Phantom looked around them and swore. “Fuck.”
Rex’s heart was beating double time, and he reached for the button that would switch on his radio. “Rocco, can you confirm the coordinates for the target?”
It took a minute, but then Rocco’s voice was in his ear telling him exactly what he’d put into his own GPS. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“We’re at those coords,” Phantom said. “And all we’re looking at is a pile of rocks against the side of the mountain.”
No one said anything for a long second. Then Bubba asked, “Any sign of any tangos around?”
“No, nothing,” Rex said. “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”
“Do you think it’s a setup?” Gumby asked.
“Nothing feels off,” Rex told his team. “I mean, I’m not getting any vibes that this is an ambush waiting to happen.”
“Wait—oh, shit,” Phantom said.
Rex glanced at his friend. “What?”
“Look,” he said, pointing to the rocks along the mountainside. Then he pointed above. “It looks like there was a recent landslide or something. See how the rock is darker up there? As if it hasn’t been exposed to the sun for hundreds of years?”
“Dammit!” Rex swore.
“What?” Ace asked impatiently through the radio.
“We were confused because we didn’t see a cave up here, but we think we’re seeing evidence of a recent explosion, causing the mouth to be caved in.”
“Damn,” Rocco said.
“There are also a ton of tire tracks leading up to the side of the mountain. Tracks that seemingly lead to nowhere. I’d bet everything I’ve got this is where one of the missing trucks was located, like our informant said.”
“So where’s the lieutenant?” Ace asked.
“Behind those rocks,” Phantom said with no uncertainty in his tone.
Rex moved at a fast clip toward where the mouth of the cave should’ve been. The closer he got, the more obvious it was that the insurgents had blasted the entrance, sealing it up in the process.
Interestingly enough, it looked as if whoever had set the explosives didn’t know what they were doing, and they’d used too much. The rocks had been blown to pieces. Yes, there were some large boulders at the entrance, but there were way more smaller basketball- to fist-size rocks.
Rex looked at Phantom when he appeared next to him, and his friend looked back.
Without a word, Rex bent and grabbed a large rock and heaved it behind him. “If nothing else, we can use these rocks to block the road to any other traffic,” Rex said as he picked up another.
“You know she could’ve been killed in the explosion, right?” Phantom quietly asked, even as he moved next to his friend to attempt to unbury the cave they both knew had to be behind the rocks.
“I know.”
“Or they could’ve just shot her in the head before they blew the entrance.”
“I know,” Rex repeated.
“But if they did either of those things, why didn’t they just leave her body where it could be found, like they did the other two?” Phantom asked rhetorically.
Rex ignored his friend and continued moving rocks as quickly as he could.
“Rocco, we need help,” Phantom said into the radio. “Ace and Bubba can keep watch, but if you and Gumby could come to the coordinates, we’ve got a shitload of rocks to try to move before any insurgents decide to come back up this way.”
“Good thing I’ve got this backhoe in my pocket,” Gumby joked.
Rex shook his head, but didn’t stop what he was doing. Most of the time he was amused by his friends’ bantering, but he couldn’t find one thing funny right now.
Avery was behind these rocks. He knew it. He had no idea what kind of shape she was in, but like Phantom had said, there had to be a reason they hadn’t found her body. Had to be a reason the insurgents decided to block the cave rather than simply abandoning it once they’d moved all the weapons. The only reason he could think of: Avery was still alive and they didn’t want anyone to find her.
But why?
Rex nodded at Phantom when he leaned over and grabbed another rock, doing his best to unbury the cave entrance.
It was insane, they had no idea how much debris was between them and the entrance, but Rex wasn’t going to stop until they’d made a hole big enough for one of them to climb through…or for Avery to climb out.
Soon, Rocco and Gumby joined them. The four men labored tirelessly, throwing smaller rocks out of the way, and working together to try to get the larger ones to budge. They’d been at it for at least an hour and a half, and it didn’t look like they’d made any progress. But the pile of rocks now in the rough dirt road behind them belied that feeling.
Every fifteen minutes or so, they’d all stop and Rex would call Avery’s name. He couldn’t be as loud as he wanted, because sound traveled easily in the canyons and hills, but if Avery was behind the wall of rocks, he wanted to do what he could to let her know that he was there. That she wasn’t alone anymore.
Avery’s hands shook nonstop now. She knew she hadn’t moved nearly enough of the rocks recently. She was slowing down, and it was both annoying and scary.
“Just keep going,” she said out loud, trying to motivate herself.
“On the other side of these rocks is a giant cheeseburger. No, a stack of cinnamon pancakes. An ice-cold popsicle.” Dreaming about all the different kinds of food she wanted to eat wasn’t really improving her situation, but she couldn’t help it.
She wasn’t even hungry anymore, really, which wasn’t a good sign, and she knew it. She could live for quite a while with just the water she’d been drinking, but her body would continue to get weaker and weaker with every day that passed without any nutrients.
She would eventually be unable to get up at all, and she’d just lie there. And if she couldn’t get to her water source, she’d go downhill fast. Until she simply closed her eyes and died.
That thought was enough for her to shake her head with determination.
“No!” she said out loud.
The word echoed around the cave, as if mocking her. So she said it again, louder. “No!”
Then again. “No!”
She was panting by the time she’d gotten her frustrations out. She refused to think about how fucked she was if yelling exhausted her. But she felt better—
“Avery?”
She froze.
Was she now hearing things? She could’ve sworn she’d heard her name…but that was crazy, wasn’t it?
“Avery?”
Holy shit—there it was again! And this time she knew it wasn’t a hallucination.
“I’m here!” she yelled, frantically clawing at the rocks between her and whoever was on the other side, shouting her name. “Don’t leave me! I’m here!”
Rex looked over at Phantom as they both bent to grab another rock from the pile.
“Did you hear that?” Phantom asked.
Rex nodded, and both men leaned closer to the rocks in front of them.
“No! No!”
“Fuckin’ A!” Phantom exclaimed.