I am. Look—it’s a long story and I don’t have time to fill in the gaps. I’m Nell MacInnes.”
“Lieutenant Dakota Smith.”
“Well, Lieutenant Smith, you can put Amanda Wilson inside this tent.” As she pointed to her right, wet sheeting snow cut off every sign of the terrain. “All of you stay in your tents and keep your backs to the rock. No one moves. Hammond, get that flap closed.”
Dakota checked his watch as the teens obeyed Nell’s terse commands. She had chosen the camp site well, bunkered down under a ledge in the narrow rift between two cliff faces.
The teenagers looked cold and confused as Nell went from tent to tent, giving calm orders. “Remember, you are fit and you are smart. We will survive this. Lieutenant Smith out there is going to help us.”
“But what about Amanda?” A younger boy cut in, his voice shrill with panic. “She hit her head. Is she going to be okay?”
“She’ll pull through.” Dakota’s voice was firm as he set the wounded girl carefully in the tent Nell had pointed out. Despite his assurances, he knew the girl was far from safe. If she had internal injuries, she might not last the night without medical intervention.
Briefly, he considered packing the wounded girl into an improvised travois and pulling her down as soon as visibility returned. But that would leave Nell alone in deteriorating conditions—and protecting Nell was his mission priority.
FUBAR.
As he rose from the tent, the wind howled over the ridge. Nell staggered, tossed sideways, and Dakota caught her quickly, his arms locked around her waist.
He felt the strength of her slim body as she fought the wind, trying to stand. “Thanks,” she rasped. “We’d better get inside.”
Beneath her safety helmet her eyes were calm and dark, the color of racing gray water through the mountains near his home in northern California. As the two squeezed inside the tent next to the girl named Amanda, Dakota pulled a silver thermal blanket out of his backpack. “Looks like you could use this. The girl’s shivering. She doesn’t seem to be breathing very well either.”
“Asthma.” Nell spread the blanket over the girl’s body and tucked it in. “Thanks again, Lieutenant—”
“Dakota will do fine.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve got a few other seasoned climbers with you who could help guide these kids down?”
“Afraid not. I’m traveling alone.”
Nell glanced at him intently. “Not many people I know climb alone.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for his answer.
“If I wanted noise and crowds, I would have stayed in London,” he said easily. “I prefer climbing alone.”
She nodded. “I can understand that.” She unclipped a rope from her belt and wrapped it in neat coils, every movement smooth and precise.
She was definitely a professional, Dakota thought. He gave a small nod toward the motionless girl and the boy at the other side of the tent. “She needs care. The sooner the better.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Nell muttered. She turned to the other frightened teen, made a little light banter, then leaned back toward Dakota. She studied his shoulders, his high-tech boots and climbing gear. “How good are you, Lieutenant?”
“Good enough.” There was no empty boasting, just cool truth in the words.
“Then you can help me rope a safety line?”
Dakota shook his head. “Maybe you haven’t looked outside. This storm is gaining steam. I heard that sixty-mile-an-hour gusts were clocked near Portee. With windchill factored in, we—”
“We’re screwed,” Nell said quietly. “I got that much already. Right now as I see it, our only choice is to get these kids down as soon as possible. They’re not dressed for a night of wet, freezing conditions.” Short copper hair tumbled around her flushed cheeks as she leaned down to check Amanda Wilson’s pulse.
Dakota had seen that hair before. He’d seen her excited and tired. But he’d never seen her so focused or so worried, as if these kids really mattered to her. Somehow it didn’t fit with the thrill-seeker image captured in her file.
But what she was suggesting was one step short of crazy.
“You can’t get them down in a whiteout. One wrong step and they plunge into freefall, and you’ll go over with them.” Dakota kept his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “We’ll have to stay put.”
Nell looked down at the girl named Amanda, whose breathing was growing more labored. “I know a way. This ridge leads down to a back trail. If you help me, I can set a safety line in fifteen minutes. I can get them down one at a time after that.”
“How?”
“I’ll clip each one into a harness, secure them to the safety line and work back down to the mid-peak.”
“You’ve got only an hour of light left, and that will be pushing it.” Dakota stared out the tent flap at the gray slope. He didn’t like the risks—not for Nell or the stranded kids. “Have you ever handled a rescue like this?”
“At least a dozen times. A lot of climbers get cocky and forget that the weather up here can change on a dime. But I can get these kids down to the SAR meeting point. Trust me, I know this area pretty well.” Her mouth curved in a sudden smile, and Dakota blinked at the force of the determination. Did anyone say no to Nell MacInnes?
The danger didn’t seem to bother her, and her choices seemed logical. A good leader took controlled risks as necessary.
Dakota couldn’t help but admire her courage and her skill.
“I’ve got a radio for contact. I’ve also got this.” Nell pulled a silver whistle from inside her parka. “The SAR people will be expecting an alert once I’m close to the bottom of the safety line. I’ll hand off each teenager and then head back up.” She smiled gamely and gave an experimental whistle. “But if we’re going to do this, it has to be now.”
Dakota had to admit that her plan made sense, especially since staying put offered a risk of exposure and hypothermia.
But habit was habit. A SEAL never trusted any plan he hadn’t tested himself. Watching on the sidelines wasn’t in a SEAL’s job description.
He had to keep Nell safe.
But he couldn’t let any of these kids die in the process.
He watched Nell slide her climbing rope through her fingers, testing each coil. The fibers were smooth with no frays, clearly well tended.
She tugged on fingerless climbing gloves, frowning. “Look, Lieutenant—”
“Dakota.”
“We have to move, Dakota. In twenty minutes we really will be boxed in here. Do you want to save these kids or not?”
“I want to see all of you get down safely.”
“Don’t worry about me. Last year I took third at Chamonix. That’s an open climb with professionals—both men and women.”
“But you were probably climbing in good weather, fully roped and hydrated.” He glanced back and lowered his voice. “These kids are frightened and near the end of their endurance.”
“I’ll get them down the ridge. My safety line will hold, trust me.” Nell leaned closer, her voice falling. “Otherwise we could lose them up here in the cold.”
Dakota listened to the howl of the wind beyond their narrow, protected ridge. It was a perilous point of safety, one that would vanish as the temperature fell and the poorly dressed group of kids faced hypothermia. With gale-force winds in a whiteout, the disoriented teens could crack at any minute, driven by