Lost Contact (The Bridge Sequence Book One), Nathan Hystad [primary phonics books .TXT] 📗

hiring the guide. We need a pilot who we can trust. I know just the guy.” The sooner we started, the faster my time with Tripp would come to an end.

Hunter nodded. “See, we can work together on this. Let’s eat and discuss how to proceed in a timely fashion. You can contact your guide, and we’ll make the offer. Sound good?”

Castro was going to be thrilled to join our crew. The last time I’d talked with him, his tour business in the outback had been suffering.

“Fine.” I reluctantly let Marcus past me, and he jogged ahead of Tripp, both of them advancing toward the dining room.

Hunter’s grip held me back, and he stumbled, almost falling over. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

He grunted and righted himself on my shoulder. “I’m terribly sorry. The medication… It throws me for a loop on occasion. Do you mind staying close in case it happens again?”

He still hadn’t told me what he was dying from, but now wasn’t the time to ask. “Tripp Davis. You sure this is the right call?”

“Tripp is tougher than nails. He’s been deployed to the world’s darkest corners and returned without a scratch.”

I doubted that. The man had been a Navy SEAL, but doing whatever clandestine missions he’d accomplished under the orders of the US government would have left marks. Maybe not on his skin, but in more unpredictable recesses of the mind—not that I felt sorry for him. “If he so much as screws us in the slightest, he’s done. Understood?”

“We won’t have to worry about that. He’s being… compensated well.”

I halted before we entered the dining room, and turned to face Hunter. “If this Bridge is real—and I still have reservations, of course—there’s no amount of money to keep our secret. Tripp will use the knowledge to his benefit. I believe that.”

“Dirk…” Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry. You’re acting just like he used to. Your resemblance is uncanny. Your voice… Rex, the Bridge isn’t a lie. Your father found the Tokens, and he used them in the Case. I know this without a shadow of a doubt. He departed. And I have to find the Bridge.”

“What do you expect on the other side?” I asked him.

“Contact.”

2

The tires kicked up plumes of sand behind us as we drove from the local airport toward Castro’s home. It had been over five years since I’d visited, and I’d almost forgotten how remote he was. I admired the man for taking the plunge. He spent his days guiding tourists on exotic and adventurous treks through the main sights of Australia’s outback.

The air conditioning raged from the clunky 4X4’s vents, and Marcus played with the air, trying to make it colder. “It’s ninety degrees in December. This is wrong on so many levels.”

“If it helps any, it’s cooler in July.” I wiped sweat from my forehead and steered the rented car on the rough roadway. There was little in the way of traffic, and I raced down the street, hoping to catch Castro at his house.

“How do we know he’s even there?” It had been an ongoing complaint from Marcus after I couldn’t reach Castro on his phone.

“His reception is terrible. We’re going to find him drinking a beer on his deck.” The drive was over an hour but went by quickly as Marcus and I discussed our next steps.

“From here to Madagascar. Will Hunter join us there?” Marcus asked. A huge white two-ton truck barreled down the road, and I had to slow, craning the wheel to the left to avoid being creamed. “I’ll never get used to driving on the wrong side of the road.”

I watched the truck continue on, speeding even faster as it swerved in the middle. “It’s a little arrogant to assume driving on the right is the correct way, isn’t it?” I smiled at Marcus, but he didn’t return it.

“Sure, Rex, whatever you say.” He grabbed his phone, tapping the screen. “Should be a fork soon. We’re staying left. Looks like five minutes.”

At first, I expected to greet an envoy of vehicles, judging by the volume of dirt in the air, but with my window cracked, I began to smell the smoke. We were at a higher elevation, with Castro’s tour company at the far end of the valley. It became obvious that was the origin of the smoke. So far, there were no emergency responders on the scene. “Call 112!”

I pressed on the gas pedal, hoping the fire wasn’t as bad as the smoke it had created, but I was sorely disappointed. The flames were higher by the time we neared the structure. His house hadn’t been much more than a cabin, hidden from the sun by a rocky hill wall that helped to keep it cool. The entire building was engulfed in flames.

Marcus frantically tried to explain our location to a dispatcher, but it would take anyone a long time to respond all this way into the wilderness. There was nothing but dune fields and mesa for miles in every direction.

I clambered out of the vehicle, leaving it running, and ran toward the home. The sign near the turnoff had his business name, Tours by Castro, and I coughed from the thick smoke.

“Castro!” I shouted his name. I tried to see if his truck was there, and spotted it, along with a newer van closer to the home. “Castro!”

The fire was spreading to his garage, and within minutes, the flames jumped toward Castro’s truck, which was parked near the open door. The explosion rang out loudly through the valley, and Marcus rushed beside me, staring at the destruction as pieces of the truck landed on the shale-colored ground.

“Was it those guys in the white truck?” Marcus asked. “I gave the description to the dispatcher.”

“It probably was. I hope Castro wasn’t home.” I had a sinking feeling someone had known we were coming to offer him a job, and now he was dead.

____________

Four hours later, after being grilled by the police,