by Em Petrova
They nodded, heads bobbing in time as if they coordinated it.
As he crossed the big open space to them, he was met with nervous glances but one guy standing on the end outright grinned at him.
Penn stopped in front of the broad-shouldered man tall enough to look him in the eyes. “What the hell are you smilin’ at?” he drawled.
“Heard you had a rough landing, Captain,” he was met with the same Texas drawl bred into him.
“You’re Hepburn.”
“River Hepburn from Athens, Texas, sir.” He went into full military mode, heels together and salute sharp at his brow. “They call me Hep, sir.”
“At ease. We don’t need those niceties in Xtreme Ops, Hep. You respect me, I’ll give it right back. And yes, there was an issue with my flight.”
Down the line, a few more mouths tipped up into smiles in response to his nonchalant answer. He opened his mouth to continue greeting his teammates and stopped at the sound of his phone buzzing. He paused to pull it to his ear.
“Sullivan.”
“You damn well better have arrived, Sullivan, because we need your team in the air in ten.”
“Colonel Reinsel?”
“Yes, goddammit, it isn’t Santa Claus. I need you to rally. I have a chopper on standby five minutes away from you at the Army airfield. There’s a bush plane down, claiming a hijacking by a man who fits the description of Segei Yahontov.”
“The man working for the Russian mafia.”
“Only the biggest, most dangerous organized crime ring in the world, Sullivan. Yahontov has been on the FBI’s most wanted list for contract killings and drug trafficking since 2010. He’s surfaced now and then, but we can never pin him down. We think he was meeting a drop shipment of drugs. According to the pilot’s account, the man we believe to be Yahontov asked them to change course, fly him thirty miles west. There was a struggle with the man, and the plane went down just outside of a place locals call No Man’s Land.”
“Sounds like a vacation. I’ll light a fire under my team now. Thank you, Colonel. I’ll be in touch.”
“All intel will be sent to you straight away.”
“On it, sir.” He ended the call and stared at his men, five strangers he didn’t know shit about besides what he read in their files. “Guess we’ll do our meet and greet in the air. Our first mission is here. Suit up, men.”
They had all of minutes to check out their base and supplies. Then laden with gear and headed to the chopper which landed outside the base, they ran through what was rapidly becoming thick snowfall. With heads down, they one by one ducked under the blades and jumped into the chopper. As soon as they were all strapped in, Penn addressed them.
“I wanted time to do some bonding shit, but who needs that? We’re Xtreme Ops, and we won’t be doing anything the conventional way, including our first mission. There’s a bush plane down, hijacked by a man they believe to be Segei Yahontov. He’s escaped on foot and we don’t know if he’s dead or alive. In a few more minutes, if not already, his tracks will be covered by fresh snow. We’re going to find this guy and bring him in dead or alive.”
“What about the plane?” the burly man named Lipton asked. He sported more than a few tattoos, Penn had seen before he donned the thick jacket needed to endure the Alaskan elements, and one tattoo on his neck peeked from the collar of his coat, a clear Navy anchor.
“Search and rescue’s en route too. We won’t be handling the survivors of the crash or getting them out.”
Lipton nodded and sat back as the chopper lifted. In seconds, they were in the air, flying through snow that could ground them and lose them their lead for their first target.
As they flew, the men remained relatively quiet, and Penn didn’t grill them. They’d have plenty of time for show and tell once they were hunting Yahontov. He pulled all his training to the front of his mind and heaped it into one collective spot in his brain that he could draw from on this mission. His time spent in Alaska hadn’t prepared him for this type of work, but plenty of other missions did, including a stint in Moscow working to free a British reporter from a palace where she was being held.
Hep kept examining his boots, turning his feet right and left and crowding into Beckett’s space. “Dude, what the hell are you lookin’ at? You got dog shit on those boots?” Beckett finally asked.
A couple of the guys chuckled.
“Just wondering if these boots will do for deep snow.”
“The treads are like tank treads. You don’t think that’ll cut it?” Beckett cocked a brow.
Hep shrugged. “I’ve never been in snow before.”
Penn’s own brows shot up, and he blinked at the man. “How the hell did you get chosen for OFFAT then?”
“Name came up a few times I guess.” He grinned in a way that made Penn believe there was more to the story he hadn’t read in a file.
“Fair enough. The boots’ll suffice. When we get in there, first objective is locate the pilot and see which direction the tracks went. Search and rescue will take care of the rescue, and we’re hunting Yahontov.”
Lipton brushed his gloved knuckles under his jaw. “You sure it’s Yahontov? I thought he operated out of Russia.”
“There’s been word for a few years that he’s expanded his ring. A dozen missionaries were executed on his order a year ago.”
“What the hell would missionaries have to do with drug trafficking?” Lipton asked.
“Apparently they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Things went south and they lined them up on the edge of a ditch and shot them all.”
One of the guys blew out a low whistle, and silence descended over the group. Penn’s inner strategist played out everything that could go down. He wouldn’t walk into this blind—he had to prepare for every eventuality. Xtreme Ops versus Alaska seemed to be the biggest factor, if the whippy movement of the chopper was anything to go by. The pilot would be lucky to get out of there too.
Within minutes, they were dropping in to the coordinates where the plane crashed. When they set down, Penn had a second of stunned realization. He was here—leading his own team against one of the most hunted men of the twenty-first century.
The jolt of the chopper touching down on land set them all into motion. Penn led the way, jumping from the chopper with every man following on his heels. They navigated from the small clearing which had been the only place to safely land. The chopper lifted off again, zooming through the sky to outrun the worst of the storm coming from the west.
“This way,” he ordered into their comms units. He followed the slope of the land up to where the plane had been reported to have crashed. Sure enough, the snow here was banked up, and dark earth visible underneath from where the aircraft slid about three hundred yards before coming to a halt with one wing projected upward.
“Shiiiiit,” Broshears said quietly into their earpieces.
Just then they heard another chopper, this one with a higher pitched whine of the blades. Penn tipped his head to the sky. “Search and rescue. Broshears, Lipton, Hep, look for the mark’s tracks. You two, you’re with me.” He waved a hand toward the downed plane.
As they approached, the twisted metal and deadly quiet of only falling snow met their ears. The wreckage had an eerie abandoned feel, like a dinosaur skeleton no human eyes had seen in eons.
Crouching beneath a pine branch heavily laden with snow, Penn peered into the open door of the plane. A body lay there, still, under a blanket.
He rushed the last few feet and reached in to touch the victim. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Eh? Uh. Cora, is that you?”
“I’m Captain Penn Sullivan of the Xtreme Ops. Are you the pilot of this plane?”
“Cora?” He pushed onto his elbows—or tried to, before collapsing.
“Don’t move, sir. Try to conserve your energy. Help is here. They’ll be with you in a bit.”
“Penn, there’s a set of fresh tracks leading away from the wreck. Look to be
small. How large did you say Yahontov is?”
“Five-ten and a hundred seventy-five pounds.”
“Unless the dude’s got small feet to match his small dick, then someone else is out here,” Broshear’s words projected into Penn’s ear.
Penn moved out of the wreckage that shielded the pilot from the elements and looked to Gasper. “Watch over him. Beckett, you’re on his six. Be alert.”
“What’s going on? Is that bastard still on the loose? Has he gotten to my Cora?”
“Who’s Cora, Captain Sullivan?” Penn heard Gasper ask.
“My daughter! She’s with me.”
“Captain, you hear that?” Beckett asked as Penn trekked from the scene.
“I heard. Everyone be on the lookout for another passenger on the plane, possibly a woman. The man might be addled.”
“I’m following her tracks now, I’d say,” Broshears cut in.
“Hang back ’til I catch up,” Penn ordered.
Seconds later, he overtook the head of the line following the tracks through the fresh powder. As soon as he spotted the bright red down parka between branches, he raised a fist for his team to stop.
With his rifle at the ready, he approached. If he called out and the person ran, they’d be on a chase through the thick undergrowth piled with snow. In weather like this, they needed to conserve energy as much as possible simply to stay warm.
He waved for the guys to create a ring around the woman, and his team crept in without the person in the red jacket being alerted to their presence. Penn slipped in fast and stealthy. As soon as he saw streaky blonde strands of hair laying over the collar of the jacket, he signaled.
On his three, Broshears nodded.
They tightened the ring. Suddenly realizing she wasn’t alone, the woman bolted to her feet, weapon raised. She looked straight into Penn’s eyes. Blue-gray shards of ice set into a pretty face, pale as the snow but bearing a scrape on her brow and a swollen cheek with a hint of blue to indicate bruising.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Keep your voice down. I’m Captain Penn Sullivan. Were you in the plane crash?”
Her brows met in the middle over her slim, model-perfect nose. “My father! Is he all right? Are you search and rescue? No, you can’t be. They don’t carry guns!” Her tone adopted a frantic edge.
Dammit, he hated calming women. He could rarely think of a time when one actually settled down from anything he had to say. This one looked ready to bolt into the underbrush and possibly send Yahontov running farther.
“We’re searching for a man who was on the plane with you.”
Her eyes widened. “The hijacker? I thought he’d kill my daddy, so I led him from the plane.”
So there IS a daughter.
Jesus, she’d offered herself up as bait. Stupid or heroic? Penn couldn’t make a conclusion on that yet.
Seeing the need to calm this woman, he extended a hand. “Come out and talk to us.” Or let us protect you. If a man as lethal as Yahontov was lurking around, no handgun and a cover of brush would save her.
Her steady gaze revealed all the distrust of a toddler being asked to give up a favorite toy. Yet she was nothing like a toddler, standing there with her weapon still raised and looking like Joan of Arc about to crusade to save her father.
“Your father is being tended. Come and see.”
She raised her jaw a notch. “How am I to know you’re not with him? Ron Smith?”
“Ron Smith?”
“Yes, that man wearing all black and expensive foreign boots I’ve never seen before.”
“Faradei,” Gasper cut in.
“What?” Penn asked sharply.
“I bet that was the brand. Tactical Soviet-issue boots. I’m pretty sure I read that the mark was former Spetsnaz.”
Russian special forces, the equivalent of the SEALs. Penn gave Gasper a look to silence him, and the man respectfully went still.
A tree limb moved, and they turned as one toward the motion. Penn sighted on the place a target should be, and suddenly a man wearing an orange search and rescue vest appeared.
They all relaxed their stance—all but the woman.
“It’s search and rescue. Come on, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
“Miss, then. Or ma’am. Just come with me so we can get you medical attention and safely transported.”
The way the woman acted, she might be concussed. Paranoid didn’t begin to describe it. Penn held out a hand again, and she walked forward on wooden legs, ignored his hand and kept on walking.
Search and rescue caught up to her and led her away while the man asked her pointed questions about the crash. Had she struck her head?
She was unconscious, didn’t know how long she was out. What time was it now? Penn listened to the recounting, wondering why he hadn’t thought to ask about the crash before demanding she come out of her hiding spot. He needed to up his public relations game—he’d spent far too much time alone.
Once he and his teammates reached the crash site again, he drank in the situation. Snow was falling so rapidly that they’d be lucky to transport her and her father out of here. Add in the wind and conditions were treacherous. Also, every track they’d followed to find her in the first place had already been covered by a light layer of precipitation, meaning Yahontov’s tracks were also gone.
Lipton and his team looked up at their approach. “Tracks are gone.”
Penn nodded.
“What’s next?” Lipton set his jaw.
“I need to question the pilot and his daughter.”
Search and rescue was comprised of a team of four men, and they swarmed around the pilot that they’d recovered and managed to move from the interior of the plane. The man had been placed on a backboard and wrapped in a mummy bag for warmth, including his head, leaving only his face free.
The woman hovered over her father, talking rapidly. “You shouldn’t have jumped him, Daddy. What were you thinking?” she asked.
Penn listened, piecing the events together. She looked up at him, eyes still as untrusting as before, but this time he felt her silent jab for eavesdropping.
Penn crouched beside the pair. “I need a recounting of what happened. I’m tasked with finding this criminal.”
“My father’s in too much pain to speak for long. I’ll tell you.” The woman stood and walked several feet away. She waited for him to join her.
Problem with witnesses who were highly emotional was getting a clear view of the situation. Heightened emotions and tears often resulted in the witness jumbling the criminal’s description or even key details of the event. And clearly this woman’s emotions ran hot.
As she filled him in about their passenger who didn’t speak until the time he asked how long the journey would take to the moment when she was struck in the temple and lost control of her body—and then the plane—Penn studied her.
She most definitely was not concussed. Nobody could give a recounting like that unless they were very observant, and she was. He was starting to rethink his belief about emotional people.
“I didn’t catch your name.” Penn mentally gathered details about her.
“Cora. Cora Hutton. That’s my father, Hank, but they call him Eagle.”
“All right, Ms. Hutton. We’re going to get you both out of here as fast as possible.”
“This man who’s on the loose—you’re not only after him for hijacking our plane, are you?” She pushed her ski cap with the fur ear flaps up on her head. More short ends of her hair stuck out above her brows, tiny wisps that appeared far too fragile to survive in the bush, and yet the woman had a tough exterior that reminded him of women he knew in the armed forces.
“No, we have other reasons for searching for him. Were you ever in the military?”
His question caught her off guard. She slowly shook her head. “No. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
He returned to his team and they cluste
red together, speaking quietly. Beckett pulled a map up on his phone and Penn read it over his shoulder. With a thick finger, he pointed at the screen. “A day’s walk northwest.”
“Looks like,” Beckett agreed.
“What elevations are we talkin’ about?” Hep asked.
“Mostly rocky terrain. Some flat lands.”
A snort sounded from over Penn’s shoulder. He twisted and met Cora Hutton’s gaze.
“You don’t agree?”
She stared at the map Beckett had on display on his phone. “Where’d ya get that map? Dumb Shits, Alaska?”
Penn straightened to his full height and pegged her in his stare. “You saying it’s not correct?”
“Anybody who knows this area could tell you it’s not.”
“Show us the errors then.” He didn’t expect his voice to project a note of challenge but it did. He didn’t believe her. These maps were pulled off satellite images of the area by people with enough clearance to enter Area 51.
Again, he saw that flicker of flint in her blue-gray eyes.
“If you’re really going after that hijacker, you won’t find him by following that.” She pointed to the phone.
“All right,” he said evenly. “What do you suggest?”
“I’ll go as guide.”
Someone could have knocked him over with a snowflake. Shock didn’t begin to describe his reaction to her declaration. Guide?
He shook his head. “Out of the question.”
She stepped up to him, shoulders squared as if prepared for this fight and determined to win. “I want a chance at that bastard who knocked our plane out of the sky and injured my father.”
“Woman, you are not going. Period. You’re returning with search and rescue and your injured father.”
She didn’t back down. In fact, she rocked forward, invading his personal space. Now where did she learn an intimidation tactic like that?
“No way,” Penn growled out.
“Suit yourself. Have fun wandering the bush in a snowstorm, guys.” She turned to walk away, and his gaze latched onto her thick ski pants that shouldn’t remotely look hot on a woman and yet somehow, on her, did.
