“I hate to be a downer, but we don’t even know where to start,” Gumby said.
“Well, Juneau is southeast of Anchorage, so we start looking between the two cities. Commander North has hooked us up with the Alaska State Troopers, and we’ll start our search from the air.”
Phantom stood up so fast, his chair crashed to the floor behind him, but he didn’t apologize and didn’t pick it up. Like Rocco, he paced agitatedly next to the table. “We’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” he complained. “There’ve been no pings from Bubba’s cell phone because he most likely turned it off before the plane took flight. So we can’t track him that way. If that tiny plane he was in crashed, it would be almost impossible to see through the trees. Or, God forbid, if it went into the ocean, it would’ve sunk like a stone. And who’s to say they even went in the direction of Juneau? We have a flight plan, but if something went wrong, the pilot could’ve deviated from it. We have no idea if that damn pilot went north, east, south, or west. We need more. Something!”
Rocco agreed one hundred percent. He was as pissed as Phantom, but the shit of it was, they had no options other than to simply fly around and search for their friend and teammate. “Look, we all know Bubba. He’s a tough son of a bitch. Remember when we were captured by those assholes over in the Middle East on that one op? He was the one who managed to hide his fucking KA-BAR well enough that it wasn’t found when they searched us. He had so much shit in his pockets that even our captors were impressed. I don’t know what happened to Bubba up in Alaska. But what I do know is that if there’s even a one percent chance of surviving whatever it was, Bubba would’ve done it. And he’s probably got a fucking tent in one of his pockets that he’s using to hole up in. I don’t care if we have to search every fucking square inch of the state, I’m not giving up until we find him, dead or alive.”
One by one, his fellow SEAL teammates nodded their agreement.
Except for Phantom.
The man looked extremely angry and frustrated and, as usual, Rocco couldn’t read what he was thinking.
Finally, he spoke. “Something is very fucked here. It’s way too coincidental that Bubba flew up to Alaska to find out about his inheritance and he disappeared without a trace. Someone wanted him dead, probably so he couldn’t collect whatever his dad left for him. We all know sex and money are the two things that make seemingly normal, law-abiding citizens lose their minds. Do we know anything about this Zoey chick who was with him?”
Gumby picked up a piece of paper and read from it. “Zoey Knight. Thirty-one years old. She moved to Juneau in the tenth grade and has lived there since. Mother’s in Anchorage and her father’s not in the picture. Hasn’t been for years. She works part-time in one of those kitschy tourist shops downtown in the summers. She’s also been helping out Colin Wright for ten years or so. She’s been renting a house from Colin, and she makes just enough money to live on. She’s got about a thousand dollars in her accounts. No big deposits or withdrawals in the last four months. She was in Anchorage visiting her mother when Colin passed away, and the lawyer asked her to come in for the reading of the will as well. Since she was in Anchorage, he arranged for her to be on the same flight as Bubba.”
“So she could be in on whatever happened to him,” Phantom concluded. “Maybe she was dating Bubba’s dad, and he told her what he was going to leave her. She’s pissed that she didn’t get more in the will. If Bubba wasn’t paying attention, she could’ve gotten the drop on him and killed him, then worked with the pilot to dump his body somewhere before they both disappeared.”
“At this point, that’s all irrelevant,” Rocco said.
“How can you say that?” Phantom asked. “You know as well as I do that no one is innocent until we’ve found proof they aren’t involved.”
“I’m saying it’s irrelevant because our first concern is finding Bubba. If she’s with him, fine. If not, fine. But we’ve got time to figure this shit out…after we find our teammate. Believe me, Phantom. If we find out that his disappearance is anything other than a freakish accident, I’ll be at the front of the lynch mob to take down whoever dared try to hurt him. But until then, all I care about is finding him. The longer we sit around here with our thumbs up our asses, the longer it’s going to take to bring him home. And if he’s injured or trapped in the wreckage of a plane, we need to get eyes in the sky now. Everything else can wait.”
Rocco stared into Phantom’s eyes for a long moment, not willing to back down. Yeah, they could call Tex and get him working in the background to find out the whys and whos—and in fact, he’d already done that—but as for the team, at the moment, their priority was Bubba.
Finally, Phantom nodded. “You’re right. We’ll have time to figure this shit out after we find him.”
Rocco gave his friend a chin lift, then turned to the others. “Wheels up in two hours. Go home, pack, say goodbye to your women and do what you have to do. We’re not coming back until we find our teammate. SEALs don’t leave SEALs behind. Ever.”
Everyone chimed in with their agreement and filed out of the room. Rocco gathered up the papers before taking a deep breath. He pressed his lips together and couldn’t help but send a silent plea to his missing friend.
Wherever you are, Bubba. Hang on. We’re coming for you.
“That’s it. You’ve almost got it,” Bubba praised as he watched Zoey try to start a fire for the fourth time. She was struggling to get the hang of the flint. It took a lot of practice to be able to get the sparks to land right where they needed to, then coax those sparks into a flame.
She sighed in frustration and sat back on her heels, holding the flint and striker out toward him. “Forget it. I can’t do it.”
Bubba didn’t reach for the fire-starting tool. “You almost had it that time. Try again,” he urged.
Zoey shook her head. “No. I suck at this. I’ll just go and collect more wood. You’re in charge of the fire and shelter. I can gather wood instead.”
Bubba reached out and grabbed her biceps to keep her from standing. “Don’t give up, Zoey.”
She looked at him, and he could see the defeat in her eyes and hated it. “Mark, I appreciate you trying to teach me new things, but I’m tired. And hungry. And the only way we’re going to get to eat that fish you caught today is if we get this fire started. Please. Just do it, and I’ll go get more wood for later.”
Knowing if he continued to push her, it could do more harm than good, Bubba nodded before she gave him a tired smile and got to her feet. As soon as she was a good distance away with her back to him, he leaned over and used the flint to get the fire started within seconds.
She’d helped him with their shelter for the night, and while she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the exact way to bend the twigs and sticks to get them to stay together, she was getting better. He had no doubt by the time Rocco and his team found them, she’d be an expert. She was frustrated now, yes, but most of the time he could see the determination in her eyes not to be a burden and to learn as much as possible so she could carry her own weight.