by Cindy Dees
A dream rolled over her, images of gods and goddesses striding forward. One of them, a beautiful blond woman arrayed in armor and bearing a sword and shield, announced in a tongue so ancient that even Naliki barely understood it, “Find the source of this new evil, then take me to it. I shall destroy the sickness that walks among you and prove that I am true. In return I ask but one boon of you.”
“Anything, Great One,” Naliki breathed.
“The old ways are lost by all but a few. Soon, they will disappear entirely. It is time to restore them.”
Naliki stared. Usually her visions dealt with weather and the fertility of the reindeer herds, or making a villager well.
The goddess continued, “Restore your people. Restore your lands. Restore the faith. We come presently, and we are the sign.”
The drum beat on, and the smoke swirled thickly, and the goddess slowly faded away. But her message did not. Find the source of the drugs and take the goddess to it.
The task was set. Naliki was the watcher. The one who would mark the coming of the gods and their sign that, at last, her people would be free.
Chapter 2
The Arctic Circle, February 26, 9:00 p.m.
The last valley the Medusas had to cross to reach their rendezvous point was a great rift gouged out of the earth by the glacier resting at its bottom. It was a sheer cliff down and another sheer cliff up the far side—not a big deal normally—but cold this extreme turned a relatively simple exercise into another game entirely.
The Norwegian Special Forces men stood back and didn’t offer the Medusas a lick of help. Which was just fine with Karen. If the Medusas were going to prove their competence to these skeptics, the less help the Norwegians gave them, the better.
She did catch a few raised eyebrows passed back and forth among Larson and his pals. Apparently, they’d expected to have to haul the women up the cliff face to compensate for lack of upper body strength in the Americans. Not. The Medusas might avoid carrying a grown man on their back for a hundred miles or pulling the same man up a fifty-foot wall, but they certainly were capable of hauling their own body weight up a cliff.
And even if tonight they weren’t capable of the feat, Karen had no doubt every last Medusa would claw her way up that cliff by her fingernails if that’s what it took to erase those smug looks from the Norwegians’ faces.
The women worked together, helping each other past the difficult sections, spotting for each other, and lending a hand when needed. They all busted their butts to make it up that cliff as fast as humanly possible, and all of them were huffing when they finally flopped over the edge onto their bellies in the snow. If that didn’t impress the Norwegians, she gave up. They’d all given the climb everything they had, and then some.
Karen caught her breath enough to lift her head and look around. An open plateau stretched away in front of her. A faint glow in the distance announced the exact location of their meeting point with Scatalone. She gathered her strength and pushed herself to her feet, and immediately sank to her hips in dry powder. Great. Leave it to Scat to make sure this last bit of trek was completely miserable.
Anders murmured something in Norwegian, and his men stopped and dug around in their packs. They pulled out handfuls of aluminum and sinew, and in a few seconds had unfolded and assembled snowshoes.
“Change in marching order,” Anders announced in English. “We go first and compact a trail for you ladies. Otherwise, it will take us forever to get to that igloo.”
Karen’s mouth twitched as she replied lightly, “If you boys are getting cold and want to hurry this along, we understand.”
Larson’s gaze narrowed, but he continued strapping on his snowshoes. Poor guy. He must be under orders to behave himself and make nice with the girls.
The Medusas fell in behind the men on the path the single-file line of Norwegians made. Karen still sank to her knees with every step, but it was a far sight better than flailing around in the deep stuff.
They reached Jack’s igloo in about an hour. Distances were bloody deceptive out here in this white-on-white world. She’d have sworn Jack’s shelter was no more than ten or fifteen minutes away.
“Who’d like to do the honors and announce your presence?” Larson asked.
Karen grinned and looked over at her boss. That one was a no-brainer. “Be our guest, Viper.”
Vanessa dropped to her knees and crawled into the tunnel that arced down into the snow. Karen heard faint voices from inside. The insulation value of the blocks of snow was really impressive.
In a few moments, Jack Scatalone crawled out of the tunnel, followed by Vanessa, whose cheeks, if Karen wasn’t mistaken, were rosy with more than cold. Ahh, true love. She was glad her boss had found it. As for herself, Karen didn’t hold out much hope in that department. What man would want an amazon of a woman who could break him in half? Case in point, she was the only Medusa to have defeated her Norwegian opponent in the ambush. How embarrassing was that? As much as she’d love to be petite and feminine and fragile, the fact was she was none of those things. She sighed. And found herself averting her gaze from Anders Larson.
“Welcome, ladies. Took you long enough,” Jack said sarcastically.
Larson spoke up. “Your team stopped to set up a little ambush for us.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot straight up, then lowered ominously. “How’d it go?”
Larson’s jaw went tight, but he answered evenly, “Had they used weapons, my team would be dead. As it is, they chose hand-to-hand combat. In that scenario, we’d be delivering them all to you as our prisoners, except for Captain Turner. I’d be dead, and I believe she’d have successfully gotten away.”
Scatalone’s sharp gaze swung her way. “Well done, Python.” Jack turned and stomped away in the snow toward the far side of his shelter. The group trooped after him, and Larson fell in beside her. “Python?” he repeated questioningly.
“My field handle,” she mumbled.
“It fits you. Beautiful creatures. Strong. Independent.”
Karen gaped. Most people assumed she’d earned the name because she was wreathed in muscles like a python. But Vanessa had specifically given her the name because pythons are beautiful snakes. Karen had earned the name the first time Jack ever called her the ugly names he now used routinely…Butch. She-man. Or her personal favorite, S.O.L. As opposed to its more traditional meaning, shit outta luck, he called her Statue of Liberty, or S.O.L. for short. But she expected he meant the other connotation as well.
The Medusas always told her to shake it off. To ignore him. Logic told her they were right. Despite her pride in her abilities she couldn’t ever quite shake her own futile wish to be small. Delicate, even.
Then Jack was talking again. “It’s too late to get started on the next leg of your journey tonight. There’s some weather moving in, and you need to find shelter before it hits. Best guess is you’ve got two hours until the harsh stuff gets here. Your tents will not be adequate to protect you. When it lets up, we’ll move out. Oberstløytnant Larson, I’m sorry to say your ride out of here tonight has been postponed. Your helicopters are socked in at Nordkapp.”
The Norwegian team groaned under its breath, but Larson answered gamely, “No problem. We’ve got our full complement of gear and we’re checked out at Arctic survival.”
She bet they were. After all, they lived and worked in snow most of the year. Why anyone did that voluntarily, she had no idea. As for the Medusas, they’d had classroom training on the principles of building an igloo and watched a video of native Alaskans doing it. The Inuit made it look like a piece of cake…which had made Karen highly suspicious. In her experience, anything that looked that easy had to be hard as hell to master.
She was right.
The Medusas flailed around for a good hour trying to figure out how to make blocks out of the light, dry, powder snow. It simply wasn’t happening. They’d managed to make one pile of snow appropriate for jumping in, but that was about it. They t
ried putting up one of the tents and partially burying it, but the weight of the snow collapsed the lightweight frame. Besides, a stiff wind would blow away all the powder and leave the tent exposed anyway. If they ended up having to rely on just their tents—assuming they’d even stand in high winds—they were in for a wicked cold night. She had no illusions about spending the night out here. Their situation could get desperate pretty fast.
The Delta Force and the Medusas—whose training mirrored their male counterparts’ as much as humanly possible—were all about realistic training. Karen had no doubt Jack would let them sit out here, completely exposed, in a blizzard, in the name of realistic training. He would intervene to prevent one of them from dying or suffering an irreversible injury. But that was about it.
Karen’s back ached and frustration burned in her gut before Vanessa finally called a halt to their futile efforts. “This is a waste of time. Anyone got any suggestions?”
Karen glanced over at the Norwegian encampment that was almost finished not far away. Each of the men had built a small, oblong shelter for themselves. “Yeah. Let’s ask for help.”
Misty piped up. “They’re gonna rub it in our faces.”
Karen nodded. “If it’s a choice between humiliation and freezing, I’m for the humiliation. Besides, part of being a pro is knowing when to ask for help.”
Vanessa shrugged. “Works for me. You ask, Python. Oberstløytnant Larson likes you.”
Karen blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“He’s impressed that you beat him in a fight.”
Karen snorted. “That does not constitute liking me. That makes me a circus sideshow.”
Vanessa blew out a puff of white breath. “Get over it, Karen.”
Karen huffed back. She glanced up at the line of clouds just beginning to scud over the moon. “We’re going to lose the moonlight soon, and that storm’s getting close. Another hour at most if clouds this far north behave anything like they do back in Iowa.”
“Go ask,” Vanessa said quietly.
Karen floundered over to the encampment to which the six men—who had scattered a little while before—had just returned. They were emptying bags of black lumps of what looked like rock into piles in front of their igloos.
Larson looked up at her and said with exaggerated politeness, “Can I help you?”
Karen sighed. “We can’t figure out how to hold the snow together in blocks so we can build shelters. Is it against the rules for you guys to help us…or at least give us a hint?”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a dry smile. “Our only rule was we had to wait until you asked for help.”
Jack Scatalone was such a jerk! He wanted to make them grovel, damn him.
Larson interrupted her murderous thoughts. “In conditions like this, the trick is to build small shelters and work with the icy crust of snow at the surface. Come on. We’ll show you.”
The men trudged over to where the Medusas waited and paired up with the women to demonstrate. It didn’t escape Karen that Larson chose to work with her. It took her a few tries to get the hang of cutting and prying up the icy sheets. She showered herself with snow a couple times in the process, which made Larson laugh. He had a great laugh. It was surprisingly friendly, with no malice to it.
He showed her how to stack the sheets of ice on edge, double-thick. She left a six-inch-wide gap between the sheets which he helped her pack with loose snow for insulation. The curving sides of the oblong, one-woman igloo weren’t too bad to build once she got the hang of it, but it took the two of them working together to lift the final piece of the roof into the center of her shelter. She’d forgotten snow could be such heavy stuff.
As she heaved on the hunk of ice, she grunted, “Last time I hefted snow like this was when I was a kid and used to build snowmen. Do Norwegian kids do that?”
He grunted back, “Yes, and we make snow angels and forts and have snowball fights. Kids all over the world are pretty much the same when it comes to snow.”
They dropped the long capstone into position. Karen squatted in the darkness, looking upward by flashlight, and Larson did the same beside her in the cramped space. “What are the odds this thing will collapse on me in the middle of the night?” she asked.
“Nil. It’s well-built.”
“Thanks.” And since part of winning over the Norwegians would no doubt include getting along with them, she added, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He nodded and said gruffly, “The last bit is to dig a tunnel entrance. Go down below the level of your floor, then back up to the surface. That will trap the warm air in here, since it rises, but still allow for some circulation so you don’t suffocate.”
They lay back-to-back and dug the tunnel, using their breath and body heat to soften the snow enough to make it packable. The tunnel was barely big enough for the two of them to squeeze through. She was vividly aware, even through the many layers of insulating clothing, how the powerful muscles in his back and shoulders contracted and stretched as he dug beside her. Was he registering the same thing about her? She sincerely hoped not.
Before long, they’d dug their way back outside. In the past few minutes the temperature had plummeted and the wind was screaming. They had to shout to be heard over its fury.
Larson shouted to her, “If you get too cold tonight, come to my hut.”
Uhh, right.
He must have seen skepticism in her eyes because he shouted, “I’m serious. If you get warm all of a sudden and very drowsy, come to my igloo. This is a killer storm. Even trained people perish in these arctic blasts. You may be out here for survival training, but we are not. We have all kinds of gear and supplies to help keep warm. Don’t die in the name of proving yourself, all right?”
A perceptive comment. She nodded her reluctant acquiescence to its wisdom.
He pulled something long and thin out of his pack and pounded it into the snow with his climbing hammer. She watched as he tied a nylon cord to the long stake and ran the line over to his hut’s entrance tunnel. He secured that end with a long stake as well, then waded back over to her. “It will go to whiteout conditions soon. As long as the string has tension on it, it’s safe to follow.”
“Got it.”
“Are you sweating?” he shouted.
Okay. Not what she’d expected him to say next. “Uhh, yeah, I guess. A little. We worked pretty hard building that shelter.”
“Go inside now. Take off all your clothes. Get dry. Don’t put anything back on until every last bit of your clothing is dry. Your body heat will build up in the hut and dry the cloth in an hour or two.”
Karen stared, slack-jawed. “You want me to get naked in this?”
A tremendous gust of wind almost knocked her off her feet and made Larson stagger. “Trust me!” he shouted. His words were torn away by the wind until she barely heard him. “We must take cover now. The storm is here.”
No shit, Sherlock. She watched him take the knee-high cord in his hands and grasp it. What was up with that? His shelter was only forty feet or so away. And then another gust of wind tore through, and she lost sight of him completely. Just like that. In an instant. One second he was there, and the next he was gone, swallowed by driving snow. Total whiteout. Wow.
Abruptly, she was so cold she could hardly breathe. Her teeth chattering, she turned around. Thank goodness she was only standing two feet from the entrance to her tunnel. She could barely make it out right there at her feet.
It was quieter inside. A deep chill hung in the air. And the idea of stripping down seemed absolutely ludicrous. One of their instructors had talked about it in their classroom training, and she’d thought it sounded crazy then, too.
She dug in her pack and pulled out the down sleeping bag they’d been issued for this training. It wasn’t the warmest thing on the planet because Jack didn’t want to make their survival training too easy. But the sleeping bag was a far sight better than nothing. She unfolded a fist-sized Mylar
blanket into a sheet that covered her whole floor. The plastic would keep her sleeping bag dry. She took off her damp boots and crawled into her sleeping bag, parka and all.
She lay there shivering until she thought she’d shake her teeth loose. If the hut was warming up, she couldn’t tell. She felt like she was lying in the anti-hell. The air was so cold it literally pierced her body with knives of pain. She looked at her watch. She’d been in here a grand total of thirty minutes.
Larson’s shouted, Trust me came back to her as she lay there. What the heck. She wasn’t going to last an hour, let alone an entire night, like this.
She crawled out of her sleeping bag and with shaking, clumsy fingers, unzipped her parka and stripped off her clothes. She laid them out on top of her sleeping bag to dry. Then, so cold the pain was starting to give way to encroaching—and dangerous—numbness, she climbed back into her sleeping bag. She pulled it all the way up over her head, and used the drawstring to draw the mummy top shut, leaving only a small hole for her mouth and nose to poke through.
And a strange thing happened. First, her damp skin began to feel dry. And then the sleeping bag warmed up a little. She actually began to regain feeling in her skin. And then she had to clench her teeth against the needle-pricking sensation of returning circulation in her hands and feet. But after ten minutes or so, she actually started to feel reasonably comfortable. Her nose and cheeks even started to feel warm. Son of a gun.
Was Larson naked in his sleeping bag right now, thinking of her?
She fell asleep wondering about it. She woke up some time later, disoriented. She was somewhere dark and confined, and she disliked both intensely. She struggled against the smothering blanket for a moment, and then realized it was her sleeping bag and she was in a hut in a blizzard in the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter.
A single thought leaped into her mind. And she’d volunteered for this?
She sat up and unzipped herself far enough to check her clothes. Dry. And the ambient air temperature wasn’t half-bad. She could still see her breath, but it was close to freezing. The walls glistened where ice had formed in a thin coating on them. She checked her watch. She’d been asleep for about four hours. Still a lot of night to get through.