Cuff Lynx Read Online Free PDF Page B

all but impossible. I knew Gater wanted to jump full-body on whoever was making that woman shriek.
    Gater was tactically breathing to lower his pulse rate. I could smell the dankness around him now. Old moisture and dirt.
    I need your location, Gater.
    Gater had enough training with Miriam Laugherty that he might be able to pick up on the essence of my thoughts and offer me information in return. When I was in prison, he had worked hard to gain dexterity with this so he could find me. But on my end, working with Gater’s attempts at visualization was like deciphering a toddler’s first drawings or hearing their first words. Nothing so clean and precise as complete photographic images or full sentences. Whether he sensed my request, or he was doing what he thought might work, Gater bit the fingertip of one of his tactical gloves, yanked it off, and reached his hand out to pat over the rough surface forming a wall. Natural rock. Then images filled my mind like Picasso’s cubist paintings.
    He was remembering a field with trees in the distance. I saw Gater’s bent knees as he crouched over the muddy path, his fingers traced over a shoe print. He was tracking. It looked like a group of people had passed that way recently. He lifted his face to the sun. It shone directly overhead, somewhere around noon. He moved to a shed where the door stood open, and the floor formed the entrance of a hole.
    A new scene.
    Striker communicated with hand signals, sending two men from our team down the ladder. Two others were sent to the right of the hole; I assumed to maintain the perimeter. Gater lowered his tactical lens into place and descended. Down. Down. Down. The rungs of the ladder kept going. Gater checked his walkie-talkie read-out - no signal. He pulled out his smart phone, but it was useless at this depth. Okay, now I knew why Striker and Gater were off communications. But they should have given us a heads up and a location before they made their move. And this was definitely not part of any plan we had come up with in the Puzzle Room. What was going on out there?
    They continued downward. Even the fusion night-vision goggles were giving way with the lack of ambient light. Striker’s and Gater’s bodies emitted the only heat source around. I wondered where the other team members were; I was missing players - Deep, Randy, Axel, and Jack.
    Just as Gater released the ladder, Blaze yelled, “Fuck!” The Hummer whipped around. I was unbuckled, and the centrifugal force flung my body around the back of our vehicle. Torn from the scene Gater was sharing, I lay panting and disoriented as the Humvee wheels lifted and bounced on the right then the left before we settled.
    The back door swung open. Blaze’s stricken face leaned over me.
    “Jeezis, Lynx, are you okay?” He crawled into the back and grabbed me under my arms.
    I stared back at him. “What happened?” I stuttered out, holding my head in both of my hands.
    “I ran over a piece of metal and it shredded the tire,” he said, pulling me to him, out of the vehicle, and moving me up the hill to the woods that ran along the highway. He propped me up against a pine tree and dropped to one knee beside me, tipping my head back, and checking my eyes for dilation with his pen light. His cornflower blue eyes reflected his concern. “Did you hit your head, Lynx?” he asked as he ran strong hands over my limbs, palpating for injuries.
    “Hey!” A voice called over the construction noises. “You guys hurt?”
    Blaze gave him a thumbs-up and went back to the Hummer to change the tire. The burly construction worker jogged across the highway toward us to lend Blaze a hand.
    As I watched them, I went over the puzzle pieces. We still had almost nothing to work with. What the hell were Striker and Gater thinking, going down there like that? The only answer that made sense was that someone was in imminent danger.
    Blaze kept glancing up at me; every minute or so he’d call my