Missing (17 page)

     “Hannah, wake up. Speak to me, sweetheart. Do you know where you are? Can you hear my voice?”

     Hannah’s eyes came open again, but were very droopy.

     She tried her best to respond to their questions, but had a hard time understanding them. It was as though they were speaking in slow motion. Their voices were dragging.

     She nodded her head yes when they asked if she knew where she was.

     Then she panicked. No, she didn’t know where she was. And in her dazed state, she thought her answer to the routine question was much more important than it really was.

     The truth was, the doctor who’d asked the question didn’t care one way or the other whether Hannah knew her whereabouts. He only wanted to confirm her cognitive skills: could she recognize a question and respond to it?

     But Hannah, not knowing that, thought she’d failed a very important test.

     She lay there trying to figure out how to change her answer.

     She shook her head as vigorously as she could.

     But by that time, the doctor had gone on to the next question.

     “Hannah, do you know your blood type?”

     And she did.

     But she was now shaking her head in response to the first question she’d screwed up.

     And the doctor took that to mean she didn’t know her blood type.

     Hannah grew frustrated. She was messing this all up.

     And there was only one way to fix it.

     She tried her best to speak.

     The doctor noticed, and lifted the cup of the oxygen mask from her face.

     Hannah was able to blurt out, “B Positive.”

     The doctor smiled, returned the mask, and said, “Atta girl.”

     Two tables over, with his own team tending to him, Joel just smiled. Even though she was in dreadful shape, Hannah was still fighting.

     He knew in his heart at that point that she’d make it.

     The anesthesiologist looked down at Joel from the head of the gurney.

     For a brief moment Joel was confused, asking himself
why is this guy upside down?

     Then he figured it out and listened to the man.

     “Okay, Joel, I’ve just administered something to knock you out. You’ll be going to surgery in just a few minutes.

     “When you wake up, you’ll be in post-op, and after a time there you’ll be taken to another room to start your recovery. Do you have any questions?”

     Joel was already starting to feel woozy.

     His voice was starting to slur just a bit, and he had the sensation he had somehow had too many drinks.

     “Would you tell Hannah I love her?”

     The anesthesiologist was confused. He looked over at the other patient in the ER and asked, “Is that Hannah?”

     Joel managed a nod.

     “I don’t understand. I wasn’t aware you two knew each other. Is Hannah your wife?”

     “I wish.”

     Hannah had already proven to Joel that her hearing was superior to his when she was able to hear the rescue choppers long before he did.

     And now, two tables over, she could still recognize the sound of his voice.

     Even when he sounded inebriated.

     She heard every one of his words, and although he couldn’t see it, the words earned him one last smile.

     Then he was carted off to surgery.

Chapter 35

     By the time the bloodhound and its handler arrived at the area north of the compound, Bryan was already half a mile ahead of them.

     He’d done enough tracking in his time to recognize the signs.

     A broken branch. Shattered twigs on the ground. Rocks that had been kicked, exposing their dirty underbellies when most of the rocks around them were clean and shiny on their tops.

     The tracking he’d done to this point in his life was always for game. Mostly white tail deer.

     But he was finding that tracking a human wasn’t much different.

     The signs were the same. And in the dense forest, where one had to fight their way through shrubbery and undergrowth, seeing the pathway Sarah had left in front of him was relatively easy.

     “We don’t need no stinkin’ dog,” he muttered to himself.

     But they would soon.

     Bryan followed the telltale signs, and periodically searched the ground for drops of blood.

     The drops were becoming farther and farther apart. He saw only two explanations for this. Either Sarah was moving faster than she was when she initially started out. That would indicate that she realized she was lost and was running through the woods in a blind panic.

     Or, it could mean that her bleeding was slowing. Which would be a good thing.

     He wondered what on earth could have caused her to be injured.

     There were no signs that she’d been attacked by an animal. No indications in the clearing where the flowers were found that would indicate any kind of scuffle. No animal tracks. At least that he could see.

     And besides, nearly all the animals around these parts had died out during the freeze. Bryan could count on one hand the number of times he’d even seen animal tracks since the thaw.

     And they’d been deer or rabbits.

     And deer and rabbits were timid creatures. Certainly not the type of creatures who’d attack a human.

     Unless they were rabid.

     He shuddered at the thought.

     He was fairly positive that it wasn’t a hunting accident.

     He knew that there were hunters who sometimes scoured these woods, looking for the same deer and rabbits who’d survived the freeze.

     But no one heard any gunshots the day before.

     For a brief instant he saw a vision of a wounded Sarah, stumbling around aimlessly with a bullet wound to her chest.

     And he shuddered again.

     Then he quickly dismissed the vision.

     No gunshots meant no gunshot wounds.

     So he ruled out that possibility.

     So what, then, had caused his wife to start to bleed and wander through the woods?

     He’d have to wait until he found her.

     And he
would
find her.

     It was just a matter of time.

     Bryan was having to stop and rest more often now. His body was weak, his mind was weary.

     He started to regret spending all night on top of Salt Mountain.

     He’d sat there hoping and praying he’d spot the light or embers from a signal fire. A signal fire that would lead him directly to Sarah.

     But it was a wasted night. He never saw any fires, and looking back now, it was easy to see that he’d have been better off getting some sleep instead.

     At least if he’d gotten some sleep, he’d be more alert.

     And less likely to miss something important.

     He looked around him, and it dawned on him that he no longer had a clue where he was himself.

     In his desperate attempt to find Sarah, Bryan too had gotten himself lost.

     He wasn’t worried, though. The bloodhound would eventually find both of them, as long as Bryan stayed on Sarah’s trail.

     Bryan needed to find her first, though.

     So he could tend to her wounds.

     And reassure her. Tell her everything was okay.

     He only hoped he found her while it still was.

Chapter 36

     While Sami and Brad were still out in the orchard, still lying under their pecan tree, Karen approached Frank at the control center
annah
.

     “Frank, you must be exhausted. You haven’t slept at all since yesterday morning, have you?”

     “Not true. Not true at all. Eva made me lay down for a couple of hours early this morning.”

     “A couple of hours. Uh, huh. I’m sure that really makes a difference.”

     “It gave me my second wind.”

     “Uh, huh. And how’s that ‘second wind’ holding up?”

     “Well, to tell you the truth, it blew itself out several hours ago.”

     “At least you’re honest.”

     “Without integrity, nothing else a man has really matters much.”

     “True. Hey, what do you think about the Army’s policy not to release the names of the casualties until the next of kin is notified?”

     “I think it sucks. But I wasn’t surprised. I already knew, in fact. It was the same policy when I was in the service a million years ago.”

     “It still stinks. Do you think if we ganged up on Colonel Weiss we could get him to reconsider?”

     “Well, we’re here. And he’s right over there. Might as well give it a shot.”

     “Let’s go.”

     Weiss saw them coming and was the first to speak.

     “The man with the dog just arrived outside. My people are taking him to the place where the flowers and blood spatters were found. They said your man David was out there and would accompany them. Did you want to send someone else as well?”

     “No. We’d rather keep all our other available searchers out in the woods. There’s a chance one of them will find her before the dog does, if they’re close enough to her. If she’s injured badly, then seconds could make the difference.”

     “That was my thinking exactly. I just got off the phone with Kelly Ops. They asked if I wanted to call off our part of the search for your Sarah. I told them no, and cited the same reason you just did. We want to make sure she’s safe and back home before we wrap things up.”

     “Thank you, sir.”

     “Don’t mention it.”

     Weiss noticed they weren’t leaving.

     “Was there something else you needed?”

     “Well, yes. This Department of Defense policy about casualty notification.”

     “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t like it either.”

     “Well, here’s the thing, sir. If you won’t confirm to Sami that her father didn’t make it, she’ll be driving down to San Antonio this evening to the hospital. All the way down there she’ll be praying that it was her father who survived, and that the man on the radio just misjudged his age.

     “And she’ll convince herself that John is still alive, because… well, because that’s what desperate people do.”

     Frank looked at Karen, who took over.

     “Colonel, put yourself in her shoes. Imagine how devastated you’d be if you took that long car ride, convinced yourself your loved one was still alive, and then found out it wasn’t the case. Think of the additional pain and stress you’d feel.

     “Additional pain and stress that is totally unnecessary.”

     Frank ended their plea with, “Please, colonel. Let’s bend the rules this time and save that poor girl some pain.”

     Weiss was career Army. As “by the book” as they came.

     But he was also a human being, and a father to boot.

     “Very well. Let me see what I can find out.”

     Frank and Karen went back to their own control center and tried again to contact Bryan.

     But Bryan wasn’t answering. He hadn’t in more than an hour.

     They were starting to worry, about him as well as Sarah.

     “Gee,” Karen told Frank. “When is all this going to end?”

     The truth was, Bryan would have answered if he’d heard them. But his mind was so fried from being up all night watching for signal fires that he’d forgotten to change out his radio battery with a fresh one. His radio was completely dead.