Blake Crouch - Snowbound

Sean and Ken waited twenty feet back in the passage, their shotguns trained on the thick wooden door that led to the veranda.

Their only light was a lantern mounted on the passage wall.

“Dad?” Sean said.

“Yeah.”

“We’re in trouble here.”

Ken glanced at his son in the lantern light. “Your old man’s working on something.”

“What?”

“A way to get us out of this.”

Kalyn sat on the stone of the freestanding hearth. With a quick turn of her head, she could keep an eye on either the front entrance or the library door, now closed and locked. She could also look down the first-floor corridor of both wings, see Suzanne and Lucy camped near the end of the south, Will walking toward the end of the north. She kept replaying the afternoon and evening and all the preparations they’d made, haunted with the fear she’d overlooked something.

Will approached the end of the corridor, spotted Rachael twenty feet back from the north-wing alcove, out of sight from the east- and west-facing windows. He eased down beside her, set the shotgun on the floor. She glanced over, tried to smile.

“It’s just not fair,” she whispered, “to get you and Devi back, only to have to go through this.”

“I know, but we haven’t experienced much fairness in the last five years, have we?”

She shook her head. “How do you think Devi’s handling this?”

“She’s scared but dealing. Our daughter is an amazing human being, Rachael.”

“She is, isn’t she? Felt so good just to be able to give her therapy this morning.”

They were quiet for a while, sat there holding the shotguns, listening.

On his way to Rachael and their post, Will had stopped in one of the rooms to look out the window. He’d seen a starry, windless night, the lake serene, a model of absolute stillness.

Nearby, wood creaked. Rachael looked at Will, but he shook his head, whispered, “An old place like this makes all kinds of noise. Probably just wood settling.”

“I’m glad we have these gloves. It’s freezing in here.”

They waited, evening assenting tonight.

An hour slipped by, then two.

“My legs are cramping,” Rachael whispered. “I’m gonna stretch them, just to the lobby and back.”

As his wife walked away, Will took out his radio, asked for everyone to check in.

When Kalyn’s voice came over the channel, she said, “You probably just heard the front doors close.”

“No, I didn’t actually. What’s going on?”

“I stepped outside with Ethan’s whistle, called in the wolves. Figured maybe if they find our bad guys, we’ll hear them, get a sense of where they are.”

“Good deal.”

The radio went quiet.

Rachael returned. She leaned against Will and closed her eyes for a little while, then let him do the same.

Two minutes shy of midnight, Will glanced over his shoulder, saw Kalyn right where she’d been all night, sitting on the base of the freestanding hearth.

“I’m gonna go talk to her,” Will said.

“Why?”

“Something’s not right. I mean, why haven’t they come yet?”

“I don’t know.”

Will sighed. “You’ll be all right on your own for a minute?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He struggled up, legs sore, feet numb from two hours of sitting in one spot, immobile. “If you see anything, hear anything strange, radio me immediately.”

Will started down the corridor toward the lobby, and it had just crossed his mind that maybe Javier and his men weren’t coming tonight after all, that maybe they’d decided to let them sit it out until morning, until everyone was nerve-frayed and psychotic with exhaustion. Just then, the lodge rumbled and all the lights winked out.

Flashbang

SIXTY-THREE

Will froze in his tracks, Suzanne’s voice squeaking over the radio in his pocket. “What just happened?”

Kalyn responded, her voice a whisper: “They cut the power. This means they’re close, wearing night-vision goggles, and getting ready to make their move. I know it’s pitch-black at the end of those corridors, but your eyes will adjust, so everyone stay calm. You all have flashlights, and if you shine the beam in their eyes, you’ll screw up their vision for a minute or two. Now I don’t want anyone using the radio again until you’ve made visual contact.”

Will could see the lobby just ahead, lantern light flickering across the wall and the floor. He thought he heard Kalyn whispering, wondered if she was sending up prayers against whatever was coming.

Will turned around, jogged back toward the alcove, practically tripped over Rachael in the darkness.

“Just me, honey.”

“I can’t see a thing, Will.”

“Get your flashlight out.”

“I’m already holding it. Should I turn it on?”

“No, but be ready when I say. I’ll handle the shotgun. You be my light source.” Will found his radio, just a red dot in the darkness. He pressed TALK. “Suzanne and Lucy? Copy?”

Suzanne’s voice came back: “Yeah?”

“Don’t turn it on yet, but one of you operate the flashlight while the other mans the shotgun. Better than each of you fumbling with two pieces of equipment at once.”

The radio went quiet, and Rachael and Will stared at the alcove, waiting for their eyes to adjust, to begin picking out form and shape in the darkness, but they never did.

SIXTY-FOUR

Roddy hated Fidel and Javier. They’d controlled every aspect of this job. Told him where to go, how to go, talked down at him like he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing out here in the bush in his own state. This wasn’t Mexico or the Arizona borderlands. This was his block, and he resented being treated as a foot solider under their command.

Of course, he didn’t utter a word of that dissatisfaction. Didn’t venture an eye roll, display a single millisecond of outward frustration. He and Jonas had agreed: They want to run the show? Fine. Because what outranked Roddy’s frustration with Fidel and Javier was his fear. You did not fuck with Alphas. They were mythic. Doing business with them, regardless of how lucrative, entailed severe risk, since the possibility existed that things wouldn’t work out, that you might insult them or be perceived as trying to take advantage.

He thought it strange—the Alphas were here on principle, didn’t give a shit about the money, the women, said Stoke could have whatever they found. They’d spent tens of thousands to come up here just to deal with that ex-FBI agent. Stoke had warned Jonas and the boys not to upset them, said flat out. “You piss them off, your problem. I’m not getting involved. Certainly not intervening on behalf of your ass. You’re their bitches, so grab ankle, grit teeth, and pray you come back.”

At least the Alphas had brought some killer toys and been nice enough to share. And despite his inner griping, he had to admit that they certainly seemed to know what they were doing. Roddy felt like a fucking SEAL on some badass spec ops gig.

So here he stood, freezing his ass off in waist-deep snow, waiting for the signal, acknowledging the irony that what scared him more than anything was that he might accidentally kill the ex-FBI agent or Mr. Innis. They’d been cautioned several times against making that mistake, which meant that on top of everything else, he had to worry about who wound up in his sights.

A wolf howled. With the moon rising over the Wolverines and that milky smear of stars, it was almost too bright for night-vision goggles. But Roddy went ahead and slipped them on, figured the signal would be coming soon, and from what they’d seen, it would be total darkness inside the lodge.

Kalyn was up now, moving in slow circles around the freestanding hearth. She kept debating whether to start with the Browning or the twelve-gauge, decided finally on the 9-mm, since the shotgun felt cumbersome hanging from the strap around her shoulders. She slipped it off, set it on the stone in front of the dormant fireplace.