Читать книгу Rogue Soldier - Dana Marton - Страница 10

“Something tells me those guys are not ticked-off environmentalists.” Mike swore as he put the crate’s lid back on. This changed everything.

Snow swirled into the tent, but he barely saw it. Did the CIA know about this? A number of things made perfect sense suddenly. Did the Colonel know?

“Weapons dealers?” Tessa went to check on Sasha.

Apparently satisfied with the dog’s condition, she removed the propped rifle and let the cover drop, shrouding them in darkness once again, closing off the cold that had been pouring in.

“It’s ours.” He stared in the direction of the warhead, although he could no longer see the crate. “I’m guessing the American half of the group was selling it to the Russians, then the plane crashed and they got stuck here. How did they get to you?”

“Snowmobiles. They were just about out of gas.”

“What I want to know is, where the hell did they get the warheads?”

The wind whistled down the plain, shaking their flimsy shelter, but enough snow had fallen to have buried the edges and keep them frozen in place. He bounced the furs on top to shake off accumulation, to avoid the “roof” collapsing on them. A few tears here and there in the stitching allowed for air. They wouldn’t suffocate as long as they didn’t let the snow completely bury them.

“Where did you get this old thing?” He ran his fingers over the coarse fur.

“From the Inupiat.”

“Close by?”

“About fifty miles west. But they’ve already gone to their winter camp.”

“What were you two still doing here?”

“We had a plane pick up scheduled for…” She thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Since we were planning on flying out, we didn’t have to worry about an early snowfall closing Black Horse Pass.”

“As best as I can remember the map, the nearest town should be about a hundred miles south?”

“On the other side of the foothills. We couldn’t take the sled.”

“How are your dogs at hunting?”

“That’s not what they were trained for, but I suppose once they get hungry enough their instincts will kick in.”

“I can carry Sasha, maybe make her a travois.” The dog should be able to walk some, the wound wasn’t that bad, but there was no way she could keep up with the others over long distances.

“There’s a permanent Inupiat village about sixty miles northwest. We can make it there on the sled and wait for the rescue team. They’ll have an easier time finding that than spotting us among the snowdrifts or in the woods.”

Sixty miles. A hell of a lot closer than the town to the south. Still. “I hate the thought of going farther north. Any polar bears around here?”

“They’d be closer to the coast. If we come across any surprises, we have good guns.”

She sounded calm and confident, reminding him of the jams they had fought themselves out of together. And that, of course, reminded him of the steamy nights they’d spent in each other’s arms.

“So what are the chances of us picking up where we left off?”

He heard her swallow.

“We left off with you drunk and a half-naked woman in your hotel room.”

“Before that?”

“You mean when you got me kicked out of Special Forces training and destroyed my dreams?”

“I’m not going to apologize for saving your life.”

She was too stubborn to admit that she would not have made it through the obstacle course in the Florida Everglades, but he remembered the day in crystal-clear detail. He could be stubborn, too. Was he not a Scotsman by blood? She had scared ten years off his life.

She’d been sick with fever and weak from bleeding, hanging on to life by a thread after she’d fought off an alligator. She’d lain half under the beast without moving when he’d found her, and he had thought for a moment that she was dead. Turned out she’d just been collecting her strength to push off the gator. She’d had a badly broken collarbone, her body covered in bruises and cuts, some of which looked infected.

The sight of her had made him forget the test, the only thought in his mind to get her to medical help, to get her to safety. At the end, he’d gotten a special commendation for saving a teammate, while she’d gotten the boot. She had failed the course and lost her chance with Special Forces. When she’d been released from the hospital four days later, still steamed at him, he had made things worse by being drunk.

She had left, and obviously she had moved on.

He sure as hell hadn’t pictured that during the lonely nights he’d spent thinking about her. He’d pictured her waiting, regretting her rash actions. Mostly, he’d pictured their reunion in detail. It hadn’t looked anything like this.

He had deluded himself into thinking their breakup was temporary, that she would come back or that, if she didn’t, he would go after her and charm her back to him. But he’d barely been in the country in the past few years. The odd week here and there he’d spent tracking her down as she’d moved around, and by the time he’d found her, it was time to leave again, without a chance to actually contact her.

He had never for a moment figured that by the time they hooked up again, it would be too late.

“Listen, about the women… They were there for Shorty.” And he’d trounced Shorty good afterward for his role in the breakup, before he realized it wasn’t Shorty’s fault. He had the right to whatever entertainment he chose. Mike was the stupid idiot who’d thought his worries for Tessa would be best drowned on the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

“I swear to God,” he said. “We went out with the guys and I drank a little too much. I was worried about you. I went back to the room and passed out. I woke up five seconds before you came in. Shorty must have brought the girls back. Can you believe he’s married now?” He tried to change the subject. “Caught in the net. Never thought I’d see that happen.”

She didn’t look amused.

“I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been telling you the truth from the beginning.”

“I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.” The steel in her voice told him she had made up her mind a long time ago.

Frustration pumped up his volume. “That’s your problem, babe. Maybe if you trusted me more we would have lasted.”

HIS WORDS HUNG in the musky air of the tent. Tessa wrapped her arms around herself. This couldn’t be real.

He couldn’t be here. She was dreaming. The pain she had gone through after she’d left Mike three years ago, the long months she’d spent miserable without him, on the verge of going back and forgiving everything against all reason—she couldn’t have made it through all that for nothing. She couldn’t go back there. She had enough need for self-preservation to save herself, didn’t she?

“If the weather doesn’t hold us up too long, we can be a third of the way to the village by tonight. Starting out at first light, we’ll definitely make it by noon tomorrow, the latest,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, glad for the darkness that hid her face.

“That eager to get rid of me, huh?”

He didn’t know the half of it. Because as much as she had convinced herself over the past couple of years that she was over him, his reappearance in her life made one thing Alaskan-air clear: she wasn’t even close.

“We weren’t good together then, we wouldn’t be good together now. Nothing’s changed.”

The wind picked up and roared like a grizzly bear. Winter was coming. The faster they were out of here, the better—for a multitude of reasons.

“How can you say that?” Anger laced his voice. “We were great together. You left me the first time everything didn’t come off perfect.”

The accusation hurt.

Everything about Mike McNair hurt. It wasn’t right. Love shouldn’t be this painful. And she wasn’t even in love with him anymore; the part of her heart that had held him once had been beaten numb.

They sat in silence until the wind stopped outside. She pulled up a corner of their cover, struggling with the weight of the fallen snow. “Better get moving.” She looked out, holding her breath against the biting cold that met her. It wasn’t snowing anymore, the wind had pushed the clouds to the east. The sun was low on the horizon, as always this time of the year, even at noon. They had about two hours of daylight left—still enough time to make some progress before they hunkered down for the night.

She propped up the opening and moved over to the dogs. “How are you doing, Sasha?” She scratched behind the dog’s ears and under her chin, smiling when Sasha licked her hands.

The rest of the huskies got up and came for their share. “All right Blackie. No need to be jealous.”

She took a minute or two to make sure each got some attention. She would be requiring a lot from them, with no guarantee for their safety or even dinner when they stopped for the night.

“Ready?” She glanced at Mike, who was doing his best to bond with the few curious huskies that went to check him out.

She trudged outside into snow that was a foot higher—three feet on the wind side where it was piled up against their shelter in a snowdrift. The dogs followed her without having to be told, jumping in the freshly fallen snow that would make sledding difficult until it froze hard enough to go on top of it instead of having to struggle through the loose mess. Snowshoes would have worked better on something like this. But even if they had them, they couldn’t leave the dogs and the crate behind.

She harnessed the huskies while Mike wrestled the fur cover from the snow and put it back on the sled. He made a bed from it for Sasha and put her in the middle. Sasha protested halfheartedly, wanting to jump off, but in the end, decided to obey his command.

“I’ll walk for a while,” he said.

“Haa!” She set the dogs into motion without getting on the back runners, giving them a break.

She ran alongside the sled, behind Mike. They couldn’t keep it up for long, but every little bit counted. The easier they were on the dogs, the longer they would be able to pull. Now that Sasha was out, the rest had to compensate.

The silence was like a wall around them, a solid presence, broken by nothing but the sounds of the sled, their feet on the snow, their breath that came harsher as they went on. Alders and spruce covered the gently elevating hillsides to the south of them, open snowfields as flat as an ice rink ahead to the northwest, the way they were headed.

The beauty of the untouched landscape was overwhelming, humbling. It calmed her, helped her to center herself, to focus, the edginess of the close quarters of the shelter leaving her, her lungs filling with fresh air.

A wolf howled in the forest behind them, and the dogs picked up their heads. Blackie, the lead husky, pointed his nose to the sky and answered.

The snow came to the dogs’ bellies, and they were struggling, their progress slow. They covered miles that way before the going got easier and she finally got up on the back runners. Mike squeezed on the sled next to Sasha, facing the dog team. She didn’t realize that he was on the phone again until she heard him talking.

“Mike McDonald here. I’m ready to be picked up. I’m heading to an Inupiat village about two hundred miles northeast from where you dropped me off.”

“Povongjuag,” she said, and he repeated it.

“Whatever the price, man. Name it.” He listened for a while before swearing and closing the phone.

He turned to her with a dark expression. “The pilot who dropped me off can’t pick us up. This whole area has been declared restricted airspace.”

Considering the nuclear warheads, that didn’t seem unreasonable. Except— “Aren’t you working for whomever declared the restriction? Why wouldn’t they send a chopper for you?”

He swore again. “I chartered a private plane.”

“You’re here without authorization, aren’t you?” God, she was stupid for not having figured it out before. But there had been too much other stuff to think about. His being alone made sense now. She had expected more of a SWAT style rescue if anyone came for her, but being saved suddenly and seeing Mike of all people had thrown her for a loop and she’d forgotten to question the odd details.

“Authorization or not, they’ll still come and get you if you ask for it.”

“The Colonel is going to fry my ass for this one.” He dialed again. “McNair.”

He was silent for a long time, his face closed. Apparently, his colonel had a lot to say to him. Judging by his expression, none of it was good.

“I would appreciate some help on this one, Colonel.” Another pause.

“There is one man I trust over there, an old buddy of mine. Tommy Cattaro. If you can get in touch with him—”

Another long silence.

“Yes, Colonel. Povongjuag. It’s an Inupiat village. We should be there sometime tomorrow. I could use a secure phone. There are a couple of things I need to debrief you on.”

He listened again. “No, Colonel.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“That was not my intention, sir.”

“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.