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Giant eagles swooped overhead; their beating wings hid the sun.
Wolf’s head snapped up. His eyes blinked rapidly at the bright daylight. Remnants of the dream disoriented him. He remembered eating an energy bar and leaning against the warm boulder. His watch confirmed he’d dozed for half an hour.
The sun vanished, and a small engine sputtered. What the hell? It sounded like a lawnmower buzzing overhead. He searched the bank above, then the sky. The soaring object resembled a prehistoric bird. Its bright red wings, at least twelve feet across, rippled with the air turbulence.
An ultralight.
He’d seen them before, playing in the foothills’ uncrowded skies. He smiled. The construction looked like an ill-advised marriage between a moped and a butterfly. When he quizzed a pilot friend, he learned ultralights were considered vehicles, not planes. No license required. The powers-that-be must figure a crash would only kill the attached daredevil.
He edged into the forest canopy’s cover. Though certain the authorities hadn’t commissioned an ultralight search, it seemed prudent to stay out of sight.
The blood-red craft rode an air current upward, then dipped and glided down the face of the mountain. The mewling of a second pint-sized motor startled him. Another ultralight? Golden wings floated into the airspace, answering his question.
He stretched. Time to get back to Ray. He’d left his uncle napping in a pup tent. “We need sleep,” Ray advised. “Won’t get any shuteye tonight.” He expressed confidence the Jeep and his lean-to would remain undetected.
Wolf forsook sleep to hike to the petroglyphs and mark a path he could follow after dark. With no marked trail, he needed daylight to reconnoiter. As the visual reference points of ridges and outcroppings verified his position, he tied branches with reflective strips from a roll of neon flagging his uncle kept in his camping gear. The markers would guide him on the trek he hoped to make at midnight—if he was still alive.
His daytime sortie was a form of insurance. No matter what happened, he needed to warn Riley that Onward’s threatened graduation attack was real. His pulse quickened as he pulled a pen and a scrap of paper from his backpack to scribble Tom’s intel:
Onward has explosives. Trikes—motorcycles with sidecars?—may be used for delivery. An outsider is paying Onward to attack BRU’s commencement. Threats against other colleges are decoys.
Wolf stuck the note in a plastic sandwich bag and wedged it beneath a flat stone. He looped neon tape around the rock to draw Riley’s eye. Few people hiked here. He doubted an unsuspecting eco-tourist would uncover the parcel in the next twenty-four hours.
If all went well, he’d provide Riley with more details. Maybe even deliver the information in person. But a back-up plan was only prudent.
In case his nighttime vigil at the Onward camp was a bust.
In case he didn’t live past midnight.
In case he never saw Riley again.
If she heeded his text, Riley or someone she trusted would visit the petroglyphs tomorrow—Friday. It buoyed his spirits to know that whatever happened, Tom’s information would help protect BRU from these bloodthirsty cretins.
A motor buzzed. The golden-winged ultralight. Wolf slipped into the woods and retraced his steps along his trail of glow-in-the-dark breadcrumbs.