My foot was right in the middle, on the bar that pressed down to release the jaws. The mechanism was sticky with age: that was the only reason the jaws hadn’t snapped shut yet. But they were right on the verge: I could actually see them tremble each time I inhaled.
I tried lifting my foot, shifting just an infinitesimal amount of weight to my back foot. Instantly there was a warning metal shriek as the mechanism shifted. I pressed down again, hard, my heart thumping, and the noise stopped.
I was trapped. If I tried to move...I squeezed my eyes shut as I remembered what the trap had done to the stick. What it was designed to do to the powerful leg of a bear. I tried not to think of the word shattered.
I opened my eyes. “Megan?” I said in a strangled voice. “It’s really important you don’t move. Okay honey?”
Megan gave a tiny nod and went rigid against me.
Boone came sprinting through the trees. His face lit up when he saw us. Then he saw my expression. He came closer. Saw the trap.
“I can fix this,” he said quickly. “I can get you out. I just need tools.”
“There’s no time,” I told him. Already, I could hear the men approaching behind him. “You have to get Megan out of here.”
“No!” He glared at me, eyes fierce. “No way! I’m not losing you again!”
The footsteps were getting closer. “We don’t have a choice,” I said tightly. “Take her. Megan? Go to Mr. Mason, honey.”
I gently pried her away from my chest and held her out. Every muscle in my body had gone tense: I knew that just the shift in weight of her leaving me might set the trap off. I was waiting for the metal snap and the agony that would follow a split-second later.
Boone knew it, too. He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Please,” I begged.
He gritted his teeth...and put his hands on Megan’s waist. Very gently, he took her weight.
The trap creaked. My heart stopped beating for a second...but the jaws held.
“Go,” I told Boone. The men were very close, now, seconds away.
“What about you?” asked Megan, looking distraught.
“I’ll be fine, honey,” I lied. “Mr. Mason will get you out of here.”
Suddenly, a big, warm hand wrapped around mine and squeezed it tight. I looked up into Boone’s eyes. That painfully bright Alaska blue, blazing with rage and need. His lips moved but nothing came out. Like me, he was struggling to find the words.
“I know,” I whispered, squeezing his hand tight. “Me too.”
He held my gaze for one more heartbeat, staring at me with a longing that hit me right down to my core. Then he was running into the trees. My heart felt like it was being torn in two. I’m never going to see him again!
I could hear the men getting closer and closer. My instinct was to hide, to make myself as small as possible. They might miss me, in the dark.
But I couldn’t do that. My only way out of the trap was with their help. If they did miss me, I’d die out here. Which was worse: let them go past and then, when my legs got too tired and I collapsed, the trap would break my leg and I’d bleed to death in agony? Or alert them and likely be shot?
A bullet would be quick. Maybe even painless. And if they were occupied with me, they wouldn’t be chasing Boone and Megan.
I took a deep breath. “Here!” I yelled. “Over here!”
54
Kate
I was the last thing they expected to see. One of the mercenaries burst through the trees and just stopped and stared. Then he thought to point his gun at me.
“There’s no need,” I whispered. And looked down at my feet.
In seconds, I was surrounded. It felt like a bad dream: the people I’d been running from for days were now my saviors. Marshal Phillips tried to be a hero and pull me out before I screamed at him not to. Everyone stood around staring at the trap. The mercenaries said they might be able to hold the jaws down but I shook my head. I’d seen how powerful the springs in these things were. A strong man could force them open, with enough leverage...but not even Boone could stop them snapping shut.
Then someone thought to call Marshal Hennessey, who was still back at the camp. A few minutes later, he ran up, carrying a jack from one of the 4x4s. As he crouched down beside the trap, he looked up at me. “Thank you,” he muttered, low enough that only I’d hear.
He must have discovered Megan was gone, and figured out what we’d done. “She’s safe,” I whispered.
He nodded his thanks. Then I figured out something else: when he heard they’d caught me, he’d come here. But with Megan safe, they had no leverage over him. He could have just run off into the forest, found Boone and escaped with him and Megan. He’d given up his freedom to save me.
He spread the arms of the jack, making a wide V. Then he held it inside the open jaws, facing down. “Okay,” he said in that whiskey-rough voice. “Take your foot off.”
I gazed down at him. It would work, in theory. The jaws would snap shut and the jack would catch them before they reached my leg. But...it all relied on the jack staying exactly where it was. If Hennessey flinched or moved even a few inches….
“I got this,” said Hennessey. “Take your foot off.”
I took a long, shuddering breath. Another. Another.
And then I quickly lifted my foot.
There was a metal screech as the mechanism fired. I felt the rush of wind against my leg as the jaws snapped closed. There was a metal clang—
I kept staring straight ahead, afraid to look down in case the pain just hadn’t hit yet.
“It’s okay,” said Hennessey.
I looked down. The jaws were straining against the sides of the jack, the teeth a few inches short of my leg. I gingerly lifted my foot out of the trap. Hennessey pulled the jack out and the teeth slammed all the way closed. I slumped in relief.
Then Weiss stepped out of the darkness. He’d been at the back of the group, watching the whole thing, letting it all unfold for his sick entertainment without doing a thing to help. And the slow grin he gave me made my insides turn to water.
I suddenly regretted shouting for help. He wasn’t going to shoot me.
I’d just become his prisoner.
55
Boone
I didn’t go far. I took Megan a safe distance away and up a slight rise where I could look down on the scene, then we watched it all unfold from behind a bush.
Goddammit! We’d been so close! How had it all gone so wrong, so fast? I nearly had a heart attack, watching that moron Phillips try to pull Kate out of the trap...then I slumped in relief as Hennessey managed to free her.
“Granddaddy!” whispered Megan excitedly. I squeezed her hand.
I watched, sick fear churning in my stomach, as Weiss grabbed Kate’s arm. Keep your damn hands off her! But I couldn’t jump in there and start a fight: not with Megan right next to me.
This is all my fault. If I hadn’t told Kate we needed to rescue Megan….
But then I looked down at the kid and I knew I’d done the right thing. We’d had to save her. Only now Kate was in their hands...and I had Megan. How the hell do I look after a kid?!
“What do we do about Boone?” I heard Marshal Phillips ask. “Do we go after him?”
Weiss shook his head. “Fuck him. He was never the problem. He’s a fucking fugitive: he’s not going to the cops. She was the problem.” He turned to the mercenaries. “We’re going back to Nome.”
The lead mercenary sighed. “Finally. And her?” He looked at Kate.
“We’ll take her along,” said Weiss. He cupped Kate’s jaw and grinned.
Kate spat in his face. I pulled Megan to my chest before she could see Weiss slap Kate in response. The noise rang out across the forest. Oh, you son of a bitch. You’re going to pay for that.
But there was nothing I could do: not with an eight year-old kid in my arms. They trooped off, pulling Kate along with them.
Maybe they’ll head out t
omorrow morning, I thought. I could get Megan to safety at my cabin, then come back and—
But as I watched from a hilltop, they started packing up the camp. They didn’t even bother taking the tents, just grabbed the stuff they needed, piled into the two undamaged 4x4s and drove off. The last thing I saw was Weiss hauling Kate into the back seat alongside him.
And then they were gone.
56
Boone
For a second, I just stood there, watching their tail lights disappear. I had one hand on the top of Megan’s head as I cradled her to my chest. I had to get her to safety. That’s what Kate wanted. I knew I was doing the right thing.
But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like they’d ripped Kate right out of me. When we’d been apart before, at least I’d known she was free. Now he had her...and that left me so mad I could barely think.
“Is Agent Kate going to be okay?” asked Megan. She was clinging tight to my chest, her voice shaky.
I couldn’t answer for a second.
“Mr. Mason?”
I drew in a deep breath and stroked the back of her head. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, she is.”
“But isn’t she with the bad men?”
Oh Jesus, I am so the wrong person for this. I closed my eyes. “Yeah.” I swallowed. “But she’s... undercover. She’s only pretending to be their prisoner.”
“So she can save my granddaddy?”
I nodded, my chest tight. “Exactly that.”
And then she went quiet and I looked up to the stars and wondered what the hell I was going to do. What would Kate do? I don’t know how to look after a kid!
And the whole time all I could think about was Kate, in that 4x4, getting steadily farther and farther away.
What would Kate do?
She’d do whatever was necessary. Whether she was qualified for it or not. If she could climb a damn rock face, I could do this.
Megan had started to shiver. The temperature was dropping fast, now the sun had set. She was probably getting hungry, too. I gently peeled her off my chest and set her down on her feet. Then I took off my jacket and put it on her: it was big enough to wrap around her twice. “That warmer?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” I scooped her up again. “C’mon.” And I started walking.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Someplace safe.”
It took a few hours to carry her to my cabin. When I opened the door and set her down, she looked around with wide eyes. “You live here?”
I nodded.
“All the time?”
That made me stop. And suddenly, I was looking at the cabin with fresh eyes. I’ve always been proud of my place. Cozy and functional and military-neat. But...now, looking at it how she saw it, it didn’t look cozy...it looked small. It didn’t look functional; it looked Spartan. And the neatness was because there was only one person to get it messy. It was...sad.
Was Kate shocked, too? Did she just hide it better?
And then I saw the suit Kate had stripped out of, lying on the bed. Kate!
“Mr. Mason? Could I please have something to drink?”
That brought me back to the present. I got a fire going in the stove and then searched around for something to give her. What the hell did kids drink? Coke? I didn’t have anything like that. Wait…. At the back of the cupboard, I had a bar of chocolate I’d brought back from Koyuk—a rare indulgence. I broke off a chunk and gave her the rest of the bar to eat. Then I mixed up some milk from water and milk powder, heated it and stirred in the chunk until I had a kind of hot chocolate. Megan wrapped her tiny hands around the mug to warm them and my heart damn near melted.
When she’d finished, I put her to bed. Sitting there watching her sleep in the light from the stove, I felt the same deep, protective urge I’d felt with Kate. In a way, Megan was all I had left of her.
Kate!
But it was useless. I had no phone, no way of raising the alarm. There was nothing I could do.
My chest tightened. Not from there.
The only chance Kate had was if I went to Nome. I’d have to drop Megan off someplace safe and then intercept them before they could get on a boat to Russia. There was no way I’d catch them on foot but they’d left the damaged SUV behind. If I could fix the wheel….
Except— I closed my eyes. Except I couldn’t go to Nome. I was still a fucking fugitive. By now, the whole area would be aware that a plane had crashed and prisoners had escaped. If Weiss got stopped by the cops, he had the two marshals to smooth things over: they could pretend they were just transporting him to custody. But me? I’d be cuffed and thrown in a cell in seconds. And I’d be in that cell for the rest of my life. Confined like that, the thing that lived inside me would rise up and take possession and this time, I’d never come back. It would be everything I’d feared since I came back from Afghanistan.
I couldn’t do it. I’d failed her again. I’d failed to get her to safety and now I was stuck here, useless, like—
Like a hermit. A crazy, embittered mountain man who doesn’t speak to anyone. A fugitive.
That’s when I got mad. I stalked over to the far side of the cabin, braced my hands either side of the window and ducked down so I could stare out into the night. I could feel the rage build inside me: in my arms, first, my fingers tensing against the wood as if they wanted to claw right through it, my biceps straining like I was going to rip the window out of the wall. I took a deep, shuddering breath. My boots pressed hard into the floor, soles sliding like I was a linebacker trying to block a quarterback. Every muscle in my back stood out.
They’d put something in me, over there. Something that had never let me go. That guy who’d told me I was going to enter hell: I’d thought I’d understood him but I hadn’t. I’d thought the nightmares and the attacks were my hell but I’d been wrong.
This was hell. This life. Everyone thinking I was a murderer but being too scared to fight it. Living up here on my own, not realizing how lonely I was until someone came along and showed me. And this, now, this was a new circle of hell: being so paralyzed by my fear that I couldn’t save the woman I love.
My muscles strained, the veins standing out on my arms. I was shaking with rage and the vibrations were moving through the whole cabin, making mugs and plates right over on the far side rattle. The floor creaked under my feet. The wall groaned under my hands.
The thing inside me rose up, eager to claim me. I’d gotten angry plenty of times before and fear always won out.
But as I stood there, hunched over and raging, the balance was finally tipped. Being imprisoned again, having the fear lock me down forever...that would be unimaginable agony.
But losing Kate forever...that would be worse.
I suddenly let go of the wall and stood up ramrod straight. The wall stopped groaning. The floor stopped creaking. The mugs and plates went quiet. The only sound was a rhythmic squeak of metal.
I turned around. My dog tags were still swinging on their nail by the mirror.
I grabbed them.
Under the bed, there was a box I hadn’t opened since I’d come back from Afghanistan. I took out my old, black military fatigues and pulled them on. Added boots and streaked a little camo paint under my eyes so I could blend into the dark better. I threw some tools and gear in a bag and added food and water for Megan. Then I gently woke her.
She blinked up at me. “You look like a soldier.”
“Good.” I scooped her up. “We’re going for a ride. But it’s cold out there, so—” I placed her down on the covers, then rolled her up in them with just her head sticking out. I got my biggest backpack, slotted the whole roll in, then lifted her onto my back. She giggled excitedly and put her chin on my shoulder. “Try to doze off,” I told her. “It’s a long walk.”
“Are we going to save Agent Kate?” asked Megan.
I opened the cabin door and stepped out. “Yeah, kid. We are.”
57
Kate
>
I stared out of the window, watching the darkened landscape roll past. It was amazing how fast, how effortless it was, after all those hours spent walking. It was even warm in the SUV and the seats were soft leather.
I would have given anything to be cold and exhausted with Boone again.
Weiss was sitting next to me in the rear seat. I could feel his eyes on me but he hadn’t said much, yet. I was doing everything I could to avoid looking at him.
Eventually we came to a stop. I could see dark forest ahead and I knew we must be up high because we’d been climbing for a while. The mercenary who was driving turned around. “We’re here.” He looked at me. “We put her on plane?”
I drew in my breath. We must be back at the crash site. And they were going to finally set the wreck on fire, together with the stand-in bodies for Weiss and the marshals.
And, maybe, me.
For the first time, I slowly turned to look at the man who would decide my fate. And the look I saw on his face pushed every ounce of warmth out of my body. He was deciding. But not in the way you decide to have a pet put to sleep, or decide whether to have a painful or necessary operation, or decide whether to tell your kids you’re getting a divorce. There was no stress or guilt or sorrow in his eyes.
He was deciding my fate the way he’d decide whether to have the veal or the salmon. Which will give me more pleasure?
“No,” he said at last.
“Killing her now is cleaner,” said the mercenary. “No one will look for her.”
Weiss smiled a slow smile. “No one will look for her anyway.”
The mercenary sighed, shrugged and gave a string of orders in Russian over his radio.
“Why?” I asked, hating how tight my voice had gone. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was.
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