Her Rocky Mountain Hero (Rocky Mountain Justice Book 1)

by Jennifer D. Bokal

  He rounded the bend and entered through the airfield’s open gates.

  * * *

  Viktoria had checked the clock on the back of the stove before leaving the cabin—10:15 p.m. They trekked the short distance through the snow to the garage, where Cody kept his pickup truck. The rush that had surged through her when she’d first found Cody was gone. Her determination to find Gregory was changing from an electric charge that spurred her ahead to a thick, gray slurry through which she had to wade. More than her injury, the pain in her skull came from her countless doubts that crashed together like an unrepentant sea on a rocky coast. Even if she found Belkin again, would she be able to save her son? Or was she too late this time?

  Memories of Gregory came to her—a mewling newborn, pink and wrinkly, yet perfect all the same. A toddler, running through their apartment, giggling as he hit a pot with a spoon. Then, tonight, her son’s eyes wide with terror, as he once again saw Peter Belkin.

  Cody opened the door of the detached garage. He winced, even though he’d used his good arm to do it.

  “I’ll drive.” Viktoria held out her hand for the keys.

  “You’ve been shot. You could have a concussion.”

  “You’ve been shot, too. Besides, I can’t sit in the passenger seat and wait to get Gregory back. I need to do something.”

  Cody paused. Nodding his head, he held out the car keys. “You drive, I’ll navigate,” he said.

  Viktoria took the keys and slid behind the wheel as Cody climbed into the passenger seat. Viktoria turned the key, shifted to Drive and Cody opened the glove box. He retrieved a silver automatic pistol and clip full of ammunition. Sliding the magazine home, he pulled back the barrel and chambered a single round. With the gun loaded, he slipped it to the small of his back, presumably held in place by the waistband of his jeans.

  “How far ahead of us is he, do you think?” Viktoria asked.

  “No more than half an hour.”

  But not much less, Viktoria said to herself. She had been right to drive. It kept her mind off the hollowness in her chest and the tightness in her throat. It also quieted the inner voice that screamed, Gregory is gone. Forever.

  At the end of Cody’s road, a distinct set of tire tracks turned to the left, toward Telluride. In her mind, Viktoria saw the map that Cody had spread across his kitchen table. The private airstrip was through town and on to the south. The regional airport would be west, nearer to the ski resort. Which way—left, and after the tire tracks, or right to the more likely place for Belkin to have a plane?

  Viktoria gripped the steering wheel and stared into the night. She had no strong religious beliefs beyond those that dictated she live a moral and honorable life. Nor did she have any new age leanings. Yet as she sat there, she prayed and willed her soul to connect with that of Gregory’s. He was flesh of her flesh. She had cared for and nurtured him his entire life. There had to be a connection more than the shared DNA. Maybe, somehow, he would feel her reaching out to him, and not feel so scared.

  “Look,” said Cody, pointing to the sky. “It’s a plane,” he said, “coming in low but definitely not heading to Telluride’s regional airport. If that’s Belkin’s plane, it’s going to the private airfield.”

  Viktoria let her shoulders drop. “At least we know where he’s going.”

  “It is good that we have a better idea of which airport.” Cody paused. In his silence, Viktoria heard the distinct but.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Viktoria asked.

  “It will take over a half an hour to get to the private airstrip. And judging by where that plane is now, Belkin will have plenty of time to escape.”

  * * *

  Cold from the frozen tarmac seeped into Belkin’s shoes. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and glared at Dimitri. “What do you mean?” Belkin asked. “The wings aren’t frozen. There’s no ice on them. I can see as much from here.”

  “The plane has been waiting since the night of the twenty-third. The metal is frozen solid. If we take off, the wings will rip from the aircraft. We tried turning on the engines, to warm things up, but it’s too cold. We need a deicer, or foam,” Dimitri continued. “That’s something they don’t have here because this facility is so small. Telluride Regional has the right equipment. No worries though. Another plane is en route and should arrive any minute.”

  Belkin could barely stand to have yet another problem blocking his way, but he clearly had no other choice but to wait. “Is this plane’s galley stocked? What about a sedative for the kid?” Or if anything else went wrong, Belkin would need something strong for his nerves, as well.

  “No sedatives, but there’s plenty of food for the trip to British Columbia. It will only take us a few minutes to move everything to the new plane. And after we land in Canada, we’ll only need to refuel and can be in Moscow by dinnertime tomorrow.”

  “Call whoever you need. I want something at the airport when we land to keep the kid quiet,” said Belkin. He turned his back on the other man and opened the door of the warm SUV. No need for them both to stand outside in the freezing cold. An idea struck him and he pivoted. “Get something for the kid to eat—a cookie, maybe. And bring me a vodka.”

  “Do you want anything in the drink?”

  After having endured the past few days, Belkin would happily greet his old friend—the numbness that followed a stiff drink—with enthusiasm. “Just vodka,” he said, “with more vodka on top.”

  * * *

  Viktoria leaned forward in her seat and concentrated on the road ahead. The wind had picked up, buffeting the truck with the occasional gust. A huge drift blew past and created near-whiteout conditions, then dissipated. The truck’s headlights cut through, revealing a long stretch of clean pavement, thanks to the blowing wind.

  “That’s lucky,” said Cody. Pointing with his good hand at the newly cleaned road.

  It was. She nodded grimly and flicked her eyes to the dashboard clock—10:30 p.m. Ninety minutes since they had been ambushed by Belkin. Fifteen minutes since Cody and she had left his house. It was an eternity. Viktoria pressed down on the accelerator and the pickup shot forward.

  The farther she drove, the more certain she became that they were going in the right direction. She felt it in her bones. Gregory was close. The invisible tether that linked mother to child was leading her in the right direction. She took the final turn and slowed. Mother Nature hadn’t cleared the road leading up to the private airstrip and once again a wall of snow blocked her way.

  She stopped and let the engine idle. Peering into the distance, she saw only darkness. There were no more lights in the sky, or even lights on the hilltop to show that the airfield was open.

  Was she mistaken? Had she imagined the pull of Gregory’s soul upon hers? Was the plane they followed headed to another airport? She refused to consider that the plane they saw might not have been coming in for a landing, but rather Belkin’s flight taking off from Telluride Regional.

  Cody brushed his finger over Viktoria’s cheek. “We’ve come too far for you to second-guess yourself. Now, go! We won’t save Gregory sitting here and wondering.”

  Viktoria licked her lips. Nodded.

  She put the pickup in second gear, revved the engine and pushed the car into the snow.

  * * *

  Belkin sat in the warm SUV, a drink in his hand and his knee bouncing. The anesthetized sensation that he sought eluded him. Instead the alcohol jumped on his nerves, making him twitchy and irritable. The new plane, an older model and much less comfortable Cessna King Air with dual prop engines, had just landed. The pilot had taxied to the hangar where he was refueling the aircraft.

  A sharp rap of knuckles on glass came at the window. Belkin started. Vodka sloshed over the side of his glass and soaked the cuff of his cashmere sweater. He cursed and licked his ex
posed wrist. After passing the drink from one hand to the other, he lowered the window.

  “Fifteen more minutes,” said Dimitri. His angular nose was red and dripping. Wind blew his short dark hair until it stood upright. He shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets and shifted on the balls of his feet. “Thirty minutes, at the outside.”

  “Which is it?” snapped Belkin. “Fifteen minutes or a half hour?”

  “The pilot needs to check the wind speed. With a headwind like this, we’d be going backward.” He gave a feeble laugh at his attempt at a joke.

  “Fifteen minutes,” said Belkin. He hit the window button and it whirred as it lifted. “Pridurok,” Belkin added. Jerk.

  “I think that man doesn’t like you and thinks that you are the pridurok,” said Gregory from the passenger seat. A chocolate crumb was stuck to the side of his face.

  “Do you even know what pridurok means?”

  “I know it’s not nice,” said Gregory.

  Belkin shrugged. “What would you do if the people working for you were so...” he rolled his hand and searched for another word. “Nekompetentnyy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Belkin sipped his drink and watched the Cessna as it exited the hangar. “Incompetent,” he said. “Unable to do their jobs.”

  Gregory shifted in his seat. “I would be nicer to them. Don’t you need them to do stuff for you? Why would they help if you are mean to them all the time?”

  Belkin turned to level a gaze at the kid. Gregory scratched his nose.

  “That is not the way of the world,” said Belkin. Those with money, power and influence create the rules. The rest of the sheep making up the mass of humanity just follow along, bleating their sad bleat. How very much like an American to think that all men had some value. Belkin sipped his drink and settled back in his seat. “You will learn, child. You will learn.”

  * * *

  The pickup crested a hill. In the distance, Viktoria saw a golden glow rising from the darkened horizon.

  “That’s the airfield,” said Cody. He leaned forward, the seat belt tight across his chest. “Over there, see those lights?”

  Across a field sat a single-runway airport. A chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter. The tarmac was cleared. Two planes passed as they were being wheeled across the ground. One was returning to a domed metal hangar and the other was taxiing to the end of the runway. Nearby sat a black SUV.

  “Belkin,” she said.

  “Follow the road. It goes around to the right and the entrance is on the other side of the hangar.”

  “I’m not waiting that long to get Gregory. And I’m done playing by the rules.”

  “Okay,” said Cody. He gestured to the road. “The entrance is up ahead. Just go!”

  “That’s their entrance. Ours is straight ahead.”

  Backing up, Viktoria turned the steering wheel and pointed the hood of their pickup right at Belkin’s SUV. The only thing separating her from her boy was a chain-link fence—that and an armed gunman, a plane, ready for takeoff—and Peter Belkin himself. She gunned the engine and they launched across the snow-covered field.

  * * *

  Belkin stared out into the night. The first plane was being tucked away into the hangar, awaiting a new crew to return it to Newark, New Jersey, where his law firm kept their fleet. He sipped from his glass and let the vodka turn his tongue numb.

  Boxes of food were being loaded onto the second plane. Belkin gritted his teeth to keep from screaming. The Cessna King Air could cover a little more than 300 miles every hour. That made the trip to Victoria, British Columbia, about four hours and twenty minutes. How much food did they think they needed? He belted back another swallow.

  Gregory stared out the window, his eyes wide. Following the child’s gaze, Belkin’s skin grew damp and clammy. He leaned forward and stared unbelieving into the night.

  A battered pickup was driving full-speed across the field, headed straight for the plane.

  Quickly, Belkin picked up the laptop from the floor near Gregory’s feet. His drink tumbled from his hand, wetting his pants and filling the SUV with an antiseptic stench.

  “Come with me.” He gripped Gregory’s arm hard. Felt his fingers bite into the tender flesh.

  “Oww,” Gregory howled.

  Belkin kicked the door open and tried to pull Gregory over the console. The kid went rigid. It was like pulling out a fifty-pound log. Icy wind whipped around the SUV, burning Belkin’s cheeks. The more he pulled, the tighter Gregory wedged himself into the car. It was no use. He had to go to the other door.

  “Prepare for takeoff,” he yelled toward the security team that surrounded the plane.

  The wind stole his words and carried them over the mountaintops.

  “You,” he yelled at Dimitri, as he waved wildly. “Come here.”

  The wind slammed the door shut, barely missing Belkin’s flailing arm.

  Dimitri turned to Belkin and held a finger up to his ear. The pridurok couldn’t hear? Typical. He couldn’t think or follow orders, either. Belkin pointed to the field on the other side of the chain-link fence. Twin headlights cut through the night as a vehicle raced toward them. Finally seeming to understand, Dimitri nodded furiously and ran toward the waiting plane.

  Belkin rounded the SUV and pulled on the passenger side door handle. It was stuck fast. He pulled again. Harder.

  Gregory Mateev pressed his face to the cold glass. “It’s locked,” he said. “Who is the pridurok now?”

  * * *

  Cody pressed his cell phone to his ear. He could scarcely hear his own voice over the roar of the pickup’s engine and the noise as the vehicle’s undercarriage cut through the snow-covered field.

  “The private airfield outside of Telluride,” he yelled into the phone. “Peter Belkin has the child, Gregory Mateev, and is attempting to take him from the country. He’s armed and dangerous. Send backup.”

  Cody listened for a reply. None came. He checked the phone and found he had no service. The last sentence was all that mattered and he prayed that Ian had heard enough. If not, they were completely on their own.

  A narrow road surrounded the airfield. On the other side was a steep ditch. The pickup bucked and heaved as it came onto the asphalt. The tires skidded on the pavement and the truck turned a tight 360 degrees.

  Viktoria didn’t follow the road. He didn’t think she would. With a shock-collapsing, teeth-breaking rev to the engine, she pushed forward and dropped into the ravine.

  * * *

  The pickup truck kept coming, despite a ditch that surrounded the entire airstrip. Nose up, it crested the ridge and then down again, as it plunged into the snowdrift. In that split second, Belkin had the perfect view of the vehicle’s interior.

  Viktoria Mateev drove. Her eyes were coal black and intense. Could the woman never stay dead? At her side was Cody Samuels. Belkin’s insides froze.

  Belkin frantically pulled at the door handle, and when it wouldn’t budge he slammed his open palm against the window. “Open this door now!”

  Gregory stuck out his tongue, then turned his impassive gaze away.

  Belkin quickly flipped through his possible options. The single set of keys sat on the console between the seats, so unlocking the door was out. There were plenty of items in the hangar he could use to break the window, but the hangar was a hundred yards away. Running for a wrench would take more time than he had.

  Belkin had nothing on him except his laptop. The futuristic metal case had rounded edges, but it was hard, solid. Maybe a little thermodynamics would help. The extreme cold outside versus the warm interior could create instability in the window’s pane of glass.

  Behind him, the dual propellers of the King Air spun to life.

  Gripping the computer two-hande
d, Belkin brought it down on the passenger window like an ax to a tree.

  * * *

  The pickup hit the ditch at fifty miles per hour. The front wheels slammed into the earth and the back of the vehicle hung in the air for an instant, before coming back down hard. Cody braced himself on the dashboard with his good arm as all four tires still spun, connected and dug through the snow.

  Holy crap. Viktoria could drive. He stole a glance at her. Sweat streamed down her cheeks and dampened her hair. She gunned the engine and the truck rocketed forward.

  An eight-foot-high chain-link fence surrounded the entire airstrip. Every ten feet a metal pole stood sentry and held up the sheet of fencing. “Aim there,” Cody said to Viktoria. He pointed to a spot between two posts, where the fence would be weakest.

  She turned the truck, instinctively aiming toward the SUV, Belkin and her son.

  “Drive toward the plane,” said Cody as he withdrew his weapon.

  “Not a chance. I’m getting Gregory.”

  Cody rolled down the window and braced on the doorframe. “That’s exactly what we’re doing, but first we have to get him away from Belkin.”

  * * *

  For Belkin, two things happened at once. The SUV’s window shattered and the pickup truck mowed down the fence that surrounded the airstrip. Small balls of safety glass covered Gregory, who had moved from the passenger seat to the driver’s side. The fence, ripped from its mooring, covered the pickup’s hood for an instant before being thrown off by the force of the impact and was dragged several yards. With sparks flying, the truck looked like a chariot of the damned. Belkin understood how wrong he had been to underestimate Viktoria Mateev and Cody Samuels, because they most certainly would drag him to hell.

  Belkin had just stuck his arm through the shattered window glass, unlocked the door and gripped Gregory by the arm when he heard the crack of a bullet being fired. The report thundered off the surrounding hills. He ducked behind the door. But the pickup wasn’t coming for him, nor was the gun aimed in his direction. Rather, they were going toward the plane. For a moment, Belkin sagged with relief. But as he watched the men from his security team scramble on board, he came to realize that he truly was the ultimate target.