Cain nodded. “He might have mentioned something about the other team at the beginning—a passing comment. Knowing you, I’m sure you leapt on the opening and verbally gripped his throat and demanded to know more.”
Agata shifted on the bench, uneasy. Cain had described almost exactly what had happened. “It doesn’t explain why he lied to me. Why he told me he’d do something.”
“That’s where I’m guessing. It’s not a wild guess.” Cain shrugged. “He wanted you to like him. He wanted to look like a hero in your eyes, so he opened his mouth and said he’d arrange something he knew he couldn’t possibly pull off. Did you shower him with gratitude when he said he’d do it?”
Agata’s middle squirmed. She gripped her coffee cup.
Cain nodded, as if she had said yes. “When you pour on the warmth, it dazzles a man. Even by email, I imagine. The poor sap dangled you for ten days because he didn’t know how to break the truth to you…until you wore him down and he finally spilled his guts.”
“Why make me hope like that?” she said bitterly.
“He wasn’t thinking about you at all,” Cain assured her. “Hey, at least the guy has a conscience. It took him ten days, but he finally came clean. Lots of men would just ghost you.” He held out his hand. “Give me the phone and drink your coffee, Agata. I want to check the weather report.”
Agata gave him the phone and finished her coffee, stewing. Where was she supposed to go, now? What could she do?
First, of course, they had to reach Grenoble. Then it was her duty to make sure Cain reached the States with his hide intact. Or perhaps she could hand him over to someone more competent than her, who would get him somewhere safe.
There would be time, later, to figure this out. For now, she should just accept that every avenue of potential was dead and move on. Just getting to Grenoble was proving to be more difficult than she had first thought. A simple hike along an Alpine road had required more fortitude and energy than expected. Was the rest of the journey going to tap all her reserves?
“Ah…Christ…” Cain breathed, his tone bitter with upset. He was staring at the phone.
“What?” she asked, alarmed.
He held the phone out to her. “Harry is dead. They killed him.”
Agata caught her breath, shocked. She took the phone and scanned the news item. It was short on detail, but clear.
“It doesn’t make sense!” Cain ground out. “Why kill Harry? He was a jerk, but he doesn’t know anything about this mess we’re in.”
“The Kobra thought he might. He was head of your security, Cain. Under normal circumstances, Harry would direct us, making sure you were safe. He would know exactly where I had stashed you. The Kobra went back to Harry because we dropped off the map.”
“You mean Zima,” Cain said, his tone still bitter.
“I mean the Kobra. He has people everywhere, Cain. Zima is likely still in La Richonnière, sniffing around, trying to pick up our trail. The Kobra would have sent someone else to question Harry.” She grimaced. “Maybe someone on the detail was already a Kobra man, laying deep and quiet until the Kobra reached out to him.
Cain pinched the skin between his brows. He hadn’t done that for days. He was feeling extraordinary stress again. “How is it even possible for someone…for a Russian, for heaven’s sake—how can a single man thousands of miles away manipulate so many people? How is it even possible he could have so many people inside American organizations, ready to jump at his bidding?”
“He’s been around for a long time,” Agata told him. Cain’s bewilderment was understandable. She had been living with these facts for more than a year. He’d only heard of the Kobra two days ago. “He’s spent decades making contacts, setting up favors, and building up a storehouse of knowledge about us, about people who might be useful to him, later on. He extorts and manipulates. Not everyone who works for him does it willingly, Cain. Extortion is his favorite tool.”
Cain hefted the phone. “I thought murder was.” His tone was deeply bitter. “I underestimated him.” He rubbed his other hand on his knee. “Now I’m wondering what will be waiting for us in Grenoble. He knows we’re heading there, you said.”
Agata considered the situation as dispassionately as she would if she was analyzing it for another agent. “It’s a gamble,” she admitted. “I’m counting on Dima and whoever she brings with her, and whatever resources she has, being enough to counter whatever the Kobra has lined up for us in Grenoble.”
Cain shook his head. “First we have to get there. That will not be a walk in the park, Kelsey.” He lifted the phone again. “The temperature is due to drop for three days before it gets warm again.”
“Drop how much?”
“A lot,” he said. “Ten degrees.” His mouth twisted. “Celsius.”
Agata stared at him, her heart thudding. Ten degrees, even in Celsius, wasn’t a huge amount…if she was only moving from her car to a warm, centrally heated building.
A drop of ten degrees, when it was already freezing, was an altogether different thing when they were outside the entire time and couldn’t risk a fire….
She dropped her gaze to her empty coffee cup, and her bare fingers gripping it. The pale pink nail polish she’d put on her nails the morning the shit had hit the fan was still whole and unchipped. It was a marker of a different world, so removed from this one that her nails looked alien and wrong on her fingers. She wasn’t that woman. Had she ever been?
How had she arrived at this place? She was an astronautical engineer, a nerd. People like her did not run around aping James Bond, rescuing people and killing bad guys. She wasn’t qualified for this.
Maybe she wasn’t qualified for anything. NASA certainly didn’t want her back.
Agata bent her head. She covered her face with her hand.
How was she supposed to get Cain out of this? It was a great, cosmic joke, and all on her.
Cain plucked her hand from her head. “Hey.”
Agata drew in a shuddering breath. “What?”
“I’ve had an idea.” He nodded toward the other side of the park. Over on that side was another short row of shops. “We can ski to Grenoble.”
Her gaze settled on the outdoor equipment store at the end of the row. A hand lettered sign in the door said the store was open. Dusty mannequins wearing last year’s après ski gear stood in the old-fashioned bow window.
Her heart plummeted. “I can’t ski, Cain.”
“You can do anything. I’ve seen you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never even put on a set of skis. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“But I do.” He turned to her once more. “I can get us across to Grenoble, on skis. It will be faster than hiking. It will be unexpected. We’ve already got the Kobra flailing, going back to Paris to find a line on us because we did the unexpected thing. We need to keep doing it. Keep him off balance.”
“By cross-country skiing our way to Grenoble? Is that even possible?”
“It’s called cross-country skiing for a reason, Kelsey.”
Agata focused on her name. He’d called her Agata a moment ago, and she had barely noticed it. Now, though, her last name sounded harsh. Impersonal.
She made herself consider what Cain was proposing. “Have you actually looked at the map, at what is between us and Grenoble?” she asked him. “There are whole mountains. Slopes that go up, Cain. Skis work on down hills and flat country.”
“Skis come off when you need to go uphill.” His tone was authoritative. He did know this stuff, after all. “Besides, if you’re going fast enough when you hit the slope, you can get a long way up the hill before you come to a halt.”
Agata closed her eyes. “I don’t even know if I can stand on the damn things, Cain.”
He shook her hand. “You will. And I’ll get you to Grenoble. Trust me, Agata. This is way better than hiking out on foot. All you have to do is stay on your skis. This will work. I know it.”
His enthus
iasm stirred something in her chest. Hope? She didn’t know. “Just trust you and do everything you say, right?”
Cain’s smile was as sudden as the few others he’d given her. In his own way, he was dazzling, too. The unexpected flash of warmth and humor left her blinking. “That’s all you have to do.”
“One track mind.” She grimaced. “It’s what got me into this mess.”
He got to his feet, as if she had already agreed to this. Then she realized she had agreed to it, in her mind, at least. He’d sensed it and now he was acting on it.
An hour later, at the edge of Malleval-en-Vercors, Agata stood upon broad fiberglass skis. She wore rigid plastic, polyurethane-lined boots which attached to the skis at the toe only. She had ski poles in her hands, which were also strapped to her wrists. They weren’t the light, short ones downhill skiers used. They weren’t bent. They were sturdier and longer. The bottom of the rubber handle flared out into a wide flange which sat against the bottom of her fist.
She wore a ski mask and goggles, and Cain had adjusted her pack straps so the pack sat lower. “It brings your center of balance lower, which will help,” he explained, as he checked her gear and made minute adjustments.
Now he clipped his boots to his own skis and moved his feet back and forth. The skis shifted on the snow. He put his goggles into place and lifted the bottom of the ski mask up. “You’re standing on skis, Kelsey. You did it.”
She would have stuck out her tongue, only he wouldn’t see it. “Ha-ha,” she said, instead. “You said you could make me move on them and not sprawl on my ass. Prove it.”
He held up the poles in his hands. “These are the key. Ever rowed a canoe, Kelsey?”
“Every summer, at camp.”
“For you, for now, it’s almost the same thing. Stick the oar in, push it backward, which drives you forward. Then the other side. Go on.”
“It can’t be that simple,” she protested.
“Try it.”
She took a better grip on the poles, her heart zooming. Ahead of them spread a field of white, sprinkled with spindly trees here and there. The white rolled on until mountain crags intervened and the land shot up into mountainside. Here, though, the white field was flat. Ish.
“Walk and row, Kelsey,” Cain told her.
She drove the right-hand pole into the snow, felt it bite and pushed against it. Her skis glided forward, like skates on ice. She caught her breath in a wild gasp.
“Stride forward, keeping your feet down low,” Cain called out. “Other pole now.”
She was moving at less than walking speed, but she was moving.
Cain glided alongside her, pushing both poles at once.
“You said one pole at a time.”
“I’ve done this once or twice before,” he said. “Go on. Moon walk. Channel Michael J.”
She giggled and pressed her lips together to shut down the schoolgirl reaction. Moon walking…she understood that. And the poles provided leverage on the flat surface. One ski at a time cut down on resistance, which would increase speed…. The principals sorted themselves out in her mind. It was basic physics, simple motion.
Cain paced beside her as Agata sorted out the most efficient motion of hands and arms, in time with her feet pushing the skis forward. She was only peripherally aware of Cain’s voice, coaching her, directing her movements.
“Okay, take a breather,” Cain said.
“How do I make them stop?” she gasped.
“Stop moving your feet. The poles can act as brakes if you’ve got a good head of steam. You’re going slow enough you’ll glide to a stop in less than a foot.”
She brought her feet together. The skis came to a gentle stop.
Cain stopped with a flashy spray of snow beside her and lifted his goggles and pulled down the mask. “Now we get to walk for a bit.”
Agata looked behind her. Malleval was so far behind them, she could no longer see it. They had traveled a long way. “Miles…” she breathed.
“Well, a couple at least,” Cain said. He laughed at her expression. “I said it was faster.”
“I know, but…” She untangled the straps of the pole and freed her hands, then pulled down her mask and lifted the goggles. The air was cold on her face and refreshing. She was very warm, beneath the layers. “I didn’t think it could be this easy.”
Cain shook his head. “The basics are easy. And it’s all we need. We don’t have to set speed records. No one is judging us on style. We just have to cross the valley, climb to the next valley and cross that. Simple.”
Agata chewed at her lip. She’d worked on plenty of jobs which had started simple, and turned into glitchy, complicated messes.
“Don’t look ahead, Kelsey,” Cain growled. “You’re extrapolating. I know that look in your eyes.”
“I’m supposed to be anticipating,” she reminded him.
He bent and detached the ski from his boot, then the other one, with crisp snaps of the catches. “For right now, let me worry about it. You’re in my world. When we reach Grenoble, you can switch back to Jason Bourne. I’ll stand back and hold your hat while you shoot every bad guy who rocks up, with my full endorsement.” He straightened. “Kick off your skis, Kelsey. We’re climbing.”
[18]
Vercors Regional Natural Park, France.
Things did get complicated, only not in any way Agata could have anticipated that morning.
Both of them were running on little food, no sleep and pure adrenaline. Once the initial flurry of learning how to propel herself forward had worn off, twinges of exhaustion bit at her muscles and her mind.
It got worse from there.
The temperature dropped, as advertised. Even through her ski mask, she was breathing heavy clouds of steam. So did Cain. He stayed a few paces ahead of her, leading the way. She didn’t have the coordination or energy to spare to keep an eye on their direction. Cain knew where he was going, and he checked his bearings every time they crossed into the next valley.
“We would reach Méaudre in a few hours if we could move in a straight line,” he explained, during one short trek. “Only, there’s a chain of mountains across our path. We have to go around them. No choice.”
It more than doubled the distance. Cain didn’t seem intimidated by the number of miles they would have to cover.
There was only one road they had to cross. They approached it with caution and studied both directions for long minutes before hurrying across the road and into the trees on the other side.
For an hour, Agata worried about the distinctive double tracks they were leaving behind them. Then it began to snow, thick and fast. Their tracks would soon be covered.
The heavy snow clouds dimmed the light. They skied through a perpetual twilight. The snow stopped them from seeing too far ahead, and Cain halted more frequently to check the compass he had bought at the ski store.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, his tone light. “I’m told I’m somewhat good at this.”
It didn’t take long for Agata’s ankles to burn with the buildup of lactic acid. Then her wrists joined in. After a few hours, her arms felt like logs and she no longer was hot from her exertions. She shivered as she skied and her thoughts grew miasmic. All she could focus upon was the cold and how her body ached, while keeping one eye upon Cain’s back. She skied in his tracks, now, for it was a little easier, and saved her from having to look up too much.
The next time they kicked off their skis to tramp up the slope to the next valley, Cain bent his head to examine her face, his black eyes concerned. “Okay, Kelsey?”
Tears burned in the back of her eyes. She gritted her teeth together until the need to weep passed and she had control of her voice once more. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I can’t feel my feet. Everything hurts. I can’t stop thinking about California…about walking through an orange grove in the middle of summer, when the ground bakes your feet. Eating an orange straight off a tree, so the flesh is as hot as the s
kin and it’s juicy as hell…” Her voice wobbled.
He tilted his head. “Not a cheeseburger? I’m shocked, Kelsey.”
“Don’t joke. Please. I can’t stand it.”
Cain took off his gloves. “You need food and water. It’ll give you a boost of energy. Turn around, let me get at your pack.”
She turned, her knees trembling.
“No, don’t sit down,” he said sharply. “You won’t get up again. Come on, stand up.”
With a trembling groan, she straightened her knees. Cain dug in her pack, then moved around to face her. “Here.” He held out her jerky and the last pack of Cheetos.
“Junk food?” she asked, astonished.
“You’re used to junk as fuel. It’ll help. Go on, gorge yourself. Want the ice cream, too?”
She ate with sudden ravening hunger, her belly growling. She had to keep shaking the packets to keep the snow off them, for it was falling fast. If someone had tried to take them from her, she would have growled like a dog.
Cain held the packet of freeze-dried ice cream, watching her eat.
“You’re not eating?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get hungry until I’ve crossed the finish line.”
“I want to stop now,” she said. “Right here. I can’t go another inch, Cain.”
He considered her, with a gaze which told her he was measuring her. “It’s two p.m. It’ll be dark soon. We can’t stop until then. If we stop now, we won’t reach Mèaudre during daylight tomorrow. We’ll be noticed, coming in at night. People will remember us. During the day, we’re just another pair of skiers coming in from the field.”
“With big fucking packs. They won’t notice those at all,” she said sourly.
He laughed. “You haven’t been to many ski resorts, have you?” He took the jerky and the empty packet of Cheetos from her and stuffed them in his pocket, while she devoured the last of the ice cream, glad it wasn’t actual ice cream anymore. It was warmer than the ambient temperature.
When she was done, she bent and stacked her poles together on top of the skis and picked them up. Her back throbbed as she straightened, although she did feel marginally better with food in her stomach.
Inside Man Page 18