“Hard thing to get over,” he said, “when the one you brought to the dance won’t dance with you. She won’t likely forget this.”
Creed tamped down his impatience. With the thick cloud coverage and intermittent rain, they’d be losing daylight soon.
“How about that map?”
Vance yanked a laminated one from inside his rain jacket and unfolded it on a makeshift table. With his index finger he outlined the area they had cleared.
“Where do you suspect the slide began?” Creed wanted to know.
“We haven’t been able to send up a helicopter for any aerial views. Weather’s been a bitch. I’m estimating it started up here.” He pointed to a line just below the top of the mountain.
“And it ends where we’re standing?”
“For now. We’ve felt some additional debris flow off to our right. This rain don’t stop, even the area we cleared can’t be considered safe. Everything is still unstable. We tried to start in the most populated area. This thing gave way about ten-thirty last night. Some folks were already in bed.
“Houses that used to sit about three acres above slid or toppled down this far.” Again, he ran his finger over the map. “We have one house still intact. Slid clean off its foundation and rode down until it slammed into another house. But the other houses . . .” He let out a long sigh. “Hard to even recognize any of the mess. You’ve done a slide before?”
“Oso.”
Vance nodded. Nothing else needed to be said. Oso, Washington, had been one of the worst.
“Then you know what you get with these things: septic tanks, insulation, propane, a truckload of glass. A wicked brew of toxins that used to be homes.”
“What about survivors?”
“We’ve pulled fourteen. Two didn’t make it. Five were taken by ambulance. Some of the survivors are telling us they have family still in the rubble. But that’s just this area. We’re hoping you and your dog can help find them.”
Creed pulled the yellow fluorescent vest over Bolo’s head and secured it in place. The dog wiggled in anticipation. This particular vest had a strap running along the top from side to side that could be used as a handle if Creed needed to yank the big dog up and out of the muck.
“I didn’t realize there was so much gear for the dog,” Vance said from behind them, standing back but watching as Creed attached a tiny waterproof GPS unit inside a mesh pocket in the vest. It would sit just over Bolo’s right shoulder.
“Normally I’d rather not have him off leash, but in this case being attached to me will slow him down.”
Then Creed prepared himself. He tucked his pant legs into his hiking boots and ran four-inch waterproof tape around his ankles, sealing the seam. He already had on special socks that would wick the wetness away from his skin. He knew the tape wouldn’t necessarily keep his feet dry, but it would discourage snakes and other insects from climbing up his legs.
He strapped on his helmet, a ballistic shell that sat just above his ears. It was similar to the helmets Vance’s crew wore, only Creed’s didn’t include a communication headset inside. He chose to leave his gloves in his rain jacket pocket. In the other pocket he stuffed a knotted rope toy and zippered it in while Bolo’s eyes grew wide and his tail wagged. Most of Creed’s dogs were trained with toy rewards. Food was never used. Too many things could go wrong with food rewards. Last, he tugged on a small backpack with other items he or Bolo might need along their search. This particular pack had a one-snap release in case he got caught up in debris and needed to wrestle free.
Ready, he turned back to Vance. Something just occurred to him and he asked, “How did you know I was coming?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ms. Klein wasn’t on the admission list but you sounded like you were expecting me. Even knew I was a marine.”
“One of the guys told me early this morning.” He scratched at the thick mass of gray hair under his hard hat.
Creed shrugged it off. It probably didn’t matter. Instead he asked, “What about the DoD’s facility?”
“Don’t know much about it. It’s secluded on federal property. Classified crap. Nobody around here can even tell me what the facility was for, let alone how many people worked there. I’d say it’s about an acre northeast of these homes.”
“You think it was affected?”
“Oh yeah. That’s probably gone. But that late at night, I’m hoping there wasn’t anyone in there. We don’t even have it on our unaccounted-for list because nobody’ll give us any information.”
“My biggest challenge is the scent area for my dog,” Creed told him. “He’ll be confined to this area, but the scent could stretch all along the slide or at least as far as it’s been dragged. Where Bolo ends up alerting could be a part of the field, but it might not be exactly where the victim is.”
“No matter how far off he is, I’ve got to think he’ll still be saving us time.”