remained locked on hers.
“What’s the deal? You screw me and I let you walk?”
“We can have sex first and talk about the rest later.” She did her very best to sound aroused and sensual. The cold stone basement sucked the warmth from her. Goose bumps prickled her skin and her nipples hardened painfully. She shivered.
“Please, if you want me, let’s begin. I’m getting cold.”
“Stand up,” he said with a catch in his voice.
She successfully refrained from smiling as she got to her feet.
“Take off the rest of your clothes.”
The mukluks and thermal socks dropped to the floor and then she swiftly unfastened the belt and let the wool trousers fall from her hips. Stepping out of her undergarment, totally naked, she lifted her arms to him and stepped forward.
He stood up quickly and backed away.
“What…?” she began.
“Keep walking,” he ordered.
“To where?” She slowed. “There’s nothing over there except—”
“The door,” he said with a wolfish grin. “I wondered how I was going to repay you for Alf’s death.”
“One of your friends?” she asked. Fear welled up in her. This chamber was balmy compared to outside. “I didn’t kill him. It was the fortunes of war.”
“Keep walking,” he said harshly. “You killed him and a lot of other people with your secret transmitter. I want you to suffer more than the instant it would take for a bullet to kill you.” His grin got wider. “And you suggested this yourself!”
“Please, no—I’ll freeze!”
“That’s the idea.”
The guard looked up and the flash of hope she felt faded instantly. It was the other Californian, Scanlon.
He gave her a wry smile and stepped back, opening the door.
“Jackson and Alf had been an item for a long time, sister,” he said.
“You killed the love of his life.”
“Get out!” Jackson snarled, and kicked her out into the brittle night.
She fell full length in the sharp, frozen crystals before scrambling up again. The door swung shut and she looked around desperately. Above the ten meter stone wall, the sky reflected the burning redoubt.
So much warmth, so far away. The subarctic night pulled the heat from her and she knew if she didn’t move she would die. Chena Redoubt was foreign to her, she didn’t know the layout. The wall looked impossibly long in both directions.
The cabins held her attention long enough to see that they stood emptyall the chimneys stood bereft of smoke. A glow in the distance at one end seemed the most promising. She trotted woodenly through the snow and fought panic as the numbness crept up past her ankles, her entire body ached and many portions had already lost feeling. Focusing on thoughts of revenge in order to ignore imminent death, she ran whimpering into the night.
48
The slamming door woke Grisha. He rolled over and came to his feet clutching the machine pistol.
“What?”
Jackson moved over to him. “I just threw the Russian bitch out.”
“What?” Grisha became fully awake. “Are you crazy? She’s more dangerous than three men.”
“Three naked men?” Jackson asked with a ghastly grin.
“Huh?”
“I threw her out naked. It’s at least forty or fifty below out there; she’ll freeze up and die in short order. Too short a time for what she deserves, but it’ll damn well kill her.”
“You’re betting our lives on that.” Grisha tried to contain his anger.
“What if she doesn’t die? They’ll know we’re here and how to find us.”
“She won’t last ten minutes. Nobody could,” Scanlon said. “Could they?”
“We have to send out a patrol,” Grisha said, glancing down at his weapon. “Karpov’s out there somewhere. I’d hate to get surprised by those bastards.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Jackson said. “But who would go?”
“I will,” Grisha said.
“You’re really worried that she’ll live, aren’t you?”
“Damn right.”
“Then I guess I’d better go with.”
Grisha looked over at Scanlon. “Do you have a watch?”
“Sure.”
“If we’re not back in an hour, get everybody out of here, head north for the Yukon, okay?”
“Sure, Grisha, whatever you say.”
“Thanks.” He pulled his hood up and nodded at Jackson. “Ready?”
Valari’s tracks arrowed toward distant light. Jackson suggested they follow.
“Sure, but let’s do it from about a hundred yards out, say at the edge of those birch, okay?”
“You Russians are sure a strange bunch,” Jackson said.
“I’m not a Russian,” Grisha said tightly, “I’m an Alaskan.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Valari is a Russian.” Grisha trudged off through the snow.
They moved along at a steady pace, fast enough to stay warm but slow enough that they didn’t sweat. As they neared the light, a fiercely burning structure almost completely consumed, they slowed.
“I sure didn’t see her back there anywhere,” Grisha whispered.
“How the fuck would you know? We weren’t close enough to her trail to see shit.”
“We’d have seen a body.”
“Not if she fell flat, dammit,” Jackson hissed.
“I’m not going to argue with you about this,” Grisha whispered sharply.
“I think she made it to help and I’m going to get our people out of there.”
“Suit yourself. But I think me and Scanlon will just stay pu—”
An engine’s metallic growl cut through the night. Both men instantly fell to the ground and huddled behind the dubious bulk of a copse of frozen birch. A beam of light sliced above their heads as a half-track turned from its original path and proceeded down the back of the redoubt.
“They’re following her tracks,” Grisha said, allowing his feeling of horror to shade his words.
“Wonder how many of them there are in that thing?”
“They’ll hold twenty fully armed soldiers.”
“Maybe they’re our guys?” Jackson said with an air of supplication.
“The day your grandmother wears a crown!”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Slowly the half-track moved along the wall, like a wolf stalking a wounded rabbit.
“They don’t know what to expect,” Grisha said suddenly. “She must not have been able to talk to them.”
“I’m amazed she was even able to breathe,” Jackson muttered.
“I told you she was more dangerous than three men.”
“C’mon, let’s give these bastards a run for their money.” Jackson rose to his feet and checked his weapon. “I’d just as soon die on my feet as freeze to death out here.”
“You’re not used to cold, are you?”
“This isn’t just cold, my friend, this is the dark underbelly of frozen hell. How can you people take this year after year?”
