by Cindy Dees
He grinned at her unrepentantly and pulled on a sweater, boots and parka. “I’ll be back in ten,” he murmured on the way out.
Misty commented as the door shut behind him, “That is one fine example of Y chromosomes at work.”
The other women agreed. And—crap—all looked over at her. Karen shrugged. “Okay, so he’s a hunk.”
“Anything else?” Aleesha asked.
“No! And even if there was something between us, it would be none of your business,” Karen groused.
Aleesha laughed warmly. “Ahh, you gots it bad, girlie. Bit wit’ de love bug. Heart a goin’ pitter-patter.”
“I do not love Anders Larson.”
The other women laughed. She might think of these women as sisters, but sometimes they got on her nerves like sisters, too. Karen unzipped her sleeping bag and threw it open. Damn, it was cold. She ducked behind the reindeer skin in the corner to use the chamber pot and then hustled into her clothes, doing her best to ignore the banter about her and Anders from her teammates.
It was an eternity before Anders finally knocked on the door and rescued her from the other Medusas. She was actually grateful to head outside and trudge across the camp in frigid conditions to speak with the siida-isit if it meant escaping their humor at her expense.
Karen stepped into the chief’s hut while Anders held the door for her. Several men sat around a fire eating what looked like power bars. As soon as she sat down, one was offered to her. Yup. A peanut-butter protein bar. Nothing like a little incursion of the twenty-first century into this native culture. Lest she forget entirely where she was, however, she was also offered reindeer jerky and a bowl of something white and lumpy that smelled suspiciously like seal blubber. Eeyew. She declined the blubber politely and stuck with the jerky and the power bar.
While she chewed, Karen pondered the best approach to take with the tribal elders seated across from her. Finally, she said, “I understand you’re reluctant to rejoin the main village.”
Anders translated quietly for her.
The chief nodded. “The hunting here is good. We must feed not only ourselves but much of the village with what we take.”
“Can you not hunt near the village?”
The old man’s eyes widened slightly. He’d caught the fact that a little harder tone had crept into her voice. “Aye, Golden One, we can. But there is rarely game so close to humans.”
Time to play the supernatural card. She took a mental deep breath. Man, this went against the grain for her. She said reluctantly, “What if I tell you there will be plenty of animals to hunt near the village if you return to it?”
All the Samis’ gazes went wide at that one. She’d just put their faith in their own mythology to the test. She called upon her training in effective lying and looked the chief square in the eye. Held his gaze steadily. Easily. Confidently.
The siida-isit looked away first. Bingo. He’d bought it. Anders turned his head so the others around the fire couldn’t see his face and briefly raised his eyebrows at her. He, too, had read the chief the same way.
“Honored siida-isit,” she said gravely. “My request is a matter of life and death. If you stay here, I foresee a tragedy befalling your people. But if you do as I ask and return to the village, I promise, the spirits of your warrior gods will be with you and you will know great success in the hunt. There will be food aplenty for all in your village.” Even if she had to buy a couple tons of supplies and ship them in at her own expense, dammit.
The siida-isit considered her in silence. He, too, was accomplished at putting a person on the hot seat to see if they’d squirm. She schooled her muscles to relax. To be still. C’mon, buy the explanation. She’d shot her wad. If that line didn’t work, she was pretty well hosed. She’d hate to have to force these people to move, but she would if she had to. She was absolutely certain, down deep in her gut, that it was not safe to stay this close to that cabin full of armed drug makers.
Anders said something soberly to the chief in the Sami tongue and received a surprisingly lengthy answer back.
Karen muttered, “What did you say?”
“I said the Golden One has spoken and asked why they hesitate.”
“Good grief, you make me sound like a high priestess or something.”
“That would be the idea,” he replied dryly.
She huffed. “I don’t like this.”
He drilled her with a hard look. “Your idea. Not mine.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she groused under her breath. “What did the chief say back to you?”
“I’m not sure. Something about getting word last night that their young men are getting worse. Your intervention is needed urgently.”
Karen frowned. “What’s that all about?”
“No clue.”
While they were having their murmured exchange, the Samis were having a whispered one of their own. The chief met her gaze for a moment but then bowed his head. “It shall be as the Golden One decrees. We return to the village. Tomorrow.”
“Today,” Karen retorted.
The men looked startled.
“How long will it take them to break down the village?” she asked.
Anders asked the question and relayed the answer. “Four hours or so. Will that be acceptable to the Golden One?”
Karen nodded. “Impressive. That’ll be great. I’ll go tell my…” what to call her teammates? “…companions to prepare for the journey. If there is anything we can do to help you, let us know. And thank you for your cooperation.”
The siida-isit nodded regally.
God, she felt like a heel for tricking him like this. But it was for his people’s own good. The Samis would be in real danger if they stayed out here undefended. She rose to her feet, uncomfortable sitting there wallowing in her lies any longer.
Northern Norway, March 4, 4:00 p.m.
Karen felt a hundred times better with actual bullets in her weapon, even if it was a Second-World-War surplus rifle. It had taken her most of the four hours while the Samis packed to fix it. They didn’t have enough ammo to do much test firing once she and Kat repaired the last two rifles, but the weapons were safe, properly sighted and fired reasonably true.
A thin line of red fury lined the western horizon where the sun was just skating sideways behind the mountains. Darkness would come quickly now. She looked down the line of sleds pulled by reindeer. The Sami people looked like bears in their bulky fur coats. But at least they looked warm. Which was more than she could say about herself. She was cold yet again. After this training was over, she was going to go sit on the hottest beach in the hottest sun she could find for a good long time.
“Python, take the north flank. We’re getting close to the cabin.”
In point of fact they were actually a couple miles from the drug lab. But, based on what the Samis were telling them of the route the group needed to take through the mountains to reach the village, the caravan was approaching the trail’s closest point to the lab.
“Look sharp,” Vanessa murmured to her off microphone. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Karen nodded at her boss to acknowledge the comment. The Medusas were big believers in listening to their intuitions. Their gut feelings had helped them anticipate trouble on more than one occasion.
Karen touched her mike button. “Mamba, are you getting any of your voodoo warnings?” Aleesha was famous for her intuitions of when trouble was coming.
“Me belly’s a rumblin’ all right.”
Katrina, uncharacteristically, spoke up, too. “The back of my neck’s itching. I don’t like this. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
Karen looked at the mountain peaks towering over them like dark sentinels. It would be so damned easy for a sniper to sit up there on one of those peaks and pick people off out of this caravan. Ideally, the Medusas would clear each of those peaks before the caravan passed it, but it just wasn’t possible. The snow was too deep, the mountains too steep, and the reindeer movi
ng too quickly for the Medusas to get ahead far enough to clear the route that thoroughly.
Fortunately, the Samis took breaks now and then, and that gave the Medusas a chance to get a little ways ahead and have a look around. Now was one of those times.
“Medusas, fan out. Four hundred yards ahead of the Samis, one-hundred-yard intervals.”
Karen waited her turn in the usual rotation and clicked her acknowledgment of the order. Her lightweight snowshoes were a godsend as she took off jogging to the left. The slope began to climb more steeply under her feet. She no doubt owed her stamina now to Jack and all the countless miles he’d made them run through the Rocky Mountains as part of their initial training. But that didn’t mean she had to like him for it.
The landscape around her was all stark shapes and contrasts—upthrusting rock, planes of snow and deep shadows. Black on black. It reminded her of urban operations—plenty of objects to hide behind, but no cover to speak of between them.
She was on edge tonight. Itchy. Spoiling for a fight. That wasn’t like her. Maybe it was all these enforced dealings with Jack Scatalone doing it to her. One of these days, she was going to get him off by himself, and the two of them were going to have it out. She hiked hard up the mountain, burning off the steam that even thinking about Jack Scatalone built in her gut. Oh yes. The two of them all alone. No weapons. Hand-to-hand until only one of them was left standing. She might not win, but she’d by golly take a good chunk out of his hide before she went down.
She stumbled and her attention snapped back to the terrain around her. She’d drifted to the middle of the glacier that climbed this mountain, where the going was the easiest—and where she was out in plain sight, visible to anyone who happened to take a casual look around. Sheesh! She knew better than to stroll along completely without cover like this!
She veered to the side, toward the edge of the glacier. Her breathing accelerated as she climbed the much more slow and difficult path up the snow field’s stony margin. This was where the moving ice deposited boulders the size of small cars and casually tore huge chunks of granite off the mountainside in its millennia-long journey. She wove in and out around the detritus, glad for the strenuous going to distract her from thoughts of wringing Jack’s neck.
She came out into a clearing not far from the top of the ridge. All clear. She probably could turn back now and rejoin the caravan. She glanced over her shoulder. The Samis were showing no signs of moving out yet. It was only a hundred yards or so to the summit. And there was just something about the top of the mountain in front of her that made her want to climb to the top of it. A challenge. A dare, even. Come and get me. And she was feeling invincible tonight.
What the heck. She plowed onward. The snow up here was smooth, a thick, wind-scoured crust that easily held her weight. As she took the last few steps to the top, the temptation was huge to throw up her arms and dance around. Hey, she didn’t climb a mountain every day. Why not?
She flung her arms wide and turned her face up to the sky. She spun around until she was dizzy and breathless. God, the view was breathtaking from up here. She could see for miles in every direction. The moonlit landscape was a stunning black-and-white photograph, too perfect, too pristine to be real. It felt like the whole world stretched away at her feet. She was, indeed, Freya—warrior goddess and immortal, mistress of all she surveyed below. No wonder people climbed Mount Everest. This feeling was beyond exhilarating. It was intoxicating! Note to self: take up mountain climbing in her spare time.
Or maybe she was just giddy with hypoxia from the altitude.
Viper’s dry voice tickled her ear. “Having fun up there? You’ve got the Samis down here about ready to start sacrificing animals and small children to you.”
“Come again?” Karen asked, startled.
“You look like a goddess standing up there on top of your mountain. The Samis are freaking out. The siida-isit is beating a drum and singing one of those prayer-chants of theirs, and the whole lot of them at staring up at you like they expect you to start hurling lightning bolts down on them at any second.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Karen muttered. She plopped down into a sitting position that took her out of sight of the tribespeople.
Vanessa’s voice came back, filled with laughter. “That got ’em good. You ought to hear them oohing and ahhing. They think you just disappeared into the mountain.”
Karen scowled. “I’m going to tell them to sacrifice you to me first. How does being boiled in oil sound?”
Vanessa laughed openly now and didn’t bother to reply.
Roundly irritated, Karen stood up again and turned her back on the foolishness below. After taking a moment to breathe deeply and slowly, she said more calmly, “The view’s unbelievable. You guys should come up and take a look.”
Misty answered this time. “Can’t. The Samis are getting ready to move. It’s either that, or stop and build a temple to you. I think Viper’s got them almost talked out of that, though. Can you make your way down the east face and meet us in the next valley over, Athena?”
“It’s Freya,” Karen retorted sourly. “Athena’s Greek. The Viking goddess of war is Freya.”
Now all the Medusas were laughing. Wenches. “Y’all better watch out. I’ll tell the Samis you’re my handmaidens, and I’ll make them worship you, too.”
As the ribbing flew back and forth, she looked to the east. Snow stretched away from her at an easily hikable angle. Too bad she didn’t have a snowboard with her. This mountain just begged to be surfed. “By the way, all you comedians, I can make it down the back side of this hill, no problem.”
Isabella replied this time. “Great. The Samis say we should reach the floor of the next valley in a half hour. Can you be there that soon, or will we need to stop the caravan and wait for you?”
Karen eyed the slope. The valley on to the east was much lower and farther away than the one she’d just climbed out of. But it was downhill travel. “I can make it in twenty.” The way she was feeling right now, she could do it in ten!
“Roger,” Vanessa replied, back up on frequency. “We’ll probably lose radio signal until we’re all on the same side of the mountain. If you get into trouble, give us a few minutes to top the pass and then holler.”
“You got it, boss.”
“You sound like you’re having entirely too good a time up there, Python.”
“Me? You’re the one egging on the Samis to make sacrifices to me! All kidding aside, it’s gorgeous up here.”
“I believe you. The view’s not bad from down here. Anders seems particularly enthralled with the view at the top of the mountain.”
“He’d better not be up on this frequency,” Karen blurted in alarm.
More laughter. “He’s not.” Vanessa added, “Have fun and we’ll see you on the other side.”
Karen glared as the caravan, a string of tiny black ants below, moved out. She turned and surveyed the slope she needed to traverse. She started hiking downward, and her teammates went out of sight as the mountain began to grow behind her. She’d been half jogging downward, each foot sliding up to six feet more than the length of her stride, for less than a minute when a movement below made her halt suddenly. She slid to a snowy stop. Something had moved down there. Something big.
Great. It wasn’t her turn to be carrying one of the four rifles and she was about to have to detour around a polar bear! Not that the creaky old rifles the Medusas had right now would do anything to a bear other than make it mad.
She stopped. Pulled out her field glasses. Dropped to her knees, low and still in the snow, to take a better look. Holy crap! That was no bear. It was a man!
Was Jack or one of Anders’ Norwegian buddies following the caravan? Maybe setting up an ambush for it? Or was it someone more sinister, like one of the drug dealers? Her eyes narrowed. Only one way to find out. God, she hoped it was Jack. She’d love nothing more than to sneak up behind him and scare the living crap out of him.
The guy was well below her and moving downward quickly, but not as if he were fleeing her. He hadn’t looked back over his shoulder once since she’d been watching him. He definitely acted like he didn’t know she was up here.
She needed to catch up with him before the Sami caravan topped the ridge and came into this guy’s sight. In seven, maybe eight, more minutes the caravan would come into view, and she had to be in position to neutralize this guy before then. She’d never make it down the mountain in time. Unless…
She might not have a snowboard, but she did have a thick tarp in her pack. If she folded it into a square and held the front edge up like a toboggan, it would get her down the mountain really fast.
Since she was only armed with a knife, she’d have to get right up to the hostile below to take him out, which was risky. But the way she was feeling right now, that was just fine with her.
It took her only a few seconds to fashion a makeshift toboggan. She took a running start and plopped down on the impromptu sled, sitting Indian-fashion. She held up the front edge to keep it from plowing into the snow, and pushed with her other hand as she started to accelerate.
Her sled hit the smooth, icy sheet of the main snowpack, gathering speed. And more speed. In a matter of seconds, she was flying down the mountain, the wind flailing at her face until tears streamed out of her eyes.
She had to be pushing fifty miles per hour. And that was okay in the wide-open, snowy space at the top of the mountain. But as the glacier narrowed, squeezing its way into the valley below, steering became necessary. She experimented and was mightily relieved to discover that if she leaned left she went left, and if she leaned right she went right. She could probably use her feet to slow herself down, but if one or both of her heels dug in too much, she could send herself into a tumbling fall-cum-crash down the steep slope, and that wouldn’t be good at all.
She didn’t check her watch, but she must’ve made it most of the way down the two-thousand-foot vertical drop in no more than three minutes. The sled finally came to rest on a relatively flat section of snow a couple of hundred feet above the valley floor.