“This is it. A patch of grass in the middle of nowhere. Hills to the north, trees to the west. No sign of life or a place to meet.” Marina craned her neck to look around. It wasn’t as if anyone could be waiting in ambush — there was nowhere to hide.
“Remind me what we’re supposed to be doing here.”
Marina chose not to respond. Since she’d gotten them here in one piece, she rather felt he should keep his comments to himself.
With a snap, she unbuckled her seatbelt and yanked the handle to open the door.
The air was warmer than it had been when they left the airport, but still cool enough that she needed the coat. Tucking the gloves into her pocket, she strolled away from the Land Rover as much to give her legs a stretch as to clear her mind.
There had to be a reason they were led to this place. The directions were in a bag kept by Bran and George; despite the fact that they were in English, it seemed odd that they would have gone through the trouble of putting them together in order to trick her and Gabe. After all, they couldn’t have planned for Marina’s aerobatic escape.
She stood in the middle of the field. It wasn’t so very large, maybe ten or twelve acres worth of scraggly brownish-green grass. A firm breeze dashed over the small meadow, tufting and shifting the taller grasses, and she inhaled deeply. Beautiful. Clean and fresh.
Nothing like the polluted oxygen she and the majority of Americans ingested.
Despite her Russian roots, Marina had never been to the Soviet Union or even as far north as she was now. Perhaps she’d been wary of getting too close to her lost family. But now, as she looked around at the world under the startling blue sky and the brilliant sun that would barely sleep that night, she recognized a unique beauty in the Arctic.
Yet another facet of Gaia’s magnificence.
Gaia?
Just for a moment, she’d felt a kinship … a oneness with the world around her. Nature, raw and untouched, and alive. And she remembered that it was threatened, every day. That places like this remote area, virginal and new, were disappearing.
And she started to understand what her people felt. The greatness, the majesty of their planet.
The earth — Gaia — was one with them. In order to survive, they had to protect her.
“Ready to head back?”
She hadn’t heard Gabe approach from behind; hadn’t even heard him slam the truck door. “Not yet. No. Let’s walk over there.” She pointed to the low hills studded with pines.
“Marina—“
“It’s the closest thing to mountains around … and that’s where the Skalas live. In Taymyria, anyway. It’s worth checking it out.”
“Something wrong?”
“It’s beautiful here. I was just appreciating her. Nature.”
“Yeah.” Gabe didn’t sound convinced, and she noticed he still held the gun in his hand. “All right, sixty minutes to check out the hills, then we head back and check in with Bergstrom. I’ll call him on the sat phone when we leave.”
Marina was already several yards away, and Gabe jammed the weapon into the waistband of his jeans.
The look on her face when he approached her had been one of intensity and concentration. She was standing there like she owned the world. Her hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket, eyes clear and bright, and her long, slim nose tipped red by the chill breeze.
And here he was, following the damn woman for a hike around some hills when he should be calling Bergstrom. Maybe they’d cracked Bran and George by now and there were some facts to go on.
He looked toward where he’d last seen Marina, and she was gone. He stepped up the pace and approached the base of one of the small hills.
“Tire tracks,” he heard her call, and indeed there were the two narrow strips of pressed-down grass that indicated a vehicle’s passage. The tracks were on the far end of the field from where their Land Rover was parked, explaining why they hadn’t noticed them.
The direction of the trail was easy to follow, and they hurried along between the two tire lines as it wound around one of the hills.
The far sides of the hills were rocky and jagged with shale; more like small mountains than the hillocks cupping the meadow. The tire tracks led right into a throng of trees that grew between the vee of two hills.
Marina looked at Gabe and put her hands on her hips. “I’ll bet you the entire Bond DVD collection that there’s a cave in there.”
He looked toward the low-growing, scrubby pines. “This is your bailiwick and I’m not betting. You’re right.” He resisted the urge to pull her back and allow him to go first; somehow they’d evolved from an expert protecting a civilian to equal partners. Besides, she wouldn’t go for it anyway.
Marina found the narrow passageway that whatever vehicle it had been, had gone through. They followed the trail, stepping on a matt of rust-colored pine needles that had probably been collecting there for centuries; millennia, perhaps. Only yards beyond the trees a crust of grey rock jagged from the hill, and as they approached, Marina edged up next to it.
Gabe read her intent and sidled up behind her, against the rock, and she felt his fingers touch her wrist as she began to peer around the corner. She peered around the outcropping of rock and found exactly what she’d expected. Although every instinct in her body wanted to hurry into the cave, she waited; and not just because Gabe tightened his fingers in warning.
They waited and silence continued to reign. Even the sound of the breeze rushing through the tree branches made little noise. Finally, she felt Gabe move behind her, loosening his grip, and pushing past her. She let him go. After all, he had the gun.
Close behind, she followed him into the tall narrow crevice, one that would have been hard-put for a vehicle to enter, but was more than generous for the two of them. The cave opening was nearly ten feet high and about six feet wide. Grass grew right up to the entrance, then straggled off as the dirt and rocks took over from the eruption of the small mountain.
Inside, it was black and silent as caves are wont to be, and Marina pulled her flashlight from the clip at her waist. Cupping her hand over it to dim the light, she turned it on. The bare glow did little to illuminate the room, but it burned an eerie reddish-orange cast on her fingers and palm.
Cautiously, she opened her hand and allowed more light to spill in; when Gabe gave a short jerk of a nod, she released the light completely and looked around. It was a cave, one similar to the hundreds she’d explored. Damp and cold, dark, rough, and musty-smelling.
The chamber elongated near the left side of the back, and as Marina stepped closer, she saw that it went off into blackness. Gabe followed behind as she started that way — the only option for exploration unless they wanted to go back out the way they came.
“We don’t have the right equipment,” she said in a low voice, “but we can explore a little ways.”
“You mean all those caves I explored in my backyard when I was growing up, I did it all wrong because I didn’t have the equipment?”
They walked along the slightly-downward passage. Marina felt inclined to take her time, noticing the character of the cave: its feel, its dampness, the jagged edges and how it made her feel, while she felt Gabe practically breathing down her neck. He was in a hurry to get back to the Land Rover, but she was enjoying the heck out of this, and wouldn’t be hurried.
Besides. Her instincts told her they were on the right path of something.
Until the tunnel narrowed, and shortened, and narrowed and shortened more until they were nearly crouching.
“Okay, game’s over, let’s go,” Gabe said. A combination of annoyance and smugness tinged his voice. “Can’t go any further.”