Dana Marton - Rogue Soldier

“How long do the dogs need to rest?”

They’d done a brief stint of Arctic training, but it hadn’t involved dogs. In that, at least, he would have to defer to her. “An hour would be fine, we haven’t come that far, but we can’t go out there until visibility improves. I don’t want to run them onto sharp ice or into a ravine or a creek.”

She fell silent for a moment. “I hate leaving the other team behind.”

“Why didn’t you bring them?”

“We’ll be lucky if we can feed the ones we’ve got. The rest are better off at the trailer. It’s stocked for them.”

“Makes sense.” He looked up as the wind shook their cover. “Did I mention I spent last winter in Siberia?”

“Doing what? The Russian Army has exchange students now?”

“Not exactly.”

Damn him. He’d been on some secret mission. She should have been going on secret missions instead of stuck in research for the past eight months. She hoped he had frozen his ass off. No, no, she wasn’t going to think about him in terms of body parts. That would take her down the slippery slope as fast as an avalanche.

“We have a good sled and good dogs,” he said. “We’re dressed for the weather. While we’re trapped here, we can get some rest, inventory our resources and figure out a plan.”

Not bad. He had gotten in all three points under “eliminating fear and increasing your chances for survival” within two minutes flat: have confidence in your superior—which he apparently considered himself—have confidence in your equipment, focus on the task at hand. Captain Tchaikovsky would have been proud.

“We have the dogs, the sled, the furs and some extra wood.” She rapped on the crate. “Two good rifles.”

“A good knife, waterproof matches and a small survivor kit,” he added.

She went through the pockets of the parka she’d taken. Her left hand came out with a bottle, the right with a cell phone. “Check this out.” She handed them to him, pulling back too fast when their fingers touched.

“Well now, what’s the challenge in this? We’re as good as out of here.” The bottle cap squeaked as he unscrewed it, the air immediately filling with the smell of cheap booze.

“You still go out with the boys?”

“I lost touch for the most part. I’m not in the army anymore.” He screwed the cap back on.

She’d figured that from his comment about Siberia. As friendly as things were between the U.S. and Russia now, they weren’t doing sleepovers just yet. “CIA?” He used to talk about giving that a try back in the old days.

“For a while.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m here.”

Fine. “Are you going to make that call?”

He was some kind of special commando, while she was in the U.S.A.C.E., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hands down he had to have better connections.

He was dialing already. “No signal.” He closed the flap with a click.

“We can try again once the storm passes.”

“You could debrief me in the meanwhile. What happened with those men?”

She closed her eyes. Oh, damn. She didn’t want to think about that now. Guilt was eating at her still, and anger for letting them take her so easily. She took a deep breath as Mike waited. Might as well get it over with.

“They came in the middle of the night. Roger opened the door. They shot him right away.” She swallowed. “I don’t suppose they viewed me as much of a threat. They didn’t look like they knew what the hell they were doing, so I convinced them I could help. Told them I was an Arctic survival expert.”

“You always thought quick on your feet.”

The small compliment, the acknowledgment of her abilities, felt ridiculously good. Especially since she’d been beating herself into the ground over what she had and hadn’t done, for not being able to save Roger.

Mike was moving around, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. Probably just settling in.

“Did they hurt you?” His fingers brushed against her bruised cheek, but withdrew almost immediately.

“I tried to get away and fell down the steps, banged my head against the side of the trailer. My feet were bound,” she told him, hating to admit her failure.

He said nothing for a while, until she thought he might have fallen asleep.

“They were coming from the direction of the pipeline instead of going toward it,” he spoke up suddenly. “But they still had the explosives. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Pipeline? We weren’t anywhere near the pipeline.”

“Exactly.” He paused. “I came across some classified information. Supposedly, those men are in some radical environmentalist group. A few miles of the pipeline are shut down for repair. They were looking to blow it up.”

“Nothing was said about that. They were definitely heading home. They sounded pretty happy about their mission. The only glitch was, the plane that was supposed to pick them up went down in the mountains in that storm five days ago.”

“Odd. Lift up a corner of this cover for a second, would you?”

She slid over and did so on the opposite side from where the wind was blowing, letting in some light. Mike already had his knife in hand, going at the crate. She propped the opening with a rifle and went to help him. “TNT?”

“That’s my best guess.”

The wood protested loudly, but after a few seconds the lid popped off. Mike picked through layers of padding before the smooth sheen of metal became visible. His hands stilled.

She didn’t have to have the symbol of yellow triangles explained to her.

Far more disturbing than a pile of explosives, the crate they cradled between them housed a small nuclear warhead.

“Something tells me those guys are not ticked-off environmentalists.” Mike swore as he put the crate’s lid back on. This changed everything.

Snow swirled into the tent, but he barely saw it. Did the CIA know about this? A number of things made perfect sense suddenly. Did the Colonel know?

“Weapons dealers?” Tessa went to check on Sasha.

Apparently satisfied with the dog’s condition, she removed the propped rifle and let the cover drop, shrouding them in darkness once again, closing off the cold that had been pouring in.

“It’s ours.” He stared in the direction of the warhead, although he could no longer see the crate. “I’m guessing the American half of the group was selling it to the Russians, then the plane crashed and they got stuck here. How did they get to you?”

“Snowmobiles. They were just about out of gas.”

“What I want to know is, where the hell did they get the warheads?”

The wind whistled down the plain, shaking their flimsy shelter, but enough snow had fallen to have buried the edges and keep them frozen in place. He bounced the furs on top to shake off accumulation, to avoid the “roof” collapsing on them. A few tears here and there in the stitching allowed for air. They wouldn’t suffocate as long as they didn’t let the snow completely bury them.

“Where did you get this old thing?” He ran his fingers over the coarse fur.

“From the Inupiat.”

“Close by?”

“About fifty miles west. But they’ve already gone to their winter camp.”

“What were you two still doing here?”

“We had a plane pick up scheduled for…” She thought for a moment. “Yesterday. Since we were planning on flying out, we didn’t have to worry about an early snowfall closing Black Horse Pass.”

“As best as I can remember the map, the nearest town should be about a hundred miles south?”

“On the other side of the foothills. We couldn’t take the sled.”

“How are your dogs at hunting?”

“That’s not what they were trained for, but I suppose once they get hungry enough their instincts will kick in.”