by Tanya Chris
He re-stuffed Tanner’s pack and gave up for now. Back down in the great room, he shook Tanner awake.
“You’re going to need to give me your passwords here.”
Tanner opened bleary eyes and made a queasy scowl. “Is that my phone?”
“Yeah, I’m taking it somewhere with a signal so I can try to throw the Russians off our scent, but you’re going to have to tell me how to unlock your phone and log into that app.”
Tanner’s eyes shifted past his shoulder. He turned and saw that Joe was standing behind them and that Tanner was looking to Joe for approval before turning over his passwords.
Joe considered. “There’s a lot of incriminating information in there, huh?”
“All of which we already have,” he countered. “I told you we intercepted the communications.”
Joe’s suspiciousness made him realize that the plans could be in the phone itself. Stupid not to have thought of that first. So, all right, maybe Joe and Tanner were right to be suspicious because as soon as he got the lock code and got out of sight, he was going to check. But only for Tanner’s own good.
“Look, Joe, we’re either on the same team or we’re not. I can’t do this without the lock code.”
Joe nodded at Tanner, then wandered off, disappearing back into the kitchen, reminding him that he hadn’t even had a cup of fucking coffee yet that morning.
“It’s just one-two-three-four,” Tanner said without picking up his head.
Great. High security. He entered the lock code and then pulled up the messaging app he knew Tanner had been using to communicate with the Russians.
“Is this one-two-three-four too?” he asked, showing Tanner the login screen for the app.
“Five-six,” Tanner said. “Requires a six digit password. Oh God, it hurts.”
He keyed in the six digit passcode, then looked around for Joe. Joe was the one who seemed to know how to help with withdrawal. There must be something—ibuprofen, something. Coffee maybe? Coffee would help him, even if it didn’t help Tanner.
The door to the kitchen swung open and Joe came through it, but he wasn’t carrying a bottle of pills or a cup of coffee. He had Pyotr’s gun in his hand, his fingers pinching the handle as though trying to make as little contact with it as possible. He extended it towards Pyotr.
“In case,” he said.
“Thanks.” He took the gun upstairs and loaded it and by the time he got back downstairs again, Joe was kneeling by Tanner’s bed with a glass of water in one hand, his other hand stroking through the sweaty strands of Tanner’s curls. He didn’t go all the way into the great room, just paused on the threshold and watched the two of them for a moment.
“You guys’ll be OK,” he said.
“Asking or telling?” Joe stood up, the glass of water, still mostly full, in his hand.
In a few long strides, Pyotr was across the room in front of him. He yanked Joe’s face into his, crushing their lips together until Joe stopped struggling and let him in. He heard Joe’s light sigh, felt his body ease.
“I’m telling you,” he said, pulling back only a little. “I’m going to take care of this.” He knelt down and gave Tanner a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be good, Tasha. I won’t be long.”
From the door to the hut, he turned back to see Joe still standing there, watching him. He went through the door, pulling hard to make sure it latched firmly behind him. The day was definitely warmer than the day before, even this early in the morning, but wind blew in gusts from west to east, straight across his face as he headed up to the trail to Muir.
Their tracks from yesterday had filled in partially. They were visible enough that he didn’t have to worry about getting lost or straying off an edge, but he missed Joe breaking trail for him. His stomach growled, reminding him that he was wading through snow without any fuel in his body. Maybe he should’ve stuck around, had some breakfast and some coffee, but he felt a growing sense of urgency.
The clear sky was an open invitation. Someone was out there—someone with a lot of motivation—and Mother Nature was no longer stopping that someone from reaching his goal. He was grateful for the weight of his gun pressing into the small of his back. No one could come up on him unannounced, not when any bit of color jumped out against the all-white landscape, but if he encountered someone, he’d be prepared for them.
Without Joe and Tanner for company, it seemed to take longer to reach the landing zone, but he finally made it. The view was even more stunning than the day before because sun illuminated the entire valley, all the way up to where he stood in the sloppy snow. Their footsteps ended here, and no extra footsteps went beyond them towards Muir, nor were there any signs of a helicopter having touched down.
Tanner’s phone showed two bars of 3G so he waited for it to sync up. A single text message came in through the normal texting app—a question from a co-worker—and the email app started to pick up new emails, all of which looked like spam, but the secured messaging app didn’t show any attempts by the Russians to communicate with Tanner while he’d been offline the last few days.
According to the last message the Russians had sent, today was the day. When the FSB learned they wouldn’t be allowed to travel to Longline today, they’d be in touch, or expect Tanner to be in touch, or Green Tea would find a way to get there regardless.
Pyotr figured it was his move. He sent a message through the app telling them he wouldn’t be able to make it up the mountain due to weather and claiming to be in Clarksville, the town closest to the jumping off point for Ganymede. The delivery indicator showed that the message had been sent, but several minutes later no response had been received.
The sun was warm on his shoulders, but his feet and calves were cold, buried as they were in damp snow. Wondering if he could evacuate Tanner by helicopter, he sent a message from his own phone to his support team asking if he could catch a ride out.
That message got a quick but disappointing response: under current conditions it would be better if you got yourself down. That was followed by a second message asking for a status report. He didn’t want to answer that one. There was too much to say by text and he hadn’t figured out what he was going to tell them anyway.
“Haven’t secured plans yet, but expect success. Green Tea delay possible due to snow.” He sent that off, waited a moment and then sent, “Reception very spotty. Will try to be in touch tomorrow,” and thumbed the power back off on his phone. He’d catch hell for being vague, but he didn’t want to say anything he’d later have to contradict, nor was he ready to tell the truth.
There was still no response on Tanner’s phone. He spent a few minutes searching through apps and folders looking for the plans he still couldn’t find, then powered it down too and started the trek back to the hut.
His hike back was even slower than the walk out even though he had gravity on his side. As the day warmed, the snow grew heavier and wetter and his feet sank deeper with each step. By the time he’d made it back, his stomach rumbled non-stop with complaints about missing breakfast.
“I was getting worried,” Joe said when he shuffled, exhausted, into the hut. “I thought about giving you snowshoes but until you get used to them, they can actually slow you down worse. Best to practice when you don’t have anywhere particular to go.”
“It’s slow-going out there. And dangerous too, like you said.” Nothing had come down anywhere near him, but he’d heard the rumblings of cornices collapsing and slopes sliding all around him.
“Good,” Joe said. “Hopefully that’s obvious to everyone and they’ll stay down. I let the other huts know we weren’t open for business.”
Joe took his outer layers from him like he had that first night, hanging up his coat on a hook and putting his sodden boots onto the drying rack. “You really need to get a good pair of gaiters,” he observed as he shook out Pyotr’s pants which were wet from hem to knee.
“Like I’m ever doing this again. Once we get Tanner out of here, I won’t be
looking back. How’s he doing?”
He followed Joe into the great room over to the mattress where Tanner lay in a tangle of blankets, his face buried under his pillow. He bent down and straightened the blankets, feeling the fever-like heat rising from his body.
“He’ll live,” Joe said, “but he’s not going to enjoy it for a few days. I’ll get you some breakfast.”
He grunted his appreciation and plopped down onto the mattress. He’d stripped off everything except his long underwear, but even that was wet around the ankles so he pulled that layer off too and crawled under the covers to soak in Tanner’s body warmth. Tanner rolled towards him, as if his frigid skin felt as good to Tanner as Tanner’s fevered skin felt to him.
He laid there, nuzzling into Tanner’s hair and half-dozing until Joe came back with a cup of coffee that was worth sitting up for. He pushed himself up to recline against the wall and pulled Tanner’s head into his lap while he sipped at the hot mug of dark coffee.
“So how’d it go?” Joe asked.
“No communications from the Russians and no answer when I tried to communicate with them.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I think it means Green Tea is somewhere without reception.” He’d had some time to consider on his walk back, but he didn’t have the knowledge of the area Joe did. “So where is he?” he prompted.
“Ganymede has reception,” Joe said. “Muir, it’s not easy but there are places you can stand and pick up something.”
“So the other hut then.”
“Flume, yeah. He could be at Flume. You can get pretty close to Flume by car, so the walk in would be manageable even when conditions are poor, but the ridge blocks cell reception from the valley.”
“What does it take to get from Flume to here?”
Joe frowned. “Four hours if there’s no snow on the ground and you’re acclimated to the altitude. Is Green Tea as inept outdoors as you are?”
In his lap, Tanner snorted. He smiled down at him. “Like you’re such a mountain man, Tasha.”
Tanner’s lips turned up, the first thing like a smile he’d seen out of him today. “What does Tasha mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It must mean something. You keep saying it.”
“It’s nonsense,” he told him, “a nickname. Like if your name was Timothy and I called you Timmy. We don’t have the name Tanner in Russia, but if we did?” Russia seemed so far away now. Though he still spoke Russian on the job, there was no call to use diminutives. “I think, yes, we’d say Tasha.”
“What if I wanted to call you Petie?” Tanner asked. “What’s Russian for Petie?”
“Petya. My family called me Petya.”
“Your family?” Joe put in.
“My mother, my grandparents. I have two sisters, both younger. I haven’t seen them since I left.” Nor talked to them since shortly after leaving. His current position was too dangerous, too prone to retaliation from either side at any moment. He’d cut ties with his family to keep them safe. They thought he didn’t love them. They didn’t know how much he did.
He looked up at Joe hovering over him, then back down at the sick angel on his lap. This hut felt more like home than anything had in a long time.
“Petya,” Tanner mumbled. “I like that. It’s easier to say than Pyotr. Do you know how many syllables there are in Pyotr?”
“Three?”
“When you’ve got cotton mouth, it feels like at least six. I can’t twist my tongue around them.”
“Then call me Petya.” He’d be embarrassed to admit how much he wanted to hear that.
Joe crouched down beside them on the mattress and held a glass of water out to Tanner. “Drink something for that cotton mouth.”
Tanner twisted himself into a more upright position and took a tentative sip. “Not too much. If I have to get up and pee into that hole, I’ll barf for sure.”
Joe left Tanner holding the glass and walked away. He reappeared a minute later with an empty jar which he set by the side of the mattress.
“Oh, no,” Tanner said. “I’m not peeing in a jar in front of my boyfriends. All the rest of this is bad enough.”
Boyfriends? He glanced up at Joe to find a startled expression on his face, likely mirrored on his own. They were obviously not boyfriends. They’d only just met. And what did Tanner mean anyway? That he and Tanner were boyfriends? Tanner and Joe? Joe and him?
They’d all fucked, which was weird enough, or should be. This whole thing should be awkward as hell instead of feeling, as he’d just been thinking himself, like home.
Joe shrugged, his powerful body tense.
“Why are you both so quiet all of a sudden? Was I not supposed to call you that?”
“It’s all right.” Joe tipped the glass of water up towards Tanner’s mouth again. “You can call us whatever you want.”
“It’s just Pyotr calls me Tasha and you keep bringing me things and no one’s ever taken care of me when I was sick before, except my mom, so I sort of figured …”
“Absolutely,” Pyotr said. “Boyfriends. That’s exactly what we are. Now go back to sleep, Tasha. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
Chapter 11
Joe
Joe left the glass of water and the piss jar next to Tanner’s bed and brought Pyotr over to the table to feed him breakfast. Or lunch. He’d been teasing Pyotr earlier about not being an outdoorsman, but Pyotr was the one who’d gone out for hours without food.
“The eggs have been unrefrigerated too long now, but I can make you some oatmeal. We’ve got powdered milk for cold cereal. Kind of gross to drink but you don’t really notice in cereal.”
“One of those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would be fine.”
He grinned. “I’ve converted you. I’m telling you, it’s the perfect food.”
He went into the kitchen and made two PB&Js and heated up a can of tomato soup over the propane stove. He set out a bag of sourdough pretzels and poured a glass of water from the filtered supply. Pyotr was probably dehydrated, and coffee hadn’t been the right thing to serve him when he got back, but he put on water for a second cup of that too because Pyotr had seemed so grateful for the first.
Petya. He tried out the name in his head, but couldn’t make it fit. Tanner’s Pyotr was warm and affectionate, but his was something else. Not cruel, but hard. Demanding. Strong. His Pyotr snuggled, but only as a reward after fucking him raw. Joe wasn’t about to call Tanner Tasha either. That was Pyotr’s name for him.
He turned the nicknames over in his mind, worrying at them as he worked. Did they mean that Pyotr and Tanner were closer to each other than they were to him? Did it matter if they were? Their time here would end soon. Tanner might not be up for the hike down for another couple of days, but the three of them wouldn’t be alone here for long.
Soon he would have to reopen to business, power or no power. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d run the hut without electricity or fresh supplies. When he’d radioed down to Ganymede earlier, Susan had acted like it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be open tomorrow. Even getting one more day would be tricky. He’d have to really play up the threat of avalanche.
He brought Pyotr’s lunch out to him and parked himself across from him to watch him eat.
“I think we need to get him out of here tomorrow,” Pyotr said with a jerk of his head towards the front of the room where Tanner slept. “Green Tea will find his way here whether it’s sanctioned or not. He’s not going to miss a chance at those plans.”
He considered. Tanner had proven to be pretty tough for a skinny kid, but heroin addicts always were tougher than they looked. The things they had to do. It built up a tolerance.
“You can leave your packs here,” he suggested. “When the power’s back on, I can send them down in the supply lift. The snow’s going to make it a wet, unpleasant walk, but down is easier than up. With you helping, and without a pack, he might be able to make it tomorrow.
”
“Can’t,” Pyotr said between slurps of soup. “I have to stay here in case Green Tea shows. I need Green Tea and I need those plans.”
“Need ’em for what?”
“That’s the mission. It’s why I’m here.”
“You were here to arrest Tanner. You still doing that, too?”
“Yeah, probably going to have to do that too.”
“So this boyfriend shit is all an act?”
He pushed back from the table and rose to his feet. He crossed unconsciously towards Tanner’s bed, feeling the need to protect him if Pyotr wasn’t going to do it. Tanner wasn’t completely jaded yet, was still sweet and hopeful despite where he’d landed, and Joe wasn’t going to let the man he saw behind the disease be destroyed.
His voice had been loud enough to wake Tanner who blinked up at him with pained, confused eyes.
“Joe. Sit.” Pyotr’s voice was unruffled. “Let Tanner sleep.”
He went back to the table, but he didn’t sit. He scuffed at one of the table legs with the toe of his Crocs. The floor was dirty. He’d been slacking in his duties, playing hooky with his “boyfriends.” Here was real life back in his face—a dirty floor and one boyfriend planning to arrest the other for treason.
“I said sit.” Pyotr kicked at the chair across from him, pushing it towards him and he lowered himself into it. “When you gave me back my gun this morning, I thought that meant you trusted me.”
“I gave you the gun because I thought you were going to help Tanner.”
“And I am, but you’re going to have to trust me to know how best to do that. It’s too late for me to pretend he wasn’t here. There’s a very limited number of people who had access to those plans and only one of them traveled to the Sierras and walked up to Longline. Trying to lie about it will ruin my cred with the agency and then I won’t be in a position to help him.”