Christ, she was glad there wasn't going to be another horror piled on top of this one.

"Stop looking at it," Sarah called back to her. "Take those photos."

Sure, take the pictures. Ignore the fact that there might be more people alive under those rocks.

"Promise me," Sarah said.

"I promise. I'll take the damn photos. I'll get them and send them out today." She grabbed her shovel, which was leaning against the trailer. As Sarah had said, there was still light and the job on this side of the gorge was monumental. "But not now. I can't do it now…"

It was late afternoon when Alex stopped working and went back to the trailer to get her camera.

She'd cut it close and she'd have to work fast to get the photos before dark. Well, if she didn't get all she needed she'd improvise.

A helicopter was descending at the first-aid tent a few hundred yards away from the trailer and she waved at Ken Nader, the pilot, as he got out of the aircraft.

He waved back and called, "I brought you that special lens to replace the one you said you damaged."

"Thanks. I don't need it right now. I'll be over later to get it." She turned and started up the hill.

The hillside was still crawling with men and women carefully picking away at the rocks. She'd gotten to know a few of them this week as they'd worked side by side. Janet Delsey was a resident of the town that had been buried beneath the landslide. She'd been in Denver when the tragedy happened. She worked in the local library, and her parents had not been found yet.

Alex focused and took the picture.

Bill Adams was a truck driver who had been passing through when he'd heard about the dam. He'd parked his rig and volunteered to help.

She snapped the picture.

Carey Melway was a college student, full of idealism and hope, who had come down from Salt Lake City. Alex had watched him change from a kid to an adult in these last few days.

She took the picture.

She took four rolls of film in the next hour. The volunteers, the canine rescue teams, the flooded gorge.

"You left it a little late." Sarah was carefully making her way down the side of the mountain, followed by Monty. "Are you going to have enough material?"

"Too much." She looked at Janet Delsey again. "Do you think she has any chance of finding her parents alive?"

"A chance, if we can get to them in time. At least this isn't a mud slide. There are pockets of air beneath those rocks." She motioned for Monty. "I have to get down and feed him his dinner and vitamins. Are you almost finished?"

Alex shook her head. "I've got most of the human-interest shots, but I need a photograph that tells the big story, the scope of the rescue operation."

She waved her hand. "Good luck. You'll need it."

Sarah was right. It was difficult to encompass the full depth of a tragedy when you were on top of it.

On top of it.

Her gaze flew across the gorge. The terrain was higher there and it probably afforded a view of both the flooded valley and the workers laboring on the landslide. Sarah had said they were ninety percent sure the ground over there was safe. If she could get across the gorge.

She couldn't walk across it or swim across it. Which left only one other means of transportation.

She turned and hurried down the slope toward the firstaid tent.

The helicopter circled and then dipped closer to the trees. "If that ground looks even a little wobbly, I'm not leaving you here," Ken Nader told Alex grimly. "You got the aerial shots. That should be enough for you. I don't know why I let you talk me into this."

"Because you're a good guy and you knew I had to have these pictures. And you can see it's safe here. The worst that can happen to me is if I fall down that slope into the floodwaters." She grinned as she stowed her camera in her backpack. "And if I'm that clumsy, then I deserve to drown. Just go back to the first-aid tent in case they have an emergency and pick me up in an hour."

"You'd better be here." He set down in a glade in the trees. "I don't like this, Alex."

"It will be fine. I'm not stupid. I don't take chances." She jumped out of the helicopter. "Thanks, Ken." She adjusted her backpack with her equipment, waved, and turned away. "One hour…"

It took her fifteen minutes before she could get out of the forest and start climbing the hill toward the huge red rock on the pinnacle she'd seen from the other side of the gorge.

The sun was going down and twilight was hovering. Hurry. Get up there before it's dark.

She was quickly loading and adjusting her camera in the last few minutes before she reached the pinnacle.

Now, if she had enough light…

Oh, my God.

The entire valley was spread before her. The tops of houses drowned in the floodwaters below. Moving lanterns and floodlights dotted the site of the landslide. Men and women looking small and helpless as ants trying to stop the death and destruction.

She drew a deep, shaky breath, raised the camera, and took the picture.

Then she took another and another.

She didn't stop until it was fully dark and she could see only the lanterns and floodlights.

How long had she been here? she wondered as she repacked her equipment and started down the hill. Probably too long, but she hadn't heard Ken's helicopter, so she still had time to get to the glade. He'd wait anyway. In spite of his threat, he wouldn't leave her there.

Her pace quickened when she heard the rotors of the helicopter. Strange, she hadn't seen the aircraft lights when she'd been looking out over the gorge. She supposed it could have been circling and come in from the east, but she couldn't

"There's Powers. Hurry up, for God's sake." A man's voice, harsh, rough, coming from around the turn on the trail ahead.

She stopped in surprise. What the hell? It couldn't be a camper in this time of crisis, but it could be one of the engineers or scientists who had been examining the remains of the dam. She slowly moved closer.

"That's it. Let's go." Another voice, deeper, guttural. "Keep your flashlight on to guide him in."

The helicopter was louder, descending, almost overhead.

Still no lights.

Something was definitely not as it should be.

She edged into the trees as she rounded the bend. Two men were standing in the clearing where Ken had dropped her, their flashlights held shoulder-high. A helicopter was now hovering close to the ground.

As it landed, a bright light pierced the darkness. Her gaze flew to the sky. Ken's helicopter. The other helicopter had been so close she hadn't noticed the sound of Ken's approach.

But she saw it now. Ken's lights beamed down on the helicopter and the men on the ground, lighting the glade with daylight clarity. It illuminated not only the men's features but the rage and the fear in their expressions.

One man was shouting at the pilot. She couldn't hear the words, but she saw the pilot lift a rifle.

My God, he was pointing

A fiery explosion lit the sky as the bullet hit Ken's helicopter's gas tank.

"No!" She didn't know she screamed the word until the taller man whirled to face the trees where she was standing.

She ran.

She heard an oath and then a crashing in the bushes behind her.

She zigzagged through the trees.

Don't go up the trail. She'd be trapped on the pinnacle.

Down the slope toward the flooded valley.

A bullet whistled by her ear.

They were closer.

Her chest was heaving as she struggled for breath.

The slope was steep here, and she lost her footing and slid ten feet down the incline.

"We don't have the time. Powers wants us out of here. Get back to the helicopter and let it bury the bitch."

She risked a look over her shoulder as she got to her feet. The men had turned and were climbing back up the slope. Then they were out of sight.