Chapter 5 #2
“I definitely don’t have any desire to go on an extended nature walk right now,” I say.
Kade hesitates. “Maybe you should give me your phones. I might be able to get a signal from them as I head up the hill.”
“All right.” Harry hands his over to Kade.
I hesitate. “Won’t the satellite phone work better than our mobiles?”
“It’ll be good to have a backup just in case the satellite phone is faulty,” he says.
I feel a strange reluctance as I hand my phone to Kade. It feels like I’m handing over a loyal pet, a pet that has housetrained me to respond to every buzz and beep. It feels weird to be without my very small, rectangular limb that connects me to civilization and an endless supply of cat videos.
“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” Kade says.
“Sure.”
Once Kade leaves, the only sound is a few birds chirping and the gentle burbling of a stream, which I spot at the bottom end of the clearing.
Now that my adrenaline has worn off, I’m acutely aware that I was in a plane crash today.
I shuck off my jacket and unbutton my shirt so I can inspect how much damage the seatbelt has done. My skin immediately goosepimples in the cold air as I press my skin tentatively. I think I’ll have some bruises to show off in the next few days, but thankfully nothing more substantial.
Harry makes a noise that sounds like he’s sucking in a breath through his teeth.
When my gaze flies up to him, he’s looking at me scathingly. “Are you going to put your shirt back on?”
I send him an amused look. “Does me being shirtless offend your sensibilities, Harry?”
“Just because we’re currently stranded in the wilderness, there’s no need to abandon our standards,” Harry says formally.
“Apologies, Harry, there’s nothing I want more in life than to meet your standards,” I reply, tugging my shirt back on and buttoning it.
Harry scowls, which I take as a win.
But then he heads back to the plane, effortlessly levering himself onto the wing and climbing into the cabin before reemerging with his laptop bag.
He makes his way to a relatively flat rock, brushing off a spot with a handkerchief he’s produced from God knows where before settling down and placing his laptop on his knees.
The scene is so absurd that I half expect a tea service to materialize out of thin air.
Harry opens his laptop with a precise click.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Are you seriously doing work right now?”
“Well, I’m finding the quality of the company distinctly lacking, so immersing myself in work seems like the best use of my time,” he says coolly.
Fuck. Only Harry Matheson could survive a plane crash looking icy cool and then proceed to work like nothing ever happened.
While I don’t like giving Harry any opportunity to feel superior to me, there’s no way I can concentrate on energy emission targets right now. My laptop remains firmly inside the non-combusting plane.
Instead, I poke around the clearing. It feels like a scene from a Nordic fairy tale, with mossy rocks and a few daring wildflowers amongst the grass, adding a splash of color to the fifty shades of green.
“Kade told us not to go away from the plane,” Harry says.
“I’m just having a look around.”
When else will I get a chance to experience the Norwegian wilderness, after all?
But it’s not just curiosity that has me edging closer to the end of the clearing and peering into the forest.
It’s something else. Some kind of uneasiness.
I mean, I’ve just crash-landed, so it’s understandable I’m not completely Zen right now. But there’s something else. Something that started even before we landed. Something is wrong, even though I can’t pinpoint what it is right now.
I’ve always had a strong gut instinct. My mother used to say I was ruled by my emotions, and it’s true I’ve always struggled to separate my head and my heart.
Oliver always asked me for my analysis of any situations we faced because he trusted my instinctive reactions to things. Over the years, he learned my gut is seldom wrong.
And my gut is churning right now more than it’s ever churned before.
I just need to work out why.
It’s an old forest, one you can easily imagine the Vikings crashing through.
When I peer in, I discover the trees are less densely packed compared to the forests of England.
I guess the extreme winters here don’t provide optimum growing conditions.
It’s like the Norwegian trees are supermodels—tall, skinny, and dressed in needles, quite the opposite of England’s trees, which are more like friendly locals: shorter, rounder, and leafier.
As I’m coming back through the clearing, a flash of color catches my eye.
It’s a discarded can, half-buried in the dirt, so old and rusted that I can barely make out some faded lettering.
I dig it out of the earth so I can hold it in my hands. The soldered join of the metal reassures me. We can’t be too far into the wilderness if there’s human rubbish around.
The faded lettering is in a language I don’t recognize.
It’s not Norwegian, that much I’m certain of.
I spent three months on secondment to the Oslo office while working at McKinnan’s, and that was enough time to gain a basic grasp of the language.
These letters are definitely not forming any words I know.
I squint at the can, tilting it to catch the light.
It takes a moment for the realization to hit me, but when it does, it’s like a punch to the gut.
The letters are Finnish. I’m no linguistic expert, but I’ve seen enough Finnish vodka bottles to recognize the distinct double letters and the use of ? and o, which is characteristic of the Finnish alphabet.
“Um…Harry,” I say.
Harry glances up. “What is it?”
“I found this,” I say.
Harry stares at the can, his forehead furrowing. “All right. Do you want congratulations for using your time productively?”
I ignore his jibe.
“It’s just that I’m fairly sure the writing is Finnish. Not Norwegian.”
Harry has refocused on his laptop and doesn’t bother looking up. “So?”
“So, we shouldn’t be in Finland.”
“Kade said he was skirting a weather system.”
“That still shouldn’t have taken us this far east.”
Harry’s gaze begrudgingly leaves his laptop, narrowing as his eyes flick between my face and the can in my hand.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just telling you that this points to us being in Finland when our flight path shouldn’t have taken us anywhere near Finland.”
“A Finnish hiker could have brought a can from home. They might sell Finnish products here. I’d hardly say it’s conclusive evidence we’re in Finland.”
“We were already over our flight time before the engine blew out,” I remind him.
His forehead furrows because he can’t negate that fact.
A heavy silence settles between us. Harry glances down at his laptop, then back at me, his expression unreadable.
“I’m sure Kade will have a simple explanation when he returns,” he says.
I immediately reach for my phone in my pocket before I stop short.
He took our phones. That fact rolls around inside my head like an unfinished tweet demanding attention.
I stare in the direction of the hill where Kade headed, the uneasy feeling in my gut intensifying.
“But the thing is…if he’s not calling for help, who is he calling?” I ask.