Читать книгу The Ties That Bind - Cliff Ryder - Страница 12

Jason pulled up alongside Tina at the edge of the village. He could see the shapes of houses and they moved into the village. They had arrived well after dark and the cold was beginning to seep through the layers of clothing and give his skin that vague itching-burning sensation that came with freezing temperatures. Tina hadn’t spoken a single word since they met back up along the trail and argued about her not listening to his instructions. He supposed he should have expected it.

She had gotten rid of most of the weapons, but had kept one crate containing a variety of the arms they had found. She said she wanted to be able to prove to the authorities that what they were saying was real. Jason had been furious, but understood why she hadn’t listened. In truth, he didn’t plan on dealing with the local authorities at all, but now he’d probably have to. Either way, ever since then, there’d been nothing but silence between them. The quiet was more worrisome than the millions of questions that he knew must be rattling around in her head.

Tina pulled her ATV to a stop next to a large cabin, gesturing vaguely for him to follow as she climbed off her machine and headed up the steps of the cabin. Shutting his own machine down, Jason stood and stretched, considering the load of weapons that they were carrying. They had covered them with a tarp, but he felt uneasy about leaving them out in the open. Anyone might happen along, get curious and find themselves armed with a Russian assault rifle.

Tina ran back down the steps.

“Leave them,” she said, her voice almost as cold as the air around them. “No one is going to bother anything out here, and unless you want to freeze I suggest you get inside.”

“Isn’t there anywhere safer we can store them?” he asked as the wind began to pick up speed with surprising force.

“It’s not like we just pulled into New York with a U-Store-It around every damn corner!” she yelled over the howling winds. “If you want to babysit a crate, you’re more than welcome. I’m going inside.”

She climbed the stairs again. Jason didn’t hesitate this time. He was only half a step behind her as she pushed open the cabin door. He turned as the wind ripped the door out of Tina’s hand and slammed it against the wall. Reaching past her, he grabbed it and leaned his weight against it, pushing it shut. The sudden silence was almost as eerie as the sudden onslaught of wind had been.

“I thought the weather didn’t start getting dangerous for another month or so,” he said. “Where did that come from?”

His guide laughed harshly. “Why did you think you were wearing all that gear? In case the weather got bad in another month?” She sighed, then said, “Those winds can come off the ocean any time of the year, especially as the season changes and the jet stream along with it. They’ll freeze an unprotected person to death in very short order, but they are fairly rare this time of year.”

Tina looked thoroughly disgruntled. She pulled the cap from her head and crossed to the fire that was already burning in the fireplace, careful not to stand too close and cause her hands to ache more than they must have been already. She must have arranged for the cabin in advance; the fire had obviously been going for a while, as a nice pile of hardwood coals was already settled into the grate. Jason swept through the rooms doing a security check. The two bedrooms were furnished identically, down to the comforter and remotes for the televisions on the dresser. A clean set of towels and a welcome basket with coffee and hot chocolate sat on the dresser.

Jason returned to the living room. Tina still hadn’t moved, and the tension in her features hadn’t lessened by so much as a single fine line.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She tilted her head, her lips compressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed. She no longer rubbed her hands for warmth, but held them fisted at her sides.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? No one gets shot at, sees other men shot and killed, then tows cartons full of munitions through the Alaskan tundra and is ‘all right.’ Just what the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?”

“I told you I work for a survey—” he began, but she cut him off immediately.

“Bullshit!” she snapped. “Complete and utter. I’ve seen a lot of surveyors come through here. They carry maps, advanced GPS systems, charts and notepads, and on occasion a flask of whiskey on their hip.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “What they don’t carry is semiautomatic handguns, and they sure as hell don’t fight like you did!”

Jason folded his arms across his chest. He had only been in this position one other time in his career. Back when he was doing black ops for the CIA, his cover was blown in Peru while he was trying to get to a double agent. He got caught in the midst of a drug exchange that went sour, and the whole operation had blown up in his face. He ended that situation with the expediency of simply killing the guy, but that man hadn’t been necessary for his mission. For right now, Tina was. If necessary, he would kill her, but he preferred not to. And his cover wasn’t completely blown; she was suspicious, but it seemed as if that was more of a personality trait than anything else.

He wasn’t sure what he should be more concerned about—the beautiful woman scowling at him across the room or Denny Talbot’s reaction to all this when he had specifically asked for little to no body count. The three dead men back at the ancient village would not, in Denny’s estimation, constitute a minimal body count. One thing he was sure of was that being treated like an errant schoolboy by a woman he’d known for only a day was intolerable. He would worry about Denny tomorrow. Right now, he had to deal with Tina. And he couldn’t let his anger at her treatment of him get the better of him.

“Is there anything I can say that is going to make you feel better about any of this?” he asked. “It’s not like I planned on running into a bunch of gunrunners.”

“You could start by telling me the truth about who you are,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to accept that I acted on instinct?” he asked, allowing a half smile to cross his lips.

“Not with shot groupings like that,” she said. “I’ve been on more hunting trips than I can count and have been shooting most of my life. I don’t know anyone up here who shoots with that kind of calm and accuracy.” She shook her head. “Especially not when someone is shooting back.”

He sighed heavily. “Look, Tina, I’m afraid that there isn’t anything much more that I can tell you. I spent some time in the military—Special Forces, actually—though it was a long time ago. Those guys shot at us and I reacted. Call it muscle memory if you want.”

He walked toward her, but she held up her hand and backed away shaking her head.

“I’m not buying,” she said. “I may not be a genius, but I can tell when someone isn’t telling me the truth. What kind of surveyor carries a gun?”

“One who wants to live—” he started to answer, but she held up a hand once more to silence him.

“I’m done for the night. I’m going to bed and tomorrow morning I’m going back to Nome and I’m reporting all this to the authorities. You can finish your so-called surveying without me. I’m not about to get my ass shot off for what I’m getting paid.”

Trying another approach, he said, “That would be a shame, it really is such a nice ass…”

She turned and slapped him. Hard.

“Okay, wrong thing to say,” he admitted, rubbing his cheek. “Tina, hold on a second. Please.”

She arched an eyebrow but kept her silence.

“Look, I need you. You’re the best guide around. And I need the best to do my job right. If you won’t accept that what happened out there was just pure survival instinct, then I don’t know what to tell you. I had no idea that those men were there, but I won’t apologize for choosing our lives over theirs. I didn’t go looking for trouble and I hope you can believe that. But I’m not very big on turning the other cheek when someone tries to shoot me, either.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “You sound sincere enough, but something about your story doesn’t ring true for me.”

“I can respect that,” he replied. “But truth often has a lot to do with perspective. The bottom line is that I need your help.”

“My help for what?”

“To do my job. I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else. I’ve told you that before and I meant it. But I’m not going to stand down and do nothing while someone is shooting at me, either. I’ve been in dangerous situations before, and if those were small-time operators, they would have hidden or tried to scare us off. They’re part of a larger group and if they’re operating around here, it could jeopardize not just me getting my job done, but a lot of your people, too.”

Jason could see the confusion, then defeat roll across her face. He knew he had her, at least for the moment, but he also knew he couldn’t push her too quickly.

He ran a hand through his hair, more tired than he’d realized. “Look, just sleep on it, okay? We can talk more in the morning. We’re both exhausted. I’ll see if I can shed a little more light on the situation for you then. Besides, we’ll have to talk to the local authorities and get these weapons in the hands of the right people.”

Finally, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll sleep on it. Right now, I’m too tired to think anyway.”

Tina stomped to her room and slammed the door. Jason heard the lock click into place. She might be willing to listen to him a little more, but she obviously didn’t trust him. He checked the windows in the living room and kitchen, placing small motion sensors on the rails that would send a signal to his watch. He placed another one by the door.

Convinced that the cabin was as safe as he could make it, Jason stripped off his outer layers and sank down onto the couch. Propping his feet up on the table, he rolled his head back, contemplating what a disaster the mission had been thus far.

JASON AWOKE to the smell of fresh coffee. He propped himself up on his elbow and pressed the light on his watch. Five-thirty. He swung his legs over the side of the couch and ran his hands through his hair, then slipped on a shirt and headed into the kitchen.

Tina was standing at the counter. Her red fleece sweatshirt was unzipped, showing off her black tank top and nicely rounded breasts. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, eyes closed, as she took a long sip of coffee. Jason could feel the room heat up—or at least his own body temperature—but put his libido in check, knowing he would have to play nice if she was going to remain an asset to him. He also knew that if this got too complicated, he might have no choice but to eliminate her and for that reason alone he needed to keep his distance. He allowed himself one more glance and then put the foolish thoughts away.

“You’re awake,” she said, her voice much less tense than the night before.

“I could never resist the smell of fresh coffee.”

“Help yourself,” she said.

Jason pulled a cup out of the cupboard and poured the coffee. He stood silent. Psychology 101. Most people hate silence and will say anything to fill it, even if what they say is a mistake. He had played human-behavior games too many times and he always won. No matter how calculating or bright his adversary.

Tina took a deep breath.

Here it comes, he thought.

She shifted from one foot to the other.

Oh, yeah. She’s mine, he added to himself.

“You know, maybe we should start over,” she said.

He tried not to smile in victory, but he knew he was failing when he saw her wrinkled brow.

“I wasn’t saying that to be funny,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

She set her coffee on the counter, reached out her hand and said, “Tina Kanut, guide, trapper and on occasion not a half-bad dancer. And you are?”

Jason grinned and stared at her hand. He put his coffee down, as well, and put both of his hands on hers. He shook his head and she pulled her hand away.

“I could just leave you here,” she said.

“You could, but you won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Pretty simple. You know if I was going to hurt you, I would have done so when I was already getting rid of the bodies. You also know that those were not nice men and that I was only protecting my backside. And finally…”

Jason paused, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to go on without hearing the last and he did have so much fun with word games sometimes. In a life like he lived, the little amusements were all one sometimes had.

“Finally, what?” she asked.

“Finally I wasn’t just protecting my backside. I was also protecting yours.”

She pondered for a moment and then looked at him with renewed conviction. “You know, that’s one of the few things you’ve said that I do believe.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you slept out in the living room on the sofa instead of in the bedroom,” she said. “If someone tried to come in during the night, you wanted to be between me and them, didn’t you?”

He nodded, surprised that she had even noticed.

“I don’t trust you,” she said, her tone decisive. “And I don’t think you’ve told me the whole truth. But what I need to know is if you’re here to hurt someone. I’m not just taking you to any village. I’m taking you to my village. If you can’t or won’t tell me the truth about your purpose up here, I guess that’s your problem, but I have to know that you’re not out to hurt the people I care most about.”

“Scout’s honor,” he said without hesitation. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

She pushed away from the counter and started walking to her room, but stopped in front of him. Her hip brushed his as she said, “I bet you weren’t ever really a Boy Scout.”

Jason watched the way she walked, her flannel pants perfectly outlining her behind. “No,” he whispered to himself, completing the old joke, “but I got kicked out for eating a Brownie or two.”

JASON WAITED for Tina in the living room. She came out of her room with a bag in tow.

“How soon can we make it to your village?” he asked.

“It won’t take too long—about a half day—but we need to talk to whatever local authorities are here first and turn over those weapons. I imagine that could see us here for an extra day.”

“Why don’t we take them along with us?” Jason suggested. “Then we can report them to the authorities in your village. You probably know them, and my timetable doesn’t get held up. I’m on a bit of a schedule.”

“You don’t have any intention of giving those weapons over to the police, do you?” she asked.

“If you’ll recall,” he said, striving to keep his voice calm, “I didn’t want you to bring them along in the first place. But the answer to your question is no. I don’t have time to deal with local officials right now. You can believe me when I say that those weapons will get turned over to the proper authorities, more so even than the local cops, who would probably just sell them at the next police auction or keep them for themselves.”

Tina didn’t say anything, but Jason could tell she was considering what he said carefully.

“Not to mention,” he continued, “that it’s hard to run an operation like that without it drawing notice, especially in small towns or communities where everyone knows everyone else. The odds are good that someone pretty high up on the law-enforcement side of things around here is on the take, maybe even actively participating, and they are not going to take kindly to our taking away a large chunk of their bread and butter.”

She tossed up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine,” she said. “But at the least, I want to talk to the local cops in my village. I know them, and I can’t imagine any of them are involved. Fair enough?”

Jason nodded his head in agreement, while thinking about how he could stall her again on the issue once they arrived at her village.

“Can we go, then?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get there. I’d hate for your timetable to be off by more than a minute or two.” The sarcasm in her voice was cutting, but he ignored it.

Instead, he headed outside, gently pulling her along behind him. “Good deal,” he said. He’d picked up his little motion sensors while she was getting ready to leave and had gathered his own things together. The ATVs were right where they had left them. The town was just beginning to wake up and Jason didn’t want to get stuck answering questions about missing members of the local population. Before he moved the bodies, Jason had done quick scans of their fingerprints and took digital pictures of their faces. When they settled at the cabin he sent them to Room 59 via a satellite uplink from his PDA. The response had been fairly quick. All three had rap sheets that weren’t far from what they had been caught at yesterday and two were from the village that they were currently situated in. Denny had sent a message asking for a mission update as soon as possible.