Cliff Ryder - The Ties That Bind

Jason waited for Tina in the living room. She came out of her room with a bag in tow.

"How soon can we make it to your village?" he asked.

"It won't take too long — about a half day — but we need to talk to whatever local authorities are here first and turn over those weapons. I imagine that could see us here for an extra day."

"Why don't we take them along with us?" Jason suggested. "Then we can report them to the authorities in your village. You probably know them, and my timetable doesn't get held up. I'm on a bit of a schedule."

"You don't have any intention of giving those weapons over to the police, do you?" she asked.

"If you'll recall," he said, striving to keep his voice calm, "I didn't want you to bring them along in the first place. But the answer to your question is no. I don't have time to deal with local officials right now. You can believe me when I say that those weapons will get turned over to the proper authorities, more so even than the local cops, who would probably just sell them at the next police auction or keep them for themselves."

Tina didn't say anything, but Jason could tell she was considering what he said carefully.

"Not to mention," he continued, "that it's hard to run an operation like that without it drawing notice, especially in small towns or communities where everyone knows everyone else. The odds are good that someone pretty high up on the law-enforcement side of things around here is on the take, maybe even actively participating, and they are not going to take kindly to our taking away a large chunk of their bread and butter."

She tossed up her hands in surrender. "Fine, fine," she said. "But at the least, I want to talk to the local cops in my village. I know them, and I can't imagine any of them are involved. Fair enough?"

Jason nodded his head in agreement, while thinking about how he could stall her again on the issue once they arrived at her village.

"Can we go, then?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll get there. I'd hate for your timetable to be off by more than a minute or two." The sarcasm in her voice was cutting, but he ignored it.

Instead, he headed outside, gently pulling her along behind him. "Good deal," he said. He'd picked up his little motion sensors while she was getting ready to leave and had gathered his own things together. The ATVs were right where they had left them. The town was just beginning to wake up and Jason didn't want to get stuck answering questions about missing members of the local population. Before he moved the bodies, Jason had done quick scans of their fingerprints and took digital pictures of their faces. When they settled at the cabin he sent them to Room 59 via a satellite uplink from his PDA. The response had been fairly quick. All three had rap sheets that weren't far from what they had been caught at yesterday and two were from the village that they were currently situated in. Denny had sent a message asking for a mission update as soon as possible.

They warmed up the ATVs and were quickly back on the road. Jason was getting used to the cold. The sun was just beginning to peek through the slate-gray clouds on the eastern horizon. He was thankful that there was daylight available at all. In another couple of months, it would be perpetual night up here. On the other hand, that might have served his purposes better. In his experience, the environment could help or hinder a mission and there was little predicting what the weather was really going to do from one day to the next. Up here, it could change in a minute, so he knew it would be wise for him to keep an eye on the weather.

Tina had mentioned to him that they would follow a road to the next village, and Jason kept waiting for it to appear, but it soon became apparent that her idea of a road was more like a vague path with some barely visible tire tracks tracing a route of some kind between the vast jumbles of rock they were crossing. Clumps of brown autumn grasses did little to brighten the landscape. The ATV bounced roughly, jarring his tailbone with each bump.

He thought about his guide. She wasn't like anyone he'd ever met. A beautiful distraction for sure, he reminded himself, watching her maneuver her vehicle around the worst of the bumps.

He hoped he could finish the mission and get out of here sooner rather than later. What his life didn't need right now was an additional complication…and women were always complicated.

After a couple of hours, they arrived at a small weatherworn wooden building that must have been a frequent stop for travelers along this route. Jason was more than happy to be off the ATV. While he'd traveled via almost every kind of transportation known to man, those experiences didn't make riding the ATV over rough terrain any more comfortable. He went to the small fire pit in the corner and found it stocked with dry firewood, tinder and kindling. He made quick work of getting the fire going and soon had the chill gone from the air.

The only furniture in the shack was a small wooden picnic table with benches. Tina opened her pack and pulled out a couple of cans of soup, popped off the tops and set them on the small grate by the fire. It only took a couple of minutes for them to heat up. She added a couple of apples and a plastic package of crackers. She removed the soup cans from the grate and put them on the table, then handed him a spoon. "Eat up," she said.

Jason couldn't have been more happy if he had been served a five-star meal.

"So how did you get into being a guide?" he asked between bites. "You mentioned your grandfather back at the hotel, but you're obviously bright and capable. Have you ever thought of leaving here?"

"You mean go be someone's gofer and live in the big city?" she asked.

"No, I didn't mean it like that, honest. I'm just…curious."

"I started hunting and fishing when I was a little girl. Of course, as a teenager there was nothing that I wanted more than to get away from my village or any other village up here. My parents died when I was ten, and my grandfather raised me. He indulged in my every whim and so when I said I wanted to go to the big city he was heartbroken but supported me anyway. My grandfather is a man who lives and respects our past and the roots of our culture.

"Anyway, I went to New York. I earned my degree and started working. I got to see and do quite a bit, but after a couple of years, I realized I hated my job. I hated the life I was living — or, more accurately — wasn't living. I went to the top of my apartment building one night and realized that while I might be closer to the sky way up there, I sure as hell couldn't see it. I started missing home. So I quit and came back here, but instead of working for someone else I started our guide operation," she said.

"You? I didn't know you owned the company. I thought the CEO was some guy named Tanuk."

She laughed. "Tanuk is my grandfather. He taught me everything I know about how to do this part of the job. His position is advisory, and he's a very wise man, but he's mostly a figurehead. Still, he's the head of my family and I would not dishonor that by acting like I could have done this all on my own."

Jason realized he'd never really had that kind of connection with anyone. As far as he was concerned his roots only went as far as the file that was sealed when he was eighteen. There were times, like recently, where he desperately wanted to have the foundation that she was talking about. He shook his head, trying to chase away the longing that was starting to fill him.

"What about your family?" she asked. "Do you have any clues besides your last name?"

"Not really," he said. "But I'm not here for that anyway. Maybe someday I'll come back up here and see what I can find out. I can't afford to get caught up in personal stuff when I'm on a deadline."