by Dana Marton
“If the weather doesn’t hold us up too long, we can be a third of the way to the village by tonight. Starting out at first light, we’ll definitely make it by noon tomorrow, the latest,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, glad for the darkness that hid her face.
“That eager to get rid of me, huh?”
He didn’t know the half of it. Because as much as she had convinced herself over the past couple of years that she was over him, his reappearance in her life made one thing Alaskan-air clear: she wasn’t even close.
“We weren’t good together then, we wouldn’t be good together now. Nothing’s changed.”
The wind picked up and roared like a grizzly bear. Winter was coming. The faster they were out of here, the better—for a multitude of reasons.
“How can you say that?” Anger laced his voice. “We were great together. You left me the first time everything didn’t come off perfect.”
The accusation hurt.
Everything about Mike McNair hurt. It wasn’t right. Love shouldn’t be this painful. And she wasn’t even in love with him anymore; the part of her heart that had held him once had been beaten numb.
They sat in silence until the wind stopped outside. She pulled up a corner of their cover, struggling with the weight of the fallen snow. “Better get moving.” She looked out, holding her breath against the biting cold that met her. It wasn’t snowing anymore, the wind had pushed the clouds to the east. The sun was low on the horizon, as always this time of the year, even at noon. They had about two hours of daylight left—still enough time to make some progress before they hunkered down for the night.
She propped up the opening and moved over to the dogs. “How are you doing, Sasha?” She scratched behind the dog’s ears and under her chin, smiling when Sasha licked her hands.
The rest of the huskies got up and came for their share. “All right Blackie. No need to be jealous.”
She took a minute or two to make sure each got some attention. She would be requiring a lot from them, with no guarantee for their safety or even dinner when they stopped for the night.
“Ready?” She glanced at Mike, who was doing his best to bond with the few curious huskies that went to check him out.
She trudged outside into snow that was a foot higher—three feet on the wind side where it was piled up against their shelter in a snowdrift. The dogs followed her without having to be told, jumping in the freshly fallen snow that would make sledding difficult until it froze hard enough to go on top of it instead of having to struggle through the loose mess. Snowshoes would have worked better on something like this. But even if they had them, they couldn’t leave the dogs and the crate behind.
She harnessed the huskies while Mike wrestled the fur cover from the snow and put it back on the sled. He made a bed from it for Sasha and put her in the middle. Sasha protested halfheartedly, wanting to jump off, but in the end, decided to obey his command.
“I’ll walk for a while,” he said.
“Haa!” She set the dogs into motion without getting on the back runners, giving them a break.
She ran alongside the sled, behind Mike. They couldn’t keep it up for long, but every little bit counted. The easier they were on the dogs, the longer they would be able to pull. Now that Sasha was out, the rest had to compensate.
The silence was like a wall around them, a solid presence, broken by nothing but the sounds of the sled, their feet on the snow, their breath that came harsher as they went on. Alders and spruce covered the gently elevating hillsides to the south of them, open snowfields as flat as an ice rink ahead to the northwest, the way they were headed.
The beauty of the untouched landscape was overwhelming, humbling. It calmed her, helped her to center herself, to focus, the edginess of the close quarters of the shelter leaving her, her lungs filling with fresh air.
A wolf howled in the forest behind them, and the dogs picked up their heads. Blackie, the lead husky, pointed his nose to the sky and answered.
The snow came to the dogs’ bellies, and they were struggling, their progress slow. They covered miles that way before the going got easier and she finally got up on the back runners. Mike squeezed on the sled next to Sasha, facing the dog team. She didn’t realize that he was on the phone again until she heard him talking.
“Mike McDonald here. I’m ready to be picked up. I’m heading to an Inupiat village about two hundred miles northeast from where you dropped me off.”
“Povongjuag,” she said, and he repeated it.
“Whatever the price, man. Name it.” He listened for a while before swearing and closing the phone.
He turned to her with a dark expression. “The pilot who dropped me off can’t pick us up. This whole area has been declared restricted airspace.”
Considering the nuclear warheads, that didn’t seem unreasonable. Except— “Aren’t you working for whomever declared the restriction? Why wouldn’t they send a chopper for you?”
He swore again. “I chartered a private plane.”
“You’re here without authorization, aren’t you?” God, she was stupid for not having figured it out before. But there had been too much other stuff to think about. His being alone made sense now. She had expected more of a SWAT style rescue if anyone came for her, but being saved suddenly and seeing Mike of all people had thrown her for a loop and she’d forgotten to question the odd details.
“Authorization or not, they’ll still come and get you if you ask for it.”
“The Colonel is going to fry my ass for this one.” He dialed again. “McNair.”
He was silent for a long time, his face closed. Apparently, his colonel had a lot to say to him. Judging by his expression, none of it was good.
“I would appreciate some help on this one, Colonel.” Another pause.
“There is one man I trust over there, an old buddy of mine. Tommy Cattaro. If you can get in touch with him—”
Another long silence.
“Yes, Colonel. Povongjuag. It’s an Inupiat village. We should be there sometime tomorrow. I could use a secure phone. There are a couple of things I need to debrief you on.”
He listened again. “No, Colonel.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“That was not my intention, sir.”
“Is there an official rescue team?” she asked when he hung up.
“Somewhere, I suppose. The CIA is handling the case.”
“Is that where Shorty is now?” Tommy Cattaro, aka Shorty, wasn’t on the top of her favorites list, but if he could get them out of here, she’d make nice with him.
“We went over from Special Forces together. We worked a few cases on the same team before I got recruited to—someplace else,” he said. “Nobody but the agency is allowed in on this one. That’s why I had to go AWOL from my own unit. What would you have wanted me to do? I couldn’t sit around waiting for—”
“AWOL? Are you crazy?” She stared at him.
He looked her in the eye. “You know how you used to blame me for not making it into Special Forces?” He blinked. “Consider us even.”
She had trouble digesting the information. He had put everything on the line for her. She didn’t know what to do with that thought, where to fit that knowledge. If he still cared that much for her— No. She wasn’t going down that road ever again.
“So where did you go AWOL from?” The best way to stop him from getting to her was to keep him on his toes about his own business.
“We’re going to have to go around that.” He pointed at the forest of alders and spruce in front of them that reached like a finger into the frozen landscape to the north.
He was ignoring her question. She’d pretty much expected him to do just that. There was nothing she could do to make the man talk, if he didn’t want to.
“Gee!” She turned the dogs to the right when they were still a good fifty yards from the trees, taking advantage of both the flat terrain and the windbreak the woods provided.
Ten minutes pas
sed, then half an hour. She was thirsty, but not enough to stop and melt snow. Night would fall soon; darkness came by 3:00 p.m. this time of the year. They would have to stop and make camp, anyway. Had the cloud cover not built back up, the snow would have reflected enough moonlight to go by, but that was not the case.
Mike pushed off his hood and turned his head to the sky.
She did the same and heard the helicopter, slowed the dogs, fired her gun and waited. Sound carried incredible distances in the silence of the snowfields. The rumbling of the chopper weakened. Damn. The rescue team was heading away from them. Then the sound picked up again. The helicopter came over the top of the trees in a couple of minutes.
Mike was already on his feet, waving.
The Apache—CIA logo on the side—lowered between them and the trees, the noise scaring the dogs. She brought the sled to a complete halt and got off, followed Mike who was already running forward. She would have to ask the pilot to turn off the rotors or she’d never get the huskies on.
The chopper hovered in place. Mike was slowing in front of her, held up his hand as if in warning. She knew how to approach a landing helicopter, for heaven’s sake. The training they’d received together hadn’t been that long ago. She ignored him.
Snow swirled around them as the chopper’s blades stirred up the air. She put her head down and stopped, waiting for the bird to set down. The bullets that hit around her took her by surprise.
What on earth? She threw herself to the snow and looked around. Did the gun smugglers catch up? She glanced up, expecting to see the chopper covering them, but instead, the man she spotted in the open door was aiming at Mike.
Nobody else on the ground, but them. No smugglers. She scanned the area behind her. They were clearly the ones under attack from the CIA chopper.
It didn’t make any sense. This was supposed to be the rescue team. Mike had called in their location.
He seemed to have recovered from his surprise before she did and was shooting back, making the bird pull up sharply and bank to the right. Then her training and instincts finally kicked in and she sprinted for the woods.
She stopped halfway there, hesitated, looked back to the dogs. She’d left her rifle on the sled. If she could get that and the huskies… Mike was running, too, twisting now and then to squeeze off another shot, jumping over piles of snow as he went.
“Come on!” he shouted as he passed her.
They were close to the woods, twenty yards, ten, there. They didn’t stop for a while, spurred on by bullets hitting the trees behind them.
After a minute or two, the shooting stopped.
“We have to go back and get the dogs.” She was breathing so hard, she had to bend over. Sitting in a research trailer month after month, doing nothing but data analysis, had softened her.
“They’re not interested in the dogs. They made it plenty clear that they want us.”
“What’s going on?”
“Damned if I know.” Mike ducked behind a boulder and leaned against it, making room for her. He pulled the phone from his pocket, but it rang before he could dial.
“We’re under attack.”
He listened and swore alternatively, then after a couple of minutes held the cell phone away from his ear and shook it, pushed some buttons, listened again, slammed it into the snow. “Battery is dead.”
“Extreme cold will do that. What did you find out?”
“It’s classified.”
“Like hell it is.” She wanted to shake him. “Tell that to someone whose ass is not getting shot up by our own government. I already saw the warhead, Mike.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Give me what you have.”
He still had the gall to think about it before he finally nodded. “Apparently, a cache of warheads near where your research station was parked was broken into.”
“There are no military installations anywhere around here. Roger and I have been through the area a hundred times.” She tried to think of anything that looked even remotely suspicious, but there had been no manmade structures at all, just open snowfields.
“Underground bunkers most likely. Apparently the U.S. warheads were supposed to be destroyed under the disarmament agreement after the cold war, but they somehow disappeared from the list and were forgotten.” His words were underscored with a thick tone of irony.
“How does that have anything to do with us?”
“Some gun dealer got wind of it, and a few warheads were stolen. The whole environmentalist-extremists slash Alaska-pipeline tale was a cover so the CIA could close the area for a massive manhunt.”
She stared at him as understanding dawned on her. “It would look bad for the U.S. Government if it turned out we’re hiding stockpiles of nuclear weapons that violate international agreements.”
“Right.”
“But why are they after us? You and I didn’t steal anything.”
“Looks like that’s not how the CIA interpreted things. You left with the weapons dealers. At one point your research station was almost on top of the bunkers. And I’m here against orders. They figured out that we knew each other in the past.”
Wait a minute— “Go back to the bunkers part.”
“The Colonel said—”
“That’s what the readings were about,” she blurted, interrupting him.
“What readings?”
“We were doing all kinds of experiments, taking dozens of readings on air, dirt and melted snow every day. We would settle into a spot, work for a week or two. When we were done with our work, we would move fifty miles to the next observation point and start over.” They drove the trailer on the tracks for the big moves, but for everyday stuff they used the sleds to get around. “Then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago an order came in to do a reading for radiation.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Roger thought maybe they had some intel on nuclear testing in Russia and worried about the winds. We had very strong winds out of the west at the time. The strange thing was, we were told not to put the reading in the observation log, and that there was no need to repeat it again.”
“So whoever is selling the warheads is in a high enough position to ask a favor of the U.S.A.C.E. He wanted to make sure there was no radiation leak before he sent his men in there.”
“Somebody in the army?”
He shrugged.
“And the CIA suspects us. It’s ridiculous. We can explain.”
The expression on his face was hard, the thin set of his mouth making her uneasy. “We are not going to get a chance to make explanations, Tessa,” he said. “I know the guy in charge of the operation, Brady Marshall. He’s a cleanup expert if I’ve ever seen one. He’s heavily into leaving no witnesses.”
His brown eyes burned into hers as he shook his head.
“There’s more,” she said instead of asking.
He exhaled, his breath forming a small cloud in the frozen air. “We had some disagreements when I was working for the agency. He hates my guts. I came across information that implicated him in some serious stuff. I didn’t blow the whistle, but—”
“But if he takes you out, he can stop worrying that someday you will.”
He nodded. “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“You might have been better off taking your chances with the smugglers and working your plan.” He sounded miserable.
She took a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m only going to say this once, and first I want to emphasize how much I don’t want you to try anything like this in the future.” She held his gaze. “I’m glad that you came and got me.”
He blinked. “What? Have I gone mad from exposure already? Am I hallucinating?”
She couldn’t help cracking a smile as she punched him in the shoulder.
The sound of the chopper taking off reached them. It was coming closer. She stumbled and fell headfirst into snow when Mike sho
ved her under a large hemlock and dived after her.
“A small warning would have been nice.” She cleaned the snow from her face as they lay side by side without moving.
The chopper hovered for a minute or two then began circling, and after a while they heard the noise of its motor fade into the distance.
“It might be better if we stay out of the open for now.” He crawled out first.
She ignored the hand he extended to help her. “I’m not leaving the dogs,” she said, and as soon as she was on her feet, she started back the way they had come.
“That’s not what I meant.” He followed.
She slowed when they were close enough to see the edge of the woods. An ambush could be waiting for them out there. She moved with care, expecting at any moment a hail of bullets. Mike was as vigilant as she, communicating with hand signals. They passed the last couple of yards in a crouch, creeping from tree to tree.
They shouldn’t have bothered. The chopper had left no men behind. There was nothing in front of them at all—the crate, sled and dogs gone. A single flare stood stuck in the snow, bleeding red smoke toward the sky.
“They’ll be coming back for us.” Mike kicked it over and buried it. “We’re not going to make it to the village over open land.”
“They took my dogs,” she said, stunned, fury filling her.
“They’re not going to hurt the dogs. They only took them to make things harder for us.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. He shrugged. “What do you know about this area?”
The bastards took her dogs. A couple of seconds passed before she could focus on Mike’s question.
“There are a few families who live this far up. Trappers. Most of them go into the towns for winter. A couple of them stopped by the research station over the summer. These people cover ground like you wouldn’t believe.”