Chapter 52
Arctic
East of Crash Site
Kasey brushed away the icicles from her lashes, which were threatening to freeze her eyelids shut. It was the only part of their bodies they’d left exposed and the steam rising from their face coverings froze instantly upon contact.
She and Chen had been traveling over the windswept ice for a good half hour. The crash site was no longer visible, although for a time wisps of smoke marked the area, the fire on the Aurora still burning.
When the smoke finally disappeared, Kasey wondered why. Had the fire burned out? Or had the Aurora sunk? She figured any answer at the moment was academic—the Russians, at least, were no longer a threat.
The Chinese, however, remained very much in the game.
Eventually they were going to figure out that Chen and Sky Fire had instigated the disaster, which would put more pressure than ever on Beijing to track them down.
The guardrails of politics and diplomacy, if any had been there to begin with, now lay smoldering at the top of the world.
Kasey kept moving, willing herself forward, but with each step she sensed their progress slowing. Chen was weakening, and she noticed he was favoring his bad leg. She recalled seeing a walking cane in a wrecked overhead bin and now wished she’d brought it.
Compounding their problems was a lack of navigation aids. Without so much as a compass, maintaining a proper heading and walking in a straight line was virtually impossible. Nevertheless, Kasey did her best to keep them headed in the same general direction.
Initially the smoke had been her reference point, but with that now gone she could only rely on the murky glow of the southern horizon. Catching glimpses of the sun through the swirling snow and fog, she kept it on her right, which allowed them to maintain a roughly easterly direction.
This was fieldwork like she had never experienced before.
In this environment, standard tradecraft was all but useless.
There were no surveillance detection routes to run, no dead drops to make.
No ducking into doorways or doubling back.
It was, in a sense, the most artless of missions.
Yet like all good operators, Kasey forced herself to adapt.
With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, she only had one job—to keep her charge alive in the world’s most unforgiving climate long enough to be rescued.
A single rifle, two days of food and water, and a communications device like no other. That was what she had to work with.
But would it be enough?
She could feel the cold wearing her down, reaching deep into her bones.
Her hands were going numb, and her limbs were slow to react, as if the signals from her brain were firing through slush.
She and Chen had layered up as best they could, but inevitably there were gaps in their outerwear.
The wind clawed at bits of exposed skin, and heat escaped through loose seals.
Kasey’s concerns were amplified when Chen stumbled and dropped to a knee.
“Are you all right?” she asked, quickly going to his side.
“Yes,” he mumbled unconvincingly.
Kasey helped him stand, and they paused for a moment.
She removed a water bottle from inside her jacket.
She had transferred it there from her backpack, reckoning the water wouldn’t freeze if she kept it close to her body.
They shared it, and she pulled out an energy bar and unwrapped it.
She broke it in two and gave half to Chen.
Kasey knew she’d need to ration what little food she’d brought. The energy bar was a brand she’d had before, but it had never tasted so good.
Looking at Chen, she noticed his hand trembling slightly as he ate. He, too, was beginning to succumb to the elements. She would have to keep a very close eye on him.
“How is the charge holding up on Sky Fire’s battery?” she asked. She tried to pose the question casually, but there was no masking its importance. If they lost comms out here, in the middle of the Arctic, they would be doomed.
“When I last checked, it was strong, still over sixty percent.”
“Good to hear. All the same, let’s plan on keeping our activations brief.”
She pulled out a chemical hand warmer, courtesy of the Russians, and offered it to Chen. Once activated, it would provide temporary relief to his chilled extremities.
“No,” he said. “We may need them later.”
Kasey nodded and returned the package to her pocket.
“We should keep moving,” Chen prompted, mustering a modicum of stoicism.
She nodded in agreement, and as they set out again, she tried to support him by the elbow. Ever the trooper, Chen waved her off, insisting that it wasn’t necessary. Kasey admired his resolve, but she knew it had its limits.
“How far do you think we’ve gone?” he asked.
She had been wondering the same thing. Other than when Sky Fire was active, they had no GPS information.
There was no terrain elevation for reference, only a flat and featureless horizon, and the choppy ice had made for uneven progress.
Ridges and draws, carved into the surface by the wind, made footing in the lower areas quite slick, which had required them to proceed slowly and with extra caution.
Thankfully, they hadn’t encountered any major leads to further stymie their progress.
The two they’d run across had been small and easily bypassed.
“Two miles,” she speculated. “Maybe a little more.”
“And how far should we go?”
It was an excellent question, and one for which Kasey had no answer.
They were moving without an objective. Not going to any particular point but simply separating from where they’d been.
Getting off the X, the point of greatest danger, as it was referred to in the military.
Her intent was to run far enough that they wouldn’t be followed, but not so far that they were beyond rescue.
“Let’s move for another twenty minutes. Then we’ll stop to rest and set up Sky Fire. Hopefully Langley will have a plan by then.”
Chen nodded, but he couldn’t conceal his worry. He was thinking the same thing she was.
We can’t go on like this for long. If something doesn’t change, soon, we’ll be facing a lonely and very cold death.