Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Toby
Of all the places I ever expected to find myself, squashed behind a fallen tree with Harry Matheson is definitely not one of them.
There’s no room for the concept of personal space here, so I find my hand brushing the softness of his cashmere topcoat as I jostle to conceal myself. Mingled with the damp scent of the forest floor and the aroma of pine is the lingering fragrance of Harry’s expensive cologne.
I send a sideways glance at him.
How can Harry have survived a plane crash and now be hiding behind a toppled tree in the Nordic wilderness, yet still look like he’s just stepped out of a GQ catalog?
His cool blue eyes stare appraisingly down at the clearing. He shows no trace of the absolute terror currently running rampant through me.
The guy really does have ice in his veins. No wonder he can’t see things from the point of view of the average human. There’s a good chance he’s a different species altogether.
Our hiding place is halfway up the slope behind the plane, so we have a good view of the helicopter as it descends onto a flat part of the clearing two hundred feet from the plane wreckage.
My heart pumps furiously as the rotor blades die down. The door opens, and four guys jump out of the helicopter. They are all dressed in camouflage fatigues.
My stomach drops. Not a good start.
And that’s before I notice they are carrying guns. And not just any guns. Machine guns. Is the Nordic wilderness more dangerous than I’ve previously been aware?
I feel lightheaded as I stare at the men crossing the clearing towards the plane. They’re not bustling urgently like I’d imagine emergency personnel would do.
Instead, there is only one way to describe their gait as they approach the plane.
Stalking.
Like a predator stalks its prey.
Harry stiffens beside me.
Fuck. I like to be right, but this is one instance when I definitely would’ve preferred to be wrong.
The terror inside me feels like it has been injected with steroids.
A figure joins them who is not in camouflage fatigues but is still in his white-and-navy pilot uniform.
Kade.
He must have walked back down the hill to coincide with the arrival of the helicopter.
“Harry?” Kade calls, his faint voice reaching us in our hiding place. “Toby? Where are you?”
I turn my head fractionally to look at Harry. He meets my gaze evenly, but I’m fairly sure his chest is rising and falling more rapidly than normal.
Our ‘rescue’ party reaches the plane, their guns at their shoulders. One jumps onto the wing to check inside the cabin.
“Toby, Harry? Where the hell are you?” Kade calls out, whirling around to take in the clearing.
A menacing-looking guy carrying a gun comes up to talk to Kade. Even though I can only catch snatches of their conversation floating up to us, I hear enough to establish one key fact.
They’re not speaking English.
In fact, I’m fairly sure that’s Russian.
Now, another machine-gun-toting man dressed in camo has joined the huddle. He points downhill towards the small stream. I guess the natural assumption is that we would have headed toward the water, where the terrain is the easiest.
“We need to get out of here,” Harry whispers in my ear. He’s so close to me I can feel the puff of his breath on my skin.
Run in the opposite direction of the armed men? That is finally an idea from Harry Matheson I can get behind.
I nod silently. Then, I point up the steep hill behind us.
Harry’s eyebrows fly up.
“They won’t expect us to go that way,” I whisper.
His eyebrows relax, and he nods.
Now, we need to extract ourselves from our hiding place and melt into the forest without being seen by the scary men with guns.
My heart thuds furiously. I glance down at the survival kit I’m clutching like it’s my firstborn. I’m sure the bright-red canvas bag is designed to be found easily, but right now, being found easily isn’t exactly what we’re going for.
But I’m not keen to head off into the wilderness without it.
Harry follows my gaze to the survival kit.
Without saying a word, he shucks off his coat and hands it to me so I can wrap the survival kit in it.
He inclines his head towards the nearest tree.
“Crawl until we get to it,” he instructs.
“All right.”
Crawling through a Nordic forest while clutching a survival kit is not an experience I’d recommend. A drunk caterpillar would have better technique than me.
It turns out pine needles are fuckers designed by the devil. They shred my hands and pierce the fabric of my trousers and jacket. It feels like my palms and knees will be permanently imprinted with the texture of the forest floor.
But the pure adrenaline and fear racing through me keep me going.
I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening.
The words thud through my head as I reach the relative safety of the nearest tree.
My breaths come hard and fast as I straighten behind it. Harry’s right next to me.
The skinny pine tree is barely wide enough to shield us as we peer out at the clearing.
The men have fanned out along the banks of the stream. One of them crouches to examine something in the mud before shaking his head and moving on. Their movements are methodical, almost mechanical, as they work their way along the stream’s edge.
Harry nods at a tree at the crest of the hill.
“Aim for that?” he suggests.
“All right.”
It’s another twenty feet of pine needle hell. When we finally reach the top, it’s not a steep cliff on the other side, but instead, the ground flattens into a terrain of endless trees. But at least we’re now out of sight of the clearing.
“What do we do now?” Harry asks in a harsh whisper.
“We run,” I say simply.
Harry appears to have no issue with my idea, setting off at a brisk pace through the forest.
The undergrowth is thicker here. Small bushes clutch at my clothes, but the terror sloshing in my veins propels me forward. The primary objective is to get as much distance between us and our ‘rescuers’ as possible.
Harry’s beside me, breathing heavily, which actually makes me feel better about my own frantic gasping. It turns out that half an hour on the parliamentary gym’s treadmill three times a week does not prepare you for an extended session of running through the Nordic wilderness.
Still, I keep my aching legs moving as I continue to cradle the survival kit covered in Harry’s coat.
Harry’s half a step ahead of me. He suddenly stops so abruptly that I almost plow into him.
He holds up his hand to silence me so we can listen.
It’s the sound of a helicopter. The noise of the beating blades makes my skin crawl.
Is that the same helicopter leaving or another one arriving?
Please say they’re leaving. Please say they’re leaving.
Although, I’d hazard a guess that the likelihood of that scenario is not very high.
“Who the hell are they?” I can’t help voicing the question circulating in my head for the last half-hour.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a clue,” Harry says.
“When they were speaking, it sounded like Russian to me,” I say.
Harry stares at me skeptically. “Russian? You think the Kremlin is behind this?”
He doesn’t seem particularly perturbed by the idea that one of the biggest nations on Earth is hunting us.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Or some other Russian terrorist group.”
There’s not much difference between the Russian government and terrorists, in my opinion.
“What would they want with two British politicians?” he asks.
“We’re close to an election. I imagine disrupting our democracy could be their objective. Who knows?”
I think this might be the longest Harry and I have ever conversed without bickering. However, it doesn’t feel like the time for an extended celebration of that achievement.
Nor is it probably the time for an in-depth discussion about international politics. I’m sure Harry and I will have a lot to dissect and speculate about later.
If we live that long.
My legs shake, almost threatening to give way under me.
Regardless of who they are, we have armed terrorists hunting us.
My eyes lock onto Harry, and some of my fear mingles with irritation that of all the people I could be here with, it has to be Harry Matheson.
My feelings bubble out of me in the form of sarcasm.
“Am I allowed to be melodramatic yet?” I ask. “Because my assessment of this situation is we’re lost in the Nordic wilderness with minimal survival skills and armed terrorists hunting us. Unless you’ve got a different take on it, I’m thinking we’re quite epically fucked.”