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This time when her head hit against the side of the truck, she wasn’t sure if it was because the truck went over something, or she was hitting her head against the side in frustration.

Does it really matter?

Shifting again, her elbows found an empty spot between the wheel well and the side of the truck, and she sighed with relief. Jenny tried to think of something good. Anything good. Closing her eyes, she started to take slow, deep breaths through her mouth. In, then out.

Soon she wasn’t breathing in the scent of warm copper.

She imagined herself at the top of Duke’s Run, in Breckenridge.

She savors the cold air as she sucks it in. Jenny crouches down. She looks, and her skis are in perfect position, and her heart starts racing.

The slope stretches out before her, steep and demanding. She feels a tremor of excitement and trepidation run through her body.

It’s go time.

Her poles dig into the packed snow and she starts to gain momentum. Her breath comes in quick bursts, and she grins as she sees trees streaking by her. She feels a sense of flow, a rhythm, as she twists and turns around the obstacles in her way.

I’ve got this.

She’s in total control, her speed increases and her heart pounds as she flies. It’s her and the mountain.

Together.

She’s not there to conquer the mountain, she’s there to connect with it. The wind whips against her cheeks. She relishes the purity of skiing, it was just her.

Her body.

Her mind.

Concentrating on nothing else but the cold air, the taste of pine and her ability to navigate every twist and turn.

She nears the bottom and begins to slow. She feels the burn in both legs as she presses against the hard-packed snow. She tries to stay upright despite the pain. Her knees absorb every dip and bump. She slips in the watery snow and her head hits the metal wheel well.

“No!” she wails. Her daydream melts away.

Jenny clenches her hands into fists, doing everything in her power to stay upright and push against the truck bed so that she can get back into an upright position.

Who was that moaning?

“Hello?”

Fuck, that’s me.

“Shut up, Rivers. There’s no crying when you’re kidnapped, remember?”

“We were just brought in,” Lieutenant Kostya Barona, of the SEAL Team Omega Sky said as his second-in-command, Gideon Smith, moved to the next picture.

Brax looked up at the screen and saw a photograph of a woman who was wearing no makeup. She was holding a staff in one hand, and she was wearing a backpack. Her hair was in one of those messy buns that so many women sported these days, but some strands had gotten loose and trailed halfway down her chest.

“This is Jenny Rivers. Two weeks ago, she went missing after hiking with a co-worker, Sabina Banik, along with Sabina’s brother and sister, Ahmed and Sonia, in the Sreemangal National Park in Bangladesh. The brother was shot and killed outside Ms. Rivers’ home. He wasn’t found until four days after the hike took place.”

“When was he killed?” Brax asked.

“The authorities in Bangladesh estimate four days prior. That would be consistent with when Ms. Rivers went missing, and the hike ended.”

“Was it a group hike?” Jase asked.

Kostya nodded. “A group of ten. They talked to some of the other members of the hike, and they said the Baniks were going to drop Jenny off first since she lived in a suburb of Dhaka, and then they would proceed home to their parents' house in the city. This hike was on a Saturday, and Ms. Rivers missed work on the following Monday without calling in.”