Cliff Ryder - The Ties That Bind

His mind worked at the situation rapidly. Obviously, Tina knew more about the smuggling going on in the area than she'd read in some newspaper article. Just as obvious was the fact that if these smugglers could get large crates of weapons into this area from Russia, they'd have no problem at all importing other weapons, too. Like bombs.

If a terrorist group decided to infiltrate using this method, there'd be little to no chance of knowing it before it was too late. His mission parameters had suddenly expanded. Now he had to find the sub…and also figure out a way to stop the smuggling operation. He'd have to get word to Denny about what he'd discovered as soon as possible.

Tina had said there were no phones up here, but Jason had a satellite phone and other advanced communications equipment in his gear. At the first opportunity, he'd check in with Denny and Room 59 and find out what they wanted him to do. Surely they would recognize the additional threat and move to put a stop to it.

He clocked the distance and it wasn't long until he found the tracks from Tina's vehicle. There was no way to wipe them out…and if the smugglers wanted vengeance, it was only a matter of time until they found out which direction they'd gone. He could be in for the fight of his life.

What was he truly fighting for? he suddenly wondered.

He shook his head, plagued again by questions that he'd never seriously considered before. None of these questions mattered. Not right now. Right now, he had a mission to accomplish. Everything else was secondary to that.

In the far distance, he saw Tina waving her arms at him. They had a long way to go before they'd reach the village she'd shown him on the map, and already the evening darkness was closing in.

Jason pulled up alongside Tina at the edge of the village. He could see the shapes of houses and they moved into the village. They had arrived well after dark and the cold was beginning to seep through the layers of clothing and give his skin that vague itching-burning sensation that came with freezing temperatures. Tina hadn't spoken a single word since they met back up along the trail and argued about her not listening to his instructions. He supposed he should have expected it.

She had gotten rid of most of the weapons, but had kept one crate containing a variety of the arms they had found. She said she wanted to be able to prove to the authorities that what they were saying was real. Jason had been furious, but understood why she hadn't listened. In truth, he didn't plan on dealing with the local authorities at all, but now he'd probably have to. Either way, ever since then, there'd been nothing but silence between them. The quiet was more worrisome than the millions of questions that he knew must be rattling around in her head.

Tina pulled her ATV to a stop next to a large cabin, gesturing vaguely for him to follow as she climbed off her machine and headed up the steps of the cabin. Shutting his own machine down, Jason stood and stretched, considering the load of weapons that they were carrying. They had covered them with a tarp, but he felt uneasy about leaving them out in the open. Anyone might happen along, get curious and find themselves armed with a Russian assault rifle.

Tina ran back down the steps.

"Leave them," she said, her voice almost as cold as the air around them. "No one is going to bother anything out here, and unless you want to freeze I suggest you get inside."

"Isn't there anywhere safer we can store them?" he asked as the wind began to pick up speed with surprising force.

"It's not like we just pulled into New York with a U-Store-It around every damn corner!" she yelled over the howling winds. "If you want to babysit a crate, you're more than welcome. I'm going inside."

She climbed the stairs again. Jason didn't hesitate this time. He was only half a step behind her as she pushed open the cabin door. He turned as the wind ripped the door out of Tina's hand and slammed it against the wall. Reaching past her, he grabbed it and leaned his weight against it, pushing it shut. The sudden silence was almost as eerie as the sudden onslaught of wind had been.

"I thought the weather didn't start getting dangerous for another month or so," he said. "Where did that come from?"

His guide laughed harshly. "Why did you think you were wearing all that gear? In case the weather got bad in another month?" She sighed, then said, "Those winds can come off the ocean any time of the year, especially as the season changes and the jet stream along with it. They'll freeze an unprotected person to death in very short order, but they are fairly rare this time of year."

Tina looked thoroughly disgruntled. She pulled the cap from her head and crossed to the fire that was already burning in the fireplace, careful not to stand too close and cause her hands to ache more than they must have been already. She must have arranged for the cabin in advance; the fire had obviously been going for a while, as a nice pile of hardwood coals was already settled into the grate. Jason swept through the rooms doing a security check. The two bedrooms were furnished identically, down to the comforter and remotes for the televisions on the dresser. A clean set of towels and a welcome basket with coffee and hot chocolate sat on the dresser.

Jason returned to the living room. Tina still hadn't moved, and the tension in her features hadn't lessened by so much as a single fine line.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She tilted her head, her lips compressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed. She no longer rubbed her hands for warmth, but held them fisted at her sides.

"You're fucking kidding me, right? No one gets shot at, sees other men shot and killed, then tows cartons full of munitions through the Alaskan tundra and is 'all right.' Just what the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?"

"I told you I work for a survey…" he began, but she cut him off immediately.

"Bullshit!" she snapped. "Complete and utter. I've seen a lot of surveyors come through here. They carry maps, advanced GPS systems, charts and notepads, and on occasion a flask of whiskey on their hip." She jabbed a finger in his direction. "What they don't carry is semiautomatic handguns, and they sure as hell don't fight like you did!"

Jason folded his arms across his chest. He had only been in this position one other time in his career. Back when he was doing black ops for the CIA, his cover was blown in Peru while he was trying to get to a double agent. He got caught in the midst of a drug exchange that went sour, and the whole operation had blown up in his face. He ended that situation with the expediency of simply killing the guy, but that man hadn't been necessary for his mission. For right now, Tina was. If necessary, he would kill her, but he preferred not to. And his cover wasn't completely blown; she was suspicious, but it seemed as if that was more of a personality trait than anything else.

He wasn't sure what he should be more concerned about — the beautiful woman scowling at him across the room or Denny Talbot's reaction to all this when he had specifically asked for little to no body count. The three dead men back at the ancient village would not, in Denny's estimation, constitute a minimal body count. One thing he was sure of was that being treated like an errant schoolboy by a woman he'd known for only a day was intolerable. He would worry about Denny tomorrow. Right now, he had to deal with Tina. And he couldn't let his anger at her treatment of him get the better of him.

"Is there anything I can say that is going to make you feel better about any of this?" he asked. "It's not like I planned on running into a bunch of gunrunners."

"You could start by telling me the truth about who you are," she said.