Whiteout

by Adriana Anders

  “I’m not leaving you, ding-dong. So it’s your choice. We stay here and hang out around this gorgeous snowmobile until we expire.” Shaky breath in. “Together.” She forced a smile. “Kinda fun, right?”

  His long, low “mmmm” was a definite no.

  “Then we finish this. Together.”

  She started to move when he held her back. “You drive…” He coughed, the sound painful. Christ, had Sampson’s beating done something to his insides? “A mean bargain…lady.”

  With a remarkable show of strength, Ford stood, swayed for a few seconds before putting his good arm around her, and took the first step.

  He walked, she hopped, using him and her ski pole for balance, and together, they hobbled slowly across the smooth, creaking ice, hauling the virus behind them.

  Chapter 46

  The sun was sinking when something appeared on the horizon. An anomaly.

  Coop blinked. Couldn’t be. He didn’t let himself hope.

  He had at least one broken rib, probably a concussion, something very wrong with his lungs, and a bullet hole in his shoulder.

  With every exhale, the air forced from his too-heavy chest had to pass through a tight, dry throat before starting over again. The inhales were the worst, a million sharp claws carving themselves a new path. Over and over again, step by dragging step.

  But he could do it. Or Angel could at least. He’d have laughed right now if he could—at himself—for not believing in her. The strongest person he’d met in his life.

  As another hour passed, marked by the constant stomp-hop of their progress across the ice, the shape turned into a building. It wasn’t until they were close enough to make out details that he finally let himself believe.

  Volkov. They’d made it.

  Or he was hallucinating. Angel stopped and looked up at him. To anyone else, her expression would be just a blank ski mask, but he knew her like he’d never known another person, could feel the triumph running through her.

  “See?” she croaked. “Told you we’d make it.”

  “Yeah you did.” He sounded absolutely wasted.

  It was nothing like the bustling research station he remembered, but then it was supposedly closed for the winter, right? No, he remembered, they were doing renovations or something, which was confirmed by the exhaust puffing up into the air.

  They arrived at the first building—a small, boxy metal structure, rougher-looking than anything at Burke-Ruhe. And much older.

  Slowly, painfully, they pulled open the door and peered inside. A hangar, filled with a silent fleet of work vehicles. Right. Right, he remembered this. Jameson would never let his babies rust out like this.

  They turned, as awkward and slow as a three-legged beast. Fuck, his head hurt.

  “Which—”

  “There.” Coop couldn’t do more than whisper the words and lift his chin. “Big one. Stilts.”

  At the door to the main building, he started to collapse.

  “Come on, Ford. Almost there. Stay with me. Not yet.” She sounded like hell, her voice rough as granite. “Come on!” She slid her arm around his waist and moved him to the wall.

  The interior heat barely registered against his skin.

  “Someone’s here,” he mumbled, hating that she and the wall were the only things holding him up.

  Angel opened her mouth to yell but stopped, turned to him, and asked, “Something seem off to you?”

  He tried nodding, but it ramped up the pounding. Eyes closed, he cleared his throat and whispered, “Yeah.”

  As quietly as they could, they made their stumbling way along the wall through the eerily deserted hall. Farther down, light poured from an open door on the right. Coop’s pulse picked up. Jesus, he could use a vacation after this. Someplace calm, where his pulse would stay slow. Nothing exciting at all.

  They exchanged a look before crossing the open doorway and, as one, stepping in.

  A man sat at a desk, staring at several large screens.

  Coop leaned against the doorframe, trying to make his eyes focus right.

  What the actual hell?

  They weren’t screens but windows into what looked like living quarters. Or prison cells.

  He stumbled forward. Was that Jameson laid out on a bed? Marlon? Every winter-over from Burke-Ruhe was in there, three to a room, complete with bunks and a toilet. And absolutely zero privacy.

  “What the hell?” Angel croaked, her eyes wide. She stood stock-still, like Coop, dependent on the door for support.

  Coop pulled his blurry gaze from the cells and focused on the small balding man, who scrabbled at his desk for something.

  Disbelief and anger and a desire to do damage made Coop take three unsteady steps before he had to stop and catch his breath.

  “Oh, so now you make it.” The man’s mouth let out a fine spray of spittle when he spoke and his eyes seemed to focus somewhere above Coop’s head.

  Coop squinted past him to the cells, where almost every occupant lolled around like zoo animals on a hot, sunny afternoon.

  “Jameson!” he tried to yell. “Pam! Marlon!”

  The little man blinked too rapidly and wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his pale forehead.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Angel asked.

  “They’re fine,” the man said, obviously lying, and then aimed a weapon at Angel. “Now, where’s my fucking virus?”

  Coop shook his head hard to clear the cobwebs and went down like a ton of bricks.

  Chapter 47

  Angel ripped her eyes away from the two-way mirrors just in time to see Ford slide down the wall, bloody, bruised, beaten to a pulp.

  She rushed to his side.

  “Where’s my virus, Ms. Smith?”

  Squinting, she turned, slow as molasses, and rose back up to standing. “What did you say?” Every muscle, tendon, and nerve vibrated with hate.

  “The Frond virus.” One side of the little a-hole’s mouth lifted in a condescending smile. “The one your little cohort have been lugging around this—”

  “You want the virus?”

  There was movement in one of the cells. Out of the corner of her eye, Angel saw Pam and two other women lifting a metal bed between them.

  Beside her, Ford shifted with a groan, pressed back against the wall, and pushed slowly up. She glanced back and caught his eye. Down but not dead, his expression said.

  More movement in the cell—the bed rocked back.

  Ford grabbed Angel’s hand. Squeezed once…twice…

  The metal bed frame swung forward…

  Three times.

  Metal smacked into reinforced glass with a dull thud. The man startled and spun, half-rising from his seat.

  As one, Angel and Ford went after the man.

  Another crash of bed to window. The gun swung toward Angel.

  Ford dove in front of her as a shot went off, the blast deafening. He went down.

  The gun swung up again. Angel shoved it away and threw her elbow into the man’s pinched little face. The resulting crunch would have made her sick in another life, but in this one, it satisfied some bloodthirsty desire for revenge. “You bastard,” she yelled.

  Crack! Spiderwebbed glass tinkled outward, raining onto the floor before the next quick swing, which blew the whole thing out into this room. Angel barely noticed as she used every bit of momentum to bash the man’s head on the desk.

  She didn’t stop to protect her face from the flying glass, just thumped his head over and over again.

  “Holy shit. Angel. Hon, stop it.”

  Angel threw off the hands that got in her way.

  “Come on. You’ll kill him and—”

  “Needs to die.” She shoved at him, wishing he’d put up more of a fight.

  “Stop!” One of the women grabbed ahol
d of Angel. “Finish this after we get the door codes.”

  Angel’s arms dropped heavily to her sides and she sank to the floor, nodding, though she didn’t quite get what was happening.

  Someone yelled. Another voice joined in.

  “Put pressure on the wound.”

  Wound? Dazed, Angel searched for Ford.

  People were suddenly there: legs, sock-clad feet.

  Feet.

  “Ford?” She swallowed back the taste of blood. Or the smell. She swiped a battered hand to her face. Stared at the deep red staining her hand. “Ford?”

  Her eyes scanned the room. Where was he? Slowly, her head dropped. What was Pam doing? Was she kissing someone?

  Crimson everywhere. Splashes and smears.

  Something thick and sour filled her stomach. Dread.

  Ford lay in a pool of blood as Pam worked over him.

  Angel threw off a hand that tried to grab her—no, oh no—fought to crawl to him, pushed against big, rough arms to get to his side. To hold him tight, keep the blood in his veins, the life in his body.

  Finally, she got ahold of one cold hand, which she held in both of hers—and though they tried to pull her away, she wouldn’t let go.

  She wouldn’t let Ford go.

  * * *

  Katherine Harper couldn’t raise Sampson or Tenny or anyone else on the phone and was beginning to fret. She turned to her computer and pushed a few buttons, but as usual, the absurd contraption didn’t work. Why, oh why couldn’t she figure this thing out? She was an intelligent woman after all.

  Too old, clearly.

  After pounding a few more keys, she shut it, hard.

  There was too much invested in this project for those idiots to have gone and ruined it. They couldn’t possibly have done that, could they?

  She pictured Clive Tenny’s obsequious little smile and sat back in her chair with a huff. Yes. Yes, that man could certainly have led this mission straight to ruin.

  And if they were compromised, there was no doubt in her mind as to whether the man could keep his mouth shut. None.

  Which meant it was time to put an end to it all.

  Temporarily.

  But temporary, at this stage, was a difficult pill to swallow, since any day could be her last. The stroke had brought that home like nothing else. Well, the stroke and what had happened to the babies.

  My God, that Tenny idiot had better be dead.

  She leaned forward with difficulty, picked up the framed photo, and set it on the closed laptop.

  One worn, wrinkled finger wiped an invisible layer of dust from their sweet faces, eternally frozen at ages five and seven. Two baby girls. Gone. Poof. Just like that.

  Even after all these years, the emotion swamped her, turning her hands to shaking leaves. Her breath came in quick, uncontrolled bursts, punctuated with sounds she’d have to call whimpers. Except Katherine Henley Harper didn’t whimper.

  Swallowing back the last of her humanity, she returned the photo to its place and sat back.

  Time to abort this failed mission. Luckily, there were other potential sources. Other ways to complete her life’s work. The virus could be found again.

  She had to believe that, or she might as well give up right this moment.

  As soon as the weather cleared, she’d insert another team. In fact, she’d ensure that every person sent by the NSF next season was one of hers.

  Too bad she didn’t have someone like Cooper on her team. A glaciologist with an understanding of oil drilling. And she should hire more women, since the men all seemed to be mucking up their jobs.

  A female geologist, then, for Colorado, hired through a shell company, with an appropriate cover story.

  Of course, there were many other things she should have done. Like not trusting Tenny, that greedy, simpering little imbecile, with such an important mission. Father had been the one to hire him, and though he hadn’t liked him much, he’d trusted him. Tenny had been perfect, Daddy had said, because he lacked scruples entirely.

  A lot of good that had done them.

  She sighed, sinking deep into her chair and staring out at the newly burgeoning spring. It made her feel nothing but old.

  Time was passing inexorably, and she still didn’t have her damned virus.

  * * *

  The world above her was a kaleidoscope of moving people.

  Someone spoke. “You okay, babe?”

  No. She blinked up at Jameson and tried to nod, though her muscles weren’t working. Probably.

  “Need help?”

  She tried to press her lips into a numb smile and shook her head. “Jus’ sit for a sec.” The words came out slurred. “Right here.” Right here being beside Ford, his hand in hers.

  He nodded and tilted his head to look at Ford. “Think we can take over from here?”

  She tightened her grip on Ford’s limp fingers. Feral, protective.

  “Crazy-ass shit happening around here, but we’ve got you now. We found the med clinic. Pam needs to take him there. Fix him up.” He looked her over. “Then it’s your turn.”

  “Okay.” She managed to push herself to sitting, not letting go of Ford until Jameson forcibly removed her fingers one at a time. With palpable urgency, a group of her friends carried Ford away and she felt his absence like a missing chunk of her heart.

  Once he’d gone, reality came back to her, so fast she had to close her eyes.

  When, finally, she could open them again, she stared at her feet. God, were those holes in her boots? Her eyes climbed up her legs. Blood, all over her Carhartts. Ford’s blood. She swallowed. Or maybe that man’s. The one she’d beaten to a pulp.

  She let her head flop back against the wall, put her hands flat on the floor, and breathed through a long, deep heaving wave of nausea.

  “Wanna get cleaned up?”

  She blinked. Probably should.

  Someone else approached, the steps slowed. Angel focused on the boots first, then slid her way up to the face, which came into focus slowly. I know her. Oh, right. Donna. A scientist, from Burke-Ruhe.

  “Hey, Donna.” She worked hard to smile and possibly managed it.

  “Angel, honey.” Donna squatted. “Grab my hand?”

  It took a few seconds to focus on the woman’s hand. No blood there. It was warm and soft against Angel’s chapped skin.

  “Let’s get you a shower.”

  They lifted her between them somehow.

  “Stink that bad, huh?”

  “Nah. But you look like hell.”

  “Thanks, Don—” She tried a step and stumbled, but they were there to catch her, arms around her waist, under her armpits.

  “Any of this blood yours?” Donna asked.

  She shrugged. Crap, that hurt.

  “You in pain?”

  Frostbite, blisters, chafing, missing skin. None of it was worth mentioning. “Head…shoulders…” A laugh cramped her chest, made her double over. “Knees and toes.”

  “Right.” She caught Donna and another woman exchanging a look. They led her, not straight to a shower, as promised, but to a medical facility, where a group worked around a bed.

  “Got another patient, Doc.” They helped her onto a bed.

  “No,” Angel tried to protest, batting at their hands, but nobody seemed to hear. Or care.

  “Be right over once I’m done here.”

  They made her lie back.

  “Ford.” Her mouth flubbed the name, so she licked her cracked, swollen lips and tried again. “Ford. How’s Ford?”

  “He’ll live.” That was Pam talking. Or maybe Donna. Angel couldn’t quite open her eyes enough to tell. “You done good, Angel. Really, really good.”

  Somebody patted her shoulder, someone else unzipped her undercoat. She tried to hold it closed. />
  Couldn’t open it on the ice.

  “Ford…” She shut her mouth, swallowed, and tried again. “Tell him he’s…” Everything, she wanted to say, but no sound came out. Tell him I love him.

  Chapter 48

  “Aren’t you supposed to wake him up?”

  “Let me worry about Coop.” Pam eyed her with a squint. “You need to rest.”

  Angel shook her head, which made the room spin.

  “I’m not asking. As your doctor, I’m telli—”

  “You weren’t there, Pam. You weren’t there.” She grabbed the woman’s hand and leaned forward, intense in that way she’d been since they’d gotten here. Or, if she was being honest, since she’d hidden in that ice tunnel back at Burke-Ruhe however many days ago. Weeks ago. A lifetime ago. “Won’t leave him.”

  Pam must have seen something stubborn in Angel’s face, or maybe it was the fists she’d made with her bandaged hands, because she backed off. “If you’re not going to sleep, at least lie down in this cot. It’s for you. Yours. Use it.”

  “You got the tubes?”

  “Yes, Angel.” Pam spoke slowly, as if she’d already said this a million times. Which, in fact, she had. “The virus is safe. It’s safe.”

  “’kay.” Deaf to whatever Pam said next, Angel turned to look at Ford, so pale and still in the bed beside hers.

  Angel knew this was kindness, she understood it, felt it, but she couldn’t appreciate it. Couldn’t care for a damned thing while a piece of her lay shriveled, half-dead in the bed with Ford. Until he woke up, she couldn’t revive it.

  “Eat this, or you’ll—” Pam stopped, her head at an angle. “What’s that?”

  It took a few seconds, but eventually Angel heard it, too.

  Fear churned through her immediately. I’ve been here, she thought. Out on the ice, more than once.

  “Sounds an awful lot like a plane.”

  “Oh God.” She sat up too fast. “They’ve sent reinforcements, they’ll—”

  “They’ll nothing.” Pam put a hand on Angel’s arm and reached for one of the two guns she’d set on a counter. “You think we’re going down without a fight?” She squeezed once and let go, hefted the handgun, and handed it to Angel. “We’re ready this time, remember? We’ve got their weapons, we’ve got their stupid virus, and we’ve got each other. They shouldn’t have messed with a crew of hardened Poleys like us.” Were those tears in Pam’s eyes? “You proved that more than anyone, Angel. Got that?”