“They’re out there!” I snapped, getting in his face. “If they tell someone we’re alive—”
“They won’t!” Marshal Hennessey slid his body between us, hands up to calm us. “They’re at least a few days from the nearest town. We can be in Russia by then.”
I shook my head. “That’s not good enough. This is meant to be perfect.” I jabbed my finger at the wreckage. “This isn’t just about getting out of the country. I have to have died in that crash!”
That’s the thing with stealing $4.6 billion. You can’t just walk away, even if you go to another country. They’ll never stop hunting you.
Not unless they think you’re already dead.
I pointed at the Russians. “You have guns. They don’t. We’re in 4x4s. They’re on foot. We’ll hunt them down and bring their bodies back here and burn them with the rest, then carry on with the plan.”
The men looked at each other.
“Did I stutter?” I bawled.
Sergei shook his head. “Mountain too steep, even for 4x4s. We will have to skirt round, cut them off. Could take days.”
I made for the 4x4s. “Then let’s get moving.” As I climbed into my seat, Hennessey appeared beside my door. I knew what he was going to say before the old gray bastard opened his mouth: this isn’t what I signed up for. He’d said the same thing when he first found out we were going to kill the pilot. Fuck him. I slammed the door so hard the glass rattled.
This whole week had just gotten worse and worse. It was bad enough that I’d had to flee to Russia in the first place. Just because I’d separated fools from their money, just as every con man in history had done. I’d simply done it on a bigger scale.
But Russia hadn’t sounded so bad, the sort of country where money can buy you anything: a palace to live in, fast cars, bodyguards...even women. Except getting there had meant going up to Alaska and hiding out in that god-awful town, Nome, while the Russians made their preparations to smuggle me across the Bering Strait. And just as I was about to leave, that bitch of a manager at the hotel restaurant had called the cops. Then I was left in a cramped, cold jail cell for two days while they figured out who should take me south. That was their mistake. It meant the people I was paying had time to organize my escape. It wasn’t difficult for them to figure out which US marshals would be assigned to move me, or to convince them to spring me.
But then he’d got on the plane, that big, muscle-bound idiot. He was basically a hobo, for God’s sake, scratching an existence halfway up a mountain. Who’d have thought he’d suddenly try to play the hero?
And then there was her. I clenched my jaw. Miss Prissy of the FBI, with her pert little tits and her hot little ass all wrapped up in suit and attitude. The two of them together had jeopardized my entire escape. How dare they?
I was going to enjoy hunting them down. I might even ask to put the bullet in Boone’s head myself, when the time came. And that bitch Lydecker? My cock hardened. I might keep her alive for a while, just so I could teach her a lesson.
Sergei swung himself into the driver’s seat. “We are ready,” he said sullenly.
I took hold of the grab handle beside my window, ready for a rough ride. “Then let’s go hunting.”
14
Kate
Sometimes it felt like we weren’t making progress at all. We seemed to move sideways as much as we moved down, zigzagging back and forth. But then I’d look up and catch my breath as I saw how far away the trees above us were.
Looking up was good. Looking down wasn’t.
The descent was getting steeper and steeper. There was a moment when I looked below us and realized for the first time that, if I slipped and fell, it was steep enough that I wouldn’t stop. I’d just keep bouncing and rolling until I went over the edge of a vertical cliff.
I had to close my eyes and count to ten to keep from throwing up. In some ways, it was worse than when we were on the plane. The heights here were just low enough that I could see every detail of the ground I’d hit.
But the drop didn’t seem to faze Boone at all. He belonged here in exactly the way I didn’t. And every time he took the lead, I’d find myself watching the motion of his shoulders as they swung back and forth, the tanned globes of his muscles revealed by the cut-off shirt. His legs were no less solid, his hard thighs seeming as thick as my waist. The guy was big everywhere. Enough strength and power to pick me up and just—
Kiss me?
Kill me?
I was going crazy, not knowing whether I could trust him or not. My fear of him was smacking up against a deep, physical pull the likes of which I’d never felt before.
After two hours, my thighs were burning from the descent. When they started actually shaking, threatening to give, I finally caved. “I need a break,” I told him.
Boone nodded and stopped. I caught his guilty expression. He’d been ready to carry on all day, oblivious. “Sorry,” he muttered.
I sat down on a rock and rubbed at my aching quads. Boone sat on another, rooted in his pocket and brought out the jagged shard of metal he’d broken off the wreckage. He picked up a fist-sized rock and started to hammer at it, using the larger rock as an anvil. The muscles of his back stood out through his shirt, as big as any medieval blacksmith’s.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making a knife.”
I nodded sagely, as if making weapons out of junk was what I did on my weekends. My stomach rumbled. I’d never been so hungry in my life. I was dreaming of bagels with salmon and cream cheese and a big, steaming cup of fresh coffee….
My eyes fell on another boulder, this one as big as a compact car. There was nothing to eat or drink but there was one thing I could finally do, now we’d stopped. “There’s, um...something I have to take care of,” I told him.
He looked at me expectantly.
“It’s been a long journey,” I explained.
He just looked at me.
“I have to pee, okay?” I said, exasperated.
He nodded quickly and looked away, staring out across the landscape.
I went behind the rock and crouched down. I double checked he couldn’t see me...and then I took out the files. I stared at the printed cover of Boone’s for long seconds. It felt like I was digging into his past, uninvited...but I had to know. I opened it up.
Mason Joshua Boone. Holy—He’d been a Navy SEAL?! His service record had been reduced down to a bullet point list. Iraq. Afghanistan. Operations that were just codenames and numbers. Eight confirmed kills. Twelve confirmed kills. Target successfully extracted. Target eliminated.
And then I came to the main section of the file: the reason for his court martial. He’d been in Afghanistan, sent to extract a group of civilians, when—
It felt like someone punched me in the stomach and then crushed my insides in their fist.
He’d entered the house of an Afghan family and—
There were photos. Bodies lying in pools of blood. One was of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than five. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my scream.
They’d been unarmed. He’d killed the entire family in cold blood, then gone MIA. When he eventually returned to base, he was flown home, court-martialled and found guilty. It was while they were preparing to move him to a military prison that he’d escaped. That was four years ago.
I stared at the photos. Everything my training had been telling me since I’d first met Boone had been right: he was a fugitive who should have remained in chains. And every instinct I’d had about him had been completely, terrifyingly wrong.
“You okay behind there?” Boone’s voice.
I snapped the file closed, almost panting with fear. “Almost done!” I called out. But I didn’t stand up. I crouched there, staring at the boulder, imagining Boone on the other side.
I could hear a noise that set my teeth on edge. Metal grinding on rock.
He was sharpening his homemade knife. Oh Jesus....
I was alone in the mountains with a convicted murderer. He knew how to survive out here and I didn’t. And now he was armed. I looked down the mountain. Should I run? Try to take him by surprise? But he was only a few steps away from me. He’d catch me easily. I needed to wait until I could get a head start.
I tucked both files back into my pants, made sure my jacket was covering them and stood up. Boone was looking right at me. He’d torn a strip of cloth from his shirt and wrapped it around one end of the metal shard to make a handle. The blade of the thing looked wickedly sharp. “Ready?” he asked.
I swallowed. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
15
Boone
Something was wrong.
I could feel the change in her. The way she looked at me. The way she walked an extra step away from me. Did she know?
No. Impossible. I was being paranoid. Hell, what did I know about reading people, especially women? She was probably just scared.
I was still feeling guilty for not stopping for a break sooner. She must have been exhausted but she’d carried on until almost ready to drop, just because she didn’t want to admit it. Goddamn, but she was stubborn...in a way I couldn’t help but admire.
We’d been following a natural path down the side of the mountain. But now the path narrowed to a rock ledge that hugged the cliff face. It was little more than a foot wide with the cliff on one side and a sheer, two hundred foot drop on the other. I couldn’t see too far ahead because the ledge disappeared around a corner. It looked doable, but it was risky and hellishly exposed: the breeze tugged at my shirt and I could hear birds calling to each other as they swooped past. I’d spent enough time in the mountains in Afghanistan that heights didn’t bother me anymore. But to Kate, I knew it would be terrifying.
She stopped beside me, saw the ledge and drew in her breath.
“It’ll be fine,” I told her. “If it was on the ground, you wouldn’t even think about it. Just hug the rock face and shuffle along.”
She looked back at me with huge, terrified eyes. Just from the drop or was something else going on?
“I’ll go first,” I told her. I climbed onto the ledge, faced the cliff and put my palms on the rock. There really wasn’t a lot of room. Behind my boot heels, there was no more than two inches of rock, then nothing but air.
I started to shuffle, keeping both feet on the rock at all times. The trick was to go slow and steady, and to keep your eyes forward. When I’d made enough room for Kate, I beckoned her forward.
She stepped onto the ledge. Glanced down—
“No!” I told her. “Look at the cliff.”
She swallowed and focused on the rocks a few inches from her nose. She spread her hands wide, like me...but the left one shied away from my right, as if she didn’t want to touch me.
Something was wrong. She’d stopped trusting me. I should have trusted my gut and asked her what was up. But this wasn’t the place to debate it.
I started to shuffle along with Kate following beside me. We’d almost reached the corner. I stepped over a bird’s nest—and then froze. The bird’s nest had been hiding the fact that the ledge petered out just beyond. At the corner itself, there was no ledge at all.
Very carefully, I leaned and looked around the corner. The ledge picked up again on the other side. We could step around and over the gap...if we were very, very careful.
Taking a deep breath, I swung one leg around the corner and felt for the ledge. Found it. Then the heart-stopping moment when I had to shift my weight and swing myself around with only my grip on the rocks for support. There was a little bit of an overhang so I actually had to push out from the cliff a little to avoid whacking my head. For a sickening instant, I was pretty much balanced on one foot—
And then I was round. For a second, I just stood there as the adrenaline aftershock sent cold sweat down my spine. Even with my experience, that had been scary. I was going to have to be real careful, getting Kate round. At least she’d have my hand to hold onto.
I leaned back around the corner. “Okay,” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Take my hand. You’ll be okay.”
She shuffled closer, approaching the bird’s nest. Both hands gripped the rock.
“Okay,” I said. “Now give me your hand.” I reached out for it.
At the last second, she pulled it back. And now she was looking at me with big, uncertain eyes.
“Kate?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
I saw her swallow. She looked back along the ledge as if thinking about going back. Then towards me and the corner. She made a little movement forward, as if about to go herself, without my help.
“Kate!” I was sweating now, terrified. I’d never had this before, this sickening churning in my belly. I’d never known what it was like to be afraid for someone. “Give me your hand!”
But she didn’t. She clung to the rock face instead. Swung one leg around as I had done. Shifted her weight—
And that’s when she stepped on the bird’s nest with her back foot. It slid off the edge and her foot went with it.
And she fell screaming from the ledge.
16
Kate
All of the air came out of my body in one long, ear-splitting screech as I dropped into space. My palms scraped down the rocks I’d been clinging to and then even they were gone. I was free-falling, the wind clawing my hair and clothes upward as I plunged. There was no time to think and I was beyond thought, anyway. I was reduced to animal instinct, grabbing at the air as if it could support me—
My knee clipped something and pain shot up my leg. The impact tipped me forward and—
Something whacked hard into my chest and I grabbed. Instantly, one shoulder exploded into pain as the full weight of my body pulled on it.
And I stopped.
My eyes were shut tight. I could feel air all around me. The only part of me that was touching anything solid was my right hand.
I opened my eyes.
My right arm was stretched above me. My hand was clinging to a rock the size of an apple, the same one my knee must have hit on the way down. And high above that I saw Boone, staring down at me from the ledge. I’d fallen at least fifteen feet.
“KATE!” yelled Boone. “DO NOT MOVE!”
I hung there panting. I was swaying slightly and every tiny side-to-side movement hurt my shoulder more. For once, my tiny size was a benefit. If I’d been any bigger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold my own weight.
Boone was lowering himself down off the ledge, feeling for footholds and handholds. “I’m coming!” he yelled. “Just hang on!”
Just hang on. And don’t look down. Don’t even think about down. Don’t think about the fact there’s nothing but air beneath your feet for two hundred feet. Don’t think about how much your shoulder hurts or how sweaty your hand is getting—
Boone picked his way down the cliff to my side. When he was next to me, almost close enough to touch, he stopped. “That’s as close as I can get!” he said. “Reach out to me!”
I turned to look at him. He had his hand outstretched towards me. All I had to do was reach out with my free hand and I could grab him. But—
But what if he’d come down to finish me off? I’d take his hand, let go of the rock...and then he’d simply drop me. Exactly as I’d feared he would on the ledge.
“Kate!” he snapped. “Take my hand!”
His blue eyes were burning with frustration. Incomprehension. Why won’t you trust me?
And then I saw his eyes flick downward. And his expression changed.
I looked down at myself. Because I was stretched out, my jacket had risen up, well clear of my belt. And tucked into my pants, in plain view, were the prisoner files.
17
Kate
I locked eyes with Boone. I saw so much there. Hurt. Anger. Regret.
My hand slid a few millimeters on the rock. I was losing my grip.
Boone stuck out his hand again. “Kate,” he said in that voice. “Take my hand.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “I swear: I didn’t do it.”
I stared into his eyes. Of course he’d lie. Of course he’d try to convince me to let go, especially now he knew I knew. Every bit of training I’d ever had told me to trust the facts, not my gut. He’s going to grab you and pull you and, as soon as you’ve let go, he’ll drop you.
My hand slipped a little further.
Boone stared into my eyes. “Please!”
I took a deep breath. And grabbed for his hand.
His grip closed on me, warm and dry around fingers that had gone clammy with fear. And then he was pulling me towards him and I had no choice but to let go of the rock and—
For a second, I was dangling from his hand, two hundred feet up. It’s impossible to express what that felt like. My legs, which had been instinctively scrabbling for purchase, went limp. All of me went limp. I was connected to life only by the warm hand that clasped mine. I was his.
And then, his muscles bunching, he lifted me, and I was pressed face-first against the cliff face. His hand pulled mine to a handhold, his feet kicked mine to footholds, and I grabbed and clung, eyes squeezed tight shut. He pressed in behind me, his entire body pressed against my back, holding me there, his lips at my ear. He was panting just as hard as me, panting in fear. Scared that he almost lost me.
The facts were wrong. My gut had been right.
“Take a second,” he gasped. “Just take a second. Then we’ll climb up.”
I nodded weakly. His face was pressed so close to mine that his stubble stroked my cheek. When we could both breathe normally again, I tentatively opened my eyes and we started up, with him nudging my hands and feet to each rock in turn. I couldn’t have done it without him, without that protective warmth against my back.
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