The Chief Superintendent was sitting and having tea, a tradition he’d learned from his mother, when he was interrupted by the arrival of the men in suits.
The men in suits weren’t identical. Far from it. No suit was exactly the same, not even the colors matched. They were all two piece, not a waistcoat amongst them, and all two button, no double-breasted. No sport coats were in evidence and only nicely pleated slacks were worn. While tailored shirts, predominantly white but some striped, adorned shoulder and chest, conservative ties in diagonal stripes or dark solids bound the neck. Though no ensemble was the same, the suits were all identical in their determination to define those who wore them as men in suits. The suits, and the fact that all the men were wearing sunglasses, united them as one.
“Excuse me, but who the hell are you and what are you doing in my private study?” the Chief Superintendent wanted to know from the first man to approach. He reflected that perhaps he should not have added quite so much gin to his tea.
That first man wore an immaculate, blue, worsted wool suit with a burgundy red tie, thus standing out from, but at the same time blending in with, the others in the room.
“We’re the authorities, sir. Don’t worry, we’re here to help.” This didn’t sound like a joke.
The sunglasses came off, but little else changed. It looked as if the man responsible for this intrusion was listening to a private, one-way conversation on his ear piece.
“I demand to see some form of identification,” the Chief Superintendent insisted.
“Of course,” the man in the blue suit replied calmly.
Removing a compact leather case from his inside coat pocket, the man in the blue worsted suit held the enclosed identification out for inspection.
“Wait a minute, I’ve never even heard of such a division,” the Chief Superintendent protested.
“I’m not surprised, sir. We work hard to maintain our anonymity.”
“I don’t understand. But that aside, why are you here?”
“That will all be explained, sir.”
“When?”
“Now.”
During their discussion, four other men in suits had moved quickly around the room, securing the location. Only the one man remained standing before the Chief Superintendent the whole time, then even he stepped aside.
The little man who walked into the room was probably too tall to be properly termed a midget, but just barely. One of the men in suits stepped forward and crouched to place a small folding stepstool before a chair. The little man stepped up to the chair, spun, and sat, using the stool to support his feet so they didn’t dangle or swing.
“Chief Superintendent, let me begin by thanking you for not immediately interrupting with a lot of foolish questions.”
“As a matter of fact….”
“Because, we don’t have time for foolish questions.”
“No, of course not….”
“I’m glad you agree. So, please, allow me to begin.”
“But I want to know who you are and who you work for,” the Chief Superintendent snarled in disgust.
“Who I am and who I work for is of little consequence right now. For the purposes of this conversation, you can call me Mr. Black.”
This amused the Chief Superintendent since neither the man nor his suit was black. In fact this tiny man was as white as a white person could be and not suffer from albinism. He considered commenting on this fact and declined. Besides, he wanted to hear the rest of what this fellow had to say.
“Now, you recently received a report of a downed private aircraft in the vicinity of McIntyre’s Gulch, Manitoba.”
“Yes, what of it?” The little man’s comment seemed more statement than question, yet the Chief Superintendent found himself agreeing.
“You read the report?”
“Yes, now what concern is this of yours?” In point of fact he’d barely skimmed it, interested only in the location because it was a means of ridding himself of Inspector Horace Goodhead.
“You consequently sent one of your top inspectors to take care of the matter, on the hush-hush.”
The Chief Superintendent felt his mouth go dry. Literally. His saliva turned to a sticky white paste within seconds. This paste stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth, preventing him from uttering a word should he have wanted to reply. Instead he frowned.
So, this was all about Inspector Goodhead, was it? Goes to figure. What has that punctilious, regulation-quoting blockhead gotten me into this time? No good, I’ll wager.
The Chief Superintendent nodded his head.
“I wonder if you had any knowledge of what was in the plane before you sent the inspector to investigate.”
“What is it you’re implying?”
“It is not normal procedure to send an inspector to the site of a crash unless there is some cause. Even an awareness of the monetary value of the cargo would not be enough to warrant such an action. We must therefore conclude that you are aware of the other thing the plane was carrying.”
The Chief Superintendent didn’t suspect that he was in trouble until the little man reached into his coat pocket and produced a little black box. He placed the box on the table between them and opened it. There was a syringe and an ampoule inside. When the Chief Superintendent tried to rise, a hand was placed on his shoulder by one of the men in suits to keep him in his seat.
“What do you say we get some plain answers to our questions,” the little man said, inserting the syringe into the ampoule and measuring out a dose. “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt a bit. Well, perhaps only a very little bit.”
The man in the suit behind the Chief Superintendent helped him to extend his arm and roll up his sleeve, allowing the needle to be easily slid into a vein.
Chapter 14: The Blizzard
Grigori didn’t notice the woman who had been in the office earlier was missing until he had closed the safe and looked to her for some explanation. But there was none forthcoming, because the source of an explanation was gone.
Enraged, Grigori quickly ushered everyone out of the office and back into the saloon. Once there, he immediately sent the brothers off to search the building for the missing woman. Big John watched with disapproval from behind the bar as the two Russians poked around his business and private dwelling, but he did nothing besides stroke the Flowers’ back. In barely ten minutes, hardly adequate time to conduct a thorough search of the place, the two boys returned to Gregori with news that the woman was nowhere to be found.
“Sweet Lenin in a pickle jar,” Misha murmured in Russian under his breath. “What a cock up. What if the drunk was wrong?”
Unfortunately, his words were just loud enough to be made audible to Gregori.
“You have something to say, Comrade Petrov?”
Misha looked like he had a great deal to say, but just managed to contain himself.
“No, nothing at all, Comrade Smirnoff.”
Gregori himself finally searched the place. In a dark corner of the saloon, he found a door obscured by coats leading into a mudroom and from there to the outside. The outside door was unlocked and there was a dusting of snow on the floor. The light outside the door was lit. A couple pairs of snowshoes were stacked against the side of the building just outside the door. The building was providing protection from the wind for several feet around it, but beyond that it was meteorological chaos.
Whiteout, Gregori recognized with a shiver. The crazy woman had gone into the storm, determined to keep the treasure for herself. This could not happen.
“Anatoli, Misha,” Gregori called, stepping back into the saloon. “I want you to go out there and fetch the woman and, most likely, bring the treasure back along with her.”
While Grigori chewed a thumbnail in thought, Anatoli and Misha shared disbelieving glances. It was only a question of who would be first to object. Anatoli cut Misha off, assuming that he could be more diplomatic with his own response.
“Comrade, surely you are kid
ding. Have you seen the storm raging outside?”
“Yes.”
“If the woman went out in that then she is certainly dead. We will find her body nearby when the storm is over.”
“I don’t want her body. I want Yuri’s treasure. You have your orders. Now, go!”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Grigori was the first to raise his gun. It was a Beretta 9mm, as were the guns of the others on this mission. Anatoli and Misha were only halfway to their standard issue holsters by the time Grigori’s 9mm was pressed against Anatoli’s right temple.
“Stop what you are doing and think carefully,” Gregori commanded.
Sasha farted, loudly. He was standing at the bar and watching the scene play itself out, as were the others in the saloon. Everyone held their breath in collective anticipation.
Anatoli raised his hands in surrender. Gregori pointed his gun at Misha’s chest. Misha was the next to back down.
“Go!” Gregori commanded one final time.
The two men glared at him threateningly as they slipped past the barrel of his automatic pistol to the door. After they were outside, Gregori closed and locked the door behind them.
“Now, where is that drunkard? I think we must speak again.”
* * *
In a small mudroom just off the saloon proper, the Mountie found an extensive wardrobe of outdoor gear that included several parkas, along with scarves, gloves, and goggles, all hanging on sturdy wooden pegs hammered into the rough-hewn pine wall. Many of them were vintage pieces, some even covered in dust, but they would do. He turned and closed the door leading back into the saloon before he got dressed in an appropriately sized set of winter survival gear. This was none of the fancy paramilitary gear the Russians were wearing, but that didn’t matter on such a short trip. Chuck just grabbed the best he could find off the wall, and soon he was wearing a rather natty survival suit all in a hushed gray-green of camouflage. He pulled out his phone and tried to take a picture of himself to have as a memento.
The Mountie hated to leave Butterscotch behind, but he needed to get a report phoned into headquarters and request backup as soon as possible. This required that he slip away unseen in the hope that he wouldn’t be missed and that any potential arguments over what to do with the treasure would be deferred until later. However, one step out the side door of the saloon and Inspector Goodhead knew that he was venturing into the unknown. The light that he’d switched on while passing through the door cast only a dim glow into the raging night beyond the shallow foyer. Its glow showed heavy snow, flying nearly horizontally, so dense you couldn’t see more than an arm’s length into it.
Chuck knew he was looking into the deadly, hateful face of a winter whiteout. Like a hungry beast, it whipped and howled just a few feet away from the door. The Mountie saw a couple pairs of snowshoes leaning against the wall and promptly ignored them, assuming, incorrectly, that the distance to the grocery store wasn’t far enough to warrant snowshoes.
Reaching into the edge of the storm, the Mountie’s arm disappeared into the flurry as he grabbed on tight to the guide wire conveniently strung around town. As Chuck stepped into the night he was fully enveloped by the raging storm and soon the Lonesome Moose disappeared from sight. All the while he trudged on with great determination and effort in the exact opposite direction of the grocery store.
* * *
I was mentally prepared for the cold, but my body still had a moment of panic when the freezing air displaced my breath and drove icy spikes into my lungs. A second breath was harder to force but inevitable when the time came to breathe. A second gulp of air confirmed that it was made less of oxygen than ice shards. And all this while I was breathing through multiple layers of wool scarf. I was under no illusions. If it got any colder I would permanently damage my lungs. Frostbite doesn’t only happen to the outside of the body.
I hesitated for a moment, trying to think of another alternative. I had been in bad storms before, but never anything like this. No one without a compelling reason would be out in this. Unfortunately, all those guns pointed at my friends was damned compelling.
It took a moment of hunting to find a small enough coat among those hanging in the back door mudroom. Loose clothing would let in too much freezing wind, but anything too tight wouldn’t allow me an air insulation barrier between the layers.
Snowshoes next. They were critical. Without them, I would spend all my energy pulling myself out of drifts. Obeying the wind, which had shifted direction to a more frontal assault, I dropped to my hands and knees and gave the storm my back before my face froze. The goggles helped, but not enough. It took a while to strap myself into a pair of snowshoes I found leaning up against the wall.
We have guide wires strung from October to April between the main buildings in town. They were strung for just such a night as this; though, honestly, no one should dare be out on a night when they’re needed.
Unless they have no other choice.
I paused to listen, hoping there was no gunfire, but all I heard was wind.
Braced, I followed the guide wire toward the grocer, guessing the Mountie was headed there to radio in his report. The storm was so savage that I abandoned the project almost at once. I turned back, obeying an inner voice that told me Chuck had probably gone the other way, circling the town in the hope of finding some shelter from other buildings as he took the long way to the store. It was the way I wanted to go, since it would put the wind to my back. This would probably have been Chuck’s impulse as well, or so I reasoned.
Things were instantly better the moment my face was out of the wind. That’s not to say they were great. Gust upon gust from the storm continued to pound at my back, actually helping me in my forward progress away from the grocer. The snow blowing past me looked like shooting stars passing me at light speed to disappear into space. I could hear nothing more than a roar, which I knew would most likely deafen my ears and leave me mad if I endured too much more of it.
I hoped and prayed that I was headed in the right direction. I couldn’t see the wire and could only barely feel my hands. I kept expecting Chuck to reach out of the dark and grab me or to run face-first into him returning to the pub once he’d discovered his errand was impossible.
A few steps farther into the chaos and I had the dubious pleasure of discovering I was headed in the right direction when I tripped over the missing Mountie, unconscious and pinned under a fallen tree limb. I turned on my flashlight, doing my best to shield Chuck with my body as I tried to determine if he was alive. The end of the stump was ragged, showing where the wind had ripped it free. It was a struggle to get the thick branch off of him and to drag him into the shelter of a large boulder.
He was breathing and bleeding from a small cut on his face up near his hair, but that was all I could determine. Now what to do? My cabin was closer, but off the guidelines. Was I strong enough to drag Chuck back to the pub? And if I did that, what would happen to him? To all of us?
I was only half-upset when I saw two dark shapes come staggering out of the driving, swirling white and discovered that it was two of the Russians. Both men looked more miserable than threatening, and cold despite their high-tech clothing. They were terrified and rightly so. Our situation wasn’t good.
* * *
The moment Anatoli and Misha stepped out the side door they knew they were in trouble. Not only was the storm blowing ice and snow at full force, but there was only one pair of snowshoes left leaning against the side of the building.
“Oh crap!” Misha exclaimed.
“Oh crap what?” Anatoli retorted, eyes glued to the mayhem going on mere inches from his nose.
“Oh crap, as in, we’re up shits creek without a paddle.”
“Oh, that oh crap.”
Rather than knock on the door and ask to be let back in to gather their snowshoes, the pair devised a plan to share the single pair of snowshoes by each wearing a shoe on one foot. There was also some discussion of linking arms to share
the unshod foot as in a three legged sack race. In this way they would each derive half the leverage of wearing two shoes.
The result of this strategy was very nearly disastrous. The two men stumbled into the dark, arms linked together, their unshod feet sinking into the snow up over the knee. Though they carried high-intensity hand lights, the beams of these lights barely penetrated the storm. Their goggles and face protection instantly became encrusted in snow. The two men turned away from the wind instinctively.
The two men staggered blindly through the snow with the wind pushing them forward. Linked together with their arms over each other’s shoulders, they formed a large kite which kept moving them forward whether they were ready to take the next step or not. They fell several times and were dragged back up out of the deepest snow by the power of the wind.
Staggering through the winter whiteout at the head of gale force winds, they were soon driven upon the woman, who was on the ground trying to shelter a body from the worst of the storm. Anatoli and Misha were both relieved they had found the woman. Not for her sake, but for theirs. She lived in this frozen hell, surely she would know how to get them to shelter.
* * *
“Over here!” I screamed, pointing my flashlight at Chuck, giving them no time to shout orders or questions at me. “We’ve got to reach shelter or he’ll die.” For emphasis, I restated my argument. “We’ve got to reach shelter or we’ll all die.”
But which shelter? Doc was on this side of the street and probably had guns and sleeping pills—a crazy plan had come to me—but I had no idea where, and I didn’t think that the two Russians were going to allow me to do much searching for guns once we reached shelter. Since I wanted to get to my cabin and Max anyway, I opted for this location. But it was off the main guide wire that ran through town, so I would have to be inventive about making my own makeshift lines for the men to follow. With experienced icemen I wouldn’t worry, but I had no idea how competent the Russians were, and Chuck was out cold.
Due North Page 10