Expect the Sunrise (18 page)

She stirred the soup, knowing that tomorrow their rations would have to be cut in half. Half a PowerBar. Half the soup. Half a cup of coffee for breakfast.

And twice as far to go.

Sarah lay in quiet repose, breathing steadily, her heart rate normal, her body caught in slumber. She’d nearly opened her eyes earlier, groaning and murmuring when Andee helped Mac set her down, but when Andee tried to rouse her, sleep reached out and tugged her back.

Andee should leave them, go for help. The fact that Sarah hadn’t awoken scared her nearly breathless. She could make it—she knew it. She could take the flashlight, find the Granite River, follow it to Disaster like she’d planned.

She could be home by sundown tomorrow. Maybe.

In the meantime, Phillips could go for water, leaving the rest—namely Mac—to watch over Sarah.

After Andee poured the soup, she passed it around to the passengers seated around the darkened campsite. Few spoke, wrung out by exhaustion. Ishbane took his soup, greedily slurping it. Andee had surrendered her emergency blanket to him, knowing that he’d perish in the night with the cold. She’d snuggle next to Sarah. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d sleep much.

Another good reason to leave tonight.

She put out the stove, and the night chased away the light. Stars winked at her, spilled out over the heavens like icicles. The wind whipped over the tarp, flapping the edges. Andee tucked her hands into her armpits, thankful she had her layers of silk long johns, fleece pullovers, and wool pants.

“I could go for a steak with fried taters and collards,” said Flint. The big man hadn’t complained once today, despite his brush with death.

“Or a big bowl of yellow curried chicken with honey and green onions and rice,” Ishbane said.

Andee couldn’t help but smile. Team Hope occasionally played this game when they were out overnight. Micah liked grits, Conner wanted flapjacks, Sarah loved pierogi from a deli near her apartment in Queens, and Dani would give her eyeteeth for hot buttered popcorn. It made Andee miss them all with an ache that went to the center of her body. She wondered if anyone would call her on her birthday and discover her missing.

“How about a stack of pancakes with pure maple syrup,” Phillips added. “My mom’s version of a Sunday night meal.”

“My mother made haggis on Sundays,” Mac said quietly. “Every Sunday after church we’d come home to haggis and stovies. Her nod toward our family traditions from the old country.”

Andee glanced at Mac, detecting the change in him since yesterday. The outline of his face in the darkness spoke of strength. He sat with his back against a boulder, one leg drawn up, holding his Sierra cup in one hand.

“My mother made haggis once.” Andee made a face.

Mac laughed, low and strong, and it warmed her. She saw Mac in her thoughts, how he’d been as they’d erected the shelter. Quiet, as if shaken by the day’s events, he’d worked with precision as the night closed in. Wide back, strong arms, his eyes occasionally running over her, as if he too knew that for a moment he’d soothed the frightened place inside her. It made her that much more aware of the way she tingled when touched by his gaze.

“I wonder if they’ve figured out we crashed,” Nina said.

That statement silenced the passengers and wound its way into Andee’s thoughts. Would her father contact her mother when she didn’t show up in Disaster? Probably not. He’d assume she had taken another charter flight and probably not check on her for days. Besides, he’d always believed she could take care of herself and never let himself worry, even when she’d needed him the most. But certainly the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group would search for them. If only the plane hadn’t veered off in the wrong direction. It might take weeks for the rescuers to head west toward Foggytop, especially without the ELT working.

“How many children do you have, Nina?” Andee asked, hoping to fill the questions that lingered in the darkness.

“Three. Two boys and a girl.”

Andee imagined them with deep brown eyes and dark brown hair, like Nina. “Are they with your husband? or relatives?”

“Yes. With relatives,” Nina said. But something in her voice sounded unsure. It reminded Andee of her sophomore summer of college when she’d called her mother from Fairbanks en route to visit her father. Her mother had asked her where she was, and Andee had lied.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped Mary from finding her a month later. Andee wondered if she’d known all along and couldn’t bear the showdown.

“I’m supposed to be going home today,” Ishbane said. His tone held surprise, as if normal life only existed in theory now. “My wedding anniversary is this weekend.”

Ishbane had a wife? That surprised her. Not that he shouldn’t, but she’d pegged Flint or even Phillips as married, not Ishbane. “She’ll be worried,” Andee said.

“Maybe. We’re separated.”

Andee grieved, cognizant of what those words meant, especially to a man so seemingly bereft of hope. She had the crazy urge to tell Ishbane that she’d been on the painful side of separation, watching her mother lurch through her day, feeling herself surrounded by shadow. She couldn’t help but wonder if her mother might have chosen differently if she’d been given the foresight to see what leaving would cost them. Or if her father had chased them south just once, her mother might have returned with him.

“Where’s home, Ishbane?” Flint asked.

“Toronto. I’m in oil, and our company is doing some drilling in the Yukon Territory. I was supposed to consult with some engineers at TAPS.”

“Hopefully they’ll miss you.”

“How about you, Mr. Phillips?” Nina asked. “You aren’t dressed for hunting.”

“I’m a fisherman,” Phillips said cryptically.

“Oh,” Nina said.

Silence played a beat between them as they waited for Phillips to continue. He didn’t.

“What about you, Mac?” Nina asked, rebounding.

He said nothing.

Occasionally, Andee had seen Micah or Conner go silent, caught in some dark memory or just keeping essential information close to their chest. She had learned not to push.

“I’m from Deadhorse,” he said at last.

Deadhorse, Alaska, south of Prudhoe Bay. Despite the cold and barren climate, the people in Deadhorse had carved a life out of the snowfields, bonded by their work for the pipeline or their love of living on the last frontier. In such a remote place, people protected their traditions with the ferocity of a wolf. Clearly, his parents had clung to their Scottish heritage and given Mac his hint of accent.

“Do you have family there?” Flint asked. “Seems to me a lonely place to go for vacation.”

Mac gave a low, wry chuckle, and the sound felt like a ripple under Andee’s skin. Familiar yet new. “My parents still live there as well as four sisters, their husbands, my nieces and nephews.”

“Poor bum. The only boy surrounded by girls. I’m sorry for you.” Flint laughed.

Mac didn’t. His silence felt thick and heavy. Finally he said, “I had a brother. He was killed last summer in a fishing accident.”

No wonder Mac seemed far away, burdened. No wonder he wanted them all to hike out together. Andee’s memory went to the many hunters and fishermen she’d airlifted to medical help. Too many bled out in her plane, something she hoped to fix someday by building an emergency trauma center/Fixed Base Operation (FBO) in Wiseman, Alaska, the halfway point between Prudhoe Bay and Fairbanks.

“I’m sorry, Mac,” she said. Then, because she knew his words invaded their thoughts and would poke at them through the night, “We’re going to make it, you guys. I promise.”

“What if something happens to you—you fall off a cliff or something?” Ishbane asked. His voice lowered, as if, once the question had been breathed aloud, the cosmic odds might latch on to it and bring it to fruition.

“Mac will take care of you,” she answered in an even tone.
Please, please, Mac, don’t refute me.

Thankfully, he stayed quiet. She’d take that as a good sign.

She got up and collected the cups. “I’m turning in. We have a long walk tomorrow.”

Andee settled next to Sarah, listening to the group shift or groan, relaxing into slumber. She occasionally lifted her hand to check Sarah’s breathing and her pulse.

Mac would take care of them. She knew it from the way he watched the group, had risked his own life today to save Flint—no, save them all. Deep inside that mysterious, quiet exterior she suspected a man who would surrender his life for others.

Which meant she could leave.

She waited until she heard Nina’s deep breaths of slumber; then Andee eased out the flashlight, a flare, and a PowerBar and took a quick drink of water. She left her knife but tucked her gun into her jacket. Anything more would slow her down.

“Please, watch over Sarah, Lord,” she whispered. Then she lifted the edge of the shelter and crept out into the night.

Mac could hardly believe it. Here he’d begun to trust Emma, and then in a blinding moment of deceit she’d snuck out.

Mac lay there in the dark, his heart thumping against his ribs, tapping out Morse code for
fool
, listening to Emma’s sure footsteps. Why did he so easily fall for a betrayer’s smile?

Because she seemed to authentically care for her friend, for the passengers. Because when she’d risked her life for Flint, she’d done it with passion and 200 percent commitment.

Because in those pretty brown eyes, he’d thought he’d read honesty.

This time, he hated the fact that he was right. He’d found his saboteur. Why else would she sneak out in the middle of the night, nearly running as she escaped camp?

He waited until her footfalls dropped away and then quietly moved out into the night after her.

He’d drag her back to the shelter over his shoulder if he had to and tie her up with her own rope, then use the radio to call in the cavalry. If he could, he’d also get the truth out of her. Somehow.

Maybe he shouldn’t think beyond right now as he followed her without a sound across the tundra. He could barely make her out in the darkness, with the sky speckled with stars, the moon full and bright turning the tundra to glistening silver. She moved with precision, slowing her pace slightly, but quickly enough to make excellent time. To where? Disaster? What if she’d landed purposely, if not gracefully, with the hopes of meeting her contacts in these hills? How far were they from the pipeline? From the map, he’d guesstimate maybe ten miles.

Ten miles too close.

Since 9/11, he’d tracked down two more scares, not including the so-called renegade hunter from last summer—the one who’d done real damage.

More serious damage to the pipeline would shut off supplies for months and skyrocket the price of oil. When winter closed in, medical and food supplies dependent on airplanes would be scarce in towns like Deadhorse.

His sister Maren, pregnant with her third child, wouldn’t be able to get to Fairbanks, and his niece Anna, suffering from diabetes, would run out of insulin.

Those thoughts fueled his steps, and he lit out into a run toward Emma. How dare she put those lives into jeopardy, play the heroine all this time only to betray her country.

If
America was her country. With her dark looks, she could be from any of the South American countries vying for a place on the global oil market. Like Venezuela, for example. He’d read in one of the recent reports that the leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, had actually teamed up with Iran to raise oil prices to America.

If Mac did the math, it seemed that Venezuela—number four on the world supplier’s list—had much to profit from if America’s wells suddenly dried up.

The tundra muffled his footsteps but not his anger, and Mac caught up to Emma quickly. She became more than an outline; she became a three-dimensional figure in the darkness, breathing and swinging her arms. She held a darkened flashlight in her right hand. Against the vault of night shining on her, she seemed like a blip of pure energy.

He sprinted up behind her, caught her arm, whipped her to a stop.

She screamed, one short burst, then hit him across the head with the flashlight.

Slightly reeling, he grabbed her other arm.
Wow, she can pack a wallop.
But her eyes were wide and her mouth open as if even she couldn’t believe she’d hit him.