“No, thanks. Get back inside, so you’re at least out of the wind.” Though it was nowhere near the speed that had induced yesterday’s whiteout conditions, it was still brisk.
“Jasper, please. I want to help.”
“Then get inside, so I don’t have to worry about you and the engine.”
While his brusque demeanor didn’t exactly fill her with warm fuzzies, she’d been around enough guys at the station to understand that for most, working on engines wasn’t anyone’s favorite chore.
Trying not to take his anger personally, she climbed back into the vehicle to start the camp stove. Jasper loved cocoa. He’d probably never admit it to the tough-guy former SEALs he worked with, but he especially enjoyed mini-marshmallows on top. Grinning at the naughty memory of what they’d once done with the tasty morsels, her cheeks overheated.
She lurched in surprise when the driver’s-side door opened and Jasper gave the ignition another try.
Ruh, ruh, ruh.
More cursing.
“I’m making hot chocolate,” she said. “Want some?”
“No. What I want is for this stupid-ass engine to start. I’ve checked the hydraulic lines and plugs—everything looks good.”
“I don’t mean to get in your man-business, but I was out with a team a few years back, and we got stuck in a blizzard. The cat crapped out on us, and to make a long, cold story short—I remember this, because while shivering, a friend and I were joking about craving warm carbs like cookies and brownies, when—”
“I’m freezing. Could you please get to the punchline?”
“Stop being snippy. I’m trying to help.”
“I know, babe. Sorry. But the longer we sit here, the more time Leo has to find us. Or, we could just turn into human popsicles. Neither scenario holds much appeal.”
“Okay, well, my friend and I were joking about carbs, but our driver checked the carburetor and found a ring of frost around some thingamajig. Started with a V. Ventricle? Venus? Sorry—can’t remember.”
“Venturi?”
“Maybe? I really don’t know. My friend was on engagement-ring watch, so we’d turned the ring of frost into dreaming of diamond rings.”
“Right.” He sharply exhaled before heading back outside, slamming the door behind him.
She’d never seen his cranky side and didn’t especially like it.
But then this was also their first life-threatening experience.
How would he take the news that she was essentially a dead woman walking? Oddly enough, she’d made her peace with it. It was easier. There was no sense dwelling on what was to come. And she sure wouldn’t spend whatever time she had left hugging a commode. Her poor mother had been sick to the extreme. A bag of bones, clinging to life for her little girl and husband. By the end, Eden had been glad to see her go, because she could no longer bear witnessing the constant pain in her eyes.
Eden used the backs of her gloves to blot tears from her eyes before they froze, then swallowed the knot in throat. The here and now was all that mattered, so she returned to the pleasantly mundane task of lighting the propane camp stove, then retrieving snow to thaw and boil.
By the time she’d made two mugs of hot chocolate, Jasper was once again tugging open the door, then easing behind the wheel.
She crossed her fingers.
Ruh, ruh. Ruh, ruh.
He slapped the palm of his gloved hand against the wheel, then tried one last time. Ruh, ruh, rrrruh . . .”
Eden dared exhale when the engine finally caught, then settled into a comforting chug.
“Yes . . .” Jasper grinned over his shoulder, turned on the heater, then directed all vents in her direction. “You’re amazing.” He blew her a kiss. “I never would have thought to check the carb, but sure enough, whether it was caused by the blowing snow or the impact when I hit the rocks, there was a ring of ice. Once I got it cleared—voila.”
“Glad I could finally help.” She was beginning to feel her assigned tasks were busy work. After climbing over the gear, she handed him his reward. “Drink up. You’re probably freezing.”
He drank, then closed his eyes and groaned. “You’re an angel. Thanks.” He took a few more sips. “How are we on food?”
“I didn’t do the actual math, but there’s plenty. If our gas holds out, more than enough to get us to McMurdo. But then you probably already knew that.”
“Maybe.” He winked. “I had to do something to get your mind off of the very real possibility of freezing to death.”
The heater had kicked into high gear. She could have purred in relief.
“Let’s get the stove and any loose supplies secured, then head out.”
“Aye, aye, captain.” She gave him a saucy salute.
Before coaxing the massive machine down from its awkward angle, he grinned and shook his head. “I always loved that about you.”
“What?”
“How you make bad situations good. Remember that time we spent an hour shopping for our Cinco de Mayo feast, only to get to the checkout to discover—”
“Neither of us had our wallets.” She’d finished his sentence. Of course she remembered. Every moment they’d ever shared. Good or bad, she cherished all of their time together.
“After getting back to your place, didn’t we order Chinese?”
“Yeah, and you dropped sweet and sour sauce all over the carpet. There’s still a stain.”
“Sorry.” With the cat on flat ground and chugging toward safety, he leaned close enough to kiss her cheek. “Once we get out of this mess, I’ll replace it.”
“Thanks, but not necessary.” She cast him a sad, slow-fading smile.
“Why’d you do it, babe?”
She hung her head.
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Sure, I had my own issues and shouldn’t have taken things much further, but I was working through them. Given time, they might have been resolved. But when you cut me off cold . . .” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “That hurt. Why’d you break up with me? Did I do something to offend you? Were you that pissed about the carpet?”
“No. Please just know it wouldn’t have worked between us. You would have only ended up getting hurt, so I had to let you go.”
“That’s such BS.” He glanced in her direction. “We’ve got hours to hash this out, so let’s get on with it. Why, when we were beyond perfect together, did you suddenly dump me?”
6
“BECAUSE I’M SICK, okay?”
“What do you mean? Like bad sick?” Jasper’s stomach tightened—not the way it did when dodging bullets, but on a deeper, more profound level. Like the kind he’d experienced after what happened to Kyle’s wife. He’d expected Eden to say he was too messy or worked too much or cussed too much or did any of the annoying things he no doubt did on a daily basis. He’d even steeled himself for the possibility that she’d found another man. Never had he seen anything like this coming.
The cab had grown warm enough for Eden to remove her gloves.
Jasper watched while she primly set them on her lap, then covered her face with her hands.
“Answer me.” Too hot, he unzipped his coat, and shrugged free of it before pitching it over the bench seat. “I have a right to know.”
“Okay . . .” Silvery tears trailed down her cheeks, glinting in the too-bright sun. “Right after you were assigned to guard the governor, I went to my annual physical. Everything seemed fine until the test results came in showing that I’m not—fine. Just like my mom, I have ovarian cancer. Yay, me—it runs in families.”
“What happened next? I’m assuming you went to a specialist?”
She nodded. “He wanted me to have surgery right away. Start treatments. Yada, yada.”
“Did you?”
“No. What’s the point? I watched Mom go through all of that, and for what? She died anyway. She was miserable—throwing up for hour-long stretches at a time. I was ten. Watching my father sit next to her alo
ngside the toilet, holding back the long hair of the wig she’d insisted on wearing ever since I’d opened my big mouth to say she looked scary with no hair.”
Jasper stopped the cat.
His next move was to reach for Eden, sliding her across the vinyl seat and onto his lap. She was crying, only they weren’t ordinary tears. Though he had no way of knowing, he got the impression he was holding the grief-stricken little girl who still missed her mom. While he ached for her, he also needed to get through to the adult Eden. He needed to make her understand that just because her mother’s story had a shitty ending, that didn’t mean hers would, too.
“So . . .” He rested his chin atop her head. “You hit the pause button on you and me, because you assume you’re about to die?”
“We’re not paused,” she said against his chest. “We’re done. I saw what my dad went through, and there’s no way I’m putting you through that. It’s not fair.”
“Oh—” his short laugh was anything but funny “—let me get this straight. It’s perfectly cool for you to deal with fucking cancer on your own?”
“Shut up. I made my decision. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”
“The hell there’s not. For starters, as soon as we get off this ice cube of a continent, you’re going back to that specialist and scheduling surgery, and as many treatments as it takes to heal you.”
“You’re being ridiculous. If it were that easy, don’t you think I’d have tried? What don’t you understand about the fact that I want to die on my terms? I want to go out gracefully and at peace.”
He hardened his jaw. “What don’t you understand about the fact that I refuse to let you die?”
“This is cancer.” She backed away. “Not some gun-toting terrorist you can eradicate with a smart bomb. This enemy isn’t beatable by sheer will.”
“The hell it isn’t.” After putting the cat back in gear, he continued their forward momentum. “And you and me? We’re officially back together.”
“No.”
“Not up for debate.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing to even discuss. We’re done.”
“You’re being ridiculously short-sighted. And selfish.”
“Selfish?” she shrieked. “Screw you.”
“Oh, hell . . . Seriously? Now?” Looked like their lover’s tiff would have to be tabled.
“What are you talking about?” She glanced up, only to groan. On the horizon loomed three snowcats—each double the size of their own. “I don’t recognize those. Could they be part of Leo’s crew? What are we going to do?”
“This . . .” Jasper maneuvered their gangly vehicle into a U-turn, then aimed toward the mountain range they’d spent most of the morning veering away from. “How well do you know this area?”
“Not at all. Aside from a few student field outings, I haven’t been this far from the station since Mom died.” She glanced out the rear window. “They’re gaining. I guess this means Leo wasn’t lying. About his additional manpower. Maybe even the sub.”
“I still think the whole treasure thing is pharmaceutical. Your dad must be onto something big, and Leo doesn’t just want a piece of the pie, but the whole, damned thing.”
“But if that were the case, why bother with me? What information could I have that he needs? I definitely didn’t inherit the science gene from my father.”
A quick look in the rearview did zero to squash the growing hum of frustration in Jasper’s head. Learning about Eden’s cancer was enough for one day. Though he hadn’t wanted to mention it to her, Jasper figured their path would eventually cross with that of Leo and crew, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this soon.
There was a shitload of firepower in the back, but if the two losers he’d offed had that obscene amount, how much would Leo’s main crew have? Meaning him and Eden were hopelessly outgunned.
“On this plain, there’s nowhere to hide.” They rode along the center of a wide valley lined by foothills and then peaks. “Look for an opening where we can veer off. We might even get lucky and have a wind whip up the snow, hiding us—and our tracks—from view.”
“See where those two hills seem to overlap?” She pointed to an area maybe three miles away. The light was different here—the air too clear. Judging distance was nearly impossible.
“Good job. I like it.” Even if he hadn’t, it wasn’t like they had much of a choice. He gunned the engine for all it was worth, getting a couple extra miles-per-hour. Would it make a difference? Probably not. But for Eden’s sake, he had to try.
The cat shuddered from the pace, but held up long enough to enter the snowy canyon’s mouth well ahead of Leo’s contingency. The trouble was that with such clear visibility, there was no such thing as hiding. Not only would Leo have seen where they turned, but the tracks stood out as if they’d been spray painted blaze orange.
Perpetual winds had topped the canyon’s jagged walls with freeform towers of ice and snow. They were beautiful, but delicately balanced. What would it take to bring them down?
Steering the cat beneath them didn’t do much for his nerves, but then an idea struck. “Have any idea how long this canyon is?”
“Sorry, no. It could wind on for miles or end around the bend.”
Clenching the wheel, he craned to view the snow towers from a fresh angle. Would it be enough? He had no choice but to try.
Stopping, he killed the engine to save fuel.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We have to keep going.”
“You saw how Leo was gaining. See the snow up there?”
She nodded. “It’s beautiful. Ice towers that large might have taken a decade to form—maybe a century.”
“My apologies to Mother Nature,” he said as he climbed over the seat to reach the weapons cache. Finally, something that made him feel at home. The guys at Trident would be jealous when they heard about his new toy. He dug out the RPG-7, then grabbed a few rockets before leaving the cat.
“Are you crazy?” Eden shouted after him. “You can’t fire that in this canyon. This entire continent is protected. The damage may never be repaired.”
“I’m real sorry, but at the moment that can’t be helped.” Leaving the rear door open, he set spare ammo on a food bin, then loaded and prepared to fire. “Cover your ears,” he shouted when the low rumble of Leo’s cats could be heard.
“If you have to play with explosives, why not just shoot the vehicles?”
“Because they no doubt have even better toys than we do, which means by the time I disabled one of their cat’s they’d decimate ours.”
“Oh.” She tugged her gloves back on, then did as he’d asked.
Bam. He fired at the overhang nearest the canyon’s mouth.
While his ears still rang from the first rocket’s concussive force, then the rumble from the cascade of falling snow and ice, he fired at the canyon’s opposite side, bringing down yet more ice and snow.
Yes. His plan worked—even better than expected. A thirty-foot wall of snow had fallen, closing the entry with a wide, frozen swath.
“Hate to be a Debbie Downer,” Eden said from behind him, “but if Leo has a rocket launcher, too, what’s to stop him from blowing through your pile?”
“Honestly? Not a damned thing. Let’s get going.” For good measure, once she’d climbed back into the vehicle, Jasper fired off two more rounds—this time at the rock walls. He didn’t fool himself into believing his barricade was impenetrable, but it would hopefully buy them time.
He stowed the weapon, then climbed back behind the wheel.
Moments earlier, he’d been too warm, but now that the adrenaline had worn off, he shivered.
Even ten tense minutes later with the heat blasting, he couldn’t get warm.
What the hell was he doing down here? He and Eden should be back in Denver, getting her treated.
A glance in her direction showed her grim-faced, holding her arms crossed defensively. The fact that neither had spoken a wor
d after one of the most stressful binds he’d been in since his former SEAL days didn’t bode well for their relationship. What was she thinking? Was she scared for her father? Worried about Leo’s men breaking through the barrier? Pissed about him harming the environment? Why wasn’t she talking? Why couldn’t he think of anything comforting to say?
They jostled along the narrow canyon floor for a good couple hours when the unspoken fear he’d most dreaded when cutting off their exit became their new reality.
Not only was the route impassable with the cat, but even to climb out would require specialized climbing gear and expertise they didn’t have. Back in Denver, his pal, Everett, got his weekend adrenaline dosage by free-climbing sheer cliff walls, but heights had never been Jasper’s thing.
Steam vents and a boulder-field were dead ahead, reminding him that if the climate wasn’t already forbidding enough, volcanoes stood by, ready to make life even more exciting.
“Now what?” Eden’s question barely rose above the cat’s steady chug.
“Not sure.” Not only was there nowhere to go, but even if they’d wanted to bolt, their sole means of transport was perilously low on fuel. He kept that fact to himself. They had enough food to last weeks, but the cold could prove far more deadly than the crew they’d been trying to outrun.
“A few years ago, Dad took me and a few students to a steam vent that was near a small cave. Maybe these vents have one nearby. It might be warmer than the cat once it’s out of fuel.”
“You noticed we’re getting low?”
“You thought I wouldn’t?”
Staring straight ahead, he shrugged.
“I appreciate you trying to protect me from the realities of our situation, but I’m a big girl, Jasper. I can take it.”
“You shouldn’t have to. None of this makes sense. Even back to the dead orcas you found on the shore. What killed them? Why?”
The cab had grown overly warm. She’d removed her gloves and coat. Holding her fingers to her temples, she rubbed in a tight circle.
“Headache?”
“A little. I’m just trying to think of what could have happened to those whales. The penguins, too. It had to be something quick. I remember reading once about how military sonar has been linked to mass strandings and even deaths, but how would that apply here? There’s no military presence in Antarctica.”
Outcast (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 2) Page 4