Stormbound

by A P Bateman

  They trudged through the snow and ice and into a belt of trees. The forest was sparsely grown. The thickest tree was no more than the average man’s waist in circumference. The branches started at around four feet from the ground, around six-inches thick. To King, they looked like wispy Christmas trees, but he could see there were different varieties, although none of the trees were as big as he would have expected. He knew that trees only grew so far north, another fifty miles and there would be no trees at all, merely scrub and tundra.

  King stopped walking. He was tuned into his surroundings. Once the engines had been switched off, the only sounds were of their own footsteps in the crisp icy crust of the snow. He could hear no sounds of nature. Now that his ears had stopped ringing at the incessant hum of the snowmobile, it felt was so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat with the exertion of walking in the cumbersome clothing and thick boots. He could hear Lena’s breathing, her efforts, but nothing more. But then he had heard something else. Something out of place. He looked to his right. The same trees. The same monochrome landscape. Snow and trees. Nothing more.

  “What is it?” Lena asked, stopping in front of him.

  “I don’t know,” King replied. “I thought I heard something.”

  “An animal, perhaps?” she asked. “There are arctic foxes, wolves. Partridges roost in the trees as well.”

  “Maybe.”

  Snow blew down on them, then as they looked up, the sky filled with diamonds as ice crystals filled the air. The air grew thick, and the trees started to sway. In a matter of seconds, the trees were blowing wildly, ice crystals shut out the light and the already dull sky became darker.

  “A storm!” she shouted.

  She pulled him by the arm and led the way down an embankment. She continued to pull at him, but he broke free and could already see what she was attempting to do. King powered his legs against the ice and pushed her down into the lee of the wind. She fell onto her knees and checked the rifle’s safety catch before she used the butt like a shovel and dug into the bank. The wind was savagely cold, blowing ice over their heads as she dug. Once the ice crust lifted, King got his gloved hands into the snow and dug as hard and as frantically as he could. He could feel the super-chilled wind on the exposed parts of his face, and the clothes were only holding out so much. He glanced at Lena, the look on her face said it all.

  “This is the precursor to the storm!” she shouted. “If it hits, it could be like this for days…”

  They both dug hard, and soon there was enough indentation in the bank to get themselves flush to the ground. King started spreading the broken ice into mounds beside

  them, to afford more cover. They tucked up together, Lena abandoning the rifle and wrapping

  her arms and legs around King as he did the same. The wind howled savagely through the trees and the occasional crack resonated around them as the weaker trees, brittle from the cold, snapped off and fell to the forest floor.

  The light was all but gone. The ambient glow of light from the snow was all they could see by. The ice particles, emptied out of the trees, blew over them and covered them in the refuge of their shelter. King could feel Lena hugging him tightly. She was scared, taking comfort in him, as much as trying to keep herself insulated from the savage wind.

  There was a violent buffeting, a screech of wind like that of an old vacuum cleaner, then almost as quickly as it had hit them, it dispersed, and the ice particles fell out of a still sky like a gentle fall of snow.

  King let go of Lena and brushed the layer of snow and ice from his clothes. “What the hell?” he said, as he pushed himself up and dug out the rifle. He released the magazine, unloaded the live round from the breech. He looked at the round. .300 Winchester Magnum. A large calibre which could take down anything on land. He checked the barrel for snow by blowing down the breech. He saw his own breath at the muzzle and reloaded the rifle. He glanced and saw Lena staring at him. She had a hand inside her pocket and a look he recognised in her eyes. He would have bet his life her hand was wrapped around the butt of her service Glock 9mm. He held the rifle out to her and she took it cautiously with her left hand, took her right hand back out of her pocket. “Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit.”

  “For Home Office investigators?”

  King smiled. “So, what the hell was with that wind?”

  “Arctic squall,” she answered. “If the forecasters were right, then there’s a lot more than that on the way.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of days,” she said, quickening her pace. “Back there, I’m amazed you sensed it coming.”

  “What?”

  “The squall,” she said. “I’m amazed you sensed it.”

  King said nothing. That wasn’t what he had sensed, but in truth, with the suddenness of the squall, he had forgotten what had spooked him. It had been a moment of survival. The

  dramatic drop in temperature, the severity of the wind and the blinding ice storm. He had become lost in the moment. He looked to his right again, but nothing seemed at odds with nature now. It was quiet. Almost too quiet. As if something or someone had scared the animals away, long before they had arrived.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We are here,” Lena announced. She stopped walking and pointed across the clearing.

  King nodded and looked around the clearing. “Show me,” he said.

  Lena studied the area. She looked uncertain. The trees all looked the same and the ground was white. She turned her back to him and King saw her remove a glove, hold it between her teeth and check her phone. She looked up decisively and led the way across the clearing. She stopped when they reached a series of ice ridges. “Over there, by that tree,” she said, pointing to a large spindly spruce. The branches were thin and did not start until they were eight-feet from the ground.

  King walked to the tree. He could see the scarring from a bullet. It had chipped off a chunk of bark and driven a groove through the wood. He looked at Lena, but she was staring at the ground. The squall had blown off the dusting of ice and there were blood stains in the snow. King looked back at Lena again, but she was studying the belt of trees at the edge of the clearing. She had the rifle gripped firmly in both hands.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I thought I saw a wolf,” she replied. “But it’s gone now.”

  “How was the body when you found it?”

  “I…” she shrugged. “Horrible,” she said. “Torn to shreds.”

  King stood up. “Did you notice the bullet strike?”

  “He wasn’t shot,” she said.

  “In the tree.”

  “What? No.”

  “It’s as clear as day,” he said. The irony that it was not yet three-PM and the darkness was fading rapidly. He pointed at the mark, a four-inch diameter piece of bark missing, new yellow-white wood underneath with a channel cut into it and lead colouring where the copper coating of the hunting bullet had split, and the soft lead underneath had deformed and left a tell-tale mark. To those who knew about such things.

  “I must have missed that,” she said.

  King scanned the clearing, looked back at her, but focused on the rifle. It was pointed at his stomach, her hands unwavering.

  “You never saw Fitzpatrick’s body before this morning, did you? No, don’t answer that. You hadn’t.” King watched her eyes, saw indecision in them. He thought of her reaction in the morgue. It had been a terrible sight, but if she had been at the crime scene, then she would have known what to expect. “You’re not even a police officer. Who are you? And where is Senior Constable Mäkinen?”

  She looked at him and smiled. “How did you know?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Dead, of course.”

  “And the doctor that Engelmann replaced? You killed him too?”

  “Not me, personally. But yes, he was killed.”

  King looked at her, she had been playing a role. And she had immersed herself totally. Only her
reaction inside the morgue over Fitzpatrick’s body and her indecision out here had given her away. He wondered how much of what she had told him was the real Lena Mäkinen’s life, or whether she had adlibbed the whole thing. Perhaps she used her own experiences. Either way, she had been utterly convincing. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Not your concern.”

  “Russian?”

  She smiled. “Not your concern.”

  King looked at the rifle. It was still pointing at him.

  “Who are you waiting for?”

  “Someone to take care of you.”

  “The same person who killed Lena and the other doctor?”

  “I imagine.”

  “And you don’t do that sort of thing in the FSB?” She sneered, and he said, “GRU, then?”

  She shrugged like it was no matter. “I could do that sort of thing. But that wasn’t my orders.”

  “Don’t be so sure. You almost threw up over Fitzpatrick’s body,” he said, taking off his gloves methodically and tucking them under his left armpit. He gripped them into fists and blew on them, warming them up and bringing some life back to them. “That’s why I knew you hadn’t seen it before. But I only knew for sure when you needed your phone to find the site. What was it, a text or GPS?”

  “Clever man,” she said quietly. “GPS. But not so clever with a gun aimed at him.”

  “So, tell me about the good doctor. One of Russia’s finest sent to cover incidents like Fitzpatrick? Or to smooth over the crime scene of any potential defector who meets a vicious end out in those woods?”

  “Both counts, I suspect.”

  “So, Russia knows it has people who want out, who want to sell what they have to the West. So much so, they put a team in to block their way, clear up the fallout.”

  She shrugged. “We think of everything,” she said. “If we can manipulate a man into the White House from behind our computer terminals, we can get ahead of a few traitors.”

  “Well, looks like they thought of everything,” King said sardonically. “Except for sending an amateur like you to do a professional’s job.”

  “You don’t look like such a professional from where I’m standing.”

  King dropped the massive brass cartridge onto the ice between them. She stared at it, but when she looked back up at him, he had the Walther in his un-gloved hand. She looked confused, hurt even. Like he had betrayed a trust and couldn’t see the irony in that. Her expression changed to anger and the click of the bolt releasing and the rim that housed the firing pin striking the neck of the empty chamber sounded loudly in the stillness of the clearing. Even so, King flinched at the sound, relief that his gamble had played out. She glared at him and her right hand shot forwards and took hold of the bolt.

  “Don’t!” King warned her harshly.

  She still tried to work the action, something in her eyes that told King it was a Hail Mary. Desperation. She was going for it. He saw the bolt pull backwards, the glint of brass as the cartridge in the magazine was exposed. She drove the bolt forwards then dropped to the ground as King fired.

  He kicked the rifle out of her loose grip, kept the pistol aimed at her. The bullet had struck her dead-centre. There was a little blood at the edges of the clean hole in her jacket. He saw her look up at him. He had seen the same

  look before. Too many times to count, but enough to remember. Her right hand rested near her pocket. He remembered her doing this earlier, when he had checked over the rifle. He had thought it strange enough to hedge his bets then. A sleight of hand, and the weapon was locked down on an empty breech.

  Amateurs and professionals.

  The dying and the living.

  King stepped onto her pocket. He could feel the form and hardness of the pistol even under his insulated boots. Her hand moved away from her pocket and dropped limply into her lap. She died looking up at him. She didn’t try to say anything, didn’t waste her last moments swearing vengeance or cursing his being. Most people didn’t. The life left her eyes and he turned and picked up the rifle, shouldered it by the strap and made his way over to where the MI6 officer had died.

  The squall had cleared the ground of ice crystals, taking the ground down to the last snowfall. The terrain was made up of layers. Snow fell, froze and each time the snow fell a new layer was made. The ice crystals were the result of moistness in the air at the warmest point of the day, then freezing rapidly as the colder night air froze. The crystals cast a layer on everything, like dew on spring grass. It gave the appearance of freshly fallen snow. The squall had blown it all away, no doubt depositing it many miles away when the wind’s strength had blown out.

  King could see the blood frozen into the snow. There was a lot of blood, but then a wolf or wolves had feasted on Fitzpatrick’s body. For as long as it took to make forensic detection too difficult. A death camouflaged by nature. King suspected the real Lena Mäkinen had not been fooled by their attempts. That was probably why she had made Senior Constable. And certainly, why she had been killed. Engelmann’s efforts had been thwarted, and whoever this dead female agent was had been called in at short notice. She would have been a dead-ringer for the Finnish police officer, but she would have been a last-minute recruit. Lena’s substitute had clearly needed directions on her phone by way of text message or GPS. She hadn’t been aware of the bullet strike either. That would have been noted by a half-competent police officer as they inspected the crime scene. Somebody had known that MI6 were sending someone to investigate their dead agent. In this case, quid-pro-quo by MI5 in the form of Alex King.

  King surveyed the scene. The bullet strike on the tree, the blood in Fitzpatrick’s final resting place. He closed his eyes, envisioned a man cornered, scared, hunted. He looked again

  at the bullet strike again. Tracked back along the ridge. He estimated the height of the embankment, an average-sized man taking aim with a rifle. The height of the bullet strike. He looked at the distance, estimated it at one-hundred metres. There would be little drop from

  a hunting round in one of the most likely calibres. He supposed .308 was the most popular hunting calibre. It was certainly the most widely available and covered the most bases in terms of hunting anything outside of the big five African game. The cold would denote a fifteen percent drop in trajectory. He made his way across the clearing and stopped at the top of the embankment. The squall had blown the loose ice away and it did not take King long to find two sets of footprints. He could see from where he stood that two people had paused here. Taken their time. One had stood still, while the other had moved around behind them. King placed his foot over the prints. He stood a shade under six-foot and wore size elevens. There were no hard and fast rules, but he could guess the sex of the owners of the prints. He would estimate average-sized males. One print was lined with modern treads, the other was smooth. The smoother print was shallower. This could denote weight difference, but more likely the smooth prints were from someone wearing traditional indigenous hide boots.

  King shouldered the rifle and aimed across the clearing at the tree with the bullet strike. He lined the crosshairs on the mark, lowered it an inch and gently squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked wildly against his shoulder, the barrel rose, and the clearing was filled with the noise of the gunshot. The echo resonated and cracked off the hard and frozen surroundings. He re-sighted on the strike and saw that he had hit the tree a fraction lower. Just about dead-on where he had been aiming. So, no drop from a .300 Winchester Magnum bullet. He trudged back across the clearing and studied the bullet strike. He touched the new wood underneath the bark which had been removed. The tail of the bullet was visible, almost flush with the wood. He knew the power difference between the .308 and the .300 Winchester Magnum. He could see that it was more likely to have been a .308 or a 30-06. The tree was frozen and the difference in power would have been enough to ricochet. King worked the bolt and applied the safety. He shouldered the weapon by its strap and looked at the base of the tree. He could imagine
Fitzpatrick crouching behind, taking cover from the gunfire. Or perhaps he was done. Perhaps he was sitting down and resting. His back against the tree. King thought about the body in the medical centre. The wolves had taken one hand, but what about the other? That had been bloodied and frost-bitten. Two of the nails had broken away. King studied the ground at the base of the tree. He dug at the ice with the toe of his boot. There were two different textures, a split in layers. He bent down and dug his gloved fingers into the snow. He straightened up and used the buttstock of the rifle to loosen the ice further. He could see an orange glint in the snow. He reached for it, but a huge chunk of ice was blown out of the ground just inches from his fingertips.

  King was already moving. He had taken in the eruption of ice, the noise of the gunshot, still echoing around the clearing. He made it to a nearby tree and was diving behind it for cover, already realising that it was no bigger than himself. A second gunshot hit the tree, but King had already subconsciously worked out the position of the gun before he hit the ground.

  Standard hunting rifles used flush-fitting five-round magazines. King had dropped the round at the woman’s feet. He had taken a shot with the rifle to ascertain the distance and approximate calibre of the rifle that had made the bullet strike. Which gave him three bullets. He had six more in the Walther, but the shooter was already too far away. With the extreme cold and thick Arctic clothing to penetrate, King wouldn’t have much faith in the tiny weapon at more than twenty-five metres. And that was best-case scenario.

  Another shot rang-out. The tree blocked the round, but it was close. King could feel the bark hit his shoulder. He got the rifle up to his shoulder and eased himself out for a peek. He did not use the sight yet, just needed to see some movement.