Alaska Wild

by Helena Newbury

  But we were way out to sea, in the middle of a storm. I knew there was nowhere to run.

  62

  Boone

  They were trying to stuff me into the back seat of the patrol car. With my size and my hands cuffed behind my back, it was awkward, especially because my body had gone rigid with fear. Eventually, they shoved me in and I fell sideways onto the seat, landing right on my injured arm. My legs were folded in and they slammed the door.

  I lay there panting. It wasn’t like when I was in the back of the 4x4, on the way to Weiss’s camp. The storm clouds had blocked out the stars and it was utterly black in the back of the patrol car. My face was inches from the seat back in front of me: I could feel my breath being reflected back onto my lips—

  Don’t let it—

  I tried to sit up, to get my head up where there was space and air, but I had no leverage.

  Don’t let it—

  My hands jerked desperately at the cuffs but the chain held.

  Don’t—

  Too late.

  The thing that lived inside me rose, victorious. It had waited four long years for this and now it finally had me. It expanded through my mind, stole the air from my lungs—

  “What the hell’s the matter with him?” I heard one cop say, listening to my ragged breathing.

  “He’s a fucking basket case,” said the other. “Went psycho in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or wherever, and shot a whole family. Military’s after him.”

  The terror built and built and built...and then, as it peaked, everything went calm, like the eye of a hurricane.

  I’d been running from this moment for so long, there was a hint of relief that I’d been right all along.

  Because part of me knew the truth. The real truth. The one I hadn’t shared even with Kate.

  I knew all this—escaping the coffin, the trial, Alaska, Kate—I knew it was all just another hallucination. I’d always known that, at the back of my mind. That’s what made it hell. I always knew that, at any time, I could wake up in that suffocating blackness and know I’d never left. Time can stretch out, in dreams...I had no idea how long might have passed. How many times had they dug me up, fed me, and put me back in the ground? A hundred times? Two hundred? I could have been buried for years.

  That was what was at the heart of the fear, what gave it its strength. The best defense against a nightmare is to switch the lights on and reassure yourself it’s not real. But how can you do that when you know that your own mind can play tricks on you?

  Of course I’d dreamed of freedom: the biggest sky, the freshest air. Alaska. Who wouldn’t? I’d done my best to limit my dream. I’d hidden away in the mountains, avoiding all human contact. Even when I dreamed up a gorgeous woman like Kate, I’d done my best to avoid the temptation, terrified that she’d be ripped away from me when I woke. But at last, I’d given in….

  I’d been in the coffin the whole time and now I was waking up. Fighting it would only prolong the pain. The best thing was to give myself up to it, to let my mind lock down.

  The cops and the patrol car faded away and I fell down, down through the earth, all that weight pressing down on top of me. It was so black, I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed. And then I was back there, my face almost touching the wood, the cold chains around my wrists, the damp stink of the coffin making my nose crinkle.

  My mind locked. I was back. I was buried.

  Forever.

  63

  Boone

  There was no air. There was no light. There was nothing but darkness and fear. Tiny sensations were shocking: a drip of water on my lips from the tube or the patter of dirt across my cheek as a truck went past outside and the soil sifted through the tiny cracks in the coffin lid.

  And then, after an endless time, there was something else. A sound. A voice. Not muttered words in Dari or Pashto like my captors: English. A woman’s voice. A voice like silk.

  It said, I need you to come back to me.

  Lies. She’s just a dream.

  It said, I think I’m falling in love with you.

  I made her up. Women like her don’t exist.

  It said, I’m not leaving you behind.

  And suddenly, impossibly, she was right there in the darkness next to me, so close I could feel the softness of her cheek on mine, so close I could feel the satin stroke of her braid on my collar bone and—

  And I knew my imagination wasn’t that good. I couldn’t have come up with Kate, stubborn and determined and gorgeous, with that tight little braid and the nipples I loved to rub my thumb across, all wrapped up in an FBI suit. So small, so perfect.

  Kate was real.

  And if Kate was real, then Alaska was real. All of it: escaping, coming home, the plane crash, Weiss...all of it was real. And I wasn’t buried in Afghanistan. I was in the back seat of a cop car, on my way to a cell.

  And she needed me.

  I tipped back my head and gave a silent scream of rage. The anger rippled out of me, shattering the coffin’s wood, melting the soil around me.

  I felt myself rising through the earth, slowly at first but getting faster and faster. Maybe I’d needed this. Maybe I’d had to come to this moment and face what I’d dreaded for years in order to give me the power to escape.

  I burst through the surface of my fear and opened my eyes just as the cop car came to a stop. I lay there panting for a second, disoriented. I could see a lit-up police station through the side window. The cops got out and one sauntered around to the rear door to let me out.

  I only just managed to get myself moving in time. I drew back my legs and, as he opened the door, I kicked it with both feet as hard as I could.

  The door flew open and knocked the cop back on his ass. He landed hard and was still sprawling when I inch-wormed my way along the seat and slithered out, then got to my feet. My hands were still cuffed behind my back so, as the other cop ran around the rear of the car, I drew back and then met his charge with a headbutt. He crumpled to the ground.

  I bent, reaching awkwardly with my cuffed hands, and searched through his belt and pockets until I found the handcuff keys. I released myself and then stood and just breathed for a moment, taking in the fresh Alaska air.

  I was free. Actually free. For the first time since they’d put me in that coffin. Everything seemed brighter, clearer. Kate had made that possible.

  I stalked around the cop car and got into the driver’s seat. Both cops were still on the ground, groaning, but they both looked like they’d be okay. Of course, I was going to have every cop in town on my tail in a couple of minutes.

  Fine. Let them come. Let them lock me up. My paralyzing fear of it had gone. Just let me save Kate, first.

  I slammed the car into gear and roared away.

  I didn’t bother trying to find my way back to the beach where they’d left. I knew they were long gone. What I had to do now was catch the boat that Weiss must be meeting up with. I raced down to the harbor and straight onto the pier, tires screeching. Even this early, there were a few people around, mostly securing their boats against the storm.

  The cop car had a shotgun holstered in the driver’s door and I drew it. The cops had thrown my bag in the back seat when they’d arrested me and I dug in it until I found my night vision goggles. Then I stepped out into the wind. It was even stronger, here, the roar and the crash of the waves deafening. There were two guys trying desperately to lash down a small inflatable boat so that the wind didn’t take it and they didn’t notice me coming until I was close enough to tap one of them on the shoulder with the shotgun. He turned around and saw me, shotgun, camo paint and all, and fell over the boat in his hurry to escape.

  “I’m taking your boat,” I told them. Neither of them argued.

  I undid the ropes and hauled the thing down to the shore. There was nothing visible to the naked eye, just churning blackness, the water impossible to separate from the night. But when I put on my night vision goggles I could see waves ten feet high...an
d a yacht on the horizon that had to be them.

  I waded out, pushing the boat in front of me, grunting as the freezing water soaked through my pants. Almost immediately, a wave smacked into the front of the boat and tried to flip it right over my head. I clung on and wound up underneath it for a second, ass grating along the rocky beach as the wind pushed me back.

  When I got to my feet and went to try again, the two guys I’d stolen the boat from shook their heads. “You can’t go out there!” yelled one.

  I gritted my teeth and this time ran at the waves, smashing through them and hurling the boat down on top of the heaving water. I hauled on the starter cord and the outboard motor roared into life. “Try and fucking stop me,” I muttered. And headed out into the storm.

  64

  Kate

  I ran. Down the stairs, along the companionway, searching for a way out. The mercenaries standing guard didn’t bother to stop me. They knew there was no escape. If I went outside, the wind and pitching deck would probably send me overboard. If I stayed inside, Ralavich would hunt me down.

  I checked over my shoulder and moaned in fear. He was advancing down the companionway, each heavy footstep shaking the floor under my feet. He was so big that his body filled the narrow space, his shoulders brushing the walls. His size triggered the exact opposite response in me to Boone’s: it didn’t make me feel protected, it made me afraid. And it didn’t make me feel small and feminine, it made me feel fragile and vulnerable.

  I was trying to push everything I’d heard about Ralavich’s “brothels” out of my mind. Places where trafficked women provided sport for rich businessmen who wanted to indulge their darkest fantasies. Brothel was a euphemism. On the streets of St. Petersburg, they were simply called rape clubs.

  And this was the man who ran them. I was panting, now, almost hysterical. Behind me, I could hear Ralavich laugh at my fear. His slow pace made it all the more frightening: he didn’t have to hurry. I was trapped like a rat in a maze. “Don’t worry, little suka,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I’ll be gentle.”

  I could hear a second, much softer set of footsteps behind Ralavich’s. Weiss. He was using Ralavich the way another man would use a pit bull. I knew he’d listen outside the door, enjoying my screams. Maybe he’d even watch. Jesus, no—

  I rounded the next corner. Shit! A dead end. I backed up against the furthest door.

  Ralavich came around the corner and grinned. “Ready for me?”

  I twisted the doorknob and almost fell into the room, slamming the door behind me and locking it. When I turned, my heart sank. I was in a stateroom, exactly where he’d wanted to take me. Dark wood. Marble. Soft cream bedding. The outrageous luxury was even more jarring, given what I’d gotten used to for the last few days. I searched but there was nothing that could be used as a weapon and the only door led to a bathroom.

  “Why don’t you unlock the door?” asked Ralavich. “I can break it...but it’s a shame to break such a nice boat. If you make me break it, I’ll have to hurt you.”

  He would, too. I could defend myself, but judo only goes so far. One good punch from his ham-sized fists and I’d be unconscious. Helpless.

  I checked the drawers, under the bed, hoping he might have stashed a gun there. Nothing.

  “Open the door, suka. I want to show you how a Russian man fucks.”

  I could feel tears rising in my eyes: fear and hatred and humiliation. I couldn’t believe that, after everything I’d been through, it was going to come down to this….

  Then my eyes fell on the porthole. Like everything else, it was framed in dark wood with gold trim. And there was a hinge. It opened.

  I walked over to it on legs that had suddenly gone numb and prickly with shock. I couldn’t believe that I was even thinking it….

  I looked through the glass. It was so dark outside, I could barely make out the churning sea. But when the moon broke through the clouds for an instant I saw: a sheer drop, sickeningly high, into the black, freezing waters. I hadn’t realized just how big the yacht was. Waves the height of buses were slamming up against it, making the hull groan and echo. Jesus, I can’t go out there!

  The doorknob rattled.

  I took a deep breath and unlocked the glass cover, then swung it open. Immediately, the storm’s fury filled the room: a howl that hurt my ears, stinging spray that tore at my face. I leaned out and looked to the left. More portholes, all closed. I made the mistake of looking down and nearly threw up: nothing but slick, white hull and then the massive waves below. If I fall, no one will even hear the splash. To my right….

  The next porthole was almost six feet away. But it was ajar, probably opened for ventilation and then forgotten.

  A bang behind me made me spin around. The door was rattling in its frame.

  My heart thundering in my chest, I leaned my head out again, then hooked a shoulder out. The porthole was too small for most people but with my small body I could just fit. I crushed myself against one side and gritted my teeth as I hooked the other shoulder through and then started to wriggle out. I couldn’t use my hands until I got past my arms. The further I went, the more I tipped down. Soon I was descending almost vertically, head-first towards the water. Oh Jesus…I should have gone feet-first. But it was too late now.

  Just as I thought I was going to slither uncontrollably out and fall, my hands cleared the porthole and I clung on for dear life, rocking on my waist, half in and half out. I twisted and stretched to the side but I couldn’t quite reach the open porthole. I’d have to wriggle out even more.

  I kicked with my legs, coaxing my hips through the narrow opening. I twisted, strained, reaching so far out I thought my shoulder would dislocate.

  And suddenly I tipped and slid, my scream swallowed up by the wind. My fingers brushed the metal rim of the porthole that was ajar and I instinctively clung, but then my full weight was being taken by that arm and I cried out in pain. My body crashed painfully against the metal hull. Then I was lifted and pulled to the side as if by a massive hand, my body twisting and my grip almost breaking free. Cold like I’d never felt raced down the length of my body, so brutal and bitter it made me sob.

  I was hanging from one hand from the porthole and the gale was trying to tear my dangling body loose.

  65

  Boone

  I growled as the boat crested the top of another wave, went fully airborne for a second, then slammed down into water that felt like concrete. The boat was way, way too small for this weather. And now that we were away from shore, the wind and the size of the waves was going up and up. It was near-suicidal.

  But I was a Navy SEAL. And this is what we do.

  I was lying almost flat, using my weight to guide the boat and stop it flipping over. My hair was soaked and blown back by the wind, each strand feeling like it was being torn out by the root. Every millimeter of exposed skin was being flayed off me by the stinging spray and my whole body was one giant bruise from being slammed against the deck over and over.

  But I almost relished the pain because it felt real. She’d brought me back to who I really was, from the shell of a man she’d first met at the airport. And now I was going to save her. I was gaining on them: in this weather, they couldn’t get up to their full speed.

  I glimpsed movement on the deck just as something zipped past me. Shit! They must have someone standing guard. I knew I was almost invisible in the darkness, with my black clothes and camo paint. They must have night vision, too.

  I heard the next bullet rip through the rough fabric of my fatigues and then felt burning pain across my shoulder. It hurt like hell but I could still move my arm so it must have just winged me. The next one wouldn’t.

  I hunkered low and felt another two shots bury themselves in the boat’s inflatable rib. Air began hissing out but it would take a while. If I could just reach the yacht before it—

  At that second, a wave hit the prow and flipped the boat vertical. I fell backwards into the freezing water and plun
ged deep beneath the surface: it felt like falling into a basket of knives. I kicked my way back up but a wave was overhead so it seemed to take forever. Just as I finally broke the surface, another wave hit me in the face, making me choke and gasp.

  The shots had stopped—they’d lost me in the waves. But the yacht was quickly pulling away from me, disappearing into the night. I’d lost my night vision goggles and the wind had taken my boat: it was cartwheeling along the tops of the waves, already hundreds of yards away.

  I struck out for the yacht but I knew it was useless. Even in the storm, they could go much faster than I could swim. And in these waters, my life expectancy was about three minutes: not nearly enough time to make it back to shore.

  I was going to die out here.

  66

  Kate

  I cried out as the wind eased and I slammed against the hull again. The next gust would tear me loose.

  I was so...cold. My whole body throbbed and ached with it, my mind cloudy with it. It would be so easy to just let go. The shock of the freezing water would probably make drowning almost painless….

  And then I heard Boone’s voice in my head. Telling me I could do it. Telling me I was strong. Weiss is going to win, he said. You want to let that happen?

  I set my jaw and heaved with all my strength, levering myself up like Boone had taught me on the cliff face. I managed to get the other hand onto the rim of the porthole but my fingers felt like blocks of ice. I couldn’t tell if I had a good grip.

  Hanging on as best I could, I leaned forward and used my head to press against the glass until the porthole cover creaked inward. All I could see inside was darkness but I didn’t care: it had to be better than the storm. Arms shaking and rubbery with fatigue, I hauled myself upward until I could get my chest onto the rim, then tried to haul myself forward. But there was barely any strength left in me: the brutal cold had utterly drained me. And the wind was picking up again, plucking at my legs, making me slide back out….