by Dana Marton
Another man jumped to the ground and came over. “What’s going on?” This one was American, judging by both the way he talked and his clothing—a down ski jacket and matching pants, blue with white stripes. It looked funny with his AK-47.
“Having some trouble here,” Mike said apologetically. “I’m not that handy. My partner is sick. I never realized how heavy these damned things were.”
The man looked down both sides of the truck, no doubt measuring the ridges of snow and ice, calculating whether going around was possible or would get their vehicle stuck.
“We’ll help,” he said, apparently deciding to play it safe.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I’d be. I’m Mike McDonald from Anchorage. The boss is a real hard-ass. I can’t afford to be late with another delivery. You know what I mean?” He reached his hand for a handshake.
The man didn’t take it. He was looking at the tire. “This one is no good either.”
“Right. Of course. There’s another one in the back if you can help me get it down.” He went for the opening of the tarp and hauled himself up.
The American nodded to the Russian and sent him up.
“In the back.” Mike let the tarp fall, enveloping them in darkness.
The Russian swore angrily.
Mike went for the spot where he’d seen the man’s rifle, but didn’t connect at once. “Sorry, let me get my flashlight.” He fumbled around then his elbow hit against the butt of the gun and he grabbed for it, had the barrel shoved against the man’s chest the next second. “Don’t move.”
The Russian lunged at Mike, but he brought the man down, his knee on the man’s windpipe before he could raise a shout. They struggled for control of the gun. The man was strong and determined.
Mike doubled over when a fist slammed into his groin. Pain shot through his body. The Russian was going for the rifle. Mike put his full weight on his knee, still seeing stars as he heard the man’s windpipe crush under the pressure. He held steady until all movement stopped.
“What the hell is taking so long?” The question came from outside.
He stood slowly, his teeth gritted together. “I think we’re gonna need some help here.” The pain and breathlessness in his voice sounded very much like someone who was straining to lift a heavy object, making it perfect for his purposes.
The man outside the canvas swore, something with “useless idiots” in it.
Mike slipped the rifle onto the dead man’s shoulder and pulled him into a sitting position, just as the American parted the canvas and stepped up.
“What’s going on?”
“I think he hurt his back.” He slapped the Russian on the shoulder, waiting for the other one to drop the canvas so the two sitting in the cab of the truck behind them couldn’t see what was going on.
Instead, the American lifted his gun. “Yurii?”
Mike stepped in front of the body and bent to grab the man’s hands, started to pull him up. “Come on, buddy. I’ll give you a hand.” He closed his eyes, but could tell when the canvas dropped at last.
“He can handle it,” the man said. “Let’s take care of that damned tire.”
Mike grabbed his knife, keeping his eyes closed for as long as possible, then opened them and went for the American. His eyes had less of an adjustment than the other man’s whose had to go from light to dark, giving Mike a moment of advantage. It was all he needed. He buried the knife in the man’s chest to the hilt. There. That one wasn’t going to get up.
He waited, hoping the other two would come to investigate, but he waited in vain. He left the rifles, too big to hide and not much use to him anyhow. He couldn’t very well be shooting at a truck that held nuclear weapons. All they needed was a bullet to hit the gas tank by accident.
He wiped off his knife on the man’s coat and tucked it away, opened the canvas and jumped to the ground, waved to the two men before walking to the front of the Kamaz. He opened his door and sat next to Tessa.
“How’s it going?”
“I took two out.”
“Want me to try the other two?”
“They know your face.” He shook his head. “They’d be shooting at you and you couldn’t shoot back.”
“Why the hell won’t they get out?”
“They’re smarter than they look, I suppose.”
She rubbed the ridge of her nose, then dropped her hand and looked at him. “Remember those war games when we took the oil tanker?”
A second passed before he figured out what she was talking about. “Too dangerous. We’re not playing with training lasers now.”
“Got a better idea?”
Unfortunately, he didn’t.
The truck behind them beeped its horn.
“You don’t trust me.”
“Of course I trust you.”
“We’re doing it then?” She tilted her head.
“Fine, we’re doing it.”
The scowl on her face turned into an excited smile as she threw herself into his arms and pressed her lips to his. He didn’t need more invitation than that. Unfortunately, their situation didn’t provide them with nearly enough time. He had to pull away all too soon.
“Be careful,” he said, and turned off the motor.
She flashed him a cocky smile as she lifted her chin. “I’ll be brilliant.”
He slid out of the cab just as she was stashing the handgun in her parka’s large pocket. He walked around the front, opened her door and tugged on her shoulder until her listless body fell into his arms. He let her down to the snow gently, making sure her hood covered as much of her face as possible, then hooked his hands under her arms and started to drag her toward the truck behind them.
The man on their side rolled his window down and yelled out, mostly swearwords, in Russian.
Mike paid no attention to him as he dragged Tessa on, keeping his body between the men and her. If they realized who she was too soon, things could go bad real fast. Then he was finally in line with the cab and turned, braced Tessa as she flipped back her hood with one hand and pulled the gun and aimed with the other. The men’s momentary confusion was enough. She squeezed off two shots in quick succession before they realized what was going on, both bullets hitting their aim.
She jumped up and winked at him. “What did I tell you?” She strutted just a little as she went to the back of the truck and pulled aside the canvas. “What the hell?”
He pulled his gun. Were there more men in the back? Had they picked up help at Uelen?
But when he got next to her, he didn’t find anyone else. He didn’t find anything at all. The truck was empty.
“WHERE DID THE CRATES GO?”
The stunned look on Mike’s face was so out of character, Tessa would have laughed if she wasn’t so bewildered herself.
“They must have made the drop already.”
“Where? When?”
“After we passed them.” Mike kicked the license plate. “Maybe they never meant to take the load to Providenya. There has to be police there, some army. Security, in any case—they have an airport.”
“Maybe they just wanted the warheads out of Uelen, away from the port authority, looking for a quiet spot to make a transfer.” She finished the thought for him.
“Right. They don’t need to go to the airport to rendezvous with a plane. A snow plane can land on any flat stretch of snow, provided it’s frozen enough. Or they could be passing the goods on to a chopper.”
“But we haven’t heard anything.” Noise traveled far over the thick silence of the frozen tundra, and anything that came from Providenya would have flown almost directly overhead.
“What if it’s not a direct exchange, for confidentiality’s sake? The guys who brought the warheads might not know who the customer is. The deal is between two bosses—the delivery and pickup crew don’t meet face to face.”
He was making a hell of a lot of sense. “So they dropped the crates at a prearranged location and called in the drop.”<
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He nodded. “Can’t be more than a few miles from here. If they had the pickup plane waiting in Providenya, it would take a while to get here after they received the call that the goods were dropped.” He was already running for the cab.
She was right behind him. She yanked the body out of the seat the same time he did on the other side, then they were in and he had the motor started, backing down the road with just as much speed as they dared to go. There was no room to turn around.
“If they covered the crates with snow, we might miss them,” she thought out loud.
“They couldn’t have covered them. They would want the chopper to find them.”
“They might have had some kind of a beacon.” She was taking off her seat belt already, opening the sliding window that separated the cab from the back of the truck. “I’ll watch for anything out of place,” she said as she climbed through.
She had to hang on to the metal ribs of the side, but made her way quickly to the end. Sitting above the taillights with the canvas pulled back was no picnic. The freezing air blew into her face so hard she could only open her eyes to a slit. Still, it was sufficient.
She watched the accumulated snow ridges on each side, waiting to see where they were knocked down. She hugged her arms around her body. Her face was going numb. Nothing. Maybe the men had left the crates at Uelen. She was about to get up to talk to Mike about it when they came to where the wind had blown enough snow across the road to level it with the rest of the land, the same spot where they had passed the smugglers an hour or so before.
She yelled back, then got up and ran to the open window as the truck was already slowing. “This is it.”
“Figures. Easier to push the crates on the snow then trying to lift them over the snow bank.” Mike shut off the engine.
She went back to the tailgate and jumped off.
“This way.” He was already following the tracks.
The smugglers hadn’t hidden the crates, after all, they were sitting in an indentation of snowdrifts, not something someone would have caught driving down the road if he wasn’t looking, but in plain sight of anyone from above.
There were four.
“Brady,” Mike said. “He must have been in the chopper that took the crate from the dog sled.”
“And he gave it right back to the smugglers. I’ll bring the truck over,” she said, and made a run for it.
By the time she backed up to the crates, Mike had already pushed one from the rest.
“It’s gonna be heavy,” he said, stating the obvious.
They tried anyway.
She lifted until she thought her eyes would pop out, but they couldn’t get the crate onto the truck bed. It had probably taken all four men to lower it, an easier task than lifting the thing up with gravity working against them.
“Damn it.” She jumped back as her end of the crate slipped from her fingers and slammed into the snow.
She looked up and scanned the empty sky. They still had time. She bent again, wiggled her fingers under the crate in the snow, and when Mike gave the word, put all her strength into the lift. They made it up to elbow height, but at that point they had to switch from lifting to pushing up, a transition they couldn’t make. The crate slammed into the snow a second time.
Defeat tasted bitter in her mouth. Until this moment she hadn’t given failing much thought; now it seemed inevitable. “Try the phone again.”
He did. “Still not working.”
“Wait a minute.” She looked back down the road from where they’d just come. “If the smugglers made arrangements for the crates to be picked up, they must have had some access to communications.”
“Good thinking. I’m going back to search the bodies. Are you coming or staying?”
“Staying. In case anybody shows up here.”
He stepped up to the cab and tossed her one of the rifles. “You still got the handgun?”
She nodded. “Hurry back.”
“Count on it,” he said before he closed the door and drove away.
He was going just fifteen miles down the road. Nothing to worry about. She stomped her feet to keep warm. When they were done here, she was going to find the nearest hot tub, crawl into it and forget to come out.
She walked around the crates absentmindedly, listening for the sounds of a motor nearing, be it from the road or the sky. She stopped as something caught her attention. The crate in the back was shaped slightly differently than the other three. Interesting.
All four crates were unmarked, looking the same other than the small difference in the size of one. Did that signify anything? Were the contents different?
She tried to pry off the lid, but without success, and resisted the temptation to wedge the rifle’s barrel under the edge for extra leverage. Bending the barrel was not a good idea. She needed the gun to keep its true aim. Their lives could depend on it.
She kicked the edge of the top instead with full force, and regretted it instantly as she hopped back on one foot. That had been stupid. Mukluks were great to keep one’s feet warm, but they were a poor substitute for steel-toed boots.
She sat on the crate and took a deep breath. She was getting cold. The heat Mike and she had generated between them had left her body, although certain parts were still lingering pleasantly over certain memories. She smiled. He’d been right. They were good together.
The admission came easier than she’d thought. And there was a second one, coming right after the first. She was still in love with him.
She took a moment and let the shock abate.
She was in love with Mike McNair.
What on earth was she going to do about it?
The choices were limited. She could either ignore her feelings or go with them. She had run from him once; she would be damned if she ran again.
He had hinted at marriage, but hadn’t said anything about love. Not that it meant he didn’t love her necessarily. He was a man, after all. They did tend to focus on the goal and didn’t much dwell on feelings.
And if he loved her, then what?
He damn well better get down and propose as if he meant it. She was having no part in some military-style marital hijacking. She wanted romance, a clear profession of love and words of tenderness.
She shifted and the crate creaked under her. She scooted aside to look at the boards, wiggled them. One was a little loose. She slid off the crate and yanked the board around some more, and after a while it gave.
The gap was enough to squeeze in one hand. There were rows and rows of smaller boxes stacked under some fluffy packing material. She grabbed one, but it was too big to pull out. She pushed the packing aside, pulled her hand out so she could see in. A plain box. Great. Then she caught a red line on the corner. She pushed more stuffing out of the way, and her heart about stopped. She was standing next to a crate of TNT.
And that was not the worst news. Tessa looked up at the sound of an approaching chopper.
“SHORTY,” MIKE BARKED into the phone, driving the truck in reverse with one hand. “Where the hell are you? I need you, buddy.”
“Mike?”
“I’m on the road between Uelen and Providenya, about sixty miles out of Uelen. We got what we came for. We need pick up. Badly.”
“Are you all right?”
“Not for long, if you’re not coming. Their pick up is probably on the way. It’s all down to who’ll get here first. Are you at the hangars?” He could hear the noise of a chopper through the phone.
“Yeah. It’ll take me just a minute to take off. I already had clearance for a different destination. Hang in there. I’ll be there before you know it. Trust me.”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
They clicked off at the same time. He tossed the phone aside, put both hands on the steering wheel and stepped up his speed.
He saw them from his side-view mirror first, a Russian Hip, Mi-8 helicopter, already landed with the blades still turning, two men in white Arctic overalls on t
he ground, both with their rifles aimed at Tessa, who was holding them off.
The pilot was still in his seat. Didn’t look like he was getting involved. A hired man most likely. Good.
Mike tore down the road, ignoring the gunfire one of the men opened on him. He was out of the truck a split second after the engine was shut off. He stayed in the cover of the vehicle, took a quick look, enough to see that Tessa had taken cover behind one of the crates.
How long could they hold out? The men had automatic weapons, while he and Tessa had old rifles with a few bullets each. Shorty was never going to get to them in time.
Chapter Eleven
Mike shot at the men, forcing them to the ground. He was prepared to do whatever it took to keep Tessa safe for as long as possible.
Some of his bullets must have hit uncomfortably close to the chopper because it lifted up, circled above them a couple of times, then landed again on the road in front of the truck, out of the line of fire.
Mike ducked as the side of the truck got sprayed with bullets. Damn it. He had to move. If they hit the gas tank he’d be blown sky-high. And that was just what they were trying to do.
He threw himself into the snow and crawled on his stomach using for cover any indentation he could find. He needed to get behind Tessa, who was covering him as best she could. How long before she ran out of bullets?
For now, the attackers left her alone, being careful with the warheads, and concentrated on him. He had to duck and keep his head down. The shots came steadily. Not much of a chance to answer, except when Tessa kept the men flattened to the snow, but then their white Arctic overalls made them nearly invisible.
Still, he managed to take one out. The other, feeling his own doom, now that he was outnumbered, started to shoot indiscriminately at Tessa and the crates. Tessa pulled down, tossed her rifle aside. She was out of bullets. She pulled her pistol, managed to wound the guy, but it didn’t slow him down any. He knew now that he was going to die. He advanced forward with the kind of bravado only men who have nothing to lose tended to have.
Then Tessa was out of bullets altogether, and Mike in the worst possible position with her and the crates between him and the attacker. He crawled to the side. He had to get to a spot from where he could take a good shot without risking her life. He discarded his right glove, wanting to make sure nothing could mess up the next shot, the only one he might get. The metal of the trigger was so cold it burned his skin, his finger stiff from the frigid temperature before he got more than a couple of yards.
