Ice Angel

by Matthew Hart

  “Wind’s blowing off the land,” Pete said. “They’re not coming from the lake. They circled inland. They’re coming up behind us.”

  “You have to get out of the cockpit, Pete.”

  Before I could help him move, they were on us. The roar was deafening. The black plane flashed overhead, flew out to the lake, made a hard turn, and disappeared around the headland.

  “They’re coming around again,” I said. “This time they’ll shoot.”

  “I know. I’m caught.”

  Not only was his right arm immobilized, but the mangled yoke had pinned his left arm to his body. The arm was bleeding. If he tried to yank it free, he’d tear it open. I squeezed in front of him and tried to pry the metal away. It wouldn’t budge. I stopped to listen.

  “They’re moving upwind now,” Pete said. “I’ll tell you when he’s back around and starting his run.” He managed a grim smile. “Ears still work.”

  I sat down beside his seat, put my boot against the yoke, and shoved. Solid. No give at all.

  “He’s back over the land,” Pete said, cocking his head. “He’s making a big loop. Then he’ll come downwind on us again.”

  I got up and grasped both sides of the cockpit entry. “Can you lean left?” I said. “Just get your head out of the way.” I tightened my grip, leaned back, and delivered a dropkick. The heel of my boot hit the yoke cleanly, and I felt it give.

  “They’ve turned onto their approach,” Pete said, and now I could hear it too.

  “Lily, get Mitzi over by the posts. It will give you some cover if they shoot from the side.”

  This time when I yanked the yoke, the metal groaned and it gave an inch. “On three,” I said, counted down, and heaved with all my strength. The arm slipped free. Now the engine noise was snarling into a crescendo. I yanked Pete from the seat, and we sprawled together into the hold as the Caravan screamed overhead at fifty feet. I couldn’t even hear the shots. The cockpit erupted in a hail of Plexi as the remaining windows blew out.

  The sound of the plane dwindled rapidly downwind.

  “OK?” I said to Lily.

  “She’s shaking.”

  Pete crawled over and took her hand. “She’s freezing. Mitz?”

  “You have to keep an eye out for the Caravan,” I said to Pete. I went back to search the scattered medical supplies. The Epipens were in bright red packs. I found one and came back. Mitzi’s face was gray and her breathing harsh. The shock had caught up with her.

  Pete crouched in the doorway to the cockpit, watching the black plane. “They just splashed down outside the bay.”

  “How far?” I took out one of the needlelike Epipens. Each one contained a dose of epinephrine—basically, adrenaline. I pulled off the plastic cap.

  “Not far, maybe half a mile.”

  I leaned over and jabbed Mitzi’s thigh. “Keep her warm,” I said to Lily, and to Pete, “You got a gun?”

  “I’ll use Mitzi’s,” he said, keeping his eyes on the Caravan.

  I got the Weatherby, found a box of ammunition, loaded a round.

  “They turned into the wind,” Pete called. “I just saw something flash in the cargo door.”

  That would be the shooter scoping us. He wouldn’t see me. With the sun where it was, our cargo door was in shadow. I got behind the staking posts and took a peek. I saw him look out again, then disappear. After about five seconds, he looked out again. Testing to see if he drew fire. I thought about the range.

  The Weatherby fired a 6.5mm bullet at a pretty high muzzle velocity. Nice flat trajectory. The bullet wouldn’t drop more than eighteen inches in a thousand yards. The SIG would be useless at that range. Also, it would help later if the attackers didn’t know there was a submachine gun on the plane.

  I had no idea what the wind speed was or how the scope was sighted. The guy took another look through the door. I squeezed off two shots and dropped behind the posts.

  He replied with a fusillade. The bullets chunked into the staking posts. Splinters flew through the cabin.

  Then silence. He was watching to see where the next shot came from, if there was one.

  “Do you think your last transmission got through?” I said to Pete. “Will the mine know where we are?”

  “If they picked it up, they’ll know from the coordinates I gave them. But it’s not like a regular airport. They wouldn’t have us on radar.”

  “Would they send out security if they picked up the mayday?”

  “I doubt it. They’d call the Mounties.”

  “How long would it take them to get here?”

  “If they came right away, they could get here in an hour.”

  Or the transmission had failed and no one would come at all.

  Our only door faced the water—and the sniper. I was wondering if there was some way we could force an exit on the landward side when the sound of the Caravan’s engine powering up came faintly across the water.

  “They’re taxiing,” Pete said. “Can you see if they’re turning into the wind?”

  I put the scope over the posts. “Doesn’t look like it. They’re moving out of sight, around a point.”

  Pete leaned into the cockpit and watched the Caravan. “He’s not getting ready to take off,” he said.

  “Then I guess we know what that means.”

  Pete looked at me. “They’re coming ashore.”

  9

  Think like the killer.

  The wrecked Otter lay sideways to the shore in a shallow bowl of hills. The only door faced the water across the rocky beach. The attack wouldn’t come from that side; it was too exposed to fire from the cargo door. They didn’t know what guns we had, and they wouldn’t want a prolonged firefight. The kill team would have heard the mayday. They had to assume someone else might have too. Their best bet: get ashore and kill us fast.

  The black Caravan had disappeared around the point on the right side of the bay. The killer would come from that side. I studied the terrain. Closest to shore, the flat hillside offered no protection to a sniper. I could shoot him through the smashed-out front windows before he had a chance to set up. But if he went further inland, the slope was steeper and littered with large boulders he could use for cover.

  “I hear an outboard,” Pete said, his features set in concentration. “They’re coming ashore now.”

  “Can you shoot with your left arm?” I said. He nodded. I handed him the Weatherby and tucked some ammunition in his shirt pocket. “Set up in the cockpit. Scope the hills. If you get a chance, shoot him. If he finds cover first and starts to shoot, get back here behind the posts.”

  I threw off the straps that held the netting in place. Lily grabbed the edge and dragged it off.

  “We have to make a palisade,” I said. “Once the sniper gets into position up there, he can just start putting bullets through the plane.”

  I didn’t know how much pain she was in. We worked quickly, stacking the posts up to just below the windows. In ten minutes, we had a barricade four posts deep along the bulkhead. It ran from behind the cockpit to the tail. It wasn’t Fort Knox, but it would have to do. Chinese snipers use a special ammo they call a “heavy round”—a streamlined bullet with a steel core for increased penetration. So they had that. We had two feet of Canadian maple.

  We helped Mitzi shelter behind the barricade. The leg wound was giving her trouble, but she wasn’t shaking now. Lily got the sawed-off Ithaca from her Prada bag and loaded three shells of Number 1 buckshot. Pete came back from the cockpit.

  “There’s two,” he said. “They scoped us from that first slope. They were fast. I didn’t have time to sight on them.”

  We didn’t have long to wait. The first alert was a high-pitched sound from the hill. “Arctic fox,” Pete said, “warning other foxes.” After that, the alarm calls of birds marked the shooters’ approach. Then no more birds. They’d found a place.

  The attack opened with a boom and a blizzard of Plexi as the rifleman took out a window. He made his wa
y along the airplane methodically from front to back. Five shots as he blew the windows one by one. Then he paused, re-sighted, and fired a rapid group of five—bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. The bullets tore through the seats and chewed up the cabin and filled the air with a storm of flying debris. Terror tactics. Spatter the poor bastards with Plexi, and then pick your way down the plane with tight, fast, five-round groups.

  Lily racked the pump to load a shell into the breech.

  The marksman had already fired ten rounds—two full clips if he was using the Chinese sniper gun. I counted up to five before the next five-round group struck the plane. This time he was aiming below the second window, where the barricade began. The bullets pierced the fuselage and struck the wall of staking posts. Chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk. Bits of wood flew into the air. I counted off three seconds while he put in another clip, then fired another group.

  Disciplined shooter. That’s what I was hoping for: a guy you could predict. I took out the MPX and laid it beside me on the deck. I had one mag clipped in and a spare. Sixty rounds. It wasn’t an accurate gun, but it would give him something to think about. And then we all heard the same sound. A click. I stopped breathing.

  The sound had come from outside the plane. Not metallic. Maybe two pebbles tapped together. I snapped my eyes to Pete. He held up a single finger—one man. Then he walked the fingers slowly.

  That explained why the sniper hadn’t started to fire the next group. He was waiting for someone to get into position. When that shooter was ready, the sniper would open up again, delivering cover for the second attacker to come around and shoot us through the cargo door.

  I put my mouth to Lily’s ear. “Guy behind the plane. He’ll wait for the gunfire.”

  Lily nodded. Her blood-soaked bandage had slipped across one eye. She looked like a demon thirsting for human blood—her smeared face, shards of window glittering in her hair. She thumbed the safety off and stationed herself beside the door.

  When it happened, it happened fast.

  The sniper opened up with another five rounds. The bullets pierced the plane and tore into the posts. Bad guy number two leapt into view outside the cargo door. Lily had the Ithaca raised and pointed, and she fired point-blank. The shotgun boomed, flinging the attacker back like a rag.

  The sniper on the hill fired a second five-round group, but he must have heard the shotgun and for a split second forgot his discipline. He raised his head above the boulder for a peek. I had the SIG already aimed through a shattered window, and I emptied the thirty-round clip. He disappeared behind the boulder.

  I shoved in another clip and jumped from the plane. The man Lily had shot lay on his back doing a frog kick in the gravel. The Kevlar vest he wore was shredded.

  I dashed out from behind the plane in a crouch and dove behind a boulder. Waited for the shot. Nothing. I waved a hand to one side to draw the sniper’s fire. He didn’t shoot. I threw myself around the other side and scrambled uphill to another boulder. Still no shot. I dashed up the hill from boulder to boulder. By the time I got to his position, I was pretty sure he was dead, but he wasn’t. The right side of his face had been chewed off when I fired the clip. He sat there with a worried look, opening and closing his mouth, an overweight guy in a dark blue fleece and brand-new Timberland boots. He wasn’t Asian. He had long greasy hair and a stringy moustache. The rifle with the bipod lay nearby. He pawed at the air with an outstretched arm, as if to reach for the weapon. I squatted down in front of him, unzipped the fleece.

  His shirt was soaked in blood. I put a finger against his neck. The pulse was thready. I pulled his jacket open. He had a pistol in a canvas rig. I took it out and removed the clip, jacked a round out of the chamber, and stuck the pistol in my belt.

  I went through his pockets. No ID, but he had a plastic wallet that contained what looked like some kind of mission document. A map showed the detail of an inlet with a cove at the end; the coordinates put it in the Barrens. Tucked into a separate compartment were some photographs. I was just about to pull them out when I heard the faint crackle of a radio. Very close. I grabbed the MPX and flattened myself against a boulder. Then I heard it again. It came from just behind the gunman. When it crackled a third time, I located it—a bloodied earpiece wedged against a rock. The Caravan was trying to contact the sniper.

  I grabbed the sniper rifle. Checked the magazine. Full. I sighted on the plane. I had no time to correct for wind, so I just guessed and squeezed off two rounds at the cockpit. Either I hit the plane, or the pilot had binoculars trained on the hill and spotted the muzzle flash. The Caravan pivoted into the wind. The engines roared as it began its takeoff. I squeezed off the rest of the magazine, but that’s not what stopped the plane. What stopped it were the two black specks that dropped into view five miles in front of its nose and rapidly increased in size.

  The F-18s flashed over the Caravan, the scream of their passage splitting the air. The pilot of the Caravan got the point and abandoned the takeoff.

  The shooter opened his mouth again, but nothing came out, and the light faded from his eyes.

  * * *

  Lily had pulled away the tattered remains of the Kevlar vest and taped a compression bandage on the second shooter’s wound. His skin was gray and waxy. His face and arms were a mess. Lily had put a morphine patch on his wrist. His eyes were closed, and his breath was raspy and shallow. I opened his jacket and went through the bloody pockets. Nothing.

  A Jet Ranger from the mine arrived first. I watched it approach across the lake. The F-18s must have radioed. The helicopter came straight in and landed on the shore. As soon as the skids touched the stony beach, an EMT crew jumped out.

  “Two in shock,” I yelled over the roar of the engine. “This one, and one inside.”

  They knew what they were doing. They had Mitzi and the wounded guy stabilized and loaded into the chopper in five minutes flat. One of the guys jumped back out, dashed under the rotors, and made a quick inspection of the cut on Lily’s face, cleaned and re-bandaged it, turned to Pete, and with three quick moves reset his shoulder.

  “So, we’re full,” he shouted at me as the rotors turned faster and the pitch of the engine rose. “Mounties should be here in forty-five minutes. Those two”—he jerked his thumb at the chopper—“will be medivacked out to Yellowknife on the evening jet.”

  When the chopper disappeared back across the lake, a deeply peaceful silence fell on the scene, made even more profound by the thin whistle of the fighters as they flew a pattern high above, keeping watch on the Caravan.

  We sat there in the sunshine, passing around a thermos of sweet tea the medics left us. The Caravan wallowed in the chop. A falcon drifted into view above a ridge. A ground squirrel leapt into the air and came down running, squealing warnings as it vanished among the rocks. I knew the police plane was close when the F-18s stopped circling and flew away.

  The white Beaver with the RCMP logo landed near the Caravan. Three officers crossed in a rubber dinghy. Five minutes later two men in handcuffs were helped out of the Caravan, and a single Mountie started the engine and took them back to the Beaver. Pete was watching with binoculars. He handed them to me.

  “Mountie flight crew on the Caravan,” he said as the black plane started up and turned into the wind. I watched it take off, then took a look at the Beaver. As soon as the prisoners were aboard, three officers boarded the dinghy and headed for shore. I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the map with the marked locations and the two pages of Chinese text. I tucked them back in, remembered the compartment with the photographs, and pulled them out.

  There were five. Each one high-gloss, full-color, five-by-seven format. I wasn’t surprised to see Jimmy Angel, Mitzi, and Pete Parson. The other two: honestly, not expecting those. Shot with a long lens but still crisp. Getting out of a plane.

  Yesterday.

  Me and Lily.

  10

  We landed at the floatplane dock in Yellowknife not long after midnight.

&n
bsp; “Morning, sir,” said the constable. “Inspector Savard would like a word with you and Ms. Ostrokhova, if that’s convenient.”

  “It’s not convenient,” Lily said, stabbing him with a glare she’d been sharpening for hours. “Convenient would be you taking us back to our hotel and dropping us off and then going away so we can sleep and change our clothes and fix our lipstick.” She jerked her head at me as she said the word lipstick, as if I could use some makeup too. I’d been picking bits of Plexiglas from my forehead, but I was camera-ready compared to Lily. The bandage on the side of her face had slipped again. My efforts to fix it in place had opened the cut and soaked the bandage. After that, she wouldn’t let me touch it. Now she looked ready to come over the side with a cutlass in her teeth.

  You couldn’t blame her for being mad. We’d been sitting on rocks in the hot sun all day while Mounties in hooded white overalls and booties crept over the crime scene inch by inch, mapping every bullet hole and shell casing. A staff sergeant with bloodshot eyes and a tendency to sweat took our statements in an agonizingly slow exercise, as if he had been sentenced to a term of penmanship and would only be released when it looked just right. Then we discovered that the cooler with our food had caught a bullet, and blue freezer-pack goo had saturated everything. We’d long since finished the thermos of sweetened tea. The staff sergeant listened carefully to Lily’s terse request, then sent someone back to the Beaver for “provisions.” These turned out to be three bottles of water and a family-size bag of Cheetos.

  “They’re made with real cheese,” I said, reading from the bag. Lily gave me the same look she was giving the constable now.

  “The inspector was very clear,” the constable said stolidly, opening the door.

  “Oh, piss off, you big lunk,” she growled, storming past him and climbing into the back seat.