" Riley asked, all her plans to sit tight and build a signal fire flying out the window. If Jack didn't accept the voice on the radio as one of the good guys, it would be crazy for them to argue. Mac might like to tease him about his 'spidey senses', but nobody on the team, including Mac, actually thought they were a joke. Jack's threat assessments were usually spot on enough to be a little spooky.
Jack scratched at the wound beneath his bloodied T-shirt, earning himself a glare from Riley. He stopped with a sheepish grin. "We get a move on. And we keep an eye out for 'em. I'll take point." He revised his vocabulary to be a little less militaristic when they didn't immediately seem to get the picture. "I'll range ahead, try to make sure we're in the clear. If we can avoid them and spot Mac first, we can probably get the drop on them."
Riley gave a curt nod. "Let's move out."
0-0-0
Mac's blood ran cold when he heard Riley's voice coming out of the radio. Partly because Gio and Emma both had their guns trained on him to keep him quiet, partly because it sounded like this crew was going to be able to trick them into a deadly situation.
There was also a big part of him that was worried that the voice wasn't Jack's. There was just no way Jack wasn't taking the lead out here. Knowing his partner was with the less experienced members of the team was mostly why he wasn't losing his mind with worry. His mind started throwing all kinds of scenarios at him in which Jack had struck his head during the fight, or the knife wound was more severe than Jack's reaction indicated, scenarios that had him both without a partner, and counting on two complete newbies to try to rescue him out here.
When Giovanni sent Anton after them, Mac nearly tried to bolt again. If Jack wasn't with them, they were screwed. He stopped himself though, telling himself to give them some credit. They'd gotten their hands on a radio, and while Ri sounded stressed, she didn't sound panicked. They were both fully trained operatives. Granted their specialties were a little less field oriented than his, so were most operatives. Even on his most self-effacing day, Mac had to admit his skill set was unique.
He walked in front of Gio as slowly as he thought he could get away with it in the likely direction of the crate of cash. When Anton radio'd them to say he nabbed two people, and described them, Mac's breathing picked up again. No, Jack. That was bad. Really bad.
He couldn't count on them to mount a rescue. They were just too green at this stuff. He was going to have to figure out a way to save all three of them. He swallowed past the lump constricting his throat. Four.
Never leave a man behind.