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“Is there an official rescue team?” she asked when he hung up.
“Somewhere, I suppose. The CIA is handling the case.”
“Is that where Shorty is now?” Tommy Cattaro, aka Shorty, wasn’t on the top of her favorites list, but if he could get them out of here, she’d make nice with him.
“We went over from Special Forces together. We worked a few cases on the same team before I got recruited to—someplace else,” he said. “Nobody but the agency is allowed in on this one. That’s why I had to go AWOL from my own unit. What would you have wanted me to do? I couldn’t sit around waiting for—”
“AWOL? Are you crazy?” She stared at him.
He looked her in the eye. “You know how you used to blame me for not making it into Special Forces?” He blinked. “Consider us even.”
She had trouble digesting the information. He had put everything on the line for her. She didn’t know what to do with that thought, where to fit that knowledge. If he still cared that much for her— No. She wasn’t going down that road ever again.
“So where did you go AWOL from?” The best way to stop him from getting to her was to keep him on his toes about his own business.
“We’re going to have to go around that.” He pointed at the forest of alders and spruce in front of them that reached like a finger into the frozen landscape to the north.
He was ignoring her question. She’d pretty much expected him to do just that. There was nothing she could do to make the man talk, if he didn’t want to.
“Gee!” She turned the dogs to the right when they were still a good fifty yards from the trees, taking advantage of both the flat terrain and the windbreak the woods provided.
Ten minutes passed, then half an hour. She was thirsty, but not enough to stop and melt snow. Night would fall soon; darkness came by 3:00 p.m. this time of the year. They would have to stop and make camp, anyway. Had the cloud cover not built back up, the snow would have reflected enough moonlight to go by, but that was not the case.
Mike pushed off his hood and turned his head to the sky.
She did the same and heard the helicopter, slowed the dogs, fired her gun and waited. Sound carried incredible distances in the silence of the snowfields. The rumbling of the chopper weakened. Damn. The rescue team was heading away from them. Then the sound picked up again. The helicopter came over the top of the trees in a couple of minutes.
Mike was already on his feet, waving.
The Apache—CIA logo on the side—lowered between them and the trees, the noise scaring the dogs. She brought the sled to a complete halt and got off, followed Mike who was already running forward. She would have to ask the pilot to turn off the rotors or she’d never get the huskies on.
The chopper hovered in place. Mike was slowing in front of her, held up his hand as if in warning. She knew how to approach a landing helicopter, for heaven’s sake. The training they’d received together hadn’t been that long ago. She ignored him.
Snow swirled around them as the chopper’s blades stirred up the air. She put her head down and stopped, waiting for the bird to set down. The bullets that hit around her took her by surprise.
What on earth? She threw herself to the snow and looked around. Did the gun smugglers catch up? She glanced up, expecting to see the chopper covering them, but instead, the man she spotted in the open door was aiming at Mike.
Nobody else on the ground, but them. No smugglers. She scanned the area behind her. They were clearly the ones under attack from the CIA chopper.
It didn’t make any sense. This was supposed to be the rescue team. Mike had called in their location.
He seemed to have recovered from his surprise before she did and was shooting back, making the bird pull up sharply and bank to the right. Then her training and instincts finally kicked in and she sprinted for the woods.
She stopped halfway there, hesitated, looked back to the dogs. She’d left her rifle on the sled. If she could get that and the huskies… Mike was running, too, twisting now and then to squeeze off another shot, jumping over piles of snow as he went.
“Come on!” he shouted as he passed her.
They were close to the woods, twenty yards, ten, there. They didn’t stop for a while, spurred on by bullets hitting the trees behind them.
After a minute or two, the shooting stopped.
“We have to go back and get the dogs.” She was breathing so hard, she had to bend over. Sitting in a research trailer month after month, doing nothing but data analysis, had softened her.
“They’re not interested in the dogs. They made it plenty clear that they want us.”
“What’s going on?”
“Damned if I know.” Mike ducked behind a boulder and leaned against it, making room for her. He pulled the phone from his pocket, but it rang before he could dial.
“We’re under attack.”
He listened and swore alternatively, then after a couple of minutes held the cell phone away from his ear and shook it, pushed some buttons, listened again, slammed it into the snow. “Battery is dead.”
“Extreme cold will do that. What did you find out?”
“It’s classified.”
“Like hell it is.” She wanted to shake him. “Tell that to someone whose ass is not getting shot up by our own government. I already saw the warhead, Mike.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Give me what you have.”
He still had the gall to think about it before he finally nodded. “Apparently, a cache of warheads near where your research station was parked was broken into.”
“There are no military installations anywhere around here. Roger and I have been through the area a hundred times.” She tried to think of anything that looked even remotely suspicious, but there had been no manmade structures at all, just open snowfields.
“Underground bunkers most likely. Apparently the U.S. warheads were supposed to be destroyed under the disarmament agreement after the cold war, but they somehow disappeared from the list and were forgotten.” His words were underscored with a thick tone of irony.
“How does that have anything to do with us?”
“Some gun dealer got wind of it, and a few warheads were stolen. The whole environmentalist-extremists slash Alaska-pipeline tale was a cover so the CIA could close the area for a massive manhunt.”
She stared at him as understanding dawned on her. “It would look bad for the U.S. Government if it turned out we’re hiding stockpiles of nuclear weapons that violate international agreements.”
“Right.”
“But why are they after us? You and I didn’t steal anything.”
“Looks like that’s not how the CIA interpreted things. You left with the weapons dealers. At one point your research station was almost on top of the bunkers. And I’m here against orders. They figured out that we knew each other in the past.”
Wait a minute— “Go back to the bunkers part.”
“The Colonel said—”
“That’s what the readings were about,” she blurted, interrupting him.
“What readings?”
“We were doing all kinds of experiments, taking dozens of readings on air, dirt and melted snow every day. We would settle into a spot, work for a week or two. When we were done with our work, we would move fifty miles to the next observation point and start over.” They drove the trailer on the tracks for the big moves, but for everyday stuff they used the sleds to get around. “Then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago an order came in to do a reading for radiation.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Roger thought maybe they had some intel on nuclear testing in Russia and worried about the winds. We had very strong winds out of the west at the time. The strange thing was, we were told not to put the reading in the observation log, and that there was no need to repeat it again.”
“So whoever is selling the warheads is in a high enough position to ask a favor of the U.S.A.C.E. He wanted to make sure there was no radiation leak before he sent his men in there.”
“Somebody in the army?”
He shrugged.
“And the CIA suspects us. It’s ridiculous. We can explain.”
The expression on his face was hard, the thin set of his mouth making her uneasy. “We are not going to get a chance to make explanations, Tessa,” he said. “I know the guy in charge of the operation, Brady Marshall. He’s a cleanup expert if I’ve ever seen one. He’s heavily into leaving no witnesses.”
His brown eyes burned into hers as he shook his head.
“There’s more,” she said instead of asking.
He exhaled, his breath forming a small cloud in the frozen air. “We had some disagreements when I was working for the agency. He hates my guts. I came across information that implicated him in some serious stuff. I didn’t blow the whistle, but—”
“But if he takes you out, he can stop worrying that someday you will.”
He nodded. “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“You might have been better off taking your chances with the smugglers and working your plan.” He sounded miserable.
She took a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m only going to say this once, and first I want to emphasize how much I don’t want you to try anything like this in the future.” She held his gaze. “I’m glad that you came and got me.”
He blinked. “What? Have I gone mad from exposure already? Am I hallucinating?”
She couldn’t help cracking a smile as she punched him in the shoulder.
The sound of the chopper taking off reached them. It was coming closer. She stumbled and fell headfirst into snow when Mike shoved her under a large hemlock and dived after her.
“A small warning would have been nice.” She cleaned the snow from her face as they lay side by side without moving.
The chopper hovered for a minute or two then began circling, and after a while they heard the noise of its motor fade into the distance.
“It might be better if we stay out of the open for now.” He crawled out first.
She ignored the hand he extended to help her. “I’m not leaving the dogs,” she said, and as soon as she was on her feet, she started back the way they had come.
“That’s not what I meant.” He followed.
She slowed when they were close enough to see the edge of the woods. An ambush could be waiting for them out there. She moved with care, expecting at any moment a hail of bullets. Mike was as vigilant as she, communicating with hand signals. They passed the last couple of yards in a crouch, creeping from tree to tree.
They shouldn’t have bothered. The chopper had left no men behind. There was nothing in front of them at all—the crate, sled and dogs gone. A single flare stood stuck in the snow, bleeding red smoke toward the sky.
“They’ll be coming back for us.” Mike kicked it over and buried it. “We’re not going to make it to the village over open land.”
“They took my dogs,” she said, stunned, fury filling her.
“They’re not going to hurt the dogs. They only took them to make things harder for us.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. He shrugged. “What do you know about this area?”
The bastards took her dogs. A couple of seconds passed before she could focus on Mike’s question.
“There are a few families who live this far up. Trappers. Most of them go into the towns for winter. A couple of them stopped by the research station over the summer. These people cover ground like you wouldn’t believe.”
“We’ll go over the hills then. We’ll either run into someone or reach a town sooner or later.”
“Let’s go.” Determination filled her, anger giving her strength.
They were in the Alaskan wilderness without shelter and supplies, winter quickly approaching; the CIA was on a search-and-destroy mission to round them up; and for all they knew, the gun dealers were still after them, too, wanting back the warhead.
Nobody could ever say life was boring with Mike McNair around.
WHEN HE CLOSED HIS EYES, he could see the gently swaying palm trees on the hillside in Belize, where he had put money down on a house. South America seemed like an excellent place to disappear to—great climate, plenty of English-speaking people, and yet far enough from anyone who might figure out his role in the weapons heist.
“The Boss,” his codename for the mission, leaned back in his chair. The warheads had reached port. It wouldn’t be long now before they crossed the Bering Strait and arrived at the next station before their final destination. Once the crates were in Siberia, he would breathe easier.
There had been some minor glitches along the way, but nothing they couldn’t overcome. It would be no more than two or three days until delivery, and when Tsernyakov got his warheads, he would release payment.
Belize: sunshine and long-limbed women with soft, tanned skin, and the money to afford them. And why not? Hadn’t he sacrificed enough to deserve that?
He would have to fake his death, though, before he left. It wouldn’t do for the law, or his “business” partners, to come looking for him. A fire perhaps—a body wouldn’t be too hard to arrange. Or he could go out on a boat and pretend to be washed overboard. He put his feet up on the edge of the hotel room table and went over the list of possibilities.
The wife would get his life insurance and was welcome to it. She could go nag someone else for all he cared. The kids, both from her first marriage, had barely tolerated him anyway. He was nothing but the man who held the wallet, someone to go to for new shoes and tuition for soccer camp.
He closed his eyes and pictured an azure-blue sky above, could almost feel the soft, warm breeze on his face. The house had a veranda overlooking the pool. There were people around the pool in his fantasy—he would have plenty of friends. A tall girl of about twenty came up the veranda stairs with a martini.
“You need company?” she asked, her full lips turning into a suggestive smile. Her long hair spilled down her naked back, a few strands escaping to the front to curl around magnificent breasts that were left exposed for his hungry gaze.
He nodded as he took the glass, watched her push his legs apart and get ready to satisfy him. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back.
Chapter Three
Crunch, swish, crunch, swish. He would have given just about anything for a pair of snowshoes. Mike ignored the cold slush that had gotten into his boots. His gaze strayed to the low ridge ahead of them. They had been walking toward it for hours, yet it still seemed the same distance away, their progress hampered by the difficult terrain. He glanced back at Tessa who kept up without complaint. She walked with her head down, focusing on where she put her feet.
They pushed on, searching for shelter, a suitable spot to sit out the night.
“Here,” he said finally, just as the last of the grayish light slid off the sky.
They were in front of a “wall” created by the root mass of a fallen tree. He cleared as much snow as he could out of the hollow the roots had left behind in the ground, and lined it with hemlock branches, the result looking like a giant dinosaur nest.
