. .oOo.

Chapter 4

Dry Arizona heat blasted them as they left the plane. The air was so thin at this altitude, the men stopped for a moment, breathing in deep, trying to fill their lungs. They all exchanged looks, this had been unexpected. Not even being in the deserts of the Middle East had made them feel this lightheaded.

Kinkaid was the last to leave the plane. He took one look around and tried to hide his smirk. Growing up in Colorado had almost made him immune to the effects they were now experiencing. Without a word, he led the men to the cars that were waiting for them. Bottles of water were passed around, and it was quiet as the men drank deeply. It was a fairly short drive to the Grand Canyon National Park and he hoped that the guys could adjust before they arrived at the Operations building.

The National Park Service Rangers were waiting to brief them on the situation. Kinkaid knew that the FBI agents, out of Flagstaff, might also be there. Unfortunate, but that couldn't be avoided, this was a matter that involved national security. As much as he would have liked to keep it within the family, so to speak, Davron himself had made that impossible. He would deal with it when the time came.

Before long the men were ushered into a large conference room. By that time, Kinkaid was pleased to note, they no longer showed any signs of discomfort. He knew they wouldn't. Even if they were not completely acclimated to the new conditions, showing weakness was never acceptable. It almost made him smile with pride, he understood them well. After all these years, he himself, was used to doing the same thing.

Once inside, a young lady dressed in the standard required uniform, directed them all to sit around the large conference table. None of the men missed the look in her eyes as she watched them walk in. A group of tall, muscular, good looking men (if they said so themselves), tended to do that. In their hey day, they had become accustomed to seeing the awe and admiration of women around the world. It was nice to see it again now.

Their blank faces did not show the pleasure that her looks gave them, however. Most of them just nodded at her and took their seats. Tank, however, was giving her a look of his own behind a sober facade. He could not help notice that she did some amazing things to those regulation green trousers that hugged some impressive curves.

Not to mention that the starched gray shirt she wore could not cover up the fact that she was very well endowed. He let his eyes travel over her, from the top of her head, where her kinky curls were only barely contained in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, all way down to her size seven utilitarian boots.

He took a deep breath that had nothing to do with his ability to adjust to the altitude, and everything to do with keeping his eyes in his head. But she had already caught the subtle look, and there was a deep blush rising on her caramel colored cheeks. The woman, whose name tag read Nia Alkins, dipped her head and smiled shyly as she moved over to the door. Tank followed her with his eyes, noticing that she hesitated one more long second before she moved to leave.

Her departure, however, was interrupted with the arrival of several more men, and she stepped back as they entered the room. This gave Tank another chance to take in her beauty before she slipped out. With a shrug, he turned his attention to the Rangers who had joined them. The briefing was about to get underway.

Ranger poured himself a glass of water. He scanned the room, giving everyone here a good look. He missed nothing, he never did. The corners of his mouth almost tipped as he watched Tank's reaction. The man had been caught off guard by a pretty face. It was perfect, very entertaining to watch, and Ranger might have thought that he'd found something to tease him about later. That kind of thing usually gave him a bit of pleasure, but instead, all he could do was think about how much he missed Stephanie. Seeing his friend's interest only proved to remind him of his own. As it always did when he thought of her, his heart pounded a bit harder.

All he wanted to do was to take care of this business so that he could get back to her as soon as possible. And again, he wished that he'd been able to let her know how he was feeling lately, how different everything had been for him during the past few months. Would she want to know how much he needed her in his life? Had he ruined things between them by not sharing his thoughts with her sooner? A bit of anxiety hit him deep. He swallowed hard, but it would not release its grip on his gut. He took in a slow deep breath to stabilize himself enough to get through the rest of this meeting.

Now the men in matching uniforms sat down at the head of the table and with some effort, Ranger shifted his focus to them. He knew that the Park Service Rangers were the law enforcement here, and he was interested to hear what they had to say.

"Gentlemen, I'm Ranger Gielen," the taller man said as his eyes scanned the room. "We're a bit informal around here, please call me Mitch." Several heads moved microscopically and he continued. "We appreciate your involvement with this case, and since we all share basically the same skill sets, it will save us time explaining all of the issues that we've run up against since discovering the body." Gielen stood and smoothly moved across the room.

"That the body was found was, in itself, a miracle. Someone did not want us to see it for a very long time. They took the effort to dump it out in Tuweep. Here, off the north rim."

Gielen turned and pointed to the map that he had come to stand next to. There was a marker placed on the location the body had been found. He kept talking as he indicated a few more places on the map.

"It's a tough area to get to, only the most adventurous explorers like to go out there. And as luck would have it, one such group had arrived for such an outing the day before yesterday ." He paused momentarily before continuing.

"Ranger Wallace covers the Tuweep area," he said, pointing out the area on the map. "Most of the people who visit it do so by plane. Because he's got a chopper and a little Cessna 170 of his own, Wallace takes care of an airstrip just a mile from his house." Gielen turned to face the group again, taking a few steps to stand close to the table.

"Because of his proximity, Ranger Wallace pretty much knows every time a plane flies over, let alone lands there. He even contacts the pilots to give them basic wind info and confirm their landing pattern. Each of those contacts is recorded in a log."

At this point, Gielen braced his hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward. "In an interesting coincidence," he said with a deep inflection in his voice. "Wallace was not there on Friday or Saturday."

A collective grimace could almost be heard with his use of the word 'coincidence'. Mitch almost smiled, he was in agreement, there were no such things as coincidences. Slowly he pushed a paper over toward Ranger, watching as he picked it up and read over it. Ranger set the paper back on the table before looking up.

"Wallace was in DC," Ranger said, glancing around at everyone. "Asked, at the last minute, to take part in a panel with the Senators who are discussing new regulations that they want to impose on the national parks. Public knowledge."

A soft murmur of voices reacted to that news. Gielen straightened and all eyes were on him again.

"My wife might tell you that I am overly suspicious by nature," Gielen said. "But, I don't believe that this was a happy coincidence." He turned back to the map.

"This is the dump site, and it is not anywhere near either of the roads that lead into Tuweep." His finger quickly traced along the roads he had mentioned, then moved again to the spot the body was discovered. "These roads are barely paved and are hard to travel anyway, we didn't expect that anyone would have driven out there, not with the risk of leaving lots of evidence of their presence behind. And from the condition of the body, we are pretty sure it was shoved out of a small plane in an effort to lose it in what we recognize as one of the most remote places in the U.S."

"So," Tank spoke up. "How did this group of adventurers happen to find it?" he asked, voicing the question on everyone's mind.

Gielen leaned his back against the wall. He had asked the same question, individually to each member of the adventurers group. "They came to Tuweep to practice two things," he said. "Flying their small plane and rappelling."

Now some of the guys around the table were nodding. It made sense that they didn't want to go to the more populated parts of the park. Out there they would have had the whole place to themselves. They had counted on the remoteness of the area every bit as much as the killers had.

The discussion continued about the recovery of the body and the details that they got from the guys who had found it while rappelling. The adventurers, as they would be referred to during this investigation, had had the presence of mind to leave the body undisturbed. They took pictures on their phones to show the Rangers when they contacted them about what they had discovered.

When they went out to retrieve the body, the Rangers had taken more pictures of the body and the surrounding area as part of the investigation, and now all of these photos were being circulated around the table. For the most part, the pictures were not all that helpful. And fortunately, it was hard to even see that it was their former team mate. Before long, the one question that the General was waiting to answer was asked.

"We were told that Chef was murdered," Chandler said. "With the condition of his body, how did we come to that determination?"

Mitch glanced over at the general. Kinkaid stood and moved to the head of the table, next to Gielen. He had talked to Ranger about this, but not to the rest of the group. He now took a moment before he had to tell them exactly why they were here.

. .oOo.

The ambient noises of the comm room kept Stephanie on edge. She knew that she would not have to run into Ranger, since he was gone again, but it was still hard to come in to RangeMan today. Approaching her assigned cubicle, she slowed to a stop just short of the opening. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, and then forced herself to move in and sit down at the desk.

She stared at the laptop. She hated it. Pausing for a moment, she stared at it, as it so innocently sat there, waiting for her to start her work. Stephanie could not forget that it was at this very computer that she had done all of those searches that had yielded so much unwelcome news about Chef Ben Davron.

Just as it had done for weeks now, opening the lid and hearing the systems start up made her stomach churn. Unconsciously she wrapped her arms around her waist and watched the screen until the programs had loaded and the log in box popped up. Her hands slowly came up to the keys and she started typing in the required information.

For the next several hours Stephanie tried to shove her thoughts to the back of her mind and just concentrate on the work she needed to do. It wasn't easy, but she pushed through it. She was determined that, if nothing else, she would continue to do her job the best she that she could. At least, in one way, she could do something that would not let Ranger down.

Her thoughts never strayed from the way he had looked the last time she had been with him. So distant, so silent. Why, again she asked herself, why did she have to go and ruin everything by snooping into the life of a man who she had never even met? It didn't matter that she would have had no way of knowing that he was probably involved in illegal activities. All that mattered was that she had been the one to tell Ranger about it. No one liked the messenger, any more than they liked the message, when it was bad news like that.

She needed a break, and finally she got it. About lunch time, Hector came around the partition and stood behind her. As was his custom when working the same shift with her, he had brought lunch to share with Stephanie today. "Time for the tamales I tell you about," he said with a small smile.

Stephanie happily closed the computer and stood. Hector was one of her favorite guys here. Though he did not seem to say much to the others, Stephanie noticed that he had no problem talking to her. It made her happy, and she could definitely use a little happy right now.

"Thanks, Hector," she said warmly, following him down the hall. The spicy aroma of steamed tamales hit her senses long before they made it to the break room. She smiled, Hector had been talking up these homemade tamales for a week now. She suspected that it had been his way of trying to distract her from the worries that had been plaguing her mind lately. She appreciated his efforts, grateful that Hector seemed to be extra sensitive to her moods. She could really use an understanding friend right now. Especially one who would not pry if she didn't want him to.

He led her to a table he'd already set up, complete with plastic silverware and bottles of water. Indicating that she should sit down, Hector stood while she took her seat.

"It is ready," he said and moved over to the counter to bring over a container wrapped with a dishtowel. Stephanie watched as steam burst out when he lifted the lid and he laughed when he saw her eyes grow wide.

"Hot!" he said as he carefully lifted the bundles wrapped in corn husks and set them on the waiting plates. Stephanie hesitated a moment, and then followed Hectors movements as he gently opened his tamale, blowing on it to cool the first bite that she took.

"You like it?" he asked with a smile. With her mouth still full, Stephanie nodded, adding a moan of appreciation for the delicious treat. That caused him to laugh again. This is why he loved sharing his lunch breaks with her so much.

Towards the end of their meal, Ella walked in with the chocolate cake they had not eaten last night. In spite of herself, Stephanie smiled as Ella sat down at the table. Without a word, Ella served the cake and all three of them started eating. Some of her angst forgotten, Stephanie was enjoying her time with her friends. Until Cal and Woody walked in.

Though they did not say anything to the trio already seated in the room. Stephanie heard their conversation and felt the fear come rushing back into her heart again. They were talking about the team that was in Arizona. Davron's body had been found. Ranger was determined to find the killers, and Stephanie knew he would not stop until he did. Fear raised so high in her chest, it nearly choked her. She could not stop the thoughts that had been lurking in her mind. What if the killers stopped him instead?

. .oOo.