by Marc Cameron
“Vsyo Kharasho?” a deep Russian voice said. It sounded like a demand.
Quinn held the radio ready to speak, looking at Beaudine for a translation.
“He’s asking if you’re all good.”
“How do I answer?”
“Da, narmalna,” she said. Yes, normal.
Quinn repeated the phrase back, holding the small radio nearly a foot away from his mouth to add some distortion to his voice.
“OK,” the other Russian said, laughing as he said something else. Quinn could hear the cries of a woman each time the mike was keyed.
“He wants to know if you had to stop to take a piss,” Beaudine said.
Quinn clicked the talk button a couple of times, showing that he’d received and understood but didn’t care to answer back.
The Russian spoke again and Beaudine translated. “He says they’re about to finish up and will be along in a few minutes.” She shook her head, obviously having heard the woman’s sobbing on the other end of the radio.
Quinn wanted to check the wound in his thigh but there was no time. The Native woman had been fifty yards away and thankfully hadn’t been using a rifle. Quinn estimated at least a dozen pellets of birdshot had caught him from just above the knee to the point of his hip. It was extremely painful but not debilitating.
“Sorry,” the woman said, walking up with her shotgun. “I thought you was one of them.” She eyed the carnage around the dead man and turned away to throw up in the snow.
“Understandable,” Quinn said, grimacing as he took the Lapua from Beaudine. “We’re going to have to do something to draw them out quickly,” he said, “before they ‘finish up’ and kill someone else.”
“Agreed,” Beaudine said.
Quinn explained his plan, then gritted his teeth at the new pain in his leg and moved quickly to the front of the house nearest the school. He backed up far enough from the house that he had a view—and a clear line of fire—down both the main street toward the airstrip and the river side of the houses. Then he stretched out belly-down in the snow behind the rifle. Settling in with the gun, he flipped up the scope covers, then motioned for Beaudine to fire the dead Russian’s Kalashnikov into the ground. As planned, he gave it a three count, and then keyed the radio several times. Demands for a situation report barked from the other end. He said nothing.
As much as he hated to expose Hazel to any more violence, he wanted to avoid a repeat of the woman shooting him with the shotgun. He put the girl beside him with the binoculars so she could differentiate the Russians from any village men who happened to walk in front of his crosshairs.
Two men exited a house at the far end of the street just seconds after Beaudine began to frantically key the radio mike. Both carried their long guns up and ready to engage. Quinn had already estimated the distance to be three hundred meters. He rested the crosshairs over the man on the left and squeezed off a round. The shot went low, hitting him just below the knee. The gun fell from the wounded man’s hand and he tipped sideways, unable to stand on the shattered leg. Quinn adjusted quickly, bumping the Lapua sideways so the second man appeared in his scope. He adjusted his aim, holding the crosshairs just over the top of the second Russian’s head. The round impacted center mass, dropping him where he stood.
“I am glad you killed him,” Hazel said, still looking through the binoculars. “I loved Miss Bernadette. That man shot her and just laughed . . .”
“Are you sure there were only three?” Beaudine said, coming up beside them at a crouch with the AK.
Hazel nodded. “There was another guy, but he took off on stolen Honda.”
“Take your brother to the school,” Quinn said, wincing at his wound as he got to his feet. “Tell the others we’re here and not to shoot at us.”
“I live right there,” the woman with the shotgun said, nodding two houses down. “I’ll go put it out over the CB.”
Ten minutes later Quinn and Beaudine stood around the wounded Russian with a dozen very angry members of Needle Village. Ms. Bernadette and the Stubbins brothers all had relatives and dear friends among the crowd. Quinn had put a makeshift tourniquet around the Russian’s leg and leaned him against the wooden steps of the house where he and the other Russian had only recently been terrorizing a young mother and her infant daughter. The woman was shaken but defiant and now stood over the terrified Russian with a hatchet that she looked ready to put to good use.
It took no interrogation for the man to tell them his name was Ilia Davydov, the pilot. He told Quinn what he already knew, that a man named Feliks Zolner, sometimes called Worst of the Moon, had been charged to capture or kill a scientist named Volodin. Between sobs and panting breaths, Davydov answered every question posed to him, describing what Zolner looked like, the type and caliber of rifle he carried, and even the kind of food he preferred—simple Russian tea and jam. He had no idea who had hired Zolner or how he planned to get out of Alaska now that the plane was damaged.
“He is a quiet man,” Davydov said, panting. “He hires us to assist him, but we are never told the entire story. That is his alone to know.” He looked at Quinn with pleading eyes. “Please,” he gasped. “I have only just begun working for him.”
“You killed my friend,” Hazel said. She’d ignored Quinn’s directive to go wait at the school and now stood with the adults, mostly women and a couple of elderly men, who had gathered in front of the house.
Davydov shook his head. “The others,” he stammered. “They shot her for sport, to wound her. I did not want to see her suffer so I ended her pain.” He glanced at Beaudine, then quickly back to Quinn. “You must believe me, I try to be merciful. To kill her quickly.”
Beaudine scoffed. “If you really wanted to show some mercy you could have put a bullet in the two bastards that shot her in the first place.”
Quinn shouldered his pack and picked up the Lapua.
“What are you going to do with me?” Davydov whimpered. “You can’t leave me here.”
“What?” Beaudine said. “I’m sure they’ll show you just as much mercy as you showed their friend.”
* * *
Brian Ticket’s brother-in-law, Ruben, had been out hunting ptarmigan when the Russians landed and made it back into town in time to see the crowd gather around Davydov. It had been his house the two Russians had first terrorized, and his wife—Brian’s sister—now stood with the hatchet in her hand. Quinn filled him in about their meeting with Brian at the fish camp and explained the immediate need to follow Zolner and Volodin on the ATV trail toward Ambler.
“I got a better idea,” the man said, clutching his wife and child like they might float away. “We’ll take my boat. My uncle has a camp four miles upriver. We stashed a Honda out there two days ago. Keys are in it and it’s full of gas. I was gonna go hunting, but if you can catch Worst of the Moon . . . Anyhow, there’s an old trail going northeast behind the cabin. It cuts into the ATV road that comes out of here. You’ll save a hell of a lot of time because the river bends back up that way before cutting southeast again toward Ambler. If we go now, you might even get ahead of ’em.”
PART III
FIRE
Victory is reserved for those who are willing
to pay its price.
—SUN TZU
Chapter 50
Beaudine carried their two backpacks down the gravel incline to Ruben’s skiff, thankful that this particular boat didn’t require a wax toilet ring to stay afloat. The Mercury outboard, shiny and black amid the falling snow, didn’t hurt her confidence either.
She watched Quinn as he stood on the bank and tried to use snow to rub away some of the blood that covered the front of his coat and the thighs of his wool pants. It did no good, other than to leave him with a pile of pink snow and a damp jacket. Ruben had given each of them a pair of overwhites—basically a cotton parka shell complete with hood. Beaudine thought they looked like Halloween costumes made out of bed sheets but she understood the concept of camouflage.
Quinn gave up on his scrubbing, covering the stains with the overwhites instead before helping Ruben shove the boat into the deeper water of the Kobuk. Aluminum scraped on gravel as the current caught and nudged the stern. Quinn hopped over the side without a word and sat down, holding the rifle across his lap.
Not overly talkative for the two days since Beaudine first met him, Quinn had grown quieter since he killed the Russian by the sweathouse.
Beaudine had known, even as she watched Quinn creep from the willows with the knife in his hand, that the Russian had to be killed. He and his friends were marching through the village murdering everyone in their path. She was supposed to provide over-watch, ready to back up Quinn with a quick shot if things went bad, but even if it hadn’t been her job she would have looked. Like the hypnosis brought on by watching a gruesome car wreck, she’d been unable to take her eyes off of Quinn as he snuck up behind the man. It seemed so innocent, one man tiptoeing up behind another in the falling snow, like a college boy playing a prank. She didn’t turn away when Quinn plunged the blade into the Russian’s neck. They were facing away, but the tremendous spray of blood and the silent struggle as Quinn arched his back and held the big man upright while he died . . . The brutality was unspeakably awful. Beaudine’s breath came faster just thinking about it. She found herself wondering what sort of a human being was capable of committing such violence, even in the name of good. Such an act had to leave an indelible mark. The Russian would be no less dead if Quinn had shot him. It was a blot against the state of humanity, she supposed, that gunning someone down could somehow seem civilized, even when it was the right thing to do. She found herself feeling profoundly sorry for Quinn—and profoundly grateful that he was willing to do uncivilized things. The four men he’d killed in the last two days were all equally dead, no matter his method—but this last one had hurt him.
She’d grown up around the scent of death and regret. It was an easy thing for her to recognize.
* * *
Quinn gritted his teeth while he rifled through his pack for a packet of Betadine. He’d decided to use the time during the short ride to keep a painful but relatively minor problem from becoming something debilitating.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but I’m going to have to get indecent here for a minute and clean up this wound.”
“I think we’re past that,” Beaudine scoffed. “And Ruben won’t mind. You think I don’t realize you changed my undies for me when I was half frozen.” She took the foil packet of antiseptic and knelt in the floor of the boat.
“That looks bad,” she said, grimacing when Quinn dropped his pants and pulled the long johns down to expose his injured thigh. “I count twelve pellets.” She bent closer squirting a little spray of the rust colored Betadine on each wound, then dabbing up the excess with a wadded piece of gauze. “They make a pattern like Orion when you add them to these other scars you have.”
“Great,” Quinn said.
“I’d be happy to try and dig them outta there,” Beaudine said, looking up at him.
“Thanks, “Quinn said, pulling up the long johns before she had a chance to wipe up the rest of the Betadine. “I’m good. They say President Garfield might have lived if his doctors wouldn’t have tried to dig the bullet out.”
“Suit yourself,” Beaudine said. She dipped her hand over the side to wash it in river spray, and then settled back in her seat at the bow of the boat with the rifle.
“Nearly there,” Ruben said from the tiller.
Considering the gravity of their mission, the ten-minute journey up the Kobuk felt agonizingly slow. Quinn grabbed his pack and prepared to jump the moment Ruben kicked the outboard into neutral and raised the shaft out of the water so he didn’t ding the prop in the shallows. Apparently, one broken shear pin was enough for him.
The ATV was hidden in the shadows behind the rustic plywood cabin under a brown tarp and a layer of spruce boughs cut from nearby trees. Four inches of new snow added to the camouflage. It would have been impossible to see if Ruben hadn’t been along to show them where it was.
In this case, the “Honda” was a forest green 400cc Arctic Cat ATV. The seat was just big enough for two, but the relatively small machine was designed for one, so Quinn kept as much weight as he could forward, lashing both packs and the Lapua rifle across the metal rack over the front wheels. This would help guard against tipping over backward when they climbed hills and had the added benefit of letting him keep an eye on his gear. Important things had a tendency to rattle off and get left behind, and out here losing a piece of equipment could have nasty consequences.
Using the mantra that if it wasn’t on his body he didn’t have it, Quinn kept his war belt with the Kimber and Riot around his waist and dropped five extra rounds for the .338 Lapua in the pocket of his wool shirt.
He threw a leg over the ATV and settled in behind the handlebars less than fifteen minutes after they’d beached the skiff. The Arctic Cat wasn’t a motorcycle, but considering the slog through wet snow and bog that was ahead of them, he was glad to have it.
Ruben’s secret trail cut north as it left the cabin with dark spruces rising up on either side from the undulating path of virgin snow to form a sort of tunnel through the forest. Behind Quinn, her arms wrapped around his waist, Beaudine hummed some nonsensical child’s song. Had they not been pursuing a case of deadly nerve gas, it could have been an enjoyable ride.
It had been sometime since anyone used the trail and Quinn had to get off several times to push and tug deadfall out of the path. Eventually, they turned back to the east and broke out of the trees into the open.
The tundra wasn’t frozen solid, even in the snow and cold, leaving the ground boggy and difficult to negotiate. Heavy clouds and a steady snow made for poor visibility—turning everything around them gray or white. In the open, with no trees to guide him, Quinn had to concentrate to maintain a heading and keep from getting stuck.
Beaudine’s humming changed to “Froggy Went a Courtin’.” Quinn wondered if she even realized she was doing it. He hadn’t heard the song in ages, but the beat matched the bump and tumble of the ATV’s tires on the trail and he enjoyed the break from their heavy mood. Even through the humming Beaudine kept her head up, scanning the horizon for Zolner or Volodin. Quinn could tell by the way she moved that her brain was going a million miles an hour. There was certainly a lot to think about. The U.S. had been attacked twice with poison gas. Beaudine had investigated two break-ins, witnessed bloody gunfights at the lodge and in Needle, been in a plane crash, watched Lovita die beside a lonely river, nearly died herself of hypothermia, watched Quinn tear out a man’s throat—and then kill another with a sniper rifle.
“You okay?” she suddenly asked. Her voice a husky whisper in his ear.
“I’m fine,” he said, wishing she would go back to humming.
“Okay,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “It’s just . . . stuff like that back there, it can change you. That’s a fact.”
“I’m good, really,” Quinn said. The truth was, he felt like leaning out and puking on the trail, but he didn’t have the time. He chalked it up to fatigue and pain as much as anything. One thing was certain—he didn’t want to talk about his feelings.
Millions of falling snowflakes erased the horizon line leaving the white landscape to meld with a milky gray sky. They skirted dozens of lakes with rings of ice just beginning to form around their edges. Bumps of low-bush blueberry and scrub willow lined small streams, the smallest of which had already frozen over, spreading across the tundra like white veins.
“Maybe we should have just taken the river?” Beaudine nuzzled in closer to his back. “I mean, it goes to Ambler too—and we know that’s where they’re going.”
“The river does go to Ambler,” Quinn said. “But everyone says this guy Zolner is supposed to be a hunter. Volodin and his daughter might not even make it to Ambler. We need to intercept them en route. If that package Volodin took from the lodge was nerv
e gas . . .”
“And I thought this assignment was a bullshit job,” Beaudine said. “Listen, I hate to be a nag, but when’s the last time you put somethin’ in your belly?” She surprised him by passing up one of Lovita’s salmon strips.
Quinn thanked her and took the fish, feeling the oil warm him as he chewed. He was about to ask for another when he heard the shot.
Chapter 51
Four minutes earlier
The grizzly bear was small, not quite a year old, but even small bears could knock over an ATV—or at least cause a startled driver to do so. Kaija sped up at the flash of brown on the tundra ahead, blinking her eyes as her subconscious and conscious minds came together to agree on what she was seeing. It took her a moment more to remember that small bears almost always came with a big bear in tow, a bear with big claws and a big protective attitude about the little bear.
Kaija cut the handlebars sharply to take a trail around the cub, but the left front wheel dropped into a rut causing the nose to dip. Kaija and her father flew forward. Both were too slow to give up their grips and pulled the machine over with them as they fell.
Her father got to his knees and adjusted his glasses, wiping snow and grass off his face. Kaija scrambled quickly to peer around the overturned ATV, looking for the bear.
Still in its first year of life, the curious cub sat back on its haunches square in the middle of the trail less than fifty feet in front of the wrecked ATV.
“Go!” Kaija whispered, willing the thing to move rather than actually giving an audible command. She’d heard far too many stories of good Russians who’d been torn to pieces by the giant bears of Kamchatka. Though she was certain American grizzly bears would prove to be more puny, she had no desire to face even a lesser mother bear.