At the last second, he noticed Argyle’s tracks veered to the right. So Caine did too.
He churned snow in a fast stop, realizing he was only a few feet away from propelling himself over another sharp cliff. Once he was steady on his feet, he looked down, feeling the vertigo as he did. The next drop was over five-hundred-feet at least, and ended in deadly, jagged rocks. There would be no surviving a fall here.
A sudden whooshing noise caused Caine to turn and look behind him.
One of the pursuers had jumped the same cliff edge Caine had.
He was bearing down fast on Caine, so Caine pushed off with his skis, sliding out of the way.
The foe landed behind Caine, close enough to touch. He stumbled for a second as he struggled to regain his balance .
Caine saw his opportunity. He reached out, grabbing the assailant’s assault rifle, and twisted the man in a circle across the snow. The soldier lost his balance, and tumbled over the five-hundred-foot drop. His screams echoed through the cold mountain air as he plunged into oblivion.
With the M4 carbine in his grip, and his ski poles hanging by their wrist cords, Caine spun around and fired towards the cliff. The two remaining pursuers had not jumped the cliff above. They stood perched on the edge, preparing for a clean shot when they thought Caine wasn’t watching. They hadn’t expected Caine to return fire so rapidly. One took a bullet in the chest and tumbled down the cliff. The other was fast enough to duck back out of sight behind the drifts of snow.
Caine took off again, skiing fast along the top of the cliff. He followed the narrow snowdrift Emily had taken between both the rising and falling cliff faces. She had courage for sure. The route offered little room to twist and turn or to control his speed. One wrong move would end in a high-speed collision into the rock edge on his left, or a long fall to his death on his right.
A thunderous detonation exploded behind him. He felt a concussion wave propel him forward, and he almost lost his balance. Caine dared not look back as he wobbled on his skies. He suspected the explosion was a grenade, most likely launched from an M203 grenade launcher fitted to the M4 of the last pursuer. He glanced down at his own stolen M4, hoping it was similarly armed… No such luck.
To his relief the snowfield soon opened up, and Caine found himself skiing down a steep and wide slope. The open plane of snow afforded him maneuverability, but left him exposed to enemy fire. He spotted Emily about three-hundred yards away, zipping and darting through the snowfields ahead.
Now that control was easier and the threat of a steep fall to his death was behind him, Caine glanced back.
The third assailant was gaining .
The helicopter was flying behind the last soldier, and also closing in. The noise of its whipping rotor blades grew louder with each passing second.
Caine grimaced. As soon as the helicopter reached him he was a dead man.
He pressed down on his skis, forcing himself to stop suddenly while turning sharply to face uphill. He swung his M4 up in an arc from where it had been strapped to his back, and aimed at the third assailant.
The man had not expected Caine’s sudden attack, and struggled to slow his speed.
Caine fired a short burst. A cluster of three bullets tore through the man’s chest. He tumbled fast, snapping bones as his body flew past Caine. The M4 with the grenade launcher also flew through the air. It soared straight past Caine and landed in the snow, too far away to reach out and snatch it.
The helicopter was closing in. Caine could feel the buffeting wind from its rotors.
The assailant in the cabin was in range now. He opened fire on Caine, using the full automatic setting on his M4. Snow exploded around him in multiple white puffs.
Caine turned and skied fast. He bent close to the ice and scooped up the second M4 as he sped past.
He expected another volley of bullets from the helicopter, but when he looked back, it had flown ahead. The AgustaWestland was ignoring him and chasing down Emily.
She's the priority target, he thought.
Caine had hoped to take out the helicopter with the grenade launcher, but it was too far away for any chance of a clear shot. He slung both M4s over his shoulder and crouched down low. He kicked his skis and pushed with his poles, making himself smaller against the wind. He picked up more speed.
Soon the slope became almost vertical, but he realized he still wouldn’t reach Emily in time. She wasn’t looking back to see what pursued her… She didn’t know the trouble she was in.
He knew if he was going to save her life, he had less than a minute to do so.
He spied a gigantic cornice of snow to his left, a towering white embankment built up on one side of the mountain.
An insane plan formed in his mind.
Caine dug in the edges of his skis to slow down. Then he aimed the grenade launcher and fired. The M433 high-explosive round accelerated from the weapon at two-hundred and fifty-feet per second. It struck the embankment and exploded in a fiery red and orange cloud of destruction.
It took a couple of seconds for Caine to hear the snowbank creak, then shudder. Then the mass of snow began to collapse under its own weight.
Caine’s eyes went wide as a thunderous rumbling filled the air. The mass of falling snow had transformed into a gigantic and potentially lethal avalanche.
He turned and skied fast, knowing that his and Emily’s only chance of survival was to out-ski the tidal wave of snow. Behind them, hundreds of thousands of tons of ice, snow and rock careened down the mountain.
The slope became even steeper.
Caine spotted the helicopter firing at Emily.
She hadn’t been hit yet, but it was only a matter of time.
He crouched low, pushed with his poles and willed himself to go faster with each second. He could hear the avalanche behind him, thundering like an angry storm. The falling snow pounded the mountain with crushing force, and shook the ice fields under his feet.
To his relief, he spotted an alpine forest about a mile ahead. If they could reach that, they might escape both the avalanche and the helicopter.
As he pushed forward, Caine knew he had been reckless, but he’d had no other choice. He had to scare away the helicopter, otherwise Emily and he would remain easy pickings for the shooter inside.
For some reason Emily had slowed and was shooting back.
The helicopter hovered above, firing down on her in long sweeping bursts.
Had neither of them registered the avalanche?
Suddenly Emily keeled over. Caine gritted his teeth. She was hit.
As he skied closer, Caine lifted one of the M4s into position. Acting on pure instinct, he let loose a burst of full automatic fire at the helicopter. Bullets tore into its fuselage, causing it to twist unexpectedly.
Emily looked up. He was close enough to see the agony in her clenched teeth. He could tell she was grievously wounded.
Then she saw the avalanche tearing down the mountain. The fear in her eyes was sudden and terrifying in itself.
“Ski! Fast!” he yelled as he came close to her. “Head for the trees!”
She nodded, her face ashen with terror, and pushed off.
The helicopter hovered directly above them. The pilot struggled to regain control, dipping and turning the aircraft in erratic motions. The soldier inside had given up trying to shoot them for the moment, as he held on for dear life.
The sky became hazy and white. The noise of the avalanche was so loud Caine couldn’t even hear the helicopter.
Soon Caine and Emily were skiing side by side.
The forest was getting closer. If they could just reach it…
A propeller blade lanced through the thin air, piercing the snow like a javelin. Caine pivoted just in time to avoid impaling himself on the jagged, torn metal. He glanced behind and saw the helicopter go down beneath the rumbling wall of snow. Its wrecked chassis was tumbling behind them, tossed around like a scrap of paper in a wind tunnel. Consumed by the snow and ice of t
he avalanche, it was rolling right at them.
“Move!” Caine shouted, encouraging Emily on .
They were racing fast… sixty, seventy-miles-per-hour.
Caine couldn’t help himself and looked back again. The helicopter finally thudded into the ice, crushed into a hunk of mangled metal.
The ground shook like an earthquake. Cracks formed in the ice.
Caine and Emily kept skiing, dodging and ducking between falling boulders of snow and ice. When he could glance her way, he noticed she kept touching her abdomen. He was impressed she had made it this far with what he suspected was a bullet wound. Perhaps more than one.
They skied as fast as they could make themselves go. The noise of tearing, grinding metal reminded Caine that the helicopter wreckage was not far behind. It tumbled after them, chasing them down the mountain.
The trees were only a couple of hundred yards distant now.
The tail of the helicopter spun through the air next to Caine.
Its wreckage was careening down the mountain faster than they were.
He couldn’t guess how fast they were skiing, with no reference points and the snow wave building around them. If they tripped at this speed, he knew bones would break and they wouldn’t make it.
A hundred yards to safety…
They passed a few isolated trees outside the main forest. One disintegrated as part of the helicopter hull tore through it.
Fifty yards.
Then they were in.
The avalanche caught them.
Caine’s skis were torn off his feet. His pole disappeared into the blistering white cloud.
The two M4 Carbines were ripped from their straps, and vanished inside the whirling white hell.
Caine felt like he was swimming, pushing against the wall of snow and ice that was collapsing around him.
The trees slowed the avalanche's flow. Many couldn’t withstand the onslaught, and keeled over from the impact. But many more remained standing before the natural blitzkrieg.
Soon all Caine could see was white. All he could hear was the never-ending thunderous roar. He lost his orientation, he couldn’t tell up from down.
Then he was shaking his head, spitting snow and ice from his mouth.
He pushed his face upwards, clearing it of the snow that had fallen around him. He had no idea if he’d been knocked unconscious. He felt the uncanny sensation of time passing, without him being aware of it.
The forest was still now, although the skies remained white.
He pulled himself out of the snow bank that had buried him, then checked for broken bones or deep cuts. His body was battered and bruised, but luckily, he’d suffered no serious injuries.
Caine climbed to his feet. Miraculously his backpack had stayed with him, and still held a tent, food, and first aid equipment. Tools that would aid him later, when he marched out of these mountains. But first he had to find Emily Argyle.
He called her name several times.
There was no response.
She had been near him when they hit the forest. He headed uphill to the edge of the timberline, then backtracked down the slope. He found bits and pieces of the disintegrated helicopter's wreckage everywhere. There would be no survivors.
Several hundred yards further down the mountain, he found Emily Argyle.
She laid on her back, panting hard, her eyes losing focus. She was half buried in white powder. Her beanie was gone, and her dyed golden hair cascaded across the snow. Her face was pale, and the snow beneath her abdomen was stained crimson.
Caine raced to her and kneeled down in the snow. He discovered two bullet wounds in her gut. She was bleeding fast. When she tried to speak no words came out .
“It’s okay.” He pressed his hands against the wound to stem the flow of blood. “You’ll be okay.”
She laughed, as if she were both amused and disgusted by a thought.
Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she stopped breathing.
Chapter Three
AL JAWF GOVERNATE, YEMEN
As the vast and empty expanse of sand dunes gradually transformed into the rocky edge of an arid mountain ridge, Safiya Naaji concluded it was time once again to be more cautious with her disguise. Her camel caravan didn’t care what she wore or who she appeared to be, of course. But most men across Saudi Arabia and Yemen would be outraged that she wore the robes of a man. Even more sacrilegious, she was pretending to be a man, taking on duties that only men were allowed. But as Safiya had reconciled long ago, she had no other choice.
She had ridden five camels two hundred kilometers across the Rub’ al Khali, to the Saudi town of Wadi ad-Dawasir. She had ridden back with only two. The four hundred kilometers round trip through the dry, inhospitable sea of sand had been for a single purpose. Her family was starving. Her husband was inflicted with cholera and his body had wasted away to nothing but skin and bones. If she had not traded three camels for wheat, onions, potatoes, salted lamb and hard Saudi riyals, there would have been no hope for her family’s survival .
Every day of her journey, Safiya had dressed in her husband’s ankle-length thoob and futa wrap-around skirt. She concealed her long dark hair in a head scarf wrapped around her face. The disguise went as far as painting her jaw, chin and around her lips with charcoal to resemble a beard. She even wrapped cloth tight around her already small breasts, so her female anatomy would not give her away. Her husband’s ceremonial Janbiya dagger always hung in its sheath on her belt. She would not have been considered a true Yemeni Bedouin without it. When others spoke to her, she conversed in practiced deep tones.
It had been a terrifying three days spent in Wadi ad-Dawasir. She feared she would be discovered at any moment. If she had, the men would have buried her neck-deep in the sands and stoned her to death.
But her ruse had worked. Her saddlebags were heavy with food. It would be enough to last her husband Tariq, and her two surviving sons, Mohammad and Hussein, six months… if she could keep it hidden from the other families of her tribe. Droughts and the looming war in the east were debilitating everyone. Tribes had become ruthless just to survive. She had been ruthless too, risked the long journey into Saudi Arabia for the riyals, because Yemeni rials were worth almost nothing these days. Who knew when they would need funds to buy their way out of future predicaments.
Soon the sun dipped toward the horizon. Safiya’s Bedouin camp was only a few hours distant now. Nightfall was a good time to return home, when the chances of her being seen were minimized.
When she found a well she had used since her childhood, she dropped down a bucket, collected the water, and quenched her thirst. Then she quenched the camels. They would each drink near a hundred liters of the lifeblood of the desert. Safiya had to pull many buckets from the inky black hole.
At sunset, she prepared her prayer mat she had long ago spun and weaved from sheep wool as a child. She faced Ka’bah in Mecca and recited her prayers. She gave thanks to Allah that her ruse had gone unnoticed. She prayed that he would see her family through the turmoil and troubles that lay ahead. Finally, she gave thanks to Allah for his gifts… valuable items recovered from an airplane she had witnessed crash into the desert.
With her prayers complete, Safiya wiped away the traces of charcoal on her face. Then she changed into her veil and traditional Sana’ani curtain-style dress. She shuddered when she thought back to what she had done. Would Allah forsake her for her deception? She hoped he would be merciful, and forgive her for doing what she must to survive.
“Allahu akbar,” she whispered. God is great.
When the quarter moon was high in the skies and the stars of the heavens shone clear in the cloudless desert night, Safiya rode into her village. After tethering her two remaining camels, she slipped into her family’s tent, held aloft by lightweight plastic poles and long guy ropes.
Her two sons and her husband were asleep on mats. She smelt the aroma of coffee and butter hung in goatskins. Well-worn rugs cove
red the floors.
She went to her husband. The man was thin and emasculated, still collapsed where she had left him three and a half weeks ago. His eyes fluttered as he roused from his slumber. When Tariq recognized her, his dilated pupils seemed to stare right through her. He had no strength to lift his head or arms to embrace her.
“My wife,” he muttered, his voice a coarse whisper. “I thought you were dead?”
“Not dead my love. With Allah’s grace I have returned, with food and money.”
He closed his eyes and soon was asleep again. She felt his arms. They were as thin as the tent poles. There was no muscle or fat left on him.
“You shame us!” a young voice cried out.
Safiya turned towards the sound. Her eldest son Mohammad had woken, and he glared at her with hate-filled eyes. He was only twelve, but he embraced the anger and the rage of a man twice his size.
“I did what I had to, my beautiful son.”
“Do not blaspheme before me. I should have gone to Wadi ad-Dawasir. It is man’s work. You are just a weak woman.”
Safiya smiled at her handsome son, saddened by his words. Their culture dictated that he was righteous. She had defied the traditions of her people and the will of God. “You are too young, Mohammad.”
“I am not.”
“You don’t know the caravan routes through the Rub’ al Khali. We can only carry enough water to reach one well from the last. One mistake and you would have become lost, and then died. That kind of death is not pleasant.”
“I know the routes. You have no faith in me Mother.”
“You are still a boy, Mohammad. I love you too much to risk losing you.”
Tariq stirred, mumbled several words. Safiya went to him and gave him water. He sipped small mouthfuls. Soon he was sleeping again. “He did not recover,” she said, stating a fact rather than asking a question. She had, perhaps foolishly, hoped that upon her return Tariq would again be the man she had married. Strong, brave and wise.
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