by Cindy Dees
Vanessa came over to where Anders was helping a couple of Sami women pitch a skin cover over a curving wood frame. Karen was helping several girls unpack other gear—cooking utensils, sleeping furs and food.
Karen, who was untying a heavy sack of grain, looked up as her boss crouched beside her. Lord knew, the reindeer had earned a good meal tonight.
“You okay?” Vanessa asked quietly.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, you killed a guy tonight. Just wanted to make sure you were cool with it.”
Karen rocked back on her heels, considering her boss. “I don’t like killing. But it had to be done. He aimed that shotgun at the caravan. Him or us. Not a hard choice.”
The two of them were silent for a moment. Then Vanessa asked reflectively, “If someone had told you two years ago you’d be in these mountains slitting guys’ throats and not batting an eyelash over it, would you have believed them?”
Karen snorted. “Not in a million years.” She looked around at the tired Samis stumbling through the motions of setting up camp. Kat and Misty were across the clearing helping some women pour water from heavy skins into a cooking pot. Aleesha was looking into some kid’s ears and throat with her little doctor flashlight, and Isabella was talking to a couple of men and pointing at various objects around the camp. Still soaking up the Sami tongue.
She looked back at her boss. “It’s a good life, isn’t it?”
Vanessa nodded. “Yeah. It is.” A pause. “I’m glad you’re part of this team.”
Karen grinned, a little embarrassed. “Hey, you’re the one who picked me. All I did was say yes. Thanks for having me.”
Vanessa grinned back. “How could I pass up selecting a Viking goddess?”
Karen gave her boss’s shoulder a shove and knocked her off her heels and onto her behind. She started when Anders spoke to Vanessa from directly behind her. “Watch out. When Freya gets angry enough she chops people’s heads off with her battle ax.”
Karen rose to her feet and whirled around. How much of her exchange with Vanessa had he overheard? That looked like something very close to admiration shining in his eyes.
“Your hut’s ready,” he announced to her.
“Does it have an altar in it? Maybe a sacrificial lamb or two?”
He laughed. “No, I managed to stop them from turning it into an all-out shrine. They did insist on sprinkling your bed with sweet-smelling herbs, though.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
Karen groaned.
Vanessa spoke up. “Take the first sleep rotation, Python. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”
Karen didn’t argue. She was beat. Definitely off her game emotionally. She headed for her hut. And paused in the doorway to look over her shoulder. Anders was, literally, on her heels. “What are you doing?”
“Guarding my mistress, of course.”
“Oh, puh-lease.”
“If not me, the Samis will do it. After your little display on the mountaintop, and then the way you found and killed that guy, there’s no doubt in their minds you’re the real thing. A full-blown reincarnation of Freya herself.”
She closed her eyes in acute annoyance. She took a long, calming breath. “I’ll deal with that in the morning. But right now, I’m going to sleep.”
“And I’m coming with you.”
She was in no mood to argue with anyone, let alone Anders. She shrugged and ducked into the hut. It was much smaller than the sod hut of the last encampment, but it was airtight and held the heat of the tiny fire reasonably well. Sure enough, her sleeping bag was already spread out on a pile of furs, and dried—sharp and pokey—bits of leaves were sprinkled all over it.
She brushed the herbs off as best she could, stripped down to her long underwear, and crawled into her sleeping bag. Silence fell over the hut. It did smell good in here.
“What herbs did they use?”
“Laurel, lavender and rosemary leaves.”
“It’s nice.”
Anders replied dryly, “I’ll tell them you like it.”
Her eyes flew open. “You’ll do no such thing! Don’t you encourage them or I’ll have you boiled in oil along with Vanessa.”
His light eyes glinted back at her in amusement. God, he was sexy when he smiled like that. “Get some sleep. You’ve earned it. You did well up on that mountain today. I continue to be impressed with how you handle yourself.”
He wouldn’t have been so impressed had he known how close she’d come to losing control and battle raging for no apparent reason. Nonetheless, warmth spread through her at the compliment. “Thanks. I’ll pass that along to my superiors. They really want the Medusas to make a good impression on the first foreign counterparts that we have trained with.”
Anders crawled into his sleeping bag, his face partially hidden by the glowing fire. “Although I am impressed by your entire team, I wasn’t talking about them. I was talking about you. Personally.”
And as she gaped, he rolled over, presented her his back and went to sleep.
Chapter 9
Lakvik, Norway, March 5, 4:00 p.m.
Apparently, word of some kind had managed to precede the caravan that the Sami hunters and the Medusas were coming to town. The Sami village, named Lakvik, consisted of several rows of tiny wood-frame houses, a two-room school and a Viking-style longhouse that apparently acted as a central gathering building. A large cluster of sod huts formed a suburb of sorts. And beyond that, a veritable tent city had been erected. Some of the tents were bright-colored nylon, but most of them were made of reindeer skins stretched over wooden frames.
People bustled around everywhere, laughing and talking, carrying food and furs and firewood. Cool. Real wood. It would be nice to smell a fire that didn’t reek of manure. It was clear at a glance that a large celebration of some kind was already well into preparation. Samis milled around by the hundreds. No way did all these people fit in the permanent structures Karen saw in town.
“Where did everyone come from?” she asked Anders.
He spoke to the nearest pair of Sami men, who were carrying what looked like an entire frozen reindeer carcass toward the giant wood fire now roaring in the middle of town. Anders turned back to her. “Samis have been coming in from all over northern Norway for a couple of days now. Ever since your arrival was reported.”
Karen stared. “All these people are here to see us?”
“No. They’re here to see you.”
“This has got to stop. Now. Who do I tell that I’m not a goddess to get all this insanity to go away?”
She was thankful that Anders didn’t indulge in an “I told you so.”
“Probably the head shaman type here. I’ll ask around and see if I can find out who he is.”
Yet again, she and Anders were installed in their own hut while the rest of the Medusas shared another one. She didn’t know whether to be pleased to be alone with him or as jumpy as a long-tailed cat beside a rocking chair. She settled on being a little of both.
As they finished unpacking their meager possessions, he suggested, “Why don’t you take a nap? It could be a long evening if all these people want to meet you.”
Unaccountably furious at the prospect of all these strangers wrangling for her attention, she glared at Anders and flopped down onto her sleeping bag.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right!” she flared up. She blinked, surprised at the vehemence of her outburst.
Unperturbed, he said, “You’ve seemed a little edgy since the firefight.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all a little edgy.” And now that she stopped to think about it, she was actually being more than a little bitchy. She released a long, slow breath, and one by one unclenched the major muscle groups in her body. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I don’t know what’s up with me. I’m usually not anywhere near this nasty.”
He smiled kindly. “We all deal with stress in different ways. I’ve seen
guys get wound a lot tighter than you on missions.”
Thing was, she never got wound tight. This mission was a complete anomaly. Maybe it was just the stress of having to live up to being a goddess that was doing it to her. Or, if she was being brutally honest with herself, maybe it was the close proximity to a gorgeous hunk she had a ferocious crush on. Either way, she really did need to chill out. Maybe she’d feel better after a nap. She closed her eyes and let sleep claim her.
Lakvik, Norway, March 5, 8:00 p.m.
When Karen woke up, she didn’t feel better. In fact, she felt noticeably worse. She was grumpy and out of sorts. Absolutely everything irritated her. At least Anders left immediately after she woke up, so she didn’t subject him to much random sniping.
The rest of the Medusas ducked into her hut almost immediately.
“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Vanessa said cheerfully.
Karen grumbled something unintelligible under her breath. As her boss’s eyebrows raised fractionally, Karen pulled herself back in sharply. She took a deep breath and asked as civilly as she could muster, “How’s the party going?”
Aleesha laughed. “Now that you’re awake, oh Exalted One, it can start.”
Karen gritted her teeth and smiled. “Any luck getting a call out to Anders’ ops center?”
Isabella, their communication specialist, answered that one. “None. Nothing’s coming in or going out.”
“Has anyone hiked to the nearest mountain peak to give one a try?”
Isabella shook her head. “Not yet. But that’s what I’m about to do.”
Karen grinned. “Hurry back or you’ll miss the highlight of the party where I have Viper tarred and feathered for her impertinence.”
The whole team laughed at that one.
Karen felt marginally better, but still fought an underlying…something. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it simmering anger. But she wasn’t mad at anybody. She must be PMSing. Although that wasn’t something she usually suffered from, nor was it time for that.
And then the feast swallowed her, all light and noise and color and teeming people. With great fanfare, the Samis led her to a wide bonfire and seated her in a place of honor atop a stunning pile of furs. She identified bear, wolf, beaver and mink pelts, all thick and gorgeous. Anders was installed beside her to act as translator for the dozens of Samis who lined up to meet her. The receiving line went on forever. She was beginning to have downright uncharitable thoughts about her hosts by the time the celebration took a decidedly more raucous turn.
It didn’t take her long to spot the source of the increased joviality. The Sami people were passing around skins of some unidentified liquid libation. Booze, no doubt. A shout went up for her to have some. Normally, the Medusas wouldn’t dream of drinking on the job. But the Samis weren’t going to be denied on this one. Karen glanced over at Vanessa standing on the far side of the fire. She got a slight nod from her boss.
Reluctantly, Karen took a skin and hoisted it high using the back of her elbow to tilt it up. When the spout was well above her face she pulled her thumb away from the spigot and let a stream of liquid squirt into her mouth. Oh, geez. She’d expected it to be alcoholic, but this rotgut was lethal! She was on fire from her lips to the bottom of her stomach!
She duly choked and spluttered—to the vast amusement of the assembled masses. God almighty, that stuff was strong! She’d tossed back 151-proof rum with Delta Force operators before, but this stuff made that taste like cough syrup.
Someone offered her the skin again. Laughing, she waved it away. She was already way off her game. She didn’t need to add drunkenness on top of her lousy frame of mind.
After about an hour of hard drinking, the Samis started singing, although that was a generous word for it. They were performing more loiks, the half chants, half songs they used for storytelling, for passing down their oral history as a people, and for conveying spiritual visions. Anders translated a few of the loiks, but they all started to run together in her head. They were predictably epic and involved lots of nature imagery and convoluted language. If she were waxing literary tonight, which she bloody well wasn’t, the loiks were actually incredibly sophisticated.
Anders left the fire at some point and came back a few minutes later with a liquid-filled skin. He handed it to her. “Water,” he murmured.
She nodded her thanks and took a long drink. A roar went up as the Samis incorrectly assumed she’d actually just put away a good liter of their moonshine. She made a production out of wiping her mouth and smacking her lips, and the roar got even louder. Whatever. As soon as this feast was over, she was bursting their bubble once and for all. She couldn’t blow her nose without these people oohing and ahhing like she’d just converted lead to gold. Enough was enough.
She glanced up and happened to catch Misty’s gaze across the fire. Karen’s eyes widened in surprise as her teammate flashed her a subtle hand signal. There was a problem? A serious one? What the heck kind of serious problem could they have at a glorified weenie roast?
She leaned over to Anders. “Gotta go. Sidewinder just signaled. Something’s wrong.”
His pleasant, relaxed expression didn’t change, but he muttered tightly, “What’s up?”
“Don’t know,” she said absently, keeping an eye on Misty for any further signals. “Let’s go find out. Tell the Samis I’m taking you out behind a hut to have my way with you. We’ll be back in a while.”
And then her gaze whipped around to him. Good Lord, that had been a careless thing to say! It was totally unlike her to blurt something like that out. Anders was staring at her in shock. And then he threw back his head and howled with laughter. Should she be unbelievably insulted, or had she just shocked the life out of him?
He said something in Sami and a huge shout went up from the crowd. Dammit. He’d gone and translated exactly what she’d said. The cad.
“I can’t believe you repeated that to them!” she ground out.
“Why not? If I’m lucky, maybe you will take me out back later to fool around.”
Now it was her turn to stare. Heat climbed her face that had nothing to do with the fire before her. And that indefinable, uncomfortable disturbance deep in her gut churned up a little higher. “Let’s go,” she said shortly.
She stood up, and by way of revenge, grabbed the collar of Anders’ coat to drag him away with her. More hooting and shouted comments erupted. She was relieved beyond words not to understand a bit of what they were saying.
They stepped beyond the bright circle of the fire and she turned him loose. They made their way back toward their hut in silence. When Karen ducked inside, all the other Medusas were already there. Isabella was still red-cheeked from her recent climb back down the mountain.
“Did you get through?” Karen asked her.
“Nope.”
“Wow. Not on any frequency?”
“I tried every radio or phone they have in this town. They even had a cell phone with a satellite uplink. And nothing’s working. Nada.”
Karen’s college degree was in mechanical engineering. But more to the point, she’d worked most of her marine career in a helicopter-maintenance squadron. As such, she knew a whole lot about radios. “So, is it just me, or do you think we’re getting jammed?”
Isabella nodded at her. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
Vanessa leaned back, her gaze narrow. “Jack and his Norwegian buddies are jamming us? What range would their jamming equipment likely have?”
Karen shrugged. “Let’s assume they’re ground-based. From a plane or satellite you can jam frequencies for hundreds of miles in any direction. Their range will depend on how high up they are. Jamming signals tend to be line of sight. So, they’ll be sitting on top of a mountain with a black box. Depending on the terrain, they can throw a signal somewhere between five and fifty miles, if I had to guess.”
Misty spoke up. “So, if we head for the highest mountain in the area, we should find them?”
Karen replied, “Maybe. They may sit on a smaller peak and accept that the tallest mountain will block their jamming signal in that particular direction.”
Vanessa leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a jamming signal a radio signal, too?”
Karen nodded.
Vanessa continued, “Then, is there any way we can track their signal?”
Hmm. Interesting idea. Karen mulled over what she knew about homing devices. If she could create something that measured signal strengths, she might be able to find the jamming frequency and then figure out in which direction the signal was strongest. “I might be able to build a crude signal tracker. Question is, where would I get the electronic gear to do it?”
Vanessa answered, “Let’s ask the Samis what they’ve got. After all, they had a satellite uplink phone in town.”
Karen nodded. “Want me to go ask them now?”
“Nah, don’t spoil their party. After all, you are the guest of honor. Tomorrow morning’s soon enough.”
Karen grinned. “And it won’t hurt Jack to sit on top of a frozen mountain for another night anyway.”
Vanessa just shook her head and smiled. Karen probably ought to quit sniping at the guy in front of her boss, since Vanessa was head over heels for the guy, but she just couldn’t. He was an itch under her skin that wouldn’t leave her alone—an irritation that heated the bubbling cauldron in her gut a little more every time she thought about him.
Anders spoke up. “I hate to interrupt, but just before we left the fire, the Samis were saying that the noaide Naliki was asking after Karen. He may want to speak to her soon.”
“Isn’t that the shaman who had the vision about me and started this whole mess?” she snapped.
“The very same,” Anders answered mildly.
Okay, now she felt bad for her snippy tone with him. More rationally this time, she asked, “And what does this Naliki guy want with me?”
Anders shrugged. “Probably wants to consult on whatever omens and foretellings of the future you care to share with him.”