Page 70 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

If everything had gone according to plan, Holly would have packed the chute and harnesses, stripped the jump coverall off the drugged pilot, and given him a small push.

Their original landing zone was supposed to be fifty meters above the Mt. Elbrus ski area. He would stumble or slide down onto the ski slope and truthfully claim for the rest of his days that he had no memory of his final flight, how he’d survived the crash, or how he’d come to be where he was.

Now, it was a hard hike over a steep ice-and-snow-coated ridge to get there.

Holly considered letting him come fully conscious, make a deal with him, and help him hike to the ski slope. But then he’d know that perhaps Inessa had been rescued and wasn’t dead after all.

So, before he could gain the wherewithal of a hamster to argue with her, she dosed him again—double—as one should have kept him under for the whole escape.

Except he was a big guy and she hadn’t compensated for that.

Might have a higher metabolism too. She then made a hauling sledge by tying him up in the parachute but leaving the long lines hooked to her body harness.

The advantage was that the long swath of slippery nylon kept him from sinking into the deep powder, making him relatively easy to move.

The disadvantage was that it did nothing to help her.

They’d crashed at sunset, near enough 1645 hours for her not to care about the details. The problem was that, instead of getting rid of him this evening, she must deliver him to the top of the ski slope before anyone else arrived tomorrow morning. Sunrise was around 0730.

Fifteen hours to hike a kilometer was laughably easy. Doing it over a ridge at twelve thousand feet through deep snow and subzero temperatures? Not so funny.

She purposely drank her water bottle dry, loaded it with snow, stuffed it inside her coat to melt, and ate a piece of chocolate after wrapping him in his cocoon.

“You’re a bastard, Boris.” She hadn’t bothered to learn his name, which might be a bit crass for drugging someone, wrecking his plane, and dragging his ass over a mountain, but she certainly wasn’t going to waste time digging around in his coveralls.

“Couldn’t you have been a svelte Natasha?

A petite Svetlana gymnast I could toss into a backpack?

Oh no! You had to be a Russian Ivan.” After unlimbering a set of foldable hiking poles to steady herself and test for random crevasses, she checked her GPS heading, reminded herself to do that frequently, and set off.

After the first twenty meters of wading through snow up to her waist, she considered the wisdom of calling up Tad to come fetch her on this side of the mountain.

Then they could drop Igor at the ski slope and keep going.

Except every radar facing this side of the mountain would now be scanning for any detail.

The only answer was to walk around to the mountain’s back side.

She wanted to call Mike and gripe at him as she fell into an under-snow pothole up to her shoulders and had to crawl back out. Max and Pavle had reported that there were no big crevasses on this face, but they hadn’t said a word about woman-deep potholes.

But she couldn’t call Mike. Though their radios were encrypted, the Russians would be able to triangulate the transmission point.

If she was alone and on the lower slopes like she was supposed to be, she could transmit and move along quickly.

Right now, she’d be lucky if she could make ten meters headway between a transmission and someone hunting her down.

They’d agreed to a minimum of twelve hours silence, giving the Russian surveillance some time to calm down. But for now it was just her and Alexey, trudging through the Russian wilderness.

Don’t think. Just do. The voice of her old SASR trainer resounded in her head.

“Sure. When the hard get going, then the going gets hard.” Duh! Nobody harder in the head than a SASR operative. Stubborn was a virtue. Or so they’d taught her. No easy day, according to the US SEALs. Same, same.

Shut up and lean into the traces.

“Not a goddamn farm horse.”

But as there was no other solution, that’s what she did. One foot at a time, if she never stopped, she’d never arrive. Or was it if the never started, she’d arrive too soon?

Loopy. Had she taken any of the blue drug?

No. She wasn’t that hardheaded.

Altitude. Oh, right. She had plenty of that.

At five thousand meters, someone had stolen half the oxygen along with half the air.

Who should she call about such a mountainside robbery?

The Ghostbusters? No, that was for something else.

Yeah, like busting ghosts. She could use some of that.

A lot of past ghosts seemed to be out crossing the Mount Elbus snowfield tonight. Too bad she didn’t have their number.

What else hadn’t she taken? Any don’t-do-thats from Miranda, because if she had, she wouldn’t be here. Same with any smart advice from Max. Any water…

She checked her phone for the time. Off track. No, that was her GPS. And it was on track…kinda…but mostly not. The time said, she had to wipe the snow from her eyes, five hours gone. Maybe being hardheaded did work.

Holly checked the GPS again. Definitely not the right time. Or location. She was…

That didn’t make any sense.

She pulled off her goggles and squinted at the display. She was four hundred meters upslope. Not up the ridge she had to cross, but straight up the mountain. She and Ilya, snoozing away all cozy in his rip-stop nylon cocoon, were still on the wrong side of the ridge, but far above the ski area.

Holly beat down a big enough circle of snow that she could sit without being inundated by the powder.

Water. Right. She fished out the water bottle, drank it dry, again packed it full of snow before tucking it back inside her jacket. Survival 101, Harper. Get your shit together before it kills you.

“Yeah, Sarge. I hear you. Nothing worse than being killed by shit.” She ate another piece of chocolate, which almost broke her teeth as she’d left the bar in an outside pocket.

She tucked it in a middle layer pocket, hoping her body heat didn’t melt it into goo.

Then she checked on Anatoly. Sleeping like a giant Russian baby.

“Yep, they grow their babies big here in Russia, Sarge.”

Once she felt the water and chocolate kicking in, she studied her GPS map again. Not as bad as she’d thought. If she cut a forty-five degree downslope as she climbed the ridge, she’d be walking along a level terrain line.

“Hold your altitude, Harper. Seriously.” Because if she trended too far downslope, she doubted she’d ever manage to drag Fyodor back up it. Getting him this high on the mountain had taken everything she could give.

No such thing as that. A SASR warrior can always make it the extra mile.

“Sure thing, Sarge.” It would be easier to argue with him if a) he wasn’t so damn decorated for achieving the impossible, b) he was here, or c) both of them were tucked in a nice warm pub arguing over who owed who the next pint.

Since scenario c) wasn’t going to happen as long as she sat here cooling her ass on the side of Mount Elbrus and it was her favorite of the three choices, she struggled to her feet and began to walk level on the level.

It turned out to be much easier than going straight upslope—until she fell into another hole.