16. Running The Ridge
Running The Ridge
Steve
Angus’s message comes through while Jan’s repacking the trauma kit.
Diversion worked. Kai and Honor back with us. Eight accounted for. Moving shortly.
I read it twice, then look at Jan.
“We’re going to meet them.”
She’s already zipping the bag. “I was about to say the same thing.”
Eight women have spent the night hidden at a wilderness cache after escaping North Star and being chased across frozen country.
They’re probably exhausted, some possibly injured, and the temperature outside is brutal.
Making them cover the entire remaining distance to us when we’ve got vehicles is bloody ridiculous.
I call Angus.
“How are they?”
“Cold. Exhausted. Alive.”
“All eight?”
“All eight.”
“How far can you get them toward the old southern access road?”
“Depends on the snow. Sled can make it. Women need warmth.”
“We’re bringing it to them. Start south as soon as you’re ready.”
Jan pulls the regional map across the table while I contact the drivers. We don’t need all three evacuation routes right now. We need two more vehicles, blankets, heat and enough seats to get eight women out fast.
Within fifteen minutes, we’re moving.
Jan rides with me in the winter-equipped SUV, medical gear packed behind her. Two community vehicles follow at a distance, their drivers briefed to turn around immediately if I give the word.
The road deteriorates fast once we leave the community behind.
Snow narrows it to a pair of ruts through the forest. Twice I have to slow almost to walking pace. Eventually even the SUV has had enough.
“This is it,” I say.
Jan looks through the windshield at the ridge ahead. “How far are they?”
I check the latest coordinates.
“About twelve kilometers.”
“And they’re already moving?”
“Yeah. They left the third cache twenty minutes ago. They keep coming south. This is as far north as we’re getting.”
I radio the other drivers and have them hold farther back where the road is wider. No point trapping every vehicle in the same place.
Then Jan and I wait.
Ten minutes later, I see movement between the trees.
Dogs.
Maskwa breaks through first, the rest of the team behind him and the sled following. Kai’s on the runners. Jax and Angus ride at the back, and Honor is helping keep the women bundled together.
I’m out of the SUV before they stop.
“Jesus, you’re a beautiful sight.”
Angus steps off the sled. “Always nice to be appreciated.”
“I was talking to the dogs, mate.”
Jan’s already moving.
“Bring them to me one at a time. Anyone who can’t walk stays where they are until I assess them.”
Honor climbs down and immediately turns to help another woman.
Eight.
They actually got eight women out.
Kai catches my eye.
“Pursuit?”
“Shaken, not gone.”
That’s all I need to hear.
“Then we don’t hang around.”
We move fast. Jan checks each woman while Jax waves the waiting drivers forward. Engines grow louder as the vehicles make their way up to us, heaters already running. As soon as they arrive, I start sending the women across one by one.
Blankets go around shoulders. Heat packs disappear into gloves and coat pockets. One woman needs help walking, so Kai and I carry her the short distance to the nearest vehicle.
Honor tries to help Jan with the others until Jan takes one look at her bruised face and points toward our SUV.
“You too.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Honor looks at Kai. He wisely says nothing.
“Traitor,” she mutters. His mouth twitches.
We’re loading the last woman when headlights appear far down the access road.
Wrong direction. Coming from the community side.
Jan sees them too.
“Steve.”
“I know.”
One vehicle. Then another. They slow at the turnoff.
Kai comes up beside me.
“Lockhart?”
“Could be.”
My satellite phone rings.
Rose.
I answer immediately.
“Steve, Perry was here. He knows you left.”
Shit.
“How?”
“He came looking for you. Asked where you’d gone. Nobody told him anything, but he saw the SUV was gone and started asking whether you’d headed north.”
I look at the approaching headlights, then at the eight women we’ve just dragged out of hell.
Perry knows we’re on the road.
Lockhart’s hunting from behind.
And we’re sitting between them.
I reach into the SUV for my weapon.
“Everyone inside the vehicles. Now.”
Old Lockhart Access Road, Northern Manitoba. 0835 hours.
The headlights keep coming.
Jan moves before I finish speaking, getting Honor and the last woman into our SUV while Angus and Jax spread out to cover the road. Kai brings the dog team around, the sled carving a tight arc through the snow.
“How many?” Angus asks.
“Two vehicles.”
“Perry?”
“Rose said he knows we left. Could be him. Could be Lockhart.”
“Could be both,” Jax says.
Exactly what I’m thinking.
The road behind us is too narrow to turn three vehicles around quickly, and I’m not waiting here to find out who’s driving toward us.
Kai points toward a track disappearing west through the trees.
“Old forestry road. It reconnects farther south.”
“Passable?”
“For your SUV. Probably the others.”
Probably. I’ll take it.
I wave the drivers forward and send Kai ahead with the dogs. He knows the country, so we follow his sled onto the forestry track and around the bend before the approaching vehicles can close the distance.
The road is rough as hell. Snow scrapes beneath the chassis and the SUV slides sideways twice, but all three vehicles make it through.
Five minutes later, we hear engines on the access road we just abandoned.
They don’t follow.
“They’re continuing north,” Jan says. “Looking for us.”
Or trying to work out where we went. Either way, we keep moving.
The forestry road eventually bends south toward a narrow creek crossing.
Kai raises a hand from the sled ahead.
I brake.
He steps off the runners and points toward the far bank.
Through a gap in the trees, I glimpse two men. Both armed.
They’re positioned beside a pickup on the far side, watching the crossing and the road beyond it. From where we’ve stopped, I can see them through the timber, but the bend keeps our vehicles hidden from their position.
Lockhart security. The bastards are trying to box us in.
I radio the others. “Hold here. Engines running. Keep everyone inside.”
Jan reaches for my arm before I open the door. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
Her look says she could argue with that.
I get out.
Angus and Jax join me while Kai keeps the dogs and sled back from the road. The creek is narrow, its banks steep beneath heavy snow. A small timber bridge crosses it, giving the mercenaries a perfect choke point.
“We can shoot them from here,” Jax says.
“And start a gunfight with eight women fifty meters behind us?”
Angus studies the creek bank. “Prefer not to.”
So do I.
I move into the trees with Jax while Angus covers us.
The first mercenary is watching the road. The second keeps looking north, probably waiting for whoever’s behind us to close the gap.
They never look toward the creek. That’s their mistake.
Jax and I drop down the bank, using the frozen creek bed to get beneath their line of sight. Snow reaches my knees in places, and the ice complains under my boots, but the bank hides us until we’re almost level with them.
Jax points left. I nod.
We climb separately.
He reaches his man first, grabbing the rifle before the bastard can turn driving him face-first into the snow.
Mine hears it. He spins.
I hit him before he can bring his weapon up.
He swings hard. I duck, drive into him and use his own momentum to send him down the icy slope.
He lands badly. His rifle stays up here. I’m on him seconds later, wrenching his arms behind him and securing his wrists.
“Stay down, mate.”
Jax has already restrained the other guy.
No shots fired.
I signal Angus.
He waves the vehicles forward.
Kai gets the dogs moving again as the first SUV comes around the bend, Jan behind the wheel now. She catches my eye through the windshield as she approaches the bridge.
I give her a thumbs-up. She gives me a look that says she’ll decide later whether I was actually careful.
Behind us, engines grow louder on the road we abandoned.
The net’s still closing.
But the creek crossing is ours.
“Bring them through.”
Old Lockhart Access Road, Northern Manitoba. 0915 hours.
We’re moving again within minutes of clearing the creek crossing.
The two Lockhart men are restrained well away from their weapons, their pickup disabled and their satellite phones coming with us. Perry and whoever was in those vehicles behind us can sort the bastards out if they find them.
Kai takes point with the dog team, his new earpiece keeping him on our channel. Angus rides with one community driver and three women. Jax takes the other vehicle with the second driver and two more. That leaves Honor and two women with Jan and me in the lead SUV.
For the next several kilometers, nothing moves except us.
“I need to ask you something, Honor,” I say. “North Star. Did you find it before they took you?”
Honor looks at me sharply. “You know about North Star?”
“We found an old surveyor with the original maps. We know it was erased from the current records. What we don’t know is how close you got.”
“Closer than they wanted.”
Jan turns toward her. “What did you find?”
“Old employment records first. Women whose last known jobs were around Lockhart camps kept appearing during the years North Star was operating. Then I found transport logs.”
“Transporting women?” Jan asks.
“Not by name. Numbers against vehicle movements. Some routes went between active camps. Others went to North Star.”
“While it was operating?”
“And after it supposedly closed.”
That gets my attention.
“I found vehicle movements years after the closure date. Fuel deliveries too. Equipment parts. Things you don’t keep sending to an abandoned mine.”
“You thought they were still using it?” Jan asks.
“I suspected it. Now I know. Heavy machinery ran every day. Some women were taken out for work and brought back hours later filthy and exhausted.”
Christ.
“Did the logs say where they were going?”
“Only route codes. One kept coming up after the closure. NS-17.”