The sound of gunshots had worried Polina, but Sara assured her that Tanner would be all right and return to them before too long.
“But, it was two against one. What if they hurt him?”
“Tanner has faced tougher odds and come out on top,” Sara said with a smile.
Still, Polina was worried. Therefore, when she saw Tanner approaching and looking none the worse for wear, she was so full of joy that she rushed to meet him and hug him.
“It’s all good, kid,” Tanner said. “I even found food, of a sort.”
“Of a sort?” Sara said. “What’s that mean?”
“They’re Russian MRE’s, Meals Ready to Eat. If they’re anything like the American version, they won’t be too bad. Anyway, we need all the food we can get to fight the cold.”
Minutes later, they were huddled around the fire and eating from the MRE’s. Along with the food, which included salt, pepper, and sugar packets, the MRE’s also had packs of wet napkins, matches, anti-bacterial tablets, dried fuel tablets to start fires, and three spoons.
They all ate the crackers with their meal, which consisted of meat loaf, a potato dish of some sort, and grits. There was also tea, and Polina grinned when Tanner handed her the lone fruit stick for dessert.
All in all, the meal wasn’t bad, and the dried fuel tablets, along with the matches, were priceless out in the wilderness.
Polina sat as close to Tanner as she could get, and once she had eaten, she leaned her head against his shoulder. The beautiful teen hung on his every word and smiled at him shyly whenever he looked her way.
“I’m sleepy,” Polina said. “Maybe the drug that man gave me is still working.”
“Maybe,” Sara said. “But you have had a lot of excitement for one day.”
“Tanner, what did you do with the other two men that were here?” Polina asked.
“They’re dead, Polina. They’ll never hurt you again.”
Polina appeared surprised by Tanner’s answer, but also pleased. The Turks had seemed heartless and were willing to use her to get what they wanted. If their actions resulted in their deaths, then, so be it.
“That other man, the pilot, he said he killed my chauffeur, Stas. Stas was my friend and I loved him.”
“I’m sorry you lost a friend,” Tanner said, and as he spoke, he stood slowly, so Polina wouldn’t fall over.
“Are you going to check out that snowmobile?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, and if it works, we should reach cell tower range in less than an hour.”
Sara checked the sky, which had darkened due to thickening clouds.
“I would not want to be out here during a storm, and it will be dark soon too.”
The snowmobile was covered in several inches of snow that must have fallen since its last use.
Tanner brushed the snow off, checked beneath the hood, and found that the engine looked fine. After closing the hood, he checked the gas lever and felt that it was frozen into position. It came free with the application of a little pressure and would work well if the engine ran.
Before starting the engine, Tanner opened the vehicle’s choke half way by adjusting a lever, because it was so cold. The engine was slow to come to life, but it started, and after closing the choke, Tanner left the metal beast alone to warm itself up.
Polina had cheered and clapped when it started, and both Sara and Tanner had smiled at her youthful enthusiasm.
While the engine warmed, Tanner and Sara packed supplies in the small space beneath the snowmobile’s seat, and in a backpack they’d found inside the tent.
Before heading out, Tanner spoke to Polina.
“We may run into more trouble. If that happens, I need to know that you’ll do whatever Sara and I tell you to do, understand?”
Polina’s big green eyes looked earnestly at Tanner. After kissing him on the cheek, she hugged him.
“I will do whatever you say. You are my hero.”
Tanner looked over at Sara and saw that she was smiling. He eased Polina’s arms from around him and stared at her.
“If you hear me shout, ‘Get down,’ that will be the cue for you to drop to the ground, and if I say, ‘Run’, then sprint for cover as fast as you can, okay?”
“Yes, I understand, and I am not a little girl, Tanner. I am nearly a woman.”
“How old are you?” Tanner said.
“I am fourteen… and a half. In Russia, that means I’m almost a woman.”
“That’s good, Polina, it also means I won’t have to worry about you. Remember, if I shout ‘Get down,’ you get down fast.”
After releasing a sigh, Polina smiled up at Tanner.
“I would do anything you asked of me, anything.”
Tanner cocked an eyebrow at those words, as Sara covered her mouth to keep from laughing.
As they prepared to leave, Sara donned the backpack, which was fine with Polina. It gave her an excuse to sit behind Tanner on the snowmobile, while Sara sat behind her.
Polina wrapped her arms around Tanner’s waist. Along with his jacket, Tanner had given her two sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants to wear over her Girl Scout uniform. He’d also given Polina one of the fur hats salvaged from the dead Turks.
The hat was so big that it covered the teen’s forehead, but it would keep her warm. Sara wore the other cap, and she had sighed with relief as the fur covered her freezing ears.
That left Tanner wearing layers of sweatshirts under a black hoodie, along with a wool knit cap that was dark green. Although he was wearing a hood, Tanner didn’t want to wear it. The sides of the hood would block his peripheral vision, so he had pulled the rear of the knit cap down over his ears, to protect them from the wind as he rode.
After checking to make certain that he could draw the gun on his hip easily, Tanner moved off across the lake, which had a thin layer of snow upon its frozen surface.
Sara spotted the plane first, and she tapped Tanner on the shoulder to get his attention. After slowing down, Tanner followed Sara’s pointing finger and saw what looked like a rescue plane headed their way.
The plane circled above them and appeared to be lining up to land atop the lake.
Polina shouted, “We are rescued!” in Russian, as Tanner brought the snowmobile to a stop.
However, he kept the machine running. He considered using the flare gun he had salvaged from the plane he and Sara had crashed in, but figured it wasn’t necessary as the pilot had obviously spotted them.
The plane landed smoothly, but used most of the lake up before it finally stopped. Then, another plane appeared, one without markings that designated it as a rescue plane. It was too big to be the plane flown by the man who had abducted Polina, so there was no concern that he might have returned. Tanner wondered if perhaps the planes had been aware of the kidnapper’s destination, and had been out searching for Polina.
They climbed off the snowmobile, walked a short distance, and stared at the planes.
The aircraft were parked close together, and Tanner saw that they were both filled with men. That placed him on alert, although there was doubtless an explanation for the men being on the plane that didn’t involve him.
When Liliya exited the rescue plane and smiled at him, Tanner felt better about things, but that ended as a man of average height left the plane with the rest of the men, all of whom held guns.
“The shortest of the men. That’s Dan Matthews,” Sara said.
“Polina, get behind me,” Tanner said.
The teen obeyed, and as she took in all the guns and the hard looks of the men, whispered words escaped her.
“I’m scared, Tanner.”
“I won’t let them hurt you,” Tanner said.
Then, the men on the other plane came out onto the ice as if they’d been disgorged like something that had a bad taste.
Altogether, Tanner was looking at twenty-four armed men. One of them, a grinning hulking baboon of a man held a hand grenade.
That was Gleb, while t
he woman, Liliya, appeared to be unarmed, but was looking him over as if he were a delicacy she would love to taste.
Tanner had the AK-47 up and ready to use. Beside him, Sara pointed her gun at Matthews. Less than a hundred feet separated the two groups.
There was some talk between the men in the separate groups, a raised voice, and afterwards, two smaller groups approached. They stopped walking when they were still several yards away.
One group comprised, Matthews, Gleb, Aleksandr, Fedor, and Liliya, while Nikolai approached with his cousin, Volya, who was a large red-headed man with a full beard. Joining Nikolai and Volya were two biker types. The shorter of the two bikers was trying to get a better look at young Polina, while ignoring Sara. Tanner made a mental note to put the man down the first chance he got.
Matthews spoke, and did so in English, while looking back and forth at Tanner and Sara.
“I think you’ll agree you two are fucked.”
Sara gazed at the men, then at Liliya, who was smiling at her with a smug look.
“Matthews?”
“Yes, Miss Blake?”
“You’re all going to die.”
Tanner’s smile was infinitesimal, but it was there. Sara Blake was one of the toughest women, hell, one of the toughest people he had ever known, and he was proud that she was his woman.
Now, he just had to think of a way to make Sara’s words come true.
9
I Am Not A Monkey!
Matthews tore his eyes away from Sara and studied Tanner.
“You’re Tanner.”
“And you’re Dan Matthews.”
“That’s right, and as you can see, Tanner, you have zero chance to win this fight.”
“I met a man named Brian earlier who thought the same way. He’s dead now.”
Matthews gestured with his chin, to indicate Polina, who was peeking out from behind Tanner’s back.
“Who’s the little girl?”
“Red Riding Hood, we were taking her to see her grandmother.”
Matthews sighed.
“Ah, now I remember the phone conversations we had. You were an asshole then too, and arrogant.”
“You came over here for a reason, Matthews,” Tanner said, then he looked at Gleb. “Or were you taking your pet monkey for a walk?”
Gleb blinked several times in quick succession as a scowl formed on his face. As dumb as he was, he did speak two languages, because his mother had been an Englishwoman. Although Gleb and Aleksandr spoke English, neither one of them could read or write the language.
“Were you talking about me?”
Tanner gave a little laugh.
“You dressed the monkey up like a man and taught it to mimic speech like a parrot, that’s impressive, Matthews.”
Gleb held up the hand grenade.
“See this? This is hand grenade. I could blow you to little bits.”
Tanner was getting exactly the reaction he had wished for. He only hoped that Gleb was as stupid as he looked.
“That’s a toy, Monkey man, anyone can see that.”
“What did you call me?”
“Monkey man, and I bet they called you Monkey boy back when you went to school… if you went to school.”
Polina stuck her head out farther to get a good look at Gleb, and yes, he did resemble an ape. Despite her fear, Polina giggled, then hid back behind Tanner.
When Gleb heard her laughter, he turned bright red and issued a string of Russian curses at Tanner.
Nikolai stepped forward and tried to get things back on track.
“Tanner, pay no attention to Smith, or Matthews, as you call him. My name is Nikolai. If you come with me, I promise not to hurt the woman or the little girl.”
“But you’ll kill me?”
Nikolai shrugged and waved a hand at the others.
“You could shoot me and Matthews, but someone will kill you. There’s no way for you to survive this many guns. But, my way, you can be sure that your friends stay safe.”
“It’s a tempting offer, Nikolai, but what’s to stop the others from doing what they please? Are you saying you’re in charge and not Matthews?”
Fedor stepped forward with Liliya on his arm.
“I am in charge. My name is Fedor.”
Tanner studied him and realized that he had been the pilot of the helicopter.
“You saw what I did to Brian and his crew, do you want some of the same?”
Fedor laughed.
“You can’t make like the fishy and swim behind us this time, Tanner.”
“You can still strip down naked if you want to,” Liliya said.
Tanner nodded toward Gleb.
“Not in front of the monkey. He might get ideas.”
“I am not a monkey!” Gleb shouted, then, he shook the grenade at Tanner in warning. “My name is Gleb. Do not call me Monkey man.”
The grenade was a Russian F1, with an average fuse time of only four seconds. The thing had a large blast radius as well. Tanner had run over all their options. Goading Gleb into using the grenade seemed their only chance, regardless of the degree of danger it posed.
“A monkey with a toy grenade,” Tanner said. “Go wait in the plane, Monkey man, maybe you’ll find a banana.”
The tall biker, the one who hadn’t lusted after Polina, smiled. Gleb saw it. It made him angrier and he yelled at the biker.
“Who are you smiling at, asshole?”
The biker pointed at Gleb. He spoke in broken English that gave away his Polish accent.
“Is true. You look like monkey, but big monkey, like orangutan.”
Tanner looked at Aleksandr.
“You’re his brother?”
“Da.”
“How often do you have to shave him down?”
The biker laughed, but Matthews raised his hands and told everyone to shut up.
Tanner couldn’t have that, not when he was so close to pushing Gleb over the edge.
“Matthews, I know you wanted to intimidate me, but bringing along a phony grenade was too much.”
Gleb placed a finger inside the pin.
“Grenade is real, hit man.”
“It’s a toy,” Tanner said. “Nothing but a toy, and even if it were real, you wouldn’t have the balls to use it.”
Gleb said, “Fuck you!” as he pulled the pin and slid the grenade toward Tanner.
Tanner shouted, “Get down!” to Sara and Polina, as he rushed toward the grenade.
A second and a half after the pin was pulled, Tanner kicked the grenade back in the other direction. He watched it rocket away across the ice as he was diving to the ground.
His target wasn’t Matthews and the others. He was sending the orb of death toward the larger group of men who were assembled near the planes.
When the grenade exploded, more than a dozen men cried out in pain, but, their cries went unheard. Their screams and howls of agony had been eclipsed by the strident sound of cracking ice, as a fissure opened between the two aircraft.
The planes were both hit by shrapnel, but the damage was cosmetic, other than a blown-out window. None of that mattered however, because as the fissure widened, the ice surrounding it weakened with a spider web of cracks, then, collapsed into the water below.
A wing of the phony rescue plane slid into the gap first, but the other plane followed, and their weight widened the crevice. Both planes had been left running, and when the fuel tank of Nikolai’s plane split open, aviation fuel spread across the ice.
Although farther away from the blast, Aleksandr had taken a tiny fragment to his shoulder, while the biker who had been leering at Polina was atop the ice and holding his leg, which was spurting blood.
Sara and Polina had been uninjured, as both had been lying flat, however, behind them, the snowmobile was sputtering.
Tanner saw that shrapnel had damaged the snowmobile. It was leaking fluid.
“Sara, get on the snowmobile with Polina and ride back to the tent.”
; “What about you?”
“Just go!”
Polina opened her mouth to protest leaving Tanner, but Sara took her by the hand and pulled her toward the snowmobile.
Tanner held his rifle with one hand, while he used the other to reach into a pocket of the hoodie. No one was paying attention to him.
They were all stunned by the drama of the planes entering the water, and horrified by the screams of the injured men.
Many of the wounded were sliding into the water. Their howls of pain ended with sputtering sounds, as their lungs filled with the frigid liquid of the lake.
Nikolai was at Liliya’s side, checking to see that she was uninjured by the blast. She was unharmed and complaining about her stylish blue boots, which had been stained by someone’s blood.
The aviation fuel reached Matthews’ party and spread around their feet. As the sound of the snowmobile’s revving engine reverberated across the lake, all eyes turned to look at it.
“They’re getting away!” Gleb said.
Apparently, he was the last one to notice that Tanner was still in their midst. Tanner stood with the AK-47 in one hand, and a flare gun in the other. When Gleb finally spotted him, he smiled.
“I told you grenade was real.”
“That you did,” Tanner said, as he aimed the flare gun at Matthews’ feet.
Nikolai looked down and saw that everyone but Tanner was standing in a layer of aviation fuel, including Liliya.
“Tanner no! You’ll hurt my wife.”
Tanner fired the flare gun.
The flame was small one moment, then everywhere the next. Although frightening, the fire burned no higher than the tops of their shoes. If everyone stayed calm, many of them could have walked out of the fuel puddle before their clothing caught fire.
Everyone did not remain calm, especially after those who had been exposed to more of the fuel by the planes lit up like candles atop a birthday cake.
One of the bikers with Nikolai, the injured one who had leered at Polina, caught fire as he sat on the ice, holding his wounded leg. When he attempted to push himself up, his hands slid on the ice, and he fell on his face, catching his hair on fire. By the time he crawled out of the flames, he had suffered severe burns that were life-threatening.
White Hell (A Tanner Novel Book 17) Page 5