Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon 2)

Emerson shrugged. “No way to know for sure.”

The sound of ATVs and human voices carried from far off in the jungle.

“They’re organizing a search party,” Alani said. “They know we’re here and that we have the Penning trap. I’m sure reinforcements are on the way.”

“Bart Young is desperate,” Emerson said. “He’ll throw anything he can at us now. Soon this entire forest will be crawling with Rough Riders.”

Alani called her dad on her cellphone. “Is there a clearing where you can pick us up?” she asked. She nodded and turned to Emerson. “He’s refueled and is back in the air. He’s flying over Ola’a now. I’m going to give him our GPS coordinates so he can aim the infrared camera at our location, and you can link up to it on your iPad.”

Emerson powered up the iPad and loaded the app for the security camera.

“I hope that’s not us,” Vernon said, pointing at six human figures clustered together at the center of the image.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Emerson said.

All around them other human figures in shades of red and yellow crept around the jungle while several ATVs patrolled the perimeter.

“There must be thirty soldiers,” Riley whispered. “They’re sweeping the area.”

“My dad says there’s a small clearing he can land in two miles east of our location,” Alani said. “If we can make it there, he can pick us up and fly us out of here.”

“How will we get past the patrols?” Wayan Bagus asked.

“It won’t be easy, but with the infrared camera, we have a chance. We just have to be extra sneaky,” Emerson said.

Riley grinned. “I’ll take those odds. You have superior skills when it comes to sneaky.”

TWENTY-NINE

Riley, Emerson, Wayan Bagus, Vernon, and Alani lay facedown in the muddy rain forest, waiting for the patrol to pass. They’d come close to being discovered several times in the past half hour and had spent more time hiding in the dense vegetation than they had making forward progress toward the clearing.

After the soldiers were gone, Emerson stood up and looked at the iPad. “They’re slowly tightening their search grid, basically herding us into a smaller and smaller pen. And that’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m sure they hear our helicopter making passes and have called in one or two of their own.”

Vernon stood. “Part of the problem is we’re lugging around this here Penny trap. I’m plumb worn out,” he said, resting the trap on the ground.

Alani looked at her cellphone. “We have another problem. Dad just texted. He can only fly around for another hour, then he’ll have to go refuel.”

“That’s not good,” Riley said. “If he’s not up in the air taking infrared video for us, we’ll lose any small advantage we might have. Plus, it’s going to be sunrise soon and they’ll find us for certain.”

“Right,” Emerson said. “This isn’t working. Time for plan B. We need to go on the offense.”

“Offense? There are thirty of them, and they have assault rifles,” Riley said.

“We need to get one of the ATVs,” Emerson said. “That means we need a distraction.”

“I know what we need,” Vernon said. “We need Bigfoot. Bigfoot could distract the hell out of them.”

Everyone stared at Vernon.

“What?” Vernon said. “Did I say something stupid again?”

“No,” Emerson said. “You said something helpful.”

“So we’re all thinking the same thing?” Riley said.

Alani nodded. “It’s genius. Total typecasting.”

“He is very big enough,” Wayan Bagus said.