by Mallory Kane
“Matt, stop her! She’ll get killed.” Aimee headed for the door.
“Aimee, no!” He stepped in front of her and caught her against his chest. “Get down! Get William.”
Aimee immediately dropped to her knees and crawled back to the baby.
“Stay here. That’s an order.” Matt slid through the open door and onto the front porch. Falling to his stomach, he held the MAC-10 ready to fire. He couldn’t see anything.
He crept to the side of the porch, watching every direction. He didn’t want to end up shot or captured. He still had work to do. He had to get Aimee and her baby off the mountain.
Shellie’s voice sounded muffled and far away as she screamed for Roy. Matt needed to see around the side of the cabin, but the porch didn’t extend to the corner.
He pulled down his infrared glasses again and scanned the area to the south. Nothing stood out that looked like a human. Sliding off the porch, he crawled westward along the cabin’s wall, staying as much in the shadows as he could, keeping an eye out to the south for the shooter.
By the time he reached the southwest corner of the cabin, he could hear Shellie crying. Flattening himself against the cabin’s wall, he peered around the corner and saw her crouched beside Kinnard, who was stirring.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Shellie was okay, and Kinnard was still alive. He needed to question them both.
While he watched, Kinnard sat up with Shellie’s help. Matt saw a patch of black on the front of his winter camos. Blood. He must have taken a bullet in his shoulder, because he was moving pretty well. If he’d been hit in the chest, he wouldn’t be upright.
Shellie rose to her knees, still holding on to Roy.
A tiny red dot appeared on the side of her head.
“Look out!” Matt yelled, breaking into a run. He risked a glance behind him, but didn’t see anything.
He pushed his legs to pump as fast as possible through the wet snow. “Get down!”
He was about four feet away from the two of them when Shellie turned her head in his direction. The red dot was centered on her forehead.
“Down!” Matt shouted. “Look out!”
Kinnard reached for her to try to pull her to the ground.
A loud crack drowned out all other sound. Shellie’s head jerked, then slowly she toppled over.
“Shellie! Oh God!” Kinnard yelled, trying to get to his feet.
Matt saw the red dot slithering up Kinnard’s chest and neck.
“Kinnard, duck!”
The kidnapper hit the ground and rolled sideways.
A second crack. Snow puffed as the bullet plowed into the ground barely two inches away from Kinnard’s shoulder.
Matt dove into the snow and immediately raised up to shoot, but he knew his MAC wasn’t powerful enough to reach the terrorist. So he hurled himself across the snow-covered ground and grabbed for Kinnard’s rifle, but the sling was twisted around the other man’s arm.
A third shot zinged past Matt’s head. At the same time, Kinnard rolled again and sat up, trying to untangle the rifle sling. After a couple of seconds, he got it loose and raised the weapon to his uninjured shoulder.
“You SOB, your man shot Shellie!” Kinnard yelled.
“Not my man,” Matt said. “You don’t know him?”
“Hell, no. Who the bloody hell is he?” Kinnard bellowed.
“Tell me who hired you, and I’ll get you to the cabin.”
“Go to hell.” Kinnard brandished the rifle in Matt’s direction, but Matt grabbed the barrel and twisted it sideways, then shoved the end of it into the snow.
“Listen to me. Do you know who hired you?” Matt growled, aiming the MAC-10 at him. “Was it Margo Vick?”
Kinnard let go of the rife with a groan. “All I know is I was told where to go, when to get there, and how long I had to grab the kid before the alarm went off.”
Another shot rang out and Matt and Kinnard both dove for the ground.
“You had to know who you were dealing with. You made the ransom call.”
“I didn’t do nothing but grab the kid and bring him and Shellie up here. The same guy who hired me told me to meet you for the ransom. He told me to kill the woman and the baby once I’d captured you. But Shellie wanted the baby—” He stopped. “Shellie!”
Just then a low rumbling that Matt hadn’t noticed grew louder. He felt the ground beneath them tremble.
“Snowslide!” he shouted, scrambling to get his feet under him. He had to get to the cabin.
Kinnard cursed and began crawling toward the trees.
The rumbling grew in volume. Matt looked to the north, toward the peak of the mountain, and saw the white cloud foaming upward toward the heavens, obscuring the moon’s light.
He was at least forty feet from the cabin. But about eight feet uphill was a sturdy-looking evergreen. Its trunk looked just about right for him to be able to hook his arms around.
He lunged forward, scrambling to get a foothold in the wet snow. He managed to shove his way through the branches and wrap his arms around the trunk as the first billowing drifts of snow reached him.
He ducked his head and locked his hands around the barrel of the MAC-10, praying that the steel and his fingers would hold.
But he was pretty sure he was going to be buried anyway.
Dear God, he prayed. Let Deke find Aimee and her baby. Keep her safe.
AIMEE HEARD THE ROAR and felt the ground shake.
Avalanche.
Muffled thuds jarred the walls and windows, rattling the glass. It was snow slamming into the cabin’s walls.
“William!” she cried, throwing herself across the remaining foot or so of hardwood floor and grabbing his seat in her arms.
A vague memory from childhood tickled the edge of her brain. A children’s education piece on what to do in a snowslide. The most important thing, she recalled, was to keep a pocket of air in front of one’s face, and of course, not to panic.
She and William were inside, and probably safe, even if the cabin was buried, but what about Matt?
Dear heavens, he was out there with no protection.
She heard his voice as clearly as if he were next to her. Take care of William. I’ll take care of myself.
You’d better, she answered silently. Holding on to William’s safety seat, she crawled across the floor to the central wall that divided the kitchen from the bedroom. It seemed like it would be the strongest place to wait out the slide.
Provided the snow was heavy enough to crush the cabin, they might survive.
She lay down against the wall and cradled William’s seat against the curve of her body.
“Hi, William Matthew Vick,” she whispered, touching his cheek for the first time since he’d been kidnapped. “Smile for me,” she coaxed. He waved his arms and cooed.
She leaned forward to kiss his little face. “That’s right. I’ve been waiting a long time to see you, too.” Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked and one fell on William’s forehead. She wiped it away.
“Hang in there with me,” she said softly. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet. He’s a brave man. He took care of your daddy and he took care of me.”
As she spoke the words, she realized that she meant them. Matt would have done everything in his power to save Bill—even sacrificed himself if it meant Bill could have lived to see his son. That was the kind of man Matt was.
She smiled sadly and blinked away her tears. “A very brave man,” she whispered as the rumbling of the cascading snow grew louder and the cabin’s timbers creaked and groaned.
Behind her, glass shattered. She pulled William closer and covered his seat with her torso and arms.
AS THE SNOW PILED UP around Matt, he pondered whether the latest theory of surviving a snowslide made sense. It was called the Brazil nut effect. The theory was that, when shaken, larger and less dense objects rose to the top of water, snow or, in the case of Brazil nuts, the contents of a can of mixed nuts.
; The idea was to let the moving snow shake you to the top as more dense rocks and limbs were plowed under. Many experts felt it made more sense than the theory of trying to swim by flailing one’s arms.
The snow was piling up over his head, and his arms and legs were trembling, they were so tired. The tree’s trunk was bent almost double and its roots were coming loose from the ground.
Matt figured that if the Brazil nut theory were wrong, he had two chances—slim and none. But he opted for optimism.
With a deep breath, and gripping the MAC-10 as tightly as he could with his exhausted, frozen right hand, he let go of the tree and let the snow carry him down the mountain.
Take care of William, he whispered silently to Aimee. Don’t worry about me. As the snow billowed around him and he covered his nose and mouth with his left arm, warm tears mixed with the freezing crystals on his cheeks.
SUNDAY 0700 HOURS
MATT WAS FREEZING. He was afraid to move, afraid of finding out that he couldn’t. For a few minutes, he lay doubled in on himself like a fetus, figuring that eventually he’d get up the courage to move. And he’d count himself lucky if his fingers and toes didn’t break off when he wiggled them.
The sun was up. That surprised him. The last thing he remembered was floating on snow in the darkness. Now the sun felt warm on his shoulder and back. But strangely, there was also warmth below him. Warmth and sticky wetness.
Don’t let it be blood.
Not yet brave enough to move, he assessed his position. His head, covered by his parka’s hood, was tucked between his shoulders, and its hem was pulled down as far as it would go over his butt. He didn’t remember doing any of that.
All he remembered was letting go of the tree and floating downhill on a wave of snow.
And praying that Aimee and her baby were all right.
Aimee!
He straightened—or he tried to. He couldn’t move, and it wasn’t just because his muscles were ice-cold.
Something was on top of him, weighing him down.
Snow? He took a deep breath, preparing to push against the weight, and his nostrils filled with the unmistakable spicy smell of evergreen needles.
When he tried to move, pain shrieked along his nerve endings.
Nausea engulfed him. Sternly, he forced his brain to rise above the pain and think rationally.
One part of his body hurt more than all the rest, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out which part it was. The pain seemed to be everywhere at once. And the nausea was making it worse. He stuck out his tongue and lapped at a few snowflakes that were caught on his lips.
Then, carefully, he flexed his ankles, relieved that his brain still had that much control over his limbs, and waited. They weren’t causing the nauseating pain.
After a few agonizing seconds, his cold calf muscles responded and relaxed. Matt blew out a breath. One by one, he tested each muscle without actually moving. Each time, he cringed and braced himself for the shrieking pain. It was a slow, excruciating process.
Finally, he concluded that his feet and legs weren’t the problem.
Then he realized he hadn’t opened his eyes. When he did, he saw the crisscrossed shadows of evergreen branches. Inhaling carefully, he smelled wood, evergreen—and blood.
Oh, hell. The sticky stuff was blood. Trying not to move his head, he looked down at himself, and saw where the blood was coming from.
A small branch was embedded in the meaty part of his left forearm.
He gagged and his mouth filled with acrid saliva as his stomach heaved. Icy sweat beaded on his face and trickled down the side of his neck. What if that wasn’t the only branch that had impaled his body?
What if he couldn’t get to Aimee and William?
Lying still, Matt racked his brain for a way to free himself from the tree.
He had a small handsaw in his backpack. He groaned in frustration. The backpack had burned up in the Hummer. What did he have on him?
A knife. In a scabbard attached to his belt. Now if he could just get to it.
In between several bouts of nausea and a couple of periods of unconsciousness, he finally worked the knife out of its scabbard with his right hand without ripping the stick out of his arm.
Once he had the knife in his hand, it was only a matter of about a half hour of excruciatingly slow and careful sawing to cut the thin stick loose from the branch. And then another thirty or forty minutes to extricate himself from underneath the branch. Afterward, he barely remembered anything about it, except for the awareness that he was taking much too long and bleeding a lot.
All in all, it was a miracle that he lived through it. And a miracle that the thin branch hadn’t broken a bone. He shuddered, hoping the miracles didn’t run out too soon, because he was pretty sure he was going to need a few more of them.
And as hard as he tried to pretend that it wasn’t a problem having his forearm skewered on a stick, he knew better.
So much for miracles. With only one arm, he wasn’t sure even a miracle could help him save Aimee and William. But he had to try.
As he put his right glove back on, he heard something.
It was a baby—crying.
William!
He was close. At least he was close to them. His eyes filled with tears. Now all he had to do was figure out exactly where he was in relation to Aimee and the baby.
Looking around, he noted that whatever he was sitting on, it was a few feet above the surrounding snow. He blinked, trying to get his bearings. Maybe if he stood…
He tried to tuck his left arm against his chest, but the stick was in the way.
With a sick desolation, he faced the truth. He couldn’t do anything until he got rid of the piece of wood. The good news was that it was barely more than a twig—maybe a half inch in diameter and around four inches long. The bad news was that four inches was hardly enough to grip.
With his right hand, he picked up a twig lying nearby and put it between his teeth, then tried to view his impaled arm detachedly, as if it were someone else’s.
For a few minutes, he bathed his forearm in snow, numbing it with cold.
Then, biting on the twig, he carefully wrapped his right hand around the two inches of bloody wood protruding from the inside of his arm. He took deep breaths until he was drunk on oxygen. Then with a roar, he slowly and deliberately pulled the stick out of his arm.
And passed out.
Chapter Twelve
Matt’s arm hurt like hell. He opened his eyes and looked at the matching holes on either side of his forearm, where the stick had been.
He frowned. Stick?
Eventually, he remembered that his arm had been impaled on a small sharp branch, and that he’d pulled it out himself. Maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t recall the specifics.
The two holes on either side of his arm were oozing blood. Another miracle. The stick hadn’t shredded an artery.
He licked his dry, chapped lips and tried to sit up. Reflected sunlight nearly blinded him.
He looked down. He was sitting on something metallic. He brushed snow away to reveal a slab of tin.
A tin roof. He was on top of the cabin!
His whole body trembled in relief. That’s why he’d heard William crying. Aimee and her baby were directly below him. All he had to do was get to a door or window. Then he could get them out and get them to the next rendezvous point and they’d be safe.
Rendezvous point. Deke.
Matt shook his head as trepidation churned in his stomach. How was he going to get them to the rendezvous point? He wasn’t even sure he could stand up.
He’d arranged for Deke to put down near the peak at 0900 hours. But since the last storm and the avalanche, he had no idea what conditions were like there.
He needed to talk to Deke.
Awkwardly digging into the inside pocket of his parka with his right hand, he pulled out the satellite phone. At least the sky was clear this morning. He pressed the call button on
the phone. The light came on. Thank God the battery wasn’t frozen.
He read the time on the phone’s display. After 0800 hours.
He punched in Deke’s number.
“Matt!” Deke’s voice was distorted by static. “Son of a gun! What the hell’s going on?”
“Deke.” His voice was hoarse and shaky. He cleared his throat. “Are we on for 0900?”
Static filled his ear. He turned his head, trying to get a better signal.
“—don’t know if I can—put down—”
“Deke,” Matt shouted. “0900. 0900. Be there.”
“—firmative—”
Deke was worried that the new snow would make it impossible for him to set the helicopter down near the peak, but he would be there.
It was up to Matt to make sure Aimee and William got there. Between them, he and Deke would figure out how to get them into the helicopter.
Matt checked the battery life of his phone. Not good. It was down to one bar. He pocketed it and awkwardly pushed himself to his feet, holding his throbbing left arm close against his chest. The first thing he saw was the barrel of the MAC-10, sticking out from under a dusting of snow and partially hidden by the tree.
He grabbed it, wondering if the cold had rendered it useless. Then he scanned the landscape, assessing the slide’s wreckage.
The slide had deposited what looked like about two feet of powder over the snow that had already fallen.
About twenty feet away, something stuck up at an odd angle from the snow. Matt shaded his eyes and squinted. It was a body, clothed in winter camo.
Kinnard. Damn. Based on the angle and rigidity of his body, he had to be dead and either frozen or in rigor.
Turning toward the south, he searched for any sign of Al Hamar, with no luck. His best estimate of when Al Hamar’s rifle shots had come from put the terrorist beyond the worst of the piled-up snow. If he’d stayed put, he was probably unhurt.
Matt couldn’t afford to assume that Al Hamar was no longer a threat.
Matt had to proceed as though the terrorist had survived the storm. He surveyed the whole visible landscape, but didn’t see any new footprints, any disturbance of the new snow. He saw no sign that suggested anyone had been there.
