After climbing down from the tree, Tanner headed back toward the area where he’d left Sara and Polina.
Were he alone and working under normal conditions, Tanner would kill them all, starting with the fleeing Matthews. But he had a woman with an injured knee and a kidnapped child to think about.
There was also the storm, which was fierce and dropping snow at a quickening pace.
They had to find a place of shelter, or else create one, and they had to do it soon.
Nikolai, Fedor, and the woman, Liliya, were concerns, but minor ones. The true threats were the weather and Pavel.
While it would be nice if the booby-trapped snowmobile would finish the man off, Tanner doubted that outcome.
He would rejoin Sara and Polina, shelter them from the storm, and then find Pavel and kill him. Tanner only hoped the man would have the grace to die easily. However, he didn’t think it would end that way.
18
Not Exactly What I’d Call First-Aid
When Tanner returned to them, he saw that Sara had fashioned a crude cane out of a tree branch to help her walk. He also noticed the worried look in Polina’s eyes and asked her what was wrong.
Polina hugged herself.
“I miss the pit. At least it was warm and kept us out of the snow.”
“We’ll be warm again soon, but the snowmobile isn’t an option. Pavel made sure only he could use it and there wasn’t much fuel left either.”
“Did you disable it?” Sara asked.
“I went one better and sabotaged it, but enough talk, we need to find a place to hunker down.”
“What does ‘hunker down’ mean?” Polina asked.
Tanner brushed frost off her shoulders.
“It means we’ll be warm and out of the snow.”
They continued walking atop the ridge and the signs that it had once been a narrow road increased, as sections of concrete curbing stuck up out of the snow here and there. When what looked like a fallen tree turned out to be an old wooden light pole, Tanner tried his phone again, but had no signal.
Then, the buildings appeared, looking like wooden lumps. They were old and rotted and the wind blew snow into them from large gaps in their sagging roofs.
Faded paint showed that they had been built and used by the military of the former Soviet Union. Given their state of decay, they were no good as shelter, but their wood could be used to feed a fire.
Tanner found dry wood lying beneath debris, and several of the larger boards would serve as snow scoops or shovels. Tanner ripped them free and carried them along.
Sara was making a soft grunt of pain with each step she took by the time Tanner found the right place to settle.
It was a natural lump of earth, or perhaps someone in years past had dumped dirt on the spot, but it made for a handy windbreak. It was near enough to the buildings to see them in good weather. However, when he looked back at the structures, Tanner saw that they were little more than dark shapes behind a relentless wall of falling snow.
“Why settle here and not back at the buildings?” Sara asked. “There was still one wall there that was under a good section of roof.”
“I don’t know who might come along, but they’ll surely be drawn to those ruins.”
“Yes, but we need shelter.”
“Once I build our quinzee, we’ll have shelter, and we’ll blend in to our surroundings.”
Beneath the fur cap she wore, Sara wrinkled her brow.
“What’s a quinzee?”
“It’s like an igloo. The first thing I’ll do is tramp down the snow here. Afterwards, we gather together a large pile of snow. Polina, that will be your job. You can use one of the boards like a shovel.”
Polina beamed.
“I made a quinzee before with the Girl Scouts, but this one must be bigger.”
“Yes, but there’s more, we need to build for defense too.”
Tanner described what they were going to do, and Sara agreed it was a good plan, but said she felt useless with her bad knee.
Tanner explained her role as he and Polina stamped down the snow where they would build the quinzee.
“Sara, you’ll be keeping guard. I can’t build this and watch my back at the same time.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?” Sara said. She was already doing her part, as she held a rifle at the ready. “All right, but I’d feel better about this if we knew where Matthews, Pavel, and the others were.”
“I’ll hunt down Pavel once you two have shelter, as for the others, the storm will kill them. They have no food, heat, or common sense.”
“Why go after Pavel, is he that much of a threat?”
“Yeah Sara, that man is the real deal. By the way he carries himself, I’d say he’s former military, and he’s good. I won’t sleep until I know he’s been handled.”
“What about the booby-trap you set?”
Tanner smiled as he helped Polina pile up snow where the ground was trampled.
“My guess is Pavel has discovered my trick by now.”
Tanner was right. At that very moment, Pavel was lying on his back in the snow.
He had replaced the sparkplugs, started the snowmobile, and sped away to look for Tanner, Sara, and Polina.
When he reached the first spot where he needed to turn, the snowmobile refused to go in the new direction. Pavel tried to stop, but a tree made that possible before he could. He flew off the seat, turned over in midair, and bounced hard off a second tree, after slamming into it with his hip.
Pavel stood, as he grimaced in pain. After that impact, he knew he’d soon have one hell of a bruise on his hip. He reminded himself not to underestimate Tanner. The assassin had found his snowmobile, and unable to use it for himself, he used it against Pavel.
Pavel looked back at the machine and saw that a fire had begun in the engine. No doubt, it was more of Tanner’s doing.
A stoic man by nature, Pavel took it all in stride, that is, until he saw the pieces of his satellite phone lying in his tracks. Pavel reached under his jacket and took the phone off his hip. It had taken the brunt of the impact when he had hit the tree. The unit was useless. A barrage of curses followed that discovery, but they were cut short.
The woman, Liliya, was screaming, and from the sound of it she was in great pain. Pavel moved in the direction of the disturbance with haste, but also a sense of caution. There was always the chance that Tanner was torturing Liliya to draw the others in.
Whatever the case may be, Pavel had to know what was behind it, but he could offer a guess before he even reached her.
Paw prints were in the snow, paw prints such as a wolf would make, and they were bloody and fresh.
Fedor had spotted the wolf first, as he and Liliya walked along in the storm looking for any sign of Tanner.
The beast was charging at them, at him. Aware that he’d never bring his rifle to bear in time, Fedor shoved Liliya toward the wolf, and the two of them collided.
Liliya still had no idea what was going on. She landed atop the snow sitting up, heard a growl, and turned her head.
When she saw the wolf’s fangs, saw the glittering eyes, smelled the stench of its hot breath, she screamed.
That made the wolf stop growling. The apex predator might have considered Liliya unworthy prey, but frightened and filled with a sense of panic, Liliya began striking the wolf on its snout.
She connected three times, but on her fourth attempt, the wolf swallowed her hand, bit down, and broke her wrist.
While this was going on, Fedor stood frozen, rifle in hand. He was afraid to move, too fearful to so much as breathe, lest the wolf pounce on him.
Liliya used her free hand to pummel the wolf in the face, but the wolf shook his head and she was knocked onto her side. Liliya kicked and screamed. The wolf released her hand and bit her face, ripping away the flesh that had been her right cheek.
The scream that followed was monumental. Her cheek wound was followed by two fingers on her right hand be
ing bitten off at the second knuckle. Then, more bites to the face, including one that blinded her left eye, while her nose was ripped away.
Liliya’s neck, while cut by the wolf’s fangs, remained intact thanks to a turtleneck sweater and a scarf.
Liliya’s kicking legs were bitten on the calf, but as shouts of concern rose in the distance from Nikolai and Boz, the wolf retreated, leaving behind a disfigured woman and a coward of a man.
Pavel arrived first and saw that Fedor had done nothing to help.
Fedor was still frozen in place. He was looking down at the screaming, thrashing Liliya as tears spilled from his eyes.
Then came Nikolai. He was running so fast that he slipped and fell while still yards away. When he looked up and saw what had befallen Liliya, he crawled through the snow to get to her. Nikolai tried to hold her, to soothe her, but the agony of Liliya’s wounds made her writhe out of his grip.
Boz crossed himself, then, he became furious. After slinging his rifle over his back, he took hold of Fedor and shook him.
Although Boz’s rage was directed at Fedor, it was fueled by his own feelings of guilt. He had failed to fire at the wolf as it attacked Volya, and instead, had run away in fright. Seeing Fedor standing there frozen in inaction had reminded him of his own lack of courage.
“Why didn’t you shoot, Fedor? You must have had a shot!”
Fedor’s crying turned into sobs, and he sank to the ground. Then, Fedor was on his back, as Nikolai strangled the life out of him.
Pavel shook his head at the madness before him.
Nature, which included both wolf and storm, was trying its best to kill them, but these poor specimens he’d been forced to join forces with were killing each other. Be it through cowardice or rage, they would lose two more people, while Tanner made away with Polina.
Fedor fought feebly, perhaps a coward accepting his fate, or rage and indignation empowering Nikolai.
Whatever forces were at play, when Nikolai rose from the ground, Fedor was dead. Nikolai’s face was bloodied from a split lip, but it was his only injury.
Nikolai pointed down at Liliya. Her screaming had ceased, to be replaced by the murmur of wretched moaning, and she had rolled into the fetal position.
Nikolai grabbed Pavel’s right arm.
“We have to get Liliya to a hospital. You have a snowmobile. I know you do. I heard the sound of it coming from up on the ridge. Where is it?”
“Tanner destroyed it. It is useless.”
“No! Why would he do that?”
“To even the odds, but I will kill him anyway.”
Nikolai paced in a circle for a moment, before positioning himself behind Liliya.
“Boz, help me. You take her legs while I pick her up. We’ll carry her. We’ll carry her all the way back to the city if we have—”
The gunshot was loud, but somehow muffled, as it reverberated off the ubiquitous falling snow.
It was a single shot from Pavel’s Makarov pistol, and it had blown the top of Liliya’s head off.
Nikolai stared down at the dead body of the only woman he had ever loved and sanity fled from his mind.
“Liliya? Baby, get up, oh please get up.”
Pavel raised the gun and took aim at Nikolai’s chest. As he was about to pull the trigger, Boz rushed at him from the opposite side. Pavel readjusted and fired across his body. A round caught Boz in the forehead, the tall biker’s momentum kept him coming even though he was dead, and he fell heavily against Pavel.
Pavel was not a large man, but he was strong. He kept his balance, but then saw Nikolai taking aim with a rifle. As Pavel stepped back to let Boz slide to the snow, he and Nikolai fired at each other.
Nikolai’s shot missed, Pavel’s did not, and Nikolai fell to the ground, still alive, but wounded and unconscious. Nikolai’s bloody scalp touched Liliya’s, as her brain acted as his pillow.
Believing he had killed Nikolai, Pavel turned his attention away from him and claimed Fedor’s rifle. He checked the weapon, saw that it was fully loaded, and removed the useful ammo from it. Afterward, he headed off to track down Tanner.
It had not escaped his notice that Matthews had never appeared on the scene.
Pavel sighed.
Someone else to kill.
And the snow kept right on falling.
19
Weeping And Gnashing Of Teeth
Polina was turning out to be a gem.
The teen worked with determined energy and a good spirit. In less time than he’d imagined it taking, Tanner’s modified quinzee was almost ready.
“We still have to dig out the vent hole for the fire, Tanner,” Polina said.
“A fire? Won’t it melt?” Sara asked.
“Not if we vent properly,” Tanner said. “And the space inside won’t be hot, but it will be above freezing. We’ll also be able to heat the food in the MRE’s. But, before we settle in, I’ll gather more wood from the ruins.”
Sara was standing watch while Tanner and Polina worked. Whenever she spoke, her eyes were busy looking around for movement, as well as color. With the world turning white, any color stood out in stark contrast.
“Are you still going to look for Pavel?”
“I have to, Sara. He’s too dangerous to leave roaming about.”
“I wish my knee wasn’t injured. I could back you up.”
“Polina needs you anyway. I wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“I would be all right, Tanner. I have my knife now,” Polina said.
“Yeah, and the guts to use it, I’m sure.”
Tanner and Polina finished the quinzee by placing a blanket atop the packed snow that was its floor. Then, Polina assisted Sara, as she crawled inside it without trying to place weight on her bad knee.
The space was large enough to sit up inside, but not big enough to stand in. Within the fireplace at the rear, Tanner started a blaze by using one of the dry fuel tablets from a Russian MRE. In a short time, the quinzee felt warm, and Sara and Polina removed their fur hats.
Tanner kept his knit cap on, as he was going back out.
“I’ll go to those old buildings and get more wood. I also need to find something that will give us a flap for a door. That way, we’ll keep the heat inside.”
“We’ll start warming the food,” Sara said. “Then we’ll eat when you come back.”
Tanner had been gone for several minutes when Polina scurried out the opening.
“I’ll help Tanner gather wood.”
Sara called for her to come back, but the girl kept going. Sara smiled. Polina had a crush on Tanner and must have wanted to spend time with him alone. In a way, her infatuation was a blessing. It kept the girl’s mind off her situation and the sadness of being separated from her family.
To Sara’s surprise, the snow shelter was comfortable, and the warmth, although minor, felt delicious. She’d been leaning with her back against a wall, while on the verge of falling asleep, but Sara sat bolt upright with eyes wide open after hearing Polina scream.
After leaving Sara and Polina inside the quinzee, Tanner had rushed off to get more wood. The snow was coming down with such density that he was mere yards away from the buildings before he could distinguish them from the enveloping wall of white.
A piece of dry canvas found under a collapsed wall would make a great cover for the snow shelter’s doorway. The cloth was an off-white color, and would be good camouflage as well.
Tanner stuffed the canvas under his jacket and filled his arms with wood before heading back towards the snow shelter.
He was halfway there when he saw the first paw prints and knew that the wolf was in the area. When he studied the paw prints and followed their path, Tanner saw that they led into the trees.
A few steps later, he saw new paw prints. They looked fresh, as if the wolf had just made them. While looking to see where they led, Tanner became aware of movement on his left. When he turned that way, he saw Pavel smiling at him while aiming a rifle his way.
>
“That wood looks burdensome, and I take it you’re Tanner.”
“Look closely at the wood, Pavel.”
The smile left Pavel’s face when he saw the tip of a gun barrel sticking out from the wood.
“I guess we have a standoff,” Pavel said. “Although, I could risk shooting you anyway.”
“And I could shoot back and wound you, which, given the conditions out here, is as good as killing you.”
“A wound in this weather is a death sentence,” Pavel agreed. “But I have an idea.”
“I thought you might,” Tanner said, while knowing what the man was thinking.
Recalling what he’d learned from Polina, Tanner knew that Pavel was deadly with his hands. The man was confident of coming out on top in any unarmed combat.
Pavel took one hand off the rifle, held it up in a gesture of peace, then slowly lowered his weapon and sat it atop the snow.
“You could shoot me now, Tanner, but if I have a breath left, I’ll claim the rifle and shoot you back. Or, you could be man enough to fight me.”
Tanner nearly squeezed the trigger on his gun, but the whirlwind of white filling the air made visibility a problem.
He was not certain that he could kill Pavel with one shot, and given the man’s abilities, Pavel might reclaim his rifle and fire back.
As Pavel said, a wound would be fatal. If you didn’t bleed to death, the cold would kill you.
Tanner let the firewood fall, dropped the gun, and took a step forward.
Pavel was a dangerous opponent with his expertise in Combat Sambo. Tanner could tell within the first few seconds of their contest that Pavel was a disciplined fighter. Pavel’s leg sweep was the fastest Tanner had ever seen, but he’d been expecting it.
Pavel took Tanner’s legs out from under him and grabbed his right wrist, while shoving him downward.
Tanner fell on his back while fighting the natural urge to use his free hand to cushion the fall. Then, before Pavel could follow through with a blow to his face or neck, Tanner smashed a fist against the man’s testicles.
White Hell (A Tanner Novel Book 17) Page 10