Summit’s Edge

Book 9: FBI K-9 Novel

by Sara Driscoll

Genres: Police Procedurals; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

FBI handler Meg Jennings and her K-9 partner, Hawk, vie to rescue plane crash survivors from a Colorado mountain—and contend with a hijacker determined to escape justice.
 
As long as there’s hope of finding life, no mission is too dangerous for Meg Jennings and her colleagues in the FBI K-9 unit. But locating the wreckage of a hijacked private plane high in the Elk Mountains of Colorado is treacherous in a multitude of ways—some of them impossible for even a seasoned team to predict.
 
The plane, carrying the board of directors of Barron Pharmaceuticals, crashed on a rocky peak and was cleaved in two. Perilous weather means the rescuers have to ascend on foot, with their dogs unleashed in case of falls. It takes hours to locate the wreckage, but miraculously, Meg and Hawk find a number of passengers and crew still alive. The hijacker also survived, and has fled into the wilderness with the CEO’s son in pursuit.
 
As soon as day breaks, the K-9 teams set out to find both men, and the dogs quickly pick up a scent trail. Meg has used her connections with an investigative reporter to learn as much as she can about the hijacker, hoping to use it when they apprehend him. But first, they must contend with the mountain’s savage fury, and an adversary who will destroy as many lives as possible rather than face justice . . .
 

Release date: November 26, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Approach: The walk or hike to the base of a climbing route.

“Meg! Brian! In my office, now!”

Meg Jennings looked up from the report she was finishing, her gaze shooting to Special-Agent-in-Charge Craig Beaumont’s office across the bullpen. He was behind his desk, dressed in his usual dark suit and tie, his salt-and-pepper head bent, the phone pressed to his ear as he rapidly made notes.

She swiveled in her chair toward Brian Foster, her FBI Human Scent Evidence Team partner, who sat at the adjacent desk, dressed in his typical deployment-ready outfit of hiking pants, hiking boots, and a long-sleeved athletic T-shirt, his green eyes under the fringe of his dark hair narrowed on Craig’s office.

“Sounds like duty calls.” Meg dropped a hand down to rest on Hawk’s warm fur, but her black Labrador already had his head up and his ears perked—years of experience had taught him to recognize the urgency in Craig’s tone.

“Sure does.” Brian looked down at the black-and-tan German shepherd lying at his feet, half under his desk. “Lacey, come.”

“Hawk, come.”

Together Meg and Brian rose to their feet, Hawk and Lacey instantly heeling at their handlers’ left knees as they crossed the bullpen.

Meg stopped at the doorway, her hand on the jamb, waiting for Craig.

He waved them in. “Yes, I have two teams I can deploy immediately. I’ll get them on a flight directly to Aspen inside of the next hour. Denver will take too long. We might have that time, but if we don’t, we’d be delaying the search, or be sending the teams out in multiple waves.” He scratched something incomprehensible on the yellow legal pad in front of him. Wondering what was going on in Colorado, Meg tried to read his notes upside down as she stepped closer to the desk to sink into one of the two facing chairs, but, as usual, couldn’t decipher Craig’s chicken-scratch handwriting.

Hieroglyphics, as Brian would say.

She wasn’t concerned, since Craig would distill everything down to what they needed to know. And then would stay on top of the deployment, even from a distance. Her team was lucky to have such a competent supervising agent. She’d heard occasional horror stories from other units, and was thankful that wasn’t the work life their group led.

“I’ll let you know when they’re in the air. Thanks.” Craig hung up and put down his pen. “I need you guys to fly to Colorado immediately.”

“So we gathered,” Brian said. “What’s going on?”

“Plane crash.” Craig frowned down at his legal pad. “Somewhere in the mountains.”

“Somewhere?” Meg exchanged a confused glance with Brian. “How are they going to deploy us if they don’t know where we’re going? And, I mean, we’re good, but you said Aspen. Those mountain regions usually have great search-and-rescue teams, though mostly they don’t use dogs because of the terrain. Dogs can’t belay in a location where they have some of the tallest mountains in the country.”

“In other words, why us?” Brian asked the question for her.

“We’re still putting the incident together, but it looks like a hijacking.”

“Federal case, then,” Meg said.

“Correct.”

“And they think there will be survivors? When they don’t even know where the plane is?”

“Honestly, they don’t know. But the bottom line is, if I don’t deploy you now, you won’t be on-site if there are survivors. Worst-case scenario is you fly there, turn around, and immediately come back.” Craig held up a hand to stop Brian’s next question. “Let me tell you quickly what I do know, then I want you two to go home and pack a bag.”

Meg glanced at the backpack propped against her desk. “We have our go bags with us and can deploy from here.”

“It’ll be worth taking the time to pack correctly for this. The plane may have gone down on one of the thirteen- or fourteen-thousand-foot-high peaks—‘thirteeners’ or ‘fourteeners, ’ as they call them out there. It may be late spring at lower altitudes, but there will still be snowpack and it could be seriously cold at night on the mountains. You need layers, and the right kind, at that.”

“We’ll need more for this deployment than we’re currently carrying. Understood.”

“I also don’t know how long you’ll be needed out there. It might be a day or two, it might be longer.”

Meg froze in her chair. Longer? Now? When they were less than two weeks away from—

“I know,” Craig interrupted her thoughts. “We’re just under two weeks away from your wedding.”

“I don’t have any trouble with the deployment, but I can’t be out there for two weeks. I booked off next week for this exact reason. To handle the last-minute stuff here and in Virginia, and to make sure I’m clear from any deployment.”

“I know,” Craig repeated. “I have my eye on the dates. I don’t think this will go over a week; hell, you might not even be needed out there more than a day. But if it goes more than three or four days, I’ll get Lauren and Scott to sub in. They’ll be home from their water training in Louisiana by that time. And if they’re not, I’ll send them directly to Colorado.” He held her gaze unflinchingly. “You’ll be back in time.”

“She better be back in time. Hell, I better be back in time. I didn’t get ordained through the Universal Life Church so I could officiate this wedding for nothing,” Brian grumbled.

Meg patted his arm. “We’ll both be back in time. Or Todd is going to come looking for us.” She winced. “And so is my mother.”

“I believe it,” Brian said. “Your mother can handle anything. I have no doubt she could handle a fourteen-thousand-foot mountain.”

“Don’t worry,” Craig assured them, “I have this in hand. Everyone will be in Cold Spring Hollow on time, as planned, and we won’t have to send out anyone to get you. Someone else will take over for us if it runs long. Okay?”

“Okay.” Meg forced her shoulders to relax. “Tell us what you know at this point and we can be updated on the fly.”

“That call was from the Denver field office. Special Agent Corey Newall. He and Special Agent Stacey Carlisle are assigned to this case and are on the way into the mountains now.”

“How far is it from Denver to Aspen?”

“About a hundred miles as the crow flies, but three to four hours by car. It’s a four-and-a-half-hour flight for you, so you may arrive within an hour of each other. Hopefully by then, they’ll have found the plane, but weather is going to be an issue.”

“Did the weather bring the plane down, or did the hijacker?”

“Unclear at this point. Here’s what we know: It’s a twin-engine Gulfstream G800, privately owned by Barron Pharmaceuticals. The plane can seat up to nineteen people, but the manifest says it carried thirteen passengers, plus a flight attendant and two pilots. The flight plan says it was headed for Napa County Airport under flight designation BA0649. It took off from a private airstrip just north of Colorado Springs, but there was a distress call seventeen minutes into the flight. The flight attendant made contact with a Denver air traffic controller, which is the only reason we know what was going on after he called the Denver field office. She reported a single male with a firearm taking control of the plane. At least one person was dead, but she could only stay on the line long enough to report the incident, so they don’t have a good picture of what was happening. Denver tracked the plane west for about thirty miles when it disappeared from radar.”

“They think it went down there?” Brian asked.

“The air traffic controller couldn’t say. All he could say is he couldn’t track it anymore. It might have crashed or the hijackers might have taken the ACARS offline.”

Meg glanced at Brian, who shrugged. She turned back to Craig. “ ‘ACARS’?”

“They had to explain it to me too. It stands for . . . Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System,” Craig read from his notes. “It’s the system that allows airplanes to communicate with air traffic controllers on the ground, and allows those same controllers to track the flight path. When that system goes offline, a plane is essentially invisible.”

“Except by eye.”

“Right. Except when you’re in the mountains and line of sight is limited. They were already heading west, and the hypothesis at this point is they were trying to get lost in the”—he ran his index finger down the line of his notes—“Sawatch, Elk, or San Juan Mountain Ranges. Or the Flat Tops, just to the north.”

“Picked a route so once there was no way to trace via radar, they also mostly stayed out of sight,” Brian stated.

“Wait, isn’t it an FAA regulation that private and commercial planes have to have some sort of emergency location transmitter that gets auto-activated when they land with enough impact?” Meg asked.

“Yes, but they’re not picking anything up,” said Craig. “There are a couple of theories on that. It might have been removed, or deactivated. Or, because it runs on battery power, if it wasn’t maintained, it literally may be out of juice. Or the battery could have been removed ahead of time.”

“It’s accessible?”

“The whole system has to be accessible for maintenance. It’s a privately owned, corporate plane—who knows who had access to it?”

“Now the plane is lost somewhere in a treacherous area with a series of thirteen- and fourteen-thousand-foot mountains and their associated lower ranges,” Meg said. “Unless the hijacker was a pilot familiar with the area, or unless the pilots remained in control of the plane, their risk of flying into a mountain could be pretty high.”

“That’s the concern. Reports of the sound of a crash came in from the Elk Mountain area, and it seems too coincidental for it not to be from this plane.” Craig scanned his legal pad again. “Primarily around the area of the double peaks of the Maroon Bells. Problem is, that whole area is socked in right now with rain and fog—and snow higher up—so there’s no way to get air support into the area to search for a crash. Planes have gone down in the area before and there have been survivors. And if the hijacker survived. . .”

“It’s highly doubtful he’s going to sit around and wait for help to arrive to toss his ass in jail,” said Brian. “Anyone else who survives will stick with the wreckage because it’ll make them visible. But the hijacker will likely head out into the wilderness and try to get away.”

“And that’s where you come in,” Craig said. “At that point it’s not a rescue, it’s a search. The kind of search you excel at.”

Meg ignored the compliment, her mind focusing on what she knew of the geography. “I know a little about that area. Todd and his brothers are all outdoorsy types, but Luke, the youngest, likes to climb. He and a couple of his buddies have vacationed out in Aspen, and he’s told us stories. It’s a deadly area. One false move and you’re falling at least a thousand feet to your death.” A shudder rippled through Meg, and she fought hard to suppress her physical reaction. However, one quick glance at Brian told her he’d seen it. Luckily, Craig was studying his notes again.

This was going to be a nightmare of a deployment.

Brian was the only team member who knew Meg was deathly afraid of heights, though she had an inkling Lauren Wycliffe, border collie Rocco’s handler, suspected. Scott Park, the last of the handlers, who paired with his bloodhound, Theo, the best nose in the group, seemed blessedly unaware.

More importantly, Craig was unaware. And Meg had no intention of ever telling him, because it would handicap Hawk. Hawk was an amazing search dog, with an excellent nose and the kind of drive Theo simply couldn’t generate. He was an asset to every deployment. More than that, he loved the rescue life. He was in his element every time they went out on a search. Working a search lit him from the inside, and that joy was infectious. But if she told Craig about her fears, he’d only send her out on searches he deemed reasonable, which wouldn’t do. The career of a working K-9 was often limited to only a handful of years. For some, depending on how physical the work, they might see seven or eight years after training. But for the physical exertion of search-and-rescue, a dog might only see five years of intense work. Hawk had been two when they joined the Human Scent Evidence Team three years before. Now, at five, he might only have two or three work years left, maybe four if they worked hard to keep him healthy and in shape. But in the type of job where any single injury, to either herself or Hawk, could sideline the entire team, she would not allow her weakness to shorten his career. She would not snuff out that light.

She’d handled heights before: the train trestle at Monocacy National Battlefield; the terrifying walk over an I-beam above a deadly drop at the Bowie Meatpacking Plant; walking the Ocoee Flume outside of Turtletown, Tennessee; the cliff where Rita Pratt died in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area; standing on the pile, the dead under her boots, after Talbot Terraces fell. She’d do it again now.

She met Brian’s eyes and gave him a subtle nod.

We got this.

His return nod reinforced her confidence. We do.

I can do this.

I know. And if you need help, I’m there.

The smile she gave Brian was a combination of relief and gratitude. Together, with their dogs, they could work this deployment.

“There’s more information coming,” Craig said, oblivious to the full conversation passing silently between his handlers. “But I’ll have to get it to you en route. For now, I want you to go home and pack. Pack layers, pack waterproof shells; do your best to pack light because you’ll be climbing with most of it. Assume you may be sleeping on the mountain. People there will have any emergency gear you might need, but only you can pack for your dog.” His gaze dropped to where Hawk and Lacey sat, side by side, between Meg and Brian. “And they need to stay safe. We’re nothing without them.”

“You have no idea,” Meg murmured, the quick flash of Brian’s smile telling her he’d heard.

“Then get to Reagan Airport,” Craig continued. “I’ll have a plane ready for you, and you’ll be in the air and on your way, ASAP. I’ll leave it to the Denver agents to update you on the most current information they have when you land versus me updating you in the air each time I learn something. You won’t be able to do anything with the information until you’re down anyway, so I’ll leave you to rest and prepare during the flight. Agents Newall and Carlisle will meet you at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. Don’t take your sidearms; they’ll provide weapons for you, so you don’t have to take them on the plane. I don’t expect you’ll be involved in any takedowns, but I don’t want you unprotected, just in case. This is an incident where we already know weapons are involved, so let’s play it safe.”

“Got it.” Meg stood, Hawk rising to his feet with her, Brian and Lacey following.

They were halfway to the door when Craig’s voice stopped them.

“This one has the potential to be dangerous.” Concern carved even deeper lines into Craig’s normally craggy face. “We don’t know who you’re up against or what weapons they might have at their disposal. We don’t know where the crash site is yet, and that in itself might be the most dangerous aspect of the deployment. Yes, I want the person or persons responsible caught, but not at the expense of either or both of you. Or the dogs. Be careful. Be safe. And stay in touch so I don’t worry.”

“We will. Regular reports, and we’ll have our sat phones, so we’ll never be out of touch. We’ll keep you in the loop.”

“Appreciate that.”

Meg and Brian returned to the bullpen, shut down their computers, grabbed their go bags, and headed for the door.

Meg raised a hand to wave farewell at Craig, who returned the gesture. But the unease in his expression settled in her gut like a clenched fist.

This was going to be a seriously difficult deployment, and her fear of heights was only going to complicate things.

She glanced down at Hawk, who seemed to sense her nerves and was already gazing up at her with eyes full of love, his tail wagging with enthusiasm.

She could do this. She had to.

Any other alternative could be deadly.

High-altitude Illness: A potentially life-threatening illness caused by a sudden increase in altitude and the resulting lower oxygen pressure that can result in cerebral or pulmonary edema, coma, and, potentially, death.

Meg unlocked the front door and let Hawk precede her into the front foyer. The Lab immediately trotted down the hallway toward the open concept kitchen and family room, disappearing from view as he angled toward the seating area clustered around the TV.

“Hawk, buddy. You’re home early.” Todd’s voice floated down the hall.

She had multiple things to explain to Todd about this deployment, but he needed to come upstairs with her so they could talk while she packed. There was no time to waste. Lives might depend on it and she had a plane to catch.

She walked into the family room to find Todd, in jeans and a faded, short-sleeved T-shirt, comfortably ensconced in her ratty old recliner. It might look like hell, but it was the most comfortable chair they owned, and was especially loved by the men of the house.

By men of the house, she included Clay McCord, one of the Washington Post’s top investigative reporters, and her sister Cara’s partner. Cara, McCord, and their three dogs lived in the other half of the Cookes Park duplex the four had purchased together nearly a year before. Both couples were in and out of each other’s homes constantly, and Meg could count on McCord claiming her chair the moment he walked in the door if it was unoccupied.

“Hey.” Todd Webb turned as she came in, his index finger marking his place in his book—a nonfiction account of the firefighters who lived through the London Blitz and kept the city from burning to the ground, a recent birthday gift from McCord—his other hand rhythmically stroking Hawk’s back. Hawk leaned against the side of the chair in bliss. “You’re home early. Everything okay?”

“Brian and I are being deployed and I need some things. Quiet day?”

“Yeah. Kind of feel like I needed it after yesterday’s incident.” A firefighter/paramedic with DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Engine Company 2, Todd had been on duty last night when what would become a four-alarm fire broke out at a seniors’ apartment building. It had been a grueling series of rescues, repeatedly running into the burning building to carry out trapped seniors. Some had mobility problems and couldn’t manage the stairs to escape on their own with the electricity cut and the elevator locked out. Many more had gone to bed without their hearing aids, had woken late to the alarms, been disoriented, and unable to manage in the dark. Several had medical crises because of the shock of the alarm and the low oxygen in the smoky environment; so, for Todd, who wore two hats as both a firefighter and a paramedic, it had been a particularly busy night. But they got everyone out, and while some residents were rushed to the hospital, it didn’t look like they were going to lose anyone. They’d also kept the fire from spreading to the adjacent buildings. Combined, it was a win in their books.

Todd had come home from his twenty-four-hour shift at nearly eight-thirty that morning, exhausted, sleep deprived, and ravenous. Meg had stayed long enough to throw together a high-protein breakfast for him, and to get his assurance he’d eat and go to bed for at least a few hours.

Meg ran a hand over Todd’s dark hair, cut short to be comfortable under the helmet he wore so often. “You look much better after a couple of hours sleep than you did when you came home this morning. You were edging toward pale.”

Brown eyes, flecked with gold, turned up to her. “I had more than enough energy to keep going through the incident, but by the end of shift, with no shut-eye, I was pretty wiped.”

“You’re not twenty-two anymore, old man.” Meg softened the playful dig by pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Come upstairs while I grab what I need and I’ll explain. Time is tight.”

“Sure. Hawk, shift it, bud.” When Hawk was safely out of the way, Todd lowered the chair’s footrest and stood, leaving his book behind in the chair.

Meg led the way upstairs, Todd trailing behind her as Hawk shot past them both to sprint up the stairs, past the study, around the corner, and down the hallway to the master bedroom.

As they went past, Meg’s gaze dropped to the section of wall that had been repaired and repainted so the hole marking the vicious attack the previous summer was entirely erased. She didn’t think of Giraldi’s attack often anymore—she and Todd had cleansed their home of the evil that had invaded that night with the sole purpose of killing Meg and Hawk—but, every once in a while, the memory of the attack that had nearly killed her crept through. She would have died that night except for Hawk coming to her rescue at the very moment when things seemed bleakest, saving the day and helping to take down a killer.

Hawk was the best of dogs. That night, he’d given her life back to her—not for the first time—and, for that, she’d stand on a mountain beside him because it would make him happy, as well as save lives.

She walked past the spot in the hallway where she’d nearly been strangled, and toward the dog who waited for her at the foot of their bed, head held high, fringed tail waving proudly.

“Before I explain what’s going on, I want to say first I know today’s date. So does Craig. Our wedding is not in jeopardy.”

Todd sat down on the cushioned cedar chest at the bottom of their bed, his gaze fixed on her, one eyebrow cocked suspiciously. “Why do I think I’m not going to like this deployment?”

“I can tell you, I already don’t.” She pulled a duffel bag out of the wardrobe and sorted through her athletic clothing.

Craig was correct—layers were going to be key. With it being late spring, grass would be growing around trees in full leaf as flowers bloomed at lower altitudes. But above, where the winds would be brutal and the air thinner, temperatures could be easily twenty degrees colder, even more as night fell.

On a search like this, you didn’t stop when the sun went down. Any survivors of the plane crash—if they were lucky enough to survive a crash onto a mountain, in the first place—would likely be badly injured. Hours of hypothermia from being alone on a mountaintop at night could be deadly to an injured victim—especially one who was only barely hanging on. By the time they arrived in Colorado after their four-and-a-half-hour flight, they’d have only gained two hours of sunlight. And much of that sunlight, if not all of it, would be used up simply traveling to the site of the crash.

If they even knew where it was by that time.

She pulled clothes out of the wardrobe—three base layer, long-sleeved, wicking athletic shirts; an SPF 50 sun hoodie; two pairs of fleece-lined, water-resistant leggings; and a pair of waterproof hiking pants for over top.

She dropped the hiking pants on the growing pile on the bed.. . .