Gray, Ginna (13 page)

One of the other men said something, and the man turned to answer,
ending the tense moment. He shouted something to the others and they all
relaxed and turned back to the chopper and started hauling out ropes and
rappelling equipment.

Sam had seen all he needed. He wriggled backward on his belly and
squirmed out from under the tree on the side opposite the clearing. Cautiously,
he climbed to his feet and started backing away, through the tree branches,
keeping his gaze on the activity below. The men in the clearing were busy
hauling out equipment and most had their backs to him. He doubted they could
spot him for the trees, anyway, but he carefully edged backward. When he could
no longer see the clearing he spun around and took off for the cabin at a run.

Dammit! he thought viciously. If only he had gotten there an hour
sooner. Now they were going to have to run for it.

And pray for a little luck.

Sam double-timed it all the way back, pushing himself mercilessly,
his lungs working like a smithy's bellows, his breath rushing in and out with a
harsh, rhythmic rasp. By the time he reached the cabin his arm and leg muscles
were screaming.

He burst through the doorway, paying no attention when the old
planked door crashed to the floor.

"Sam!" Lauren jumped and gaped at him, her face pale
with shock. "You're back so early! Did you change your mind about going to
the plane?" she asked innocently.

He skidded to a stop, his chest heaving. She sat cross-legged on
the floor as close to the glowing remains of the fire as she could get.

"No. I...went," he gasped. He glanced at her bare hands.
Her long, slender fingers were still spread over the chunk of wood. "Piano
practice is...over. It's time to...haul ass outta here."

He darted a look around, pleased, and a little surprised, to see
that everything was packed as he had instructed and the duffle bag and pack
were stacked beside the hearth with the other pair of snowshoes leaning against
them. He hadn't been certain that she would be able to pack everything as
compactly as it had been before, but apparently she'd been paying closer
attention than he'd thought.

He grabbed the snowshoes and tossed them to her, leaving her no
choice but to catch them. "Put those on. And hurry it up. We don't have
much time."

"For heaven's sake, what is your rush?"

"Just
do
it!" he snapped. Sam stepped just
outside the door, scooped up a double handful of snow and came back in and
tossed it on the embers of the fire, then went back out for more.

"All right, fine." She stood up and positioned her feet
on the snowshoes, then squatted down to lace them on.

Sam moved back and forth, dumping snow on the embers. When he was
satisfied that they were smothered he put the rifle down and snatched up the
backpack and slipped his arms through the straps and hooked the rifle strap
back over his shoulder.

"Did you find what you wanted at the plane, by the way?"

"No. There were six men in a helicopter already there."

"What?"
Lauren looked up at him, her
face lighting up. "You mean we're being rescued? Why didn't you tell me?
That's wonderful!"

She finished tying bindings and shot to her feet. Slinging the
duffle bag over her shoulder, she clomped toward the door as fast as she could.
"C'mon, let's go. Oh, I can't wait for a hot shower and a real bed,"
she said fervently.

"Forget it. We're getting out of here on our own."

Lauren stopped and gaped at him as though he'd suddenly grown a
second head. "What do you mean? Why in God's name would we do that when
there's a rescue party waiting? I don't understand."

"You don't have to. If you'll recall, before we left Denver I
made it clear that you were to follow my orders—no questions, no arguing. When
I say jump, the only thing I want to hear from you is 'How high?' That's
it." He grasped her shoulders and turned her back toward the door and gave
her a little push. "Now move out. And hurry."

"No! I won't." She grabbed the sides of the door frame
and tried to dig in her heels, which, of course, was impossible in the unwieldy
snowshoes. "Why should I, when there are men with a helicopter waiting to
fly us out of these mountains?"

"Dammit! Those men aren't here to rescue us, you little
idiot! They're here to kill us."

She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes as big as saucers.
"Wha-what?"

Her face went slack with shock, every vestige of color draining
away. Sam relinquished his hold on her shoulders and stared down at her, his
mouth grim.

"They came to verify that we were dead," he said in a
voice only a fraction less harsh. "And when they discover that you and I
aren't—which I'm sure they have by now—they'll try to find us and finish the
job."

Lauren began to tremble. She slumped against the door frame for
support. Pressing her hand against her midriff, she closed her eyes.
"Carlo's men," she whispered. "Even here. Oh God."

Her eyes snapped open. "Wait. How can that be? How did they
find us? How did they know about the crash and where to look?"

Sam just looked at her. She was quick, he'd give her that.

"Best guess? Someone sabotaged the plane. They probably made
an educated guess that we'd head west, away from heavily populated areas. They
timed it so that we would go down in the mountains, one of the most rugged and
inhospitable places you can find, especially in the dead of winter. Case in
point— if the weather hadn't prevented it, those guys would've been here two
days ago.

"I figure they planted a homing device on the plane so that
they could track us and verify the kill. That's what I was going back to
retrieve from the crash and destroy."

"How can you be so sure of all this? Did you recognize
them?"

"No."

"Then why do you think they mean to harm us? What if those
men are agents from your office who really are here to rescue us?"

"Look, you're just going to have to trust me on this. I don't
have time to explain right now. We have to get out of here. So move it."

"But—"

"Dammit, woman! I figure we've got an hour at most before
they find my trail and track me here. I'm not wasting another minute arguing
with you. So get your ass moving. Now!"

"I still don't—"

Bending from the waist, Sam stuck his face to within an inch of
hers. She flinched back, and he saw her pupils widen and a flicker of fear
chase across her face.

Good. Maybe now she'd listen.

"Lady, you either get moving or so help me I'll deck you and
throw you over my shoulder," he growled. "One way or another, we're
getting the hell outta here right now. Your choice."

She swallowed hard, but after a moment's hesitation she tilted her
chin and huffed, "Oh, very well, I'll go. But I don't like it," she
tacked on defiantly.

"Tough." He put his hand in the middle of her back and
shoved her out the door.

"Hey! You don't have to be so rough."

"This way." Ignoring the complaint, he directed her into
the stand of trees to the right of the cabin. "Go! Go! Go!"

Lauren fumed every step of the way. This was crazy. Why were they
risking their lives this way? Someone else at the FBI office had to have known
where they were going. That would've told them where to look when she and Sam
didn't show up at their destination. Wouldn't it?

She wanted to argue that point with Sam, but she didn't dare. The
look in his eyes when he'd threatened her with brute force had told her that he
wasn't bluffing, and she didn't relish the idea of being coldcocked and carted
off like a sack of feed.

A few yards into the trees, the ground began an upward slope that
made the going even more difficult. Constantly nudging and prodding, Sam hustled
Lauren through the spruce and aspens at a punishing trot. All along the way, as
they ran he reached out to either side and behind them and shook the snow off
tree limbs to cover their tracks as best he could. "C'mon. Move it! Move
it! Get the lead out!"

"I'm going as fa-fast...as I ca-can in these sho—"

She stopped abruptly when the woods ended and she found herself
staring at a steep rocky slope. Bending over, she braced her hands on her knees
and struggled to catch her breath and shoot Sam an annoyed look over her
shoulder. "Now...what?"

"Now we start climbing." He bent and started untying his
snowshoes. "First, though, we take these off. Use the bindings to tie them
to the duffle bag." He looked up at her and scowled. "Don't just
stand there. Get busy."

"You
can't
be serious. You expect me to... cl-climb up
there?"

"It's not as bad as it looks. There's an old trail hacked out
of the rocks that leads to the mine shack. Above that is a fairly level bench
of land that we can follow around to that cut west of here."

Lauren straightened and craned her head back to look up. About a
hundred feet above their heads an abandoned mine building clung to the
mountainside, its broken flume dangling out in air. The bench he wanted to
reach was another hundred feet or so above that. "All the way up there?
That's almost straight up. We'll never make it."

"We'll make it. We have to. Quit wasting time worrying about
it and just do it. And get those shoes off. And take off your gloves, too.
You'll need to get a good grip in places."

"Why are we doing this? Wouldn't it be easier to go that
way?" she asked, pointing to the south, where the mountain sloped downward
toward a high open meadow.

"That's the point. They'll expect us to take off that way. I
even left a false trail before I came back to the cabin. It won't fool an
experienced tracker for long, but it may give us a little extra time. We need
all the breaks we can get.

"Anyway, that meadow is farther away than you think. Before
we could get across that open stretch they'd have us lined up in their
crosshairs."

Lauren winced. Now there was a pleasant thought.

"They won't be expecting us to go this way, and tracking
someone over rock is more difficult—even rock with snow on it. I'm hoping, by
the time they figure it out, we'll have bought ourselves even more time."

Still unconvinced, Lauren bit her lower lip and looked doubtful.
Nevertheless, she did as she was told.

Sam already had his snowshoes tied to the backpack by the time she
stood up, and he took hers from her and quickly secured them to the bag she
carried. When done, he pulled a short length of nylon rope from the pack and
tied one end around her waist and the other around his. "Okay, let's move
out."

The trail had long since grown over with scrub, and in places it
had been altered by rock slides and was mostly covered with snow, to the point
that Lauren couldn't make out a path at all. Sam, however, had no such
difficulty. He set a grueling pace, climbing with the speed and agility of a
mountain goat. Tethered to him, Lauren had no choice but to keep up as best she
could.

Huffing and straining, she clambered over boulders and struggled
up steep grades on which the merest toeholds had been chipped out by some
long-ago miner. More than once she slipped on icy spots and loose rocks. Each
time she cried out in terror but somehow she managed to grab hold of a nearby
bush or tree branch and arrest her slide. Even so, if it hadn't been for the
safety line she knew she would have probably tumbled down the mountainside.

Another slip was followed by a shriek, and Sam scowled at her over
his shoulder. "Keep it down, will you? Sound carries a long way in these
mountains."

"I can't...help it," she gasped. "Nearly falling to
my death tends to frighten me."

"You're not going to fall. The rope will prevent that. Just
watch where I step and do what I do and you'll be okay."

He turned back before she could answer, and Lauren ground her
teeth and aimed a blistering look at a spot between his shoulder blades. What
did he
think
she'd been doing? She'd been trying to mimic his every
move, but the difference in their heights, and therefore their strides, did not
always make that possible.

It took perhaps twenty minutes of hard scrabble climbing to reach
the old mine shack. By that time Lauren was winded and her palms were scraped
and stinging. She had assumed they would take a rest break at the abandoned
mine shack, but Sam forged on without so much as a pause. She wanted to protest
but pride kept her silent. That and a lingering wariness of his black mood.

For the first seventy-five or eighty feet above the mine shack the
going was arduous, even more so than on the so-called trail they had followed
the first half of the climb. At various times, Lauren found herself clinging to
the mountain by her fingertips and climbing up impossible grades, often pulling
herself up by grabbing onto bushes and small trees.

The higher they went, the more difficult the ascent became,
especially for Lauren. Sam's moccasins seemed to give him a surefooted grip, but
her heavy boots, though they protected her feet from the sharp rocks, made the
climbing awkward for her.