FIRE AND ICE (29 page)

S
OPHIE STEPPED AWAY FROM THE BODY. “CHICAGO,” SHE SAID.
“I talked to him in Chicago. He was rude, and I thought he looked like Bluto.”

Jack knelt on one knee and methodically went through the man’s pockets, searching for identification. He found a gun, engaged the safety, and handed it to her. In another pocket he found two clips and gave those to her as well.

“He was the security guard,” she said. “No, I thought he was a security guard. I remember thinking he was filling in for someone else at the reception desk.”

“Where, Sophie?” Jack asked patiently. “Where exactly did you see him?”

“In the lobby of William Harrington’s apartment building.”

If Jack was surprised by the news, he didn’t show it. “Go back inside before you freeze to death.”

His expression told her he didn’t want an argument. She headed toward the cabin but dropped one of the clips in the snow. She scooped it up and held it against her so she wouldn’t drop it again. Inside, she carefully placed the gun and clips on the table next to the
rifle and felt a little calmer, knowing if anyone else were to start shooting at her she had weapons to defend herself. It wasn’t relevant that she had never even held a gun until just a moment ago. Jack would show her how to unlock the safety and load the weapon. By God, she’d shoot to kill if she had to.

She remembered the bloodstains on the snow and went outside again. While Jack moved the snowmobile and the body behind the cabin, she scooped up handfuls of snow and covered the blood. Then she stomped it down so the wind wouldn’t carry it away. It seemed to her that the temperature had dropped again. Did it ever get too cold to snow, or was that a myth? She didn’t know. She should have paid attention in earth science class instead of flirting with Billy Gibson.

By the time she and Jack were back inside the cabin, they were feeling the early effects of hypothermia. Sophie’s feet were numb, but after pacing in front of the heater, her toes began to sting, a good sign, she knew, though it was painful.

Jack was going through the drawers of the cabinet looking for anything they might need should they be stuck in the cabin all night. In the bottom drawer he found a stack of porn magazines, which explained how some of the stranded pilots passed the time, and a flashlight. The batteries were weak. He added the flashlight to the pile on the table and kept looking.

“This is the most ill-equipped cabin,” he muttered.

“What should it be equipped for?” she asked. She pulled off her gloves and warmed her hands in front of the heater.

“Anything and everything. We’ll need more kerosene, and I don’t see any.”

“Chipper will be here soon.” She tried to sound optimistic.

Jack nodded. “There’s a small utility shed close. I’ll look there.”

“It might be locked,” she said as she put on her gloves again.

“If it is, I’ll break the lock.” He pulled the curtain away from the window and scanned the area in front of the cabin.

“Jack, what are you thinking?” she asked.

He didn’t want to scare her, but he wanted her to be prepared. “If the man I killed had friends waiting for him, they might come looking. We need to be ready for anything … just in case.”

He looked at her to see how she was handling the dark pos sibility.

She simply nodded and said, “Okay.” She wrapped her scarf around her neck and tucked it inside her collar. “Show me how to use the gun.”

He smiled.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re a lot tougher than you look.”

He gave her the man’s gun and made her release and engage the safety several times before he was convinced she wouldn’t forget it in a crisis. Then he showed her how to load the clips and fire the weapon.

Sophie put the extra clips in her left pocket, zipped it closed, and checked the safety one last time before slipping the gun into her right pocket.

“I’m going to the shed. I’ll be right back,” he told her. He looked outside before opening the door. Sophie was right behind him.

“I’m going with you. I can help carry if there are things we can use.” She nudged his back. “Hurry. You’re letting the cold in.”

He pulled the door closed. She walked beside him, and he slowed his pace so that she could keep up. “You just had to come to Alaska,” he grumbled. “I hate this cold.”

She ignored his complaints. The snowfall had diminished, and Sophie looked off to the east. On the dark horizon, she could just make out the silhouette of a building. Joe had told them that the scientists closed down for the fall, but maybe Bluto had gotten inside and been waiting there for them to show up.

“How did Bluto … I mean, how did the man who shot at us know we would be here? He must have followed us,” she said.

They had reached the shed, and as Jack tried to pry open the
door, Sophie pulled the wool scarf over her mouth and nose to warm the air before she inhaled it. Hearing a sound in the distance, she looked up at the heavy clouds hanging over them, expecting to see Chipper’s plane.

“Do you hear—?”

Jack grabbed her and pulled her to the side of the tiny building. “Someone’s coming. Stay here.”

He slowly looked around the corner. Two … no, three lights were coming toward the cabin from the east. Three men on snowmobiles were riding at full speed. It was too dangerous for Jack and Sophie to try to make it back to the cabin, so they waited. The men slowed and fanned out as they got closer. One headed toward the front, halting before he reached the cabin so he couldn’t be seen. The other two circled to the back. When they passed the snow mobile Jack had parked there, they stopped abruptly.

“They found the body,” Jack whispered.

One man motioned to the other, and they turned their machines around and retreated a few hundred feet, pausing to confer. Jack saw one of the men lift a fuel can from the back of his snowmobile. On foot, they crept up to the cabin again. The third man moved closer, drawing a gun and aiming at the front door while the other two bent low and ran under the window. One took a rag from his pocket, dipped it in the can, and set it afire. Giving the signal, he broke the glass and tossed the rag inside just as the man with the fuel threw the open can through the window. The light from the flame flashed across the opening, and the cabin ignited. The men crouched in the snow, waiting for Sophie and Jack to run out the door.

Sophie couldn’t get the gun out of her pocket with her gloves on, so she pulled one off. Flexing her hand for circulation, she wrapped it around the handle with her finger on the trigger.

One of the men turned to the side and saw motion coming from the shed. By the time he raised his gun in their direction, Jack had aimed and fired. Solid hit. The man dropped on the snow facedown.

Jack swung to the left and fired again. He wounded the second man, got him in the shoulder, and fired again. The bullet hit him in the back of the knee as he tried to turn to shoot. Screaming, he went down hard.

The third man disappeared. A second later, they heard a snowmobile revving up. Jack ran toward the bastard writhing on the ground and kicked the gun away from him.

Sophie followed. “This one’s not going anywhere,” she shouted as she pointed the gun at his head. “Go after the other one.”

“If he moves, shoot him,” Jack ordered. Running to a snowmobile, he jumped on and took off. The man he followed headed east, then veered north at full speed. Jack thought he must be disoriented. There was nothing in that direction but the ocean.

The sky had turned dark, and the lights on the snowmobile made it easy to follow him. The light wavered, and Jack heard gunshots. The man was shooting at him. At this speed, it was only a matter of time before he lost control of the snowmobile and killed himself. Jack slowed down, widening the distance between them, and followed as the man zigzagged across the snow, the light on his vehicle bouncing at every bump.

How many miles had they gone? Jack’s face stung from the cold; his eyes burned from the wind. Where did the bastard think he was headed? Had he lost his bearings? They had to be getting close to the ocean.

The guy would have to veer again or turn back in his direction. Keeping him within sight, Jack slowed down even more.

Suddenly, he heard a loud echoing crack. It was followed by a terrified scream, and then a splash. The lights on the snowmobile aimed toward the sky and disappeared. Another scream … then silence.

“Son of a birch,” Jack whispered. “Son of a bitch.”

Jack looked at the ice beneath him. Not a good way to go, he thought. He instantly turned his snowmobile around and sped away
from there as fast as he could. As he headed south, he saw a light in the distance. The fire from the burning cabin was his beacon.

Sophie was getting frantic. Jack had been gone too long. When she heard the hum of a snowmobile, she let out a deep breath. It had to be him, she thought. Had to.

The man she was guarding glared at her. “FBI’s on the way,” she told him, as she shifted from one foot to the other. The heat from the fire warmed her face, but her feet were still freezing. Fire and ice, she thought. It seemed so bizarre to be standing there watching the fire burn and the snow melt, and then instantly refreeze. Crazy. Fire and ice.

Sophie had never been so happy to see anyone. When Jack walked toward her, she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him, but she restrained herself. He was going to have to help her release her grip on the gun first. She thought her finger might be frozen to the trigger.

After Jack took the gun from her hand, he faced the man on the ground. “Who are you?”

“I need medical attention,” the man yelled. He was actually outraged.

“Who are you?” Jack repeated.

“I need medical—”

Jack kicked his leg. “Who are you?”

The man screamed. “Carter. Dr. Eric Carter. Now get me help.”

“You’re a doctor? Fix yourself.”

Eric sneered. “I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m a Ph.D. in biology.”

“You study the wolves?” Sophie asked.

His gaze turned to Sophie. “All ruined. You’ve ruined everything. Why couldn’t you let it go?”

They heard the drone of a plane’s engine.

“Chipper’s here,” Jack said.

“Why wouldn’t I let what go?” she asked Carter.

“Our test subject. Why wouldn’t you leave it alone? You kept pecking away.”

“You’re talking about William Harrington?” she asked.

“Stupid female. You kept pecking away.”

“What were you testing?” she asked. “What did you do to him?”

He didn’t answer.

“Come on, Sophie,” Jack said. “I’ll put you in the plane and come back for him. You need to get warm.”

Dr. Carter wasn’t going anywhere. Jack got on the snowmobile with Sophie behind him. She rested her face against his back. Jack motioned for Chipper to stay where he was as they drove the snowmobile toward him. He opened the plane door for Sophie, and a burst of warm air poured across her face. Once she was seated in the back, Jack climbed in and shut the door. He didn’t give a damn if Eric had to wait for him in the snow while he got warm. A few minutes wouldn’t kill him.

“Radio the police in Barrow,” he told Chipper and then quickly explained what had happened.

Chipper’s brown eyes got so big that, by the time Jack finished explaining, he looked like a cocker spaniel. “What are you going to do with Carter?” he asked.

“Tie him up and put him with the cargo.”

Once he could face the cold again, Jack headed back to where he’d left Eric Carter. Thinking he saw something moving up ahead, he slowed, and then stopped. The light from the snowmobile was being reflected by a pair of tiny circles. Eyes. Glowing red eyes, watching him. He turned the light and saw the others. Four of them. Wolves standing together about twenty feet from Eric.

Jack heard their hungry growls. He concentrated on the biggest one at the front of the pack. He was huge. His white coat was marked with a dark strip across the back. He stared at Jack, and their gazes locked. As Jack reached for his gun, the wolf turned toward Eric and pounced with lightning speed. His fangs punctured the doctor’s throat before Jack could draw his weapon. The others leapt,
and it was too late. Too late to save the man. The wolf he had been watching lifted his head and looked at him again, then continued to feed.

Jack got the hell out of there.

Once he was inside the plane, he could breathe again. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said.

“Like what?” Sophie asked.

He shook his head.

“Where’s the doctor?”

“He didn’t make it.”

“He must have bled to death,” she guessed.

“Yeah, he definitely bled out.”

The planes engines drowned out the wolves’ howls.

Jack leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. “Damn,” he whispered. “Damn.”

Sophie tapped his shoulder. “Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“What happened to the man you were chasing?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “He went swimming.”