“Do you have another gun?” Craig asked. “Or can we outrun the motorcycle on the horse?”
Matt shook his head, answering both questions.
“Then what are we going to do?”
He found what he was looking for. He added it to his bag. At least this wasn’t broken.
“What about the other motorcycle?” Craig’s voice edged toward panic.
Matt straightened. “Don’t worry. There’s an old Alaskan saying.”
“What’s that?”
“Up here, only the strong survive…but sometimes even they’re killed.”
His words clearly offered no consolation to the Seattle reporter.
Stefan Yurgen wore nightvision goggles, allowing him to see in the dark without the motorcycle’s lights, but the snowstorm kept his vision to no more than ten meters. The snow fell thickly, a green fog through the scopes.
He kept his snow-and-ice bike steady, grinding and carving up the switchback trail. The snow might block his view, but it allowed him to follow his prey easily. The fresh snow clearly marked their trail. He counted one horse, four dogs. Both men were riding. Occasionally, one man hopped off and led the horse afoot across some trickier terrain, then remounted.
He watched for any sign of the pair splitting, but no prints led away from the main trail.
Good. He wanted them together.
Under the frozen goggles, a permanent scowl etched his features. Mikal had been his younger brother. An hour ago, he had found his brother’s tortured body beside a small stream, nearly comatose from pain, his face a bloody wreck. He’d had no choice. He had orders to follow. It had still torn him to pull the trigger, but at least the agony had ended for Mikal.
Afterward, he had marked his forehead with his brother’s blood. This was no longer just a search-and-destroy mission. It was an oath vendetta. He would return with the American’s ears and nose. He would hand them to his father back in Vladistak. For Mikal…for what had been done to his younger brother. This he swore on Mikal’s blood.
Stefan had caught a brief glimpse of his target earlier through his rifle’s scope: tall, sandy-haired, windburned face. The man had proven resourceful, but Mikal had been the newest member to the Leopard ops team, ten years his junior. His younger brother did not have Stefan’s years of battle-honed experience. He was a cub compared to a lion. Now forewarned of his target’s skill, Stefan would not underestimate his quarry. Upon his brother’s blood, he would capture the American alive, carve his carcass while he still breathed. His screams would reach all the way back to Mother Russia.
As Stefan climbed through the wooded ravine, the trail left by his quarry grew more distinct. His features hardened. The distance between them was closing. No more than a hundred meters, he estimated. A skilled tracker, trained in the winter mountains of Afghanistan, Stefan knew how to judge a trail.
He manhandled the bike up another switchback, then throttled down. He climbed off the cycle, shrugging his rifle snugly in place. He reached next to the weapon holstered on the side of the vehicle. It was now time to begin the true hunt. Raised along the Siberian coast, Stefan knew the cold, knew snow and ice, and he knew how to chase prey through a storm.
From here, he would proceed on foot…but first he needed to shake his targets, panic them into acting instinctively. And like any wild animal, once panicked, people made mistakes.
He slid up his nightvision goggles, raised the heavy weapon, then read the distance and elevation indicators through the scope.
Satisfied, he pulled the trigger.
Craig shivered, clinging close to the man saddled ahead of him. He tried to glean whatever warmth he could from the shared contact. At least he was shielded from the worst of the wind by the Fish and Game warden’s broad back.
Matt spoke as they climbed through the snowstorm. “I don’t understand,” he said, pressing the issue. “There has to be a reason for all this. Does it have to do with your story? Or is it something else?”
“I don’t know,” Craig repeated for the tenth time, speaking through a wool scarf wrapped over his lower face. He didn’t want to talk about it. He only wanted to concentrate on staying warm. Damn this assignment…
“If it’s you, why go to all this trouble to keep you away from your story?”
“I don’t know. Back in Seattle, I covered alderman races and tracked AP stories out of Washington from a local angle. I was given this assignment because the editor has a grudge. So I dated his niece once. She was twenty years old, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like she was twelve.”
Matt mumbled, “A political reporter. I mean why would a scientific research station call in a political reporter anyway?”
Craig sighed. The man would clearly not give up. In a desire to end this line of discussion, he finally loosened his tongue and spilled what he knew. “A marine biologist from the drift station has a cousin who works for the paper. He sent a telegram, indicating a discovery of significant interest. Something to do with an abandoned ice base discovered by their researchers. Whatever they found has stirred up a lot of excitement, but the station was placed under a gag order by the Navy personnel there.”
“A gag order? And this biologist was able to ferret this news out anyway.”
Craig nodded. “I was being sent to see if there really is a story of national interest.”
Matt sighed. “Well, it certainly stirred up someone’s interest.”
Craig snorted, but he was relieved when the man fell into a ruminative silence. Behind them, the growl of the motorcycle seemed to have ebbed. Maybe they were outdistancing their pursuer. Maybe he had turned back, giving up the chase.
Matt glanced behind them, slowing his horse.
With the cycle quieted, the woods seemed to have grown more still and a little darker. The snowfall drifted with a hushed whisper through the trees. Matt reined the horse to a stop. He stood in the stirrups, staring back, his eyebrows tucked together.
A sharp whistling suddenly pierced the quiet.
“What—” Craig began, twisting around.
Matt reached behind, grabbed him by the shoulders, and dragged them both out of the saddle. They fell to the snowy ground, knocking the wind from his chest.
Craig coughed, gasping. What the hell is—
Matt shoved his face into the snow, half covering his body with his own. “Stay down!” he growled.
An explosion rocked the wintry quiet. A score of yards up the trail, snow, dirt, and bushes plumed upward. Leaves and needles were shredded from the surrounding trees.
The mare bucked, whinnying in terror, eyes rolling white. But Matt was already up, grabbing the reins. Dogs barked and yipped from all around.
Craig began to sit up. Matt reached down and yanked him to his feet. “Up, up,” he urged, shoving him toward the horse.
“What was—”
“Grenade…the bastard has a goddamn grenade launcher.”
As the ringing in his ears died away, Craig tried to wrap his mind around this concept. He scrambled back up into the saddle. The mountains had gone quiet. Even the motorcycle’s engine had gone silent.
“He’s coming after us on foot,” Matt explained. “We don’t have much time.” He whistled for his dogs, scattered by the explosion. They all returned, but one was limping. Matt bent to check the injured dog.
Craig was not so patient. “C’mon…leave the dog.”
Matt glanced sharply at him, then back to the malamute. He ran his hands down the lame limb. “Just sprained, Simon,” he whispered to the dog, relieved, and patted its head.
Standing, Matt grabbed the horse’s lead and headed away from the deer trail they had been following.