Uncharted

by Adriana Anders

  No sign of the grizzly whose scat he’d spotted early that morning in the quickly melting snow. Good. He was bone tired. Didn’t feel like dealing with the bear. Or anything else.

  The heaviness in his limbs decided him. It was either go now or go nuts on his own.

  If he wasn’t already there.

  ***

  Leo leaned against the worn clapboard of the boathouse, keeping an eye out for pursuers while Amka fiddled with the lock. “You sure run fast.”

  “For a fat old lady, you mean?” The woman glanced Leo’s way, eyes narrowing on her face. “Lived here my whole life. I know every pothole in Schink’s Station.” She shoved hard, sending the rickety wood door flying open. “Besides, I’m not the one who spent the night upchucking in my room.”

  Leo followed her inside, caught sight of the plane, and came to a dead stop. “No freaking way.”

  “Shush. Don’t talk like that in front of Dolores.” Amka rushed forward. “She’ll take it personally.”

  “Dolores?” Leo eyed the little Piper Cub with distrust. “She’s…beautiful,” for an antique. “But I pictured something a little more substantial than this.” Had they truly just raced to this side of the lake for this? No way could she outpace a helicopter in this aircraft. It would be like trying to beat a Maserati on a tricycle.

  “Yeah, well, she’s all we got.” Amka patted the bright yellow fuselage. “I’d go myself if I could see worth a damn.” Leo bet that was true. Though she covered it well, anxiety rolled off Amka in waves. “Airfield’s due west. If you taxi all the way out to the eastern part of the lake, they won’t see you take off. Maybe won’t even hear you.”

  Leo was banking on that. She’d need the head start or she and this little tricycle were fried.

  Shoving back a wave of residual dizziness, Leo closed the boathouse door. “Could you at least have put the door back on? Or put in some windows?” She took in the floats. “Maybe some tires?”

  “Door hinges are rusted. I was gonna fix that, but then I didn’t figure Dolores would be flying anytime soon. And I’m still waiting on the windows I ordered.” Even if she had the parts, there’d be no time to replace them now. Old Amka didn’t have to say it. If Leo didn’t get there before the helicopter, Campbell Turner was a dead man, and the virus would fall into Chronos Corporation’s clutches—again. Amka ran her hands over the plane for a quick last-minute check. “Least there’s a windshield. And hell, if she had tires, we’d have to take off from the airfield.” Which would be a problem. That she and Amka had managed to get down here unseen was a miracle. Getting in the air without attracting notice would be another. “Don’t worry, taking off from water’s a breeze. All you gotta do is take care of my girl and she’ll take care of you.”

  “I will,” Leo promised as she threw her bag into the cockpit and jogged to open the boathouse door, revealing the kind of view people lost their heads over. A landscape that made women quit their jobs, leave their lives, and become Wilderness Wives. Perish the thought. She was about as far from a poet as a person could be, but even in her current rush, Alaska stole her breath.

  Nestled beside the enormous lake, this tiny settlement was nothing but a lodge and guest cabins, along with a handful of blocky wooden structures that belonged to the few year-round residents, and an airstrip, where the massive Sikorsky S-92 helicopter had touched down less than ten minutes ago. Not a single paved road came within eighty miles of the place. The nearest highway was a hundred and fifty miles away, and it took even the fastest aircraft at least an hour to get to the nearest town—which, like Schink’s Station, was the kind of dot she’d tried to flick off the map before realizing it wasn’t a piece of fly poop.

  The newly unfrozen lake’s diamond-smooth center was marred only by the occasional ripple, while the edges were jagged with piled-up remnants of what the locals called breakup. Jagged shards of ice, dark and grimy, rimmed the entire thing, creating a wall along the shore. Around it, the brown and green and white forest appeared deceptively sparse.

  Crowning it all were the mountains, bathed in light so bright, it was like a filter had been removed. People lived out there, alone in the wilderness. In the time she’d been here, she’d heard of a handful of men—some with families—who’d claimed a homestead a few decades ago. Others hadn’t even gone the legal route. They’d just…gone. She squinted. How many of them were out there now? Mountain men who’d lost their taste for civilization? She shivered at the idea. Nope.

  “Oil and gas are good,” Amka called. “Inspected her a couple days ago, so we just need to warm her up and push her onto the lake.”

  Not checking every detail herself made Leo nervous. She cast the woman a look. “You sure? Last thing I need is for one of these cables to give out while I’m up there.”

  Amka’s expression told her just how stupid a question that was. “I need you, remember? This is life or death.”

  “Right.” Leo stepped onto a float and leaned into the cockpit. “Walk me through start-up.”

  Amka pointed and talked and Leo nodded. A bird cawed overhead and while the sound was loud enough to startle her pulse into overdrive, Leo didn’t otherwise react. If the sound wasn’t man-made, she’d ignore it.

  In the distance, a low boom signaled a hunk of ice calving from the glacier and smashing into the lake a fraction of a second later. Some aspects of Alaska were painfully slow, inching forward like that glacier cutting through the landscape. Other things, though, moved quicker than blinking. Weather changes, for example, could be as treacherous as an avalanche, as devastating as one of those mudslides that obliterated everything in its path. If the weather turned tonight, she’d be stuck out there. If it turned while she was in the air, it could be much, much worse.

  A cold breeze ruffled her collar, making her glad she’d layered up. Hell, even with all these clothes on, flying this thing in the cold would be a trial.

  Focus. She was a mess after last night—no sleep, no food in her system. She was weak as a freaking kitten. She sucked in a deep, bracing breath of Alaskan air. There was a freshness to it that dug deep into her lungs, cleaned them out, and made room for more. Beneath the woody, outdoor scent that air freshener companies would never figure out was the comfortingly familiar smell of fuel.

  A scan of the horizon showed not a single cloud in the sky. “Clear as a bell out there.”

  Old Amka snorted. “Don’t you believe it. Storm’s coming in. Better hurry.”

  As if the odds weren’t stacked against her already.

  “Get Eli—” Amka coughed and shook her head. “Get my godson out and keep going east. Refuel, then head into Canada.”

  Leo narrowed her eyes. Something was off about this—beyond the obvious. “He know I’m on my way?”

  “Daisy’s working on it.”

  Daisy, her hostess at the Lodge. Geez, was the whole town involved? Had they all been sitting there laughing every time Leo’d flown Von and Ans out to search for Turner?

  Shoving back the doubt, she leaned over. “Get in touch with my guys. Don’t stop calling them. Tell ’em to turn around and get right back here, soon as they land.”

  “Yep. Like I promised.”

  Even with the reassurance, Leo had to make one final attempt herself. She pulled out her sat phone and dialed. Still not working. Had to assume the newcomers were jamming the signal. She typed out a quick message to her teammates—Ans and Von, who’d left for Anchorage that morning, and Eric, Zoe, and Ford, back in San Diego. Only Von was set to return, since Ans had gone to check out a lead in Colorado, but she figured this was big enough to warrant bringing the whole team in.

  Got trouble. Second team arrived in SS, target’s coordinates in hand.

  She hit send.

  Too bad she didn’t have the coordinates. She cast the old woman a dirty look. Nope. Around here, they flew by Visual Flight Rules—especially i
n the old aircraft. The old lady’s directions ran through her mind on a loop: fly up the river ’bout an hour, take the left fork. Not the little fork. The big one. Wait for the big one. When you get to the big kidney bean lake, you land.

  Heading out in borrowed aircraft to grab target. Due east. Will report coordinates asap.

  They’d hate that, but she didn’t have more to give them.

  Anxious to leave, she stuffed the phone in her bag and nodded to Amka, who pulled on the propeller once, twice… Leo hit the starter and the engine coughed before catching. A flock of birds took off.

  So much for stealth.

  “Hang on!” Amka climbed over to the open door and poked her head inside. “Promise me, you’ll get my godson out, no matter what you…”

  “What?”

  “No matter what you find when you get there.”

  No matter what I find? Leo’s insides did a little flip. She’d mistake it for another bout of nausea if she didn’t recognize it for what it was: foreboding. “What are you talking about, Amka? What haven’t you told me?”

  “I should also mention: you can land on ice with floats, but you need real clean, flat ice. The lake up there’ll do…” Amka’s eyes shifted to the side. “Long as it hasn’t started breaking up yet.”

  “And if it has?”

  “We’re all screwed.” Without another word, Amka dropped off the float onto the dock and shoved the plane out into the water.

  Chapter 2

  “Let’s do this, baby,” Leo muttered, applying slow pressure to the stick in order to increase the speed and push the little plane straight into the headwind. Five hundred yards. Four.

  While taking off this far east was the only option, it put Leo closer to the opposite shore than she’d like. “Come on, Dolores. Come on, old girl. You’ve got this.”

  Her eyes shot up to the evergreen wall before her, then down to the controls and back up again. She’d seen aircraft eviscerated by just the tip of a pine tree. She had to get over them. Come on, Dolores!

  Another dozen feet and she was airborne. Up, level, hanging just off the water, so low she could still jump without dying. She let the stick slide forward into neutral to get her flying speed up, eyeing that mass of death up ahead. Oh, come on.

  Man, was she bad at this patience business. The waiting and teasing and more waiting that an aircraft like this needed were totally out of her comfort zone. Especially now, when she wanted to yank at the stick and make this little lady rise.

  Back to climbing position. And climbing. Gaining on the trees… Three hundred yards, two hundred.

  Never make it.

  The adrenaline was wild. A drug, coursing through her, turning everything bright, technicolor, alive—like there were three of her inside this one skin suit. Three thousand of her. As with every risk, every painful near miss she’d been through, she loved it, lived for it, ate it up. Shivers, heat, and the blood-pumping reality of being alive assailed her the way they did every time she dared the world to end her.

  Bring it! she taunted, as if she hadn’t experienced the stench and pain of death, hadn’t soaked in its slow, inexorable ooze, hadn’t tried to stop it with her bare hands—stuffing guts back inside of friends as if their souls weren’t already gone.

  “Okay, Dolores. We’ve got this, sweetheart. Come on.” The plane took on a touch more altitude. Not enough yet, but getting there. All she could do was hope that the Chronos team hadn’t caught wind of her departure.

  But, oh man, did she love this. This daredevilry, this thirst for risk didn’t come from her; it came from out there—from the elements, maybe, the universe, or possibly even from death itself.

  Ten yards, eight… Closer…closer…

  “Come on, baby. Come on,” she muttered, firm in her belief that an aircraft had a soul.

  A final pull on the stick and the left float grazed the very tip of a pine as she soared into the sky, tilting wildly before finally straightening out.

  She turned, craning her neck to see if anybody was in pursuit.

  Nothing but mountains and river and the quickly setting sun. Had she truly made it out unseen? The chances seemed pretty slim. How long would it take them to head out after her? With no intel on what they’d been doing back in Schink’s Station, she couldn’t say. Were they five minutes behind her? Thirty? She’d never flown this blind.

  Anything could happen.

  She let out a long sigh—the only outward sign that her brain and body were buzzing like a million live wires—gave the stick an affectionate little rub, and turned into the mountains to save Campbell Turner and keep that darned virus out of the wrong hands. Again.

  It wasn’t until a half hour into the flight—without any sign of the other aircraft—that she truly understood Amka’s final warning about ice.

  Parts of the river she followed into the higher mountains looked way too close to breaking up. If the lake was melting too, she’d have nothing to land on.

  And even adrenaline junkies wanted to live.

  ***

  Elias’s phone rang in his hands. He almost dropped it, then caught it at the last minute. It was Daisy, calling from the lodge. Finally. He shoved it to his ear.

  “Oh man, am I glad to—”

  “Don’t talk.” Daisy didn’t sound like herself. Gone was her easy drawl. Instead, she was crisp, curt, all business.

  He closed his mouth. The background noise—though light—hit him hard. Music. Probably a song he’d never heard of, from some band so young they’d been barely out of diapers when he’d left. The low murmur of people talking, the loud hiss of steaming milk.

  The hum of civilization.

  “Hey, Frank!” Daisy said in an artificially happy voice.

  Frank? Why the hell was she calling him Frank?

  Something shuffled and heavy footsteps sounded. He could picture those feet tromping over worn wooden floorboards, could see the ancient rugs, and when the door toward the restrooms creaked, he envisioned the quiet, dark back hall. “Hang on, let me grab the order from the kitchen!”

  Was that yelling in the background?

  Unease tickled at the nape of his neck.

  “Thank God,” she whispered. “Tried calling you a million times. This is the first time it’s gone through.”

  Another shiver, this one deeper. “What’s up?” He had more questions—like Why’d you leave the bar to take this call? Why’d you pretend I’m someone else? And why are you whispering now? He didn’t take the time to ask them. Something was wrong. Something that sent disquiet slithering through him, while the trapped feeling welled up and moved him to the front door. Caution made him scan the landscape twice before exiting. Bo bounded happily up the steps and nudged her face against his leg. He automatically dug his fingers into her fur. It was cold on the surface, hot close to her skin. When she yipped and did her happy little pony jump, trying to get him to play, he tightened his hold, told her this was important.

  “Got trouble.”

  “Go ahead.” Adrenaline spiked through his chest. It sped up his breathing and made his gaze jump at every little sound.

  “They’re here.”

  His innards plummeted. Last year, someone had nosed around asking questions. He’d wanted to leave then, but as Daisy and Amka had pointed out, there was no point in going if he hadn’t been found.

  The muted sound of voices coming through the phone now told him that by here, she probably meant right there. “Okay. I’m out.”

  “Wait!” Her voice was a stage whisper. “Hold on.” The phone shifted. “Be right there!” she yelled. Then quietly, “They’re…”

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “They know… Helicopter landed…overheard and—”

  “You’re breaking up, Daisy.” He was yelling now, though it wouldn’t make a damn difference. “Slow
down.”

  “She’s on her way to get you. Thinks you’re—Shit!” Someone screamed in the background. Daisy’s words and the scream were cut off so abruptly, he wondered if he’d somehow squeezed the life out of the phone.

  “On her way?” he yelled, staring at the dead instrument. “Dammit!” Who was on her way? And what did that mean, get him? Help him or kill him?

  No response but the high, alarmed kak kak of a gyrfalcon, displeased at being interrupted midhunt. And then, right on time, as if he’d conjured it, came the buzz of an approaching engine—faint but there.

  He turned toward it, breathing hard, eyes wide-open, every muscle in his body ready. He should have been scared, should have worried that he’d been found, that everything would come to a bloody head, that it was over and the bad guys had won.

  But God help his messed-up soul, he felt nothing but relief.

  And, if he was honest, a guilty hint of excitement.

  Chapter 3

  Leo had been in the air for over an hour when she spotted the other aircraft.

  “Took you long enough.”

  The helicopter swooped over the western ridge behind her, blotting out what sunlight remained as it gained on her with frightening speed. There went her chances of carrying out a quick and easy evacuation.

  “I’ve seen worse,” she muttered, reassuring the plane, maybe, or herself. “Walk in the park for an old girl like you, Dolores. Just a walk in the park.”

  No way could she escape the power behind those engines. Just wasn’t possible in the tiny, ancient Cub. Oh, Dolores was quaint with her fabric-covered fuselage and top speed of eighty-seven miles per hour. She’d no doubt been a wild ride back in 1947, but she left a whole lot to be desired when it came to evasive flight maneuvers.