Chapter 5 - THE TRUCK IN THE RAIN
Captain Inés Varela reached the observatory with two Civil Guard vehicles and a park veterinarian named Leila Moreno. She listened to Alba before she spoke to anyone else.
The girl identified the gray-jacketed shooter and described the truck's cage without prompting. Inés sent one officer to remain with her while the others traced the logging road.
Leila examined Alba's ankle under a vehicle lamp. Nothing seemed broken, but it needed support and an X-ray in town. Daniel wanted to take her immediately.
Alba insisted he show Inés the switch that controlled the culvert. "You came for me," she said. "Now help her." She meant the lioness.
Maya gave Inés the S-17 module in its sealed pouch. The captain documented the handoff, photographed the engraving, and requested a warrant and specialist animal-transport team.
They had an armed shooter and a kidnapped child; the unfolding criminal investigation gave them cause to secure the site while the formal searches proceeded.
The truck had left twin grooves where its tires slid through mud. The male lion's prints appeared beside them for almost a quarter mile, then veered toward a stream.
Leila warned that no one should follow him on foot. A hurt lion protecting a cub could charge without warning, even after the strange truce on the cliff.
Inés placed Alba in the rear of the medical vehicle with an officer and asked Daniel to choose. He could accompany his daughter to the hospital or guide the search through the forest.
Daniel looked at Alba. She squeezed his hand and told him she wanted him at the hospital. He gave Inés the map and climbed in beside her.
Maya stayed because she could identify the photographs and had seen the truck leave. Leila rode beside her in an off-road vehicle driven by an officer. The night road twisted between soaked pines.
At every bend, branches lashed the windshield, and beyond the beams lay terrain steep enough to hide a truck.
A short burst of radio traffic revealed the medical vehicle had cleared the western barrier. Daniel called from its passenger seat to say Alba was talking steadily.
He also remembered a disused quarry spur off the logging road. It had once served the observatory during construction and still connected to an airstrip beyond the ridge.
They found the spur behind a sliding bank of gravel. Fresh tire marks crossed a shallow ford, and a wheel had struck a post hard enough to scatter paint.
Inés stopped the convoy before the open ground. Through night binoculars, Maya saw the refrigerated truck parked beside an old quarry office. Its engine ran to power the cooling unit.
Two men stood near the cab. Valdés, the owner of Ebro Wildlife Recovery, joined them under an umbrella.
Maya knew his face from a brochure she had seen in the office: a polished donor photographed with rescued birds.
In the rain, he looked smaller, impatient, and determined to leave before the southern road closed.
Leila spotted movement at the treeline. The father lion crouched there, shielding the cub with his body. Both animals were dangerously close to the truck. Inés radioed her officers to hold their positions.
A rushed arrest could send the suspects firing, the lion charging, or the truck accelerating with a sedated animal inside.
Maya zoomed her camera toward the cargo door. A handwritten shipping label read SOUTH DEPOT, FLIGHT 06:10. Below it was another code: S-16.
The lioness was not an unidentified rescue in the manifest; she was a numbered shipment. Maya passed the camera to Inés, who photographed the screen for the case record.
Valdés received a call and began shouting at his men. "Serrano said the witness was secured." Then he saw headlights approaching from the observatory side.
One of his men ran to the office carrying a hard case. Inés knew the others could disappear through the quarry tunnels if her team waited much longer.
She split the officers between the entrance and the old service track, leaving Leila and Maya behind a vehicle. Across the clearing, the truck driver moved into the cab.
Inés called through a loudspeaker for the engine to be turned off. The driver's hand froze on the wheel. Valdés threw his umbrella aside and bolted into the quarry office.
The gray-jacketed shooter emerged from behind the truck and aimed toward the officers. A Civil Guard vehicle light flooded him. He dropped his rifle and raised his hands.
From the trees came a low growl; the lion had moved closer. Leila fired a noise deterrent away from the animals, giving the cub room to retreat.
The driver panicked and lurched forward. His wheels spun in the mud. He reversed, clipping the office wall, and the truck's rear door flew partly open. A cage rattled within.
Maya heard a dull thump and pictured the sedated lioness sliding against steel. Leila ran toward cover with her medical bag ready.
Inés ordered the driver out. He escaped through the cab door and surrendered before the truck could move again. Officers secured him, then checked the cargo door from behind a shield.
The lioness lay in a ventilated crate with a monitoring tag. She was breathing, but her sedation needed urgent assessment.
The male lion stepped into the open as the officers approached. Every person stopped. His mane was soaked, and the cub waited at the trees.
Leila readied a dart calibrated for an adult lion, but did not fire. The father stood where he could smell the cargo, refusing to give up the ground between them.
Inside the quarry office a motor started. Valdés had found an old electric rail cart in the service tunnel. Its wheels screamed against iron.
Inés sent two officers around the building while keeping the animal team behind cover. Maya saw a loose cable hanging from the crate's lock, bright in the headlights.
The male lion pressed his nose near the truck and made a sound Maya had never heard from him, low and searching. From inside came a weak answer.
Leila told Inés the animals needed separate, controlled containment before the crate could be opened. Maya stepped back, camera lowered. At last the family was within hearing distance.
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Then the quarry lights went out. The cooling unit died with them. Through the dark office window, the rail cart's lamp vanished into the mountain, taking Valdés and whatever he had carried underground.
Inés raised her radio. The truck was secured. The evidence in the hard case was still moving away.
