Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13)

by Irish Winters

  The rope spun him in a lazy circle. He landed inside the column of misty white, flexing his knees to absorb the shock of irregular terrain. Ky took no chances, not on a remote op. The all-white landscape made depth perception difficult. A hidden rock or branch could spell doom. The frigid north would end a guy with a broken leg and do it fast.

  “Touchdown,” he alerted his partner as he surveyed point zero. The trees were thick, but the ground beneath his feet was flat. Good enough.

  Ky peeled the heavier, heat-resistant gloves off. Fast roping created friction, and friction caused blisters, something else he didn’t need. He stowed the gloves in one of his many thigh pockets, but left his tactical gloves in place for warmth, and because—well, he liked gloves. They provided separation, a protective barrier between him and the rest of the human race.

  Crazy? Yes, but he no longer cared what others thought about his quirk. He’d come home from Kabul with a creepy little thing called haphephobia, the aversion to human contact. His psych doctor said it stemmed from what he’d endured overseas. Said it was a common reaction in victims of traumatic physical abuse, like torture. Said it derived from the brain’s natural instinct to defend its personal space and ultimately his life. Whatever. It seemed more like his brain meant to kill him sometimes. To never let him forget or heal.

  All it took was the slightest accidental brush of skin on skin, and claustrophobia would rocket through him. He’d hyperventilate, sweat bullets, and basically turn to crap. He hadn’t actually whimpered at the office yet, mostly because those folks understood guys like him. They’d closed ranks around him the first day he’d joined The TEAM, but they’d been smart about it. They only came close enough to make sure he knew they had his six.

  The oddest thing was he could touch them, but they couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t even shake his hand without a panic attack sneaking up on him. Ky hated that Hasim Nizari still controlled him. Could still hurt him. The bastard’s last little keepsake ruled his friggin’ life. He needed it gone.

  He patted his pocket to make sure his heavy-duty gloves were secure. TEAMwear, a line of rugged, lightweight tactical clothing for men and women, was another Alex Stewart concept. It basically converted an agent into walking storage as well as kept him or her warm, comfy, and dry. Pockets. Zippered pockets. Hidden pockets. You name it, if you needed anything small but handy on an op, this getup had a place to store it.

  Ky wore the cold-climate version. Designed to keep a guy warm and waterproof, it came with a thick fabric liner that whisked excess body heat and sweat away from his skin. Embedded with sensors, TEAMwear also linked to his TEAMshield goggles. No matter where Ky went, his online babysitter adeptly provided intelligent feedback like: Warning. Your left pant leg is on fire, dumbass.

  He chuckled quietly, a semi-pleasant sound in the silent world. He had yet to live down the pants-on-fire episode—not that Alex brought it up or that TEAMshield had actually called him dumbass. Mother, the know-it-all office administrator, had most likely leaked that snafu. She was like that, smart as a whip but nosey as hell and willing to share personal details. She never crossed the line too far, just enjoyed passing along the human-interest side of covert ops.

  The constant feed from his goggles-on-steroids to The TEAM office in Alexandria, Virginia, was the downside of all that over-the-top technology. Above all, it ensured Alex knew pretty much everything, as in every—damned—thing, that went down on a team op. Not that Ky minded. He didn’t mind having a rabid-dog type of guardian archangel sitting on his shoulder, either. Overseeing. Overactive. Over-nasty when the op warranted. It went with the job.

  Ky looked east, toward the direction of that far-off nightmare called Afghanistan. He’d had another angel on his shoulder back then. One he’d never forgotten. Never intended to. At quiet moments like this, the grateful part of his heart lifted up to remind him he still owed every breath of this pure, frosty air to his unknown heroine. That he wouldn’t be alive if she hadn’t come to him and told him to hold on. That not once had he thought to ask her name.

  Dumb jock move. One-night stand kind of move. One he didn’t want to live down, because he still hoped that apparition was real and not invented by his tortured soul. He’d really like to meet her, to see if she was as beautiful in person as she was in his dreams.

  Ky sucked in a breath of icy cold and let the mystery go. Back to business. If his intel was correct, the crash site lay five clicks east of the LZ, an easy walk, even in snow. He checked his heads-up-display for the time. Oh-sixteen-hundred hours, straight up. Four P.M. by civilian standards. If the weather held, he and Tate would soon be back aboard that chopper and on their way home with America’s supposed finest black operator, FBI Agent Eden Stark, and her pilot, Charles Sweets.

  Cold and snow had come early to Canada, an ungodly gift from the Arctic. While the sun still blessed his home in Virginia with a gentler transition from summer to autumn, winter had already blasted Kenora, Ontario Province. Not the most favorable conditions when a man had been sent to rescue what he hoped would be two survivors.

  Ky knew without a doubt that he and Tate couldn’t get to Stark and Sweets before dark, but that they could get close. They’d planned to hump all night. Had snowshoes in case they ran into powder. The sooner they started the better.

  Tate landed on both feet with a muffled thump to Ky’s left. For his size, he made a sound so soft it could’ve passed for a snowball dropping off a tree. Half Inuk of the indigenous Inuit tribe of Alaska, the other half Army Ranger and fiercely proud of it, Tate hailed from a little hamlet south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula. Bronzed-skinned and dark-haired, he spoke little and always gave a hundred and ten percent, traits Ky respected in a partner.

  Both loners, they’d worked together often. Neither needed conversation when silence served the world better. Talking was an over-rated commodity. It bred misinformation and reckless opinions, like the story circulating The TEAM office that Tate’s mother had abandoned him as a baby, that he’d been raised by a white man, a fur trapper. That he’d lived on raw meat until he was old enough to fish. That kind of bullshit.

  Tate might fit all of those characteristics, but it was his story to tell, and folks needed to mind their business. Hell, the whole world ought to join the M.Y.O.B. social network. Maybe then there’d be peace on earth.

  “RCMP Silver Wolf to Team Arctic Fox, will stand by in Thunder Bay. Don’t take too long. Over,” the chopper pilot radioed from above. In other words, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police chopper pilot, a. k. a. Silver Wolf, would spend the night in a nice, warm hotel room and would only return when he had to.

  “Copy that.” Ky looked up and waved, but doubted the pilot could see his hand signal through the dense branches. In too few seconds, the rotor slap from the Chinook helicopter faded, telling Ky just how remote this op could be. Total silence filled the frigid void.

  Team Arctic Fox had a very cold night ahead of them, not something Ky looked forward to. Two hot-as-hell deployments to Mideastern deserts had changed his internal thermostat. Humid summers in Virginia still left him chilled. He wore a jacket most days. Couldn’t get warm enough.

  Tate crouched to one knee and nodded to the west, his gloved index finger to his lips.

  Ky glanced over his right shoulder. There in the shadows stood a black wolf, as in pitch black, its long legs and big feet a definite giveaway of its wild lineage. The animal moved forward through the filtered light of the pines, its steps as fluid and smooth as the lengthening shadows. Dark amber eyes scanned the two-legged aliens suddenly dropped into its domain. Its nostrils twitched. Ears tilted forward. But worse, a ruffled ridge of warning lifted up its back. The wolf bared his fangs.

  “Shit, we don’t have time for this,” Ky muttered, mostly to himself. This canine thought he was top predator? Not even close. He waved the wolf off. “Go on. Beat it.”

  The animal didn’t even flinch at the dismissal, just kept those steady gold eyes on Ky. The wolf took a
nother step forward, his head down and his snout lowered to the snow, doing what he did best. Scenting his prey. Testing for illness or weakness. Closing in for the kill.

  “You wanna play? I’ll show you play.” Ky took one step, too, then another straight toward the wolf, his arms spread wide to intimidate this cocky creature.

  Damned if the long-legged creature didn’t meet the challenge with two more very definite steps closer. Man, this big, bad wolf had some balls. Either that or he understood the concept of poker. Ky held his position, curious as to which of them was the real alpha. He’d never considered himself as such. Never wanted the title of lead dog. Just hadn’t learned how to back down to a bully.

  Dropping to one knee, he thumped both hands to his chest. Come on, boy, because I’m here to tell you. I’ve been scared by worse. You don’t even come close.

  The wolf blinked. He looked away, but gradually, those amber eyes scrolled back on target to Ky. His nostrils flared. Some might have taken it as a sign of submission, but Ky read it differently. He pushed off the ground, no longer worried. The wolf was curious, more wild brother than adversary. If he’d brought his pack with him, that’d be different, but all alone like he was, the wolf was no threat.

  Ky did the unexpected. He patted his palms to his knees, encouraging the wolf to come get some. Damned if the big guy didn’t slap both front paws to the snowy ground in play. “Did you see that?” Ky asked his partner. This bad boy acted more like a dog than a predator.

  Tate grunted, a can of bear spray in his hand, his eyes on the wolf. “You got a death wish?”

  “Put that stuff away. He’s not hurting anything.”

  “It won’t kill him, just scare him off.”

  “Not necessary.” Ky grinned at the unlikely buddy he’d just made. “Go on, fella. Take off. Wyatt Earp here might shoot you next.”

  The wolf disappeared the way he came. Silently. One minute there, the next gone.

  Tate stuffed the bear spray back in his pocket. Ky didn’t have time to wonder why this predator had shown up—didn’t want to think of it. Wolves scavenged more than just caribou carcasses. They culled more than the elk and deer herds, and if she was injured, Agent Stark’s time was running out.

  Lifting his gloved hand to his goggles, he activated TEAMhome, the earpiece deep in his ear canal and his direct link to Alex Stewart. “Touchdown, Boss. ETA in five to six hours if the weather holds.”

  “Copy that,” Alex replied easily, no doubt wearing his TEAMhome earpiece twenty-four-seven since he had other agents on ops scattered across the world. “Be advised your weather pattern’s changing. You’ve got a low front shifting down from the northwest. The jet stream will bring it straight to you. You guys may need to hunker down and wait it out. Keep safe. Stay warm. I’ll be waiting.”

  Ky signed off. Alex had meant what he said. The man didn’t seem to understand the concept of quitting time, not if his wife’s frequent late-night visits to the office with dinner were any indicator.

  The quiet, feminine voice of TEAMshield spoke a “warning” deep inside Ky’s ear canal. His heads-up display flashed a lime-green caution in the lower-right corner of his goggles. TEAMshield had honed in on Stark’s downed Cessna’s locator beacon, only now, there were two signals: one pinging directly east where Eden should be, if she’d been wise and stayed with her downed aircraft; two more pinging loud and clear, south-by-southwest. Behind his and Tate’s position. Ky rolled the instant tweak of aggravation out of his neck. Didn’t it figure? Easy day was over. They had company.

  Grunt. Groan. ARGH! Oh, snap.

  Eden’s arms were beyond tired and every strand of muscle in her lithe, five-foot-five frame screamed to be loosed from its cumbersome burden. She couldn’t rest yet, though. Couldn’t waste the sunlight. Not yet. Maybe in twenty, thirty yards. After she was done. After she’d conquered the small incline. After she’d arrived at that one bare patch of ground in the whole frozen country.

  Er-r-r. She dug the toes of her hiking boots into the crunchy snow on the forest floor and threw herself into her chore. Pulling. Dragging. Cussing, too. Anything to keep the awkwardly wrapped bundle moving forward over the crusty snow between the crashed Cessna at her rear and the shadowy trees ahead.

  This thankless chore had to be completed before the light left the sky, and the sun was well on its way down. Her head ached and her vision blurred, but she shrugged it off. Now was not the time to get one of those migraines that had plagued her since Hawaii. God, they were annoying and some days, nearly crippling, but she had enough trouble. A migraine had to wait its turn.

  The bungee cords she’d used to secure her package caught on every hidden limb or root buried beneath the snow. And there were plenty, because these were the deep woods of the frozen north.

  What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower right now. With my brand new bottle of Almond Suede body wash. My just-out-of-the-dryer fluffy, and oh, so fresh-smelling bath sheets. My bungalow in Maryland. My bed. My clean sheets. Six or eight ibuprofen. A glass of sweet Moscato and my pillow!

  Grunting at the injustice of the day, she threw her weight into the task, sweating up a storm beneath her brand new, down-filled quilted parka. Ralph Lauren. Shearling trim. One hundred percent Canada goose down. The one she’d had to buy in Anchorage because she wasn’t on a beach in Hawaii like she should’ve been. It was a little tight across her backside, because, well, she had a backside. Hips to match. Ralph Lauren had better live up to its claim of maximum warmth in sub-zero temps and cover those curvy assets of hers. She meant to put it to the test, day and night, if that was how long it took someone to rescue her.

  She switched ends of the burden, pushing it uphill instead of pulling, needing to work different muscles in her poor body, to rest her screaming, shaking calves and hamstrings. No go. Dropping to her butt, she blew her long bangs out of her eyes and rested for five.

  As cold as this part of Canada was, she hadn’t expected she’d need to shed her jacket, but she had no choice. Ralph Lauren was warm. She was sweating. Go figure.

  Unzipping the jacket, she shrugged out of it and left it on the trail she’d just made. She didn’t need to freeze because she’d overworked her ass off. She’d be back.

  When pushing didn’t work any better, she reverted to dragging. Her load seemed heavier with each step. More cumbersome. Her legs trembled. The pain behind her eyes grew into a dull throb that engulfed her whole brain instead of just one quadrant. Not usually prone to migraines, the ferocity of this one spelled trouble. She would’ve attributed it to a head injury from the plane crash, except she’d had a headache to one degree or another since she’d hurriedly left the tropical beaches, the ones she hadn’t spent a single second enjoying.

  More grunting. More groaning. The hill she and her burden had to crest wasn’t much of a hill at all, but the slightest incline required more strength, and she was on her last reserves. Still, it had to be done.

  The cold solved her perspiration problem. She shivered, but didn’t stop struggling with each step.

  Still pulling. Still—argh. My arms are killing me. “I. Can. Do. This!”

  Her voice sounded shrill and slightly hysterical in the whisper of the quiet pines. So be it. She’d been slightly hysterical before. Certain times required hysteria, maybe dementia. Maybe even outright crazy, the way this day had gone. Surely the day you fell out of the sky demanded a scream at all the crazy gods who let it happen, right?

  But screaming would only burn energy she couldn’t afford to waste, and she knew better. Besides, it reminded her of the day her father had left. Make that, deserted. She’d screamed plenty when that happened, her heart torn out of her at Drake Franklin’s ultimate betrayal to his child. What good had screaming, ‘Daddy. Don’t go. Daddy, please. Don’t leave me!’ done?

  Nothing. Drake Franklin hadn’t even looked back—just said he’d had enough of all the bullshit and walked out of her life. Left Casey Franklin and her seven-year-old daughter, Eden, witho
ut a car or a dollar to their names.

  Eden grew up fast, believing every word her mother taught her. Who wouldn’t believe the woman who worked her heart out to support her child? The wise woman who taught her: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Never give up. Work your heart out and your heart will steer you true. Stuff like: I do believe. I do believe. I do. I do. I do.

  Young Eden became a positive-thinker out of necessity—a glass is half-full kind of a girl. She believed in the inherent goodness of people. It worked until the day an illegal immigrant had broadsided her mother’s rattletrap of a twenty-year-old Honda Prelude in rush-hour traffic in the middle of Podunk Boise, Idaho, and left her dead at the scene. How a guy with no insurance and no driver’s license got released from jail on his own recognizance in time to flee south of the border made no sense to a fifteen-year-old girl without a friend or a relative in the world.

  One of her mother’s girlfriends took her in. Eden legally rejected her father when he didn’t step forward to claim her. She assumed her mother’s maiden name, Stark. Life went on.

  But nothing had hurt as bad as standing alone at Casey’s grave telling her mother goodbye for the last time. Unless you factored in Eden’s dumb-butt, seventeen-year-old boyfriend, Stan’s, betrayal with that hooker waitress at Denny’s the day after the funeral. Stan claimed he only hooked up with her because he was lonely. The ass didn’t have a clue what lonely was. The one day that Eden could’ve used a real friend, all she got was another rude awakening. Guys lie. Guys cheat. Guys only think about themselves and that puny, little thing dangling between their legs.

  “I sure know how to pick ’em,” she told the bundle sliding quietly along behind her.