Chapter 44
44
The helicopter circled around the head of Smoky Lake for the third time, while Ani and Sergeant Thomson watched for any sign of movement in the forest below. A layer of drifting clouds kept coming between them and their view of the lake. The mist looked like smoke winding through the tall groves and across the water’s surface.
This area was so remote, so inaccessible, Ani started to second guess the conclusion she’d come to. Why would a group of teenagers come this direction on a camping trip? So they could see the Korch glacier? There were other, easier access points. None of the guidebooks ever mentioned this area as a good glacier viewpoint.
Maybe they’d been searching for a wilderness challenge, and gotten more than they’d bargained for.
If they’d crossed paths with the mercenaries, had they witnessed something that made them a threat? Were they being held so they didn’t tell the authorities? Or were they going to be someone’s experiment, the way Victor had done to her? Maybe the bad guys had jumped at the chance to test the Ahtna teenagers’ level of immunity to the omegavirus.
Her imagination was going wild up here in this helicopter. They had to find those kids.
“Anything?” she asked Sergeant Thomson. They were all wearing helmets with comms built in. Every time anyone spoke, her headphones crackled.
“I’ve seen three moose and a black bear. Not a single human being.”
“Same for me.”
“It’s all right. Gonna try something else. Thermal imaging camera. That should show a heat profile.”
She clicked something on her helmet and scanned the ground below. “Damn, this thing has range. Now we’re talking. It’s not good in the fog, but I can see. Oh shit.”
“What? What?” Ani resisted the urge to grab at the camera to look for herself.
“I see a plane down there on the glacier.”
“Tourists? Maybe a bear viewing trip?”
“Nah, this doesn’t look like tourists. I see a person. No, three. Four. Five total.”
“Can you tell if they’re young? Is that the kids?”
“I don’t think so.” Disappointment cratered in Ani’s stomach. She really wished Gil was here. What had she been thinking, bolting off by herself? This kind of thing wasn’t her forte. She’d been right the first time. She should have insisted on staying in town and let Sergeant Thomson handle this.
“Five adults,” Thomson said slowly. “But I can’t tell anything else with this thing.” She put her binoculars back to her face. “Oh shit! Bank left!” she yelled at the pilot. “Hold on,” she said to Ani.
The helicopter dipped to the left in a vertiginous arc. The entire body shuddered as something clipped one of the blades.
“We’re under fire!” Thomson shouted.
Under fire. Gunfire? Ani held onto her seat and fought to keep control of her stomach. Bad time to get airsick. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the first image that formed in her mind.
Gil.
Strong, wonderful, protective, caring Gil. She loved him. That was the important thing. Why hadn’t she just told him everything, told him how she felt, told him her situation? She’d let fear stand in the way of love.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Please let me have another chance, she prayed.
“Any damage?” Thomson asked tensely when they’d ascended high enough to be out of the reach of bullets.
“Minor,” said the pilot, checking gauges. “We gotta stay out of bullet range though.”
“At least we know we’re close,” said Thomson. “They wouldn’t be firing at us if we weren’t. How come we can’t see any other people?” She moved her mic aside so she was speaking only to Ani. “You think maybe the kids are somewhere else?”
Ani bit her lip. She didn’t really know anything. She gazed down at the rough and tumble surface of the glacier, the melting edge, the icebergs floating in the lake. She thought about Victor studying the permafrost, the miners drilling into the ice-bound ground.
“Does that camera work through ice?” she asked Thomson.
“Through ice? What do you mean?”
“Maybe they’re under the ice somehow.”
Thomson pulled a “worth a try” face and tapped the pilot’s shoulder. “Go toward the glacier. Stay high. I don’t want to run into any more fucking bullets.”
As they approached the ice, something caught Ani’s eye. Five people were clustered on the glacier. Were they the ones doing the shooting? “I think I see the people you spotted,” she cried. She leaned forward, peering through drifting fog rising off the ice. “That plane looks familiar, too.”
“It’s either local or it belongs to the bad guys.”
Ani put the binoculars to her eyes and adjusted the focus until she could make out one dark bobbing head. “It’s Gil! Gil and…that looks like Nyx, he’s Victor’s assistant. There’s Sam. And a soldier. And…” The fifth man didn’t look much like Gil, at least at this distance, but something about his posture and the way he was walking so closely to Gil gave him away. “That must be his brother Lachlan. Sergeant Thomson, we have to do something. I don’t think they heard that gunfire. They’re completely exposed out there! They’re going to get shot!”
Ani was nearly hysterical as she watched the five men trek across the glacier toward the eastern edge, where blocks of ice tumbled against each other, as if a giant had flung them in a fit of rage. “We have to help. We have to land. We have to do something.”
“They’re focused on us right now,” Thomson told her. She leaned forward to talk to the pilot. After a muttered conversation of which Ani barely caught a word, she sat back. “We’re going to draw their fire. We won’t be in bullet range, but it’s going to be bumpy, so hang on. If you need to vomit, aim it that way.”
Ani set her jaw and straightened her spine. Clearly, Thomson had no idea what a strong stomach a doctor had to have just to survive medical school. “I’ll be fine. Just do what you can.”
The pilot swooped back in the direction where the gunshots had come from. The world spun and all Ani could see was the glacier. She scanned the air for incoming bullets, though of course it would be impossible to see if any were coming their way. Then she remembered that hissing missile that had taken out the Institute. These were the same people!
She spotted Gil and the others, closer now. Gil was pointing up at their helicopter, which buzzed away again, like a flirty partner on a dance floor. At the next change in direction, she lost sight of Gil.
Nearly frantic, she kept her eyes glued on the window, but the next time they flew over that section of the glacier, the men were nowhere to be seen.
No….no…NO.
As soon as Gil and Lachlan were done hugging, the soldier introduced himself as Corporal Walters and handed Gil a firearm, a Glock 9.
“Orders from military command, based on your status as a security officer on leave. Your brother here filled us in on the situation. I’m here to help, and we have backup on standby. Our orders are not to engage until we call in reinforcements.”
He accepted it gladly. “Thanks.”
“There’s also a helo with us. Sergeant Thomson and Ani Devi are doing some reconnaissance.”
Gil shook his head, not sure he’d heard right. “Did you say Ani Devi is in the helo?”
“Correct.”
“That’s insane. These people are fucking dangerous! How could you let Ani put herself at risk like that?”
The corporal tried to calm him down. “She’s just providing direction. It’s a reconnaissance mission. She won’t be involved in any combat.”
“ Combat? She better the fuck not be.”
“Right now they’re just chasing a theory, but if they get confirmation, we’ll scramble.”
And how many things could go wrong before then? Through his panic, Gil felt a hand on his arm. Lachlan.
“Let’s go, Gil. You don’t want to piss him off. He’s on our side.”
“Correct,” said the corporal stiffly. “You do not.”
Gil’s head cleared, and he shook himself back to some kind of focus. He glanced around at their surroundings. Nyx was kicking ice rocks, sliding them across the glacier’s surface. Sam was putting blocks under the wheels of his plane. Chilled air rose from the glacier in icy breaths. “You’re the one keeping me out of trouble? How the tables have turned.”
Lachlan gave him a distracted smile. “It feels good. But you know I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now.”
“Yeah, I know.” Part of him had known, but now it was really sinking in. His lifelong role of Lachlan-protector was no longer needed. “Come on, let’s find this permafrost tunnel. Lead the way, Lachlan.”
Lachlan set out across the ice, with Sam and Gil flanking him. Nyx trailed behind, with Corporal Walters pulling up the rear. Gil was damn glad to know that he had military backup, after what he’d seen from the merciless mercs on the floatplane.
“So who’s this Ani you’re so upset about?” Lachlan asked. “Do I know her?”
“Ani is…” Gil ran a hand across the back of his neck. The mention of Ani made his heart clench. God, he missed her, which was absurd since she’d told him it was over, in so many words. “She’s…she’s the woman…ah, fuck it. She’s everything. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but she gave me the ‘let’s talk later’ line. I don’t get it. When we’re together, it’s magic. I can’t explain it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I think she feels the same way, but something changed.”
Lachlan’s green eyes, so similar to his, lit up. “You’re in love. I can see it.”
“So?”
Sam, on Lachlan’s other side, cleared his throat. “Are you talking about Ani Devi?”
Gil nodded, not crazy about discussing his feelings for Ani on a trek across a glacier looking for an ice cave filled with hostages and bad guys. On the other hand, just hearing her name made him happy. “Right, you know her. You flew her to the Institute the other day. Gave her a cooler of salmon, but I’m sorry to say a bear probably got hold of it.”
Sam waved that off. “No worries. I don’t know Ani well, but you should know that Molly’s been talking about you too.”
“Oh yeah? Is that good or bad?”
“All good. She and her friends are saying they think you’re the real thing for Ani. They say she deserves someone like you after what she went through.”
“What do they mean?” Lachlan glanced between Gil and Sam. He was in his element out here, reading the ice as if it was a map.
“Divorce,” Gil explained briefly. “And a hate crime attack when she was little.”
“No, not all that,” said Sam. He shaded his eyes against the sun reflecting off the glacier. “It was the baby thing. It was really rough on her, trying so hard, getting nowhere. They’ve all been worried. But if you ask me, you shouldn’t give up on her. Not that you asked me,” he added after a moment of thought. “But you could have. I give good advice.”
Gil froze. The baby thing. Had Ani been trying to tell him about that and he’d misunderstood?
I accept that continuing the family line is up to me.
Fuck. That response was probably the worst thing he could have said. No wonder she’d looked so stricken. No wonder she’d decided they didn’t know each other well enough.
But at least now he had a road map to how to get her back. A big grin spread over his face. He reached across Lachlan and squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem. I figure we’re probably going to be seeing a lot of each other. Those women are close.”
“Yes, they are.”
Shots rang out from the eastern edge of the glacier, where scrubby brush and a few cottonwoods grew. Gil grabbed Lachlan and hit the ice, throwing his own body over his brother’s. He went up on his knees and drew his weapon. The corporal did the same.
“The helo’s drawing their fire,” said Walters. “We gotta get off this ice. We’re completely exposed here if they spot us.”
“Follow me,” said Lachlan, still face-down on the ice. “If my brother wouldn’t mind letting me up.”
With gunfire still ringing in their ears, they crawled across the glacier. It seemed to take forever as they hauled their bodies across the cold and gravelly surface. Occasionally, more shots would ring out. Every time, Gil would curse the fact that Ani was in the line of fire, not him.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably twenty minutes or so, they reached a crevasse, a jagged gap in the thick ice.
“Just drop in, I swear it won’t collapse,” Lachlan reassured them.
“I’ll go first.” Gil didn’t wait for agreement, just slid his body into the opening and dropped onto the gravelly surface about ten feet below.
The tunnel led to a wider opening under an overhang that seemed to be more mountainside than glacier, although it could be hard to tell because the glacier was covered with so much dirt and scree.
“There’s another tunnel like this in Fairbanks,” Lachlan explained in a whisper once they were all safely inside. “The Army Corps of Engineers drilled it to study the permafrost, but they decided Fairbanks was a better location, so they abandoned this one. You can actually see old mammoth bones further down. But my guess is they’re staying close to the surface.”
Gil loved that Lachlan’s knowledge of the ice around Korch Glacier had possibly saved their lives.
Up ahead, voices echoed, and in the distance, more gunfire rang out. “They’re trying to chase away the helo, but now that they know they’ve been located, what’ll they do next? Cut their losses? Make a stand?” Gil turned to Nyx. “Nyx, any insights?”
“All they want is Victor’s research. The kids are just leverage. We should get them out if we can.”
Big “if.” Would the mercs let their only leverage just walk away? Or would they get what they wanted from Victor and disappear with a powerful bioweapon? They must have transport stashed away somewhere close by.
“We need more intel. Stay here,” the corporal told them. “I’ll scope out the situation.”
When he came back, loping at a crouch to avoid dislodging dirt and rocks from the overhang, he filled them in.
“There’s a kind of ice cave up ahead, behind those rocks. Twelve minors being held. Three adults standing guard. Probably four more above ground. They have a generator in there, and some equipment.”
“Is Victor Canseco there?” Gil whispered.
“Didn’t see him. I’m calling in reinforcements.”
He got on his comms to contact the mission commander, using the sound of gunfire as cover.
It bothered Gil that Victor was nowhere to be seen. What was he up to? He claimed to want to rescue the kids, but right now, the man was completely unpredictable.