by Cindy Dees
She pulled on her high-tech polyester long underwear and the first layer of her clothes, a micro-fleece turtleneck and leggings. Almost immediately, she felt downright cozy. Ahh. That was nice. She pulled out her canteen and had a drink of water—dehydration was a big problem in the middle of all this snow. It took a ton of body energy to eat enough snow to stay properly hydrated—too much to make it worthwhile unless a person was in the middle of exercising vigorously. Maybe once the storm broke they’d have time to rig up a solar heater and melt themselves some more water. The days could get surprisingly warm up here in the blinding glare of the sun.
She went back to sleep, listening to the wind whistling around her.
Her watch said it was nearly four o’clock the next time she woke up. Her feet were in so much pain she could barely stand it. She tried to move them and was shocked to realize her sleeping bag was frozen solid. Panic leaping in her chest, she tried to sit up. Thankfully, she could do that. She flipped on her flashlight.
Oh, God, it was freezing in here! What had happened? And then a gust of wind blasted her and she knew. The wind had shifted. It was blowing straight in through her tunnel. Even though the tunnel took a sharp dip, forty-below-zero air was still being driven into her shelter. Now what? Should she dig a new tunnel and close off the first one? Her brain was foggy with sleep and she struggled to remember what they’d said in her classroom instruction. She couldn’t remember any references to wind shift. Think, Karen.
First order of business was to put on more clothes. She was still dry in her current clothes, so she could add more. Sitting on top of her sleeping bag, she awkwardly dressed herself. It took a long time. Too long. She was so clumsy she could barely get her parka zipped. And still the cold intensified around her.
She couldn’t feel her feet at all. She tried to crouch, to drape part of the Mylar blanket across the tunnel entrance, but then she remembered something Larson had said. It was important. But her brain refused to retrieve it. Oh. Yeah. Suffocation. Couldn’t block the tunnel off.
And then it hit her. She was being way too stupid here. And way too sleepy. Oops. Maybe time to head for Larson-land. The Norwegians would no doubt give her hell about wimping out and not being able to cut it. But a little voice of caution in the back of her head said to listen to Larson’s advice. This was his area of expertise. And besides, he was cute. Might be nice to have a slumber party with a hottie like him.
The thought startled her to momentary alertness. Something was definitely wrong with her. She simply didn’t have thoughts like that in the middle of a crisis. And a crisis this surely was becoming. Quickly.
She headed out of the tunnel and gasped as the breath was torn right out of her lungs. As she crawled into the full fury of the storm, she had to stop for a moment to stare. She could see nothing but a wall of black, not even her hand in front of her face. Not the huts of her companions, not even the spike she knew to be inches from her face. She reached out. Groped around in the dark. And found the stake. Carefully, she felt for the cord. It was taut against her mitten. Thank God.
She tried to stand up, but collapsed with a yelp of pain as she put weight on her feet. What was wrong with them? She tried again, and collapsed again. The pain pierced her thoughts, which were rapidly turning to mush. Must. Get. To. Larson.
And so she crawled on her hands and knees. It was awkward with one hand always on the string, but she struggled along. Far too many long, icy minutes later, she finally felt the second spike. Now all she had to do was find the blasted tunnel entrance. She felt around in front of her and tried to picture the location of his tunnel relative to that second spike.
There. Her hand pressed down into nothingness. She dived head-first into the tunnel. The relief from the wind was immediate. She drew a full breath. Her lungs felt like Popsicles, but oxygen was good.
“Anders,” she gasped.
A dark form in the even darker space lurched. “Karen?”
“Yeah. I think I’m in some trouble. I can’t stand up.”
Suddenly, strong hands were there, hauling her inside by the armpits. His flashlight went on, and the space went golden-yellow.
“Wow. This place is huge. You could fit three or four people in here.”
He grinned as he set to work pulling off her boots. “What’s twenty-five plus fifty?”
She frowned at him. “Uhh,” She thought for a moment. She could do this. One quarter plus two quarters. “Three quarters,” she announced triumphantly.
“Spell your name backwards,” he ordered.
“Y-o-u-r-n-a-m-e-b-a-c—”
He interrupted her. “Very funny. Karen Turner. Spell it backwards.” She made it through R-E-N-R before it struck her as funny. “Renrrr,” she rolled off her tongue like a car engine revving. She giggled at how silly it sounded.
“Your toes aren’t frostbitten yet. But you didn’t miss it by much. We need to warm them—and you—up.”
She stared in shock as he scooted forward in a seated position, yanked up his shirt and planted both her feet against his incredibly warm, incredibly hard, incredibly sexy stomach. He sucked in his breath sharply.
“Kinda like ice cubes down your shirt, eh?” She grinned.
He grimaced at her. “Exactly.”
“The wind shifted,” she explained. “Came in the tunnel. Was nice and cozy till then.”
“Ahh. Yes. That will do it. You must dig a deeper tunnel when that happens. Give it a sharper down and up bend.”
She nodded slowly. “I figured there must be something I should do about it. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was.”
“You did the right thing, coming to me.”
She wiggled her toes against his stomach and the muscles beneath the soles of her feet contracted hard. “Yeah, but now you’re going to think the Medusas can’t hack it with the boys.”
He frowned and made no reply.
Yup, she was right. Still hadn’t made a believer out of the oberstløytnant.
“Karen,” he said quietly, “I need you to start talking now. And keep talking until your feet don’t hurt anymore.”
She frowned at him. The cobwebs were clearing from her brain enough for her to reply, “But my feet don’t hurt.”
“They’re going to soon.”
And he wasn’t kidding. The agony was so intense it was all she could do not to writhe and moan with it. She’d experienced some pretty harsh pain in her Medusa tour to date, but this was by far the worst she’d ever endured. At one point words failed her and she bit down on the sleeve of her parka, which she shoved into her mouth to keep from screaming.
“Talk to me,” he urged her. “Tell me about where you’re from.”
She gasped, “Iowa. Farm. Pigs.”
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” he asked forcefully.
“No. Only child. Dad wanted a son, though. Raised me to…do boy things.”
“Like what?”
“Fishing…arrggh…hunting…play football.”
“American football with tackling?”
She nodded, in too much misery at the moment to draw breath. The wave passed. “My cousins and me. We played football.”
Larson grinned. “Is that where you learned to tackle like you did to me this afternoon?”
“Yeah.”
Over the next few minutes, she told him between gritted teeth about the house she’d grown up in, where she went to school and how to build a birthing pen for a sow to keep her from rolling over on her piglets. Anything to keep her mind off of the fire scorching the skin off her feet, layer by layer. Finally, it began to subside, and eventually, it was no more than an unpleasant itching sensation. She flopped backward onto his sleeping bag, which still held some of his body heat.
“How come your bed’s still warm?” she demanded, her mental faculties fully restored.
“Air mattress underneath it. Great insulator, air, you know.”
She sat up and peeled back the corner of t
he down bag. Sure enough, there was a thin, sturdy-looking pad under his bed. On closer inspection, it was, indeed an air mattress, but much thinner than the ones she’d seen floating in swimming pools. “Do you have a heater in here, too?”
“No, but I can build us a fire if you like.”
She stared at him. “A fire? With what? There’s no wood for miles in any direction!”
He grinned. “Back in a minute. I’ll show you.” He ducked into the tunnel and crawled back in a few seconds later, carrying several of those black lumps she’d seen his men gathering earlier.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that?”
“Reindeer…how do you say it? Turds?”
She burst out laughing. “Well, that’s one way of putting it. We’d probably call it manure in polite company. But turds works for me.”
“No, no. Women are polite company. It is reindeer manure.”
This guy’s ingrained chauvinism was going to be a bear to overcome. “I gather we’re going to burn said manure?”
He nodded. “What direction is the wind blowing from?”
She pointed to the right side of his shelter. The two of them cleared the downwind side of the hut of his gear. He pulled out a metal tube about the diameter of her forearm and maybe eighteen inches long. She watched, bemused, as he poked it through the wall of his igloo at an upward angle and shook out the resulting plug of snow. He placed one of the reindeer chunks beneath the end of it and pulled out matches.
“This stuff lights easily. Contrary to popular belief, arctic climates are really quite dry. This stuff is completely desiccated within a few hours of being…deposited.”
Her lips twitched at how delicately he’d put that. Indeed, the black lump was very dry and began to smoke right away. It gave off a small flame in under a minute. Within several minutes, the chunk glowed red, and gave off a ton of heat. Enough that she started stripping off layers of clothes to avoid sweating. She’d learned that lesson already. Sweat equaled wet, and that was mucho bad out here.
He sat back, studying her intently.
“What?” she finally blurted as his continued perusal made her uncomfortable.
“I was trying to figure out if you look more like Lauren Bacall or Ingrid Bergman.”
She blinked, startled. She shared both women’s wavy hair, light eyes and rather patrician, classic features, but she didn’t consider herself anywhere near as beautiful as either actress. “Me? Ingrid Bergman?” she scoffed.
“Yeah,” he replied gruffly.
She laughed. “In a Xena, Warrior Princess, sort of way. Put me in green camo paint and I’m the Incredible Hulkette.”
He frowned, but said nothing in response. Heat and silence built up inside the igloo. Finally he murmured, “Hungry?”
“No, thanks. I ate earlier. And we’re supposed to be surviving with our own supplies out here. As it is, Jack’s going to ream me out royally for coming over here to you.” A sudden and supremely irritating thought occurred to her. “Does Jack have all this gear, too? Air mattress and subarctic sleeping bag and fire capacity?”
“Of course.”
“You’re sure?”
“I helped him pack it myself.”
Karen’s eyes narrowed. “So, while he’s all nice and cozy, we’re supposed to ride out this storm with the bare minimum gear to stay alive?”
Larson frowned. “He did insist on realistic training. You did the right thing to come to me, though. You were legitimately in trouble. I must say, I think your instructor is expecting far too much of you all to throw you out here in a storm like this.”
And then he made the colossal mistake of adding, “After all, you’re women.”
Chapter 3
Karen froze. Blinked slowly. Said carefully, “Excuse me?”
“Women don’t belong out here in an environment as harsh as this. It takes tremendous strength and stamina to survive in the Arctic.”
Wrong thing to say to a Medusa. The past twenty-four hours of humping across the Arctic, setting a perfect ambush, and climbing a damned mountain in the dark and cold hadn’t made any impression, eh? Karen began yanking on her clothes. Donned her boots and parka. Said stiffly, “Thank you for taking care of my feet and for the suggestion on digging my tunnel deeper.”
“Is everything all right?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes, everything’s fine. I’ll just be heading back to my shelter, now.”
“You can stay here if you like. It’ll be warmer.”
“No, thank you. I’m here to experience Arctic survival. Air mattresses and fireplaces don’t qualify, I think.”
“Do you want me to walk you back to your hut?”
“No,” she answered a little sharply. He didn’t get it. He had no idea how seriously he’d just stepped over the line. What in the hell did he mean by that comment? After all, you’re women. Of course it took tremendous strength and stamina to survive out here! Who the hell did he think the Medusas were? A knitting circle? She’d had no patience with condescension from American soldiers, and it turned out she had no patience for it from a Norwegian, either.
She crawled outside. The storm had abated, at least to the extent that she could make out the other lumps of the Medusas’ and other Norwegians’ shelters. But then the wind gusted again, and visibility dropped fast. Boy, this weather was changeable! She wasted no time following the guide rope back to her igloo. She crawled inside her tunnel and redug it at a much sharper angle. And sure enough, as she packed snow from the newly dug floor against the ceiling, the wind diminished and finally disappeared.
Just to be safe, she stripped off all her clothes again when she was done with the job to let any hint of moisture evaporate from her skin. And again, she warmed up as soon as she did so. She pulled on her long underwear and crawled back into bed.
Sleep was a long time coming, but, she was reasonably comfortable when it did. Women, indeed. She’d show Anders Larson a thing or two about what women were capable of.
The Arctic Circle, February 27, 10:00 a.m.
Over the next couple of days, Jack summoned them by radio to come out for training whenever the storm let up. Larson and his men taught them how to make solar snow melters out of their Mylar survival blankets and how to cut slits in strips of leather for makeshift sunglasses that would protect their eyes from snow blindness. The incredible glare of the sun off miles and miles of white snow could severely sunburn a human’s cornea in a matter of hours.
It was hard to tell what the Norwegians thought of the Medusas. Like most Special Forces operators, they held their cards pretty close to the chest. But Karen thought she detected a certain thawing in their attitude. And they didn’t laugh at the Medusas anymore. At least, not much.
Karen was on the verge of going stir crazy staring up at the blue-white ceiling of her tiny hut in the late morning of training day four when the storm finally let up. Vanessa called over the radios for the Medusas to assemble outside in five minutes.
Hallelujah. Something to do. Karen suited up and crawled out of her shelter. It was noticeably warmer than yesterday. She estimated the temperature was all the way up to zero or so. And more to the point, the sun was shining. The storm had broken.
Jack stood beside his shelter, chatting with the Norwegians. He looked downright chipper this morning. Drat. That never boded well for the Medusas. He announced briskly, “There’s been a change in plans. Oberstløytnant Larson will fill you in on it.”
Karen’s eyes narrowed as the Norwegian stepped forward. “Based on our initial report to our superiors on your performance, our headquarters would like to continue observing your training exercises. To that end, the FSK—the Norwegian Defense Special Command—will be participating in your ongoing training henceforth.”
What the hell did that mean? Had they liked what they’d seen enough to want to see more? Or did it mean they had yet to see anything that convinced them the Medusas were competent enough to work with?
Karen groaned under her
breath. Yippee. More making nice with male chauvinist pigs. After Larson’s unfortunate slip of the tongue, she’d pretty much been able to avoid any contact with him. But whether or not she could keep that up over the next several weeks was anybody’s guess.
Jack picked up the narrative. “Most of our Norwegian colleagues will be leaving shortly. They will be flown across to the mainland where they will establish a covert operations post. Your job, ladies, will be to locate their position and disable their outpost.” He added slyly, “Without getting your butts kicked this time.”
Karen ignored the jab. After all, the Norwegians had walked right into the ambush. Had the Medusas used weapons, they’d have killed all the Norwegians where they stood. To Jack, she said, “Define disabling their outpost.”
Jack grinned at her. “Don’t blow it up. At least, not with anyone inside.”
The Medusas nodded casually while the Norwegians looked faintly alarmed.
“Oh, and Oberstløytnant Larson will be staying with you ladies to act as an observer. He is not to be regarded as a member of your team for planning purposes.”
Karen spoke up. “What guarantee do we have that he won’t act as a spy or saboteur on behalf of his men?”
“You have my word on it,” Larson said a bit sharply.
Karen looked him square in the eye, intentionally took a moment to weigh his words, and finally drawled, “I’ll hold you to that.”
His eyes narrowed, but he made no reply.
Out of the corner of her eye, Karen thought she saw Jack’s mouth twitch in amusement. Jerk. In fact, all men were jerks.
Oslo, Norway, March 2, 7:00 a.m.
Detective Jens Schumacher looked around the crime scene dispassionately. Gad, what a lot of blood! It sprayed the ceiling, ran down the walls and soaked the carpets at the entire far end of the room. Krag had really done a number on his boss.