Chapter Thirty-Two
Knox
They zip-tie our hands in front of us, which tells me something. Behind the back would be more secure, but front ties let
you sit in a helicopter without dislocating your shoulders. These guys are professionals. They’re planning for a long flight.
Front ties also mean I can reach the knife taped flat against my ribs under two layers of sweater. They didn’t pat us down
thoroughly enough. Marlena’s people are disciplined but they’re overconfident, which is exactly what Hailey predicted.
Hailey stands between me and Liam as we’re marched out of the cabin for the first time in ten days. The cold is immediate
and vicious, the kind that makes your nose hairs freeze on the first inhale. The wilderness stretches in every direction,
white and flat and utterly devoid of anything resembling civilization.
The helicopter waits in a small clearing about fifty yards from the cabin, rotors already spinning. It’s a Bell 412, civilian
model but modified. I clock the reinforced skids, the extra fuel tanks. This thing has range. Whoever Marlena is, she’s got
serious money behind her operation.
Four guards flank us. I’ve been studying them since last night, cataloging details the way I used to catalog insurgent movements
in Kandahar. Two Americans, one Canadian, one I can’t place. All former military based on how they move, how they hold their
weapons. Disciplined. No wasted motion.
The pilot makes five.
I catch Hailey’s eye. She gives me the smallest shake of her head. Not yet. Too many guns, too tight a space. We wait for the mine.
She’s right. We stick to the plan.
Bad odds. But we knew they’d be bad. The whole point was never to out-fight them head-on. The point is the moment Marlena
opens that safe and forgets we exist.
Marlena is already inside when we climb aboard, settled into a leather seat that has no business being in a helicopter. She’s
wearing a cream-colored parka trimmed with silver fox fur, sunglasses pushed up on her head, gloved fingers wrapped around
a travel mug of coffee. Steam curls from the lid.
She sips it as we’re strapped in across from her. Takes her time with it.
“Good morning, kiddos!” She beams at us like a summer camp counselor about to announce the day’s activities. “I hope everyone’s
ready for an adventure. I brought snacks.” She gestures to a small cooler at her feet. “Trail mix, protein bars, those little
cheese wheels with the red wax. Road trip essentials.”
Nobody responds.
“Tough crowd.” She shrugs and takes another sip of coffee. “Your loss. The cheese wheels are imported.”
The guards take their positions. Two next to Marlena, two behind us. The doors close with a heavy thunk and the pitch of the
rotors changes, noise filling the cabin until conversation becomes impossible without headsets.
Marlena has one. She doesn’t offer us the same courtesy.
I watch the landscape tilt and fall away as we lift off. The cabin shrinks to a dark speck against the white, then disappears
entirely. Nothing but wilderness in every direction. Mountains in the distance, their peaks lost in low clouds. Frozen lakes
scattered below us, flat and gray.
No roads. No buildings. Nothing.
I catch Hailey’s eye. She’s watching the terrain too, and I can see her mind working. Calculating distances, memorizing landmarks. Probably building a map in her head the way I am. Old habits.
Liam sits on Hailey’s other side, staring out the window. He’s quiet and carrying bruises from his time with Marlena and guilt
that runs deeper than the bruises, but his eyes are tracking the guards, the exits, the positioning of weapons. He’s in the
game. Hurting, but in.
I feel the knife against my ribs every time I breathe. Hailey’s coat has the ammonia rig sewn into the lining. Liam has the
second steak knife, passed to him in the huddle while Hailey blocked the camera’s sightline with her body.
I want to hate him. Part of me does. He sold us out, made deals behind our backs, got us into this mess in the first place.
But watching him now, zip-tied and silent, the bruises on his face from our fight still dark against his skin, I can’t muster
the energy.
We’re past blame. We’re in survival mode now.
The flight stretches on. One hour, then two. Marlena makes small talk through hand gestures and exaggerated lip movements,
pointing out landmarks like an overeager flight attendant. That mountain. This lake. She mimes antlers at one point, then
shrugs theatrically when we don’t react.
Eventually she pulls out a laminated card and holds it up for us to read: THE TERRITORIES ARE BEAUTIFUL THIS TIME OF YEAR.
HARSH BUT BEAUTIFUL. PERFECT FOR HIDING THINGS YOU DON’T WANT FOUND.
She flips to another card: I HAD THESE MADE SPECIALLY.
Then another: BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T TALK TO ME.
And another: IT’S FINE. I TALK ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE.
She winks at Hailey.
The helicopter begins descending around the two-hour mark.
Below us, a makeshift airstrip emerges from the white.
Just a cleared field, the snow packed down and marked with orange flags.
A cluster of buildings sits at one end, low wooden structures with caved-in roofs.
Old mining camp. Abandoned for decades by the look of it.
We touch down hard enough to rattle my teeth. The pilot cuts the engine and the rotors begin their slow wind-down, the noise
fading enough that I can hear again.
“From here, we snowmobile.” Marlena stands, adjusting her parka. “Which, full disclosure, is my favorite part. I had a whole
PowerPoint presentation about the route but Kenny said it was ‘too much.’ ” She air-quotes with her fingers, then gestures
at one of the guards. “Kenny is no fun. Don’t be like Kenny.”
Kenny’s demeanor doesn’t change.
She claps her hands together. “Okay! Let’s go find my diamond!”
The cold outside is brutal even with the winter gear they’ve provided. My fingers go numb in minutes despite the gloves. The
guards load us onto snowmobiles without wasted movement. Me with one, Liam with another, Hailey riding behind Marlena.
I memorize the configuration as we pull out. Guard in front, guard behind, the rest flanking. Military convoy formation. Standard
protection detail with standard weaknesses.
If I can find an opening.
The convoy heads into the wilderness.
I watch for opportunities as we ride, scanning the terrain through the face shield of my helmet. Frozen forest. Rocky outcrops.
Ice-covered creeks that we cross without slowing. The terrain is rough, the snowmobiles bouncing over hidden obstacles, but
our captors handle them like veterans.
They probably are. This isn’t some amateur treasure hunt.
My hands are still bound. My muscles are cramped from sitting in the helicopter. I’m surrounded by armed guards on unfamiliar
terrain in subzero temperatures with nothing resembling an exit strategy.
I’ve been in worse situations.
I’m having trouble remembering when.
We ride for what feels like forever. Ninety minutes, maybe more. The cold works its way through every layer until I stop feeling my feet. The landscape blurs into sameness, white and gray and white again, broken only by the occasional rocky outcrop.
Then the convoy slows. Stops.
We’re at the base of a cliff face, massive boulders tumbled at its feet. It looks like every other rock formation we’ve passed,
but Marlena’s driver cuts the engine with the confidence of someone who’s arrived exactly where he meant to.
Marlena bounces off her snowmobile. “Oh my god. Oh my god, this is happening.” She grabs one of her guards by the arm. “Derek,
are you seeing this? Five years. Five years, Derek.”
Derek nods once.
“You could show a little enthusiasm. This is a momentous occasion.” She releases him and waves at the other guards. “Clear
it. Clear it, clear it, let’s go.”
Her team moves with efficiency. Two stay with us, weapons ready. The other two head for a gap between the boulders, clearing
snow to reveal timber supports, old and weathered but still intact. A mine shaft entrance, descending into darkness.
They’ve been here before. Scouted it, probably. Mapped the tunnels. They just couldn’t get past the safe.
That’s what Hailey’s for.
Someone produces industrial lights, the kind you’d use on a construction site. Generators hum to life. The darkness retreats,
revealing rough-hewn walls and timber bracing and a tunnel that slopes gently downward.
“This is very Indiana Jones.” Marlena peers into the entrance, delighted. “I keep hoping for booby traps, but my advance team
was very disappointing on that front. Not a single giant rolling boulder.”
She pulls out her phone and snaps a selfie in front of the mine entrance. Checks it, frowns, takes another one.
“Lighting’s terrible,” she mutters. “Derek, hold the light higher.”
We descend into the mountain.
The temperature rises once we’re underground, the earth providing insulation the open air couldn’t. The tunnel is narrow at first, barely wide enough for two people side by side. Ice coats the walls, glittering in the industrial lights.
The guards move with the confidence of men who’ve walked this route before. They don’t hesitate at the forks, don’t consult
maps. Marlena’s been thorough.
But she couldn’t crack the safe. Five years of resources and obsession, and she still needs Hailey for the final step.
The tunnel branches again and again. A maze. One wrong turn and you’d wander these passages until you froze or starved. I
understand now why Hailey chose this place.
“Almost there,” Marlena announces, checking her phone. “My team clocked it at fifteen minutes from the entrance. We’re at
twelve.”
Three minutes later, the tunnel opens into a chamber. Natural cave formation, the ceiling arching overhead, stalactites hanging
down in frozen curtains. The industrial lights throw strange shadows across the walls.
And there, set into the rock at the back of the chamber, is a safe.
Industrial grade. Serious hardware. The kind of thing you’d find in a bank vault, not buried in a forgotten mine. It’s covered
in frost but otherwise intact, the dial and handle still visible beneath the ice.
Marlena walks toward it slowly. For once, she’s not talking. She reaches out and brushes frost from the metal surface, her
movements almost reverent.
“Five years,” she whispers. Then, louder. “Five years I’ve been looking for this. Do you know how many private investigators
I’ve hired? How many psychics? Psychics, Ms. Parker. That’s how desperate I was. One of them told me the diamond was ‘somewhere cold.’ I paid her four hundred dollars
for ‘somewhere cold.’ ”
She turns to face us, backlit by the industrial lights.
“But here we are. I guess she was right.” Her composure snaps back into place, that manic brightness returning. “Now. The
code, Ms. Parker.” She pulls out her phone again. “And smile—I want to document this moment for posterity.”