“Let’s just say I’m pleased the subject isn’t going to come up. Once we get on that ledge it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to drop down to the shoreline.”

“The operative word in that sentence, Jon, is ‘once.’”

“We can make it.” Smith forced his confidence again, eyeing the descent. At this point, the glacier ice began its final cascade down the near vertical north wall of the central ridge, a frozen waterfall that extruded slightly from the mountain face. With luck they could work their way down to the ledge in the joining angle between rock and ice.

“I’ll lower you first, Val, then the packs, then Smyslov. I’ll rappel down last.”

He saw Valentina shoot a glance back toward the Russian, who stood defiantly leashed a few feet away. “Jon, might I have a few private words with you?”

“Of course.”

They stepped away from the edge of the glacier, moving down the back trail until they were behind Smyslov. It was hard to tell with the darkness and the bulky clothing, but the Russian seemed to stiffen as they moved past him.

Valentina lifted her snow goggles and pushed down her ice-encrusted snow mask, her face underlit by her glow stick. “We have a problem here,” she said, keeping her voice modulated to be just audible over the wind.

“Just one?” Smith replied with grim humor.

She tilted her head toward Smyslov’s back, not smiling. “I’m serious, Jon. We’ve got to be able to move. He’s slowing us down and he’s complicating a situation that’s quite sticky enough as is.”

“I know it, but we don’t have much of a choice in the matter.” He shifted his own mask and goggles, granting her the right of reading his own facial expressions. “We can’t just turn him loose. If he rejoined the Spetsnaz force he could be a valuable asset for them, and the deck is already stacked against us.”

“I quite agree, Jon. We can’t allow him to return to his Russian friends.” Her expression was as arctic as the environment. “But we can’t very well keep him as a pet. As we lack a convenient POW camp to drop him off at, that leaves us with only one option…”

“Which I am not yet ready to consider.”

She frowned. “Jon, civilization is a marvelous institution and all that, but be practical. We are up against the wall here, literally! If it’s that whole Hippocratic oath thing, I can deal with it. Gregory and I can go for a little walk to admire the scenery-”

“No,” Smith replied firmly.

“Jon, we can’t afford-!”

“I’m not sure if he’s an enemy yet, Val.”

“Jon,” her voice lifted in protest, “I was there this afternoon when the bolshi bastard tried to drop the hammer on you! That doesn’t make him a friend!”

“I know it. Trust me on this. Something’s telling me that Smyslov isn’t sure just what he is yet himself. I want to give him the chance to decide. This is a command decision, Val. It’s not open for discussion.”

“What if he decides he’s a ‘them’ and not an ‘us’?”

“Then, as the book says, we will reassess the situation and take appropriate action as the tactical conditions dictate.”

“And what if hanging onto Smyslov gets us dead, Jon?”

“Then I will have royally fucked up my job, and the failure of this mission will rest entirely with me.”

She started a heated response, hesitated, than smiled wryly. “Well, as long as you’d be willing to admit to it,” she replied, redonning her snow mask. “But if you get us killed before you take me to bed properly at least once, I shall throw an absolute hissy and not speak to you for an entire week.”

Smith laughed aloud in spite of himself and their situation. “Thank you for that motivation, Val,” he replied, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. “Now, let’s get this descent out of the way.”

Chapter Forty-one

The South Face, Wednesday Island

Randi wanted more snow and more wind, badly. As she had feared, there wasn’t storm enough to completely cover her trail. Looking back, she could see the flare glows and light beams following her half-erased tracks. There must be at least half a dozen of them, and they were driving her steadily higher up the face of the ridge.

She wasn’t dodging gunfire yet. That was good. It meant they didn’t have a visual on her. But she couldn’t see or plan for more than a yard or two ahead, and she was losing orientation in the swirling night. Randi could no longer place herself in relation to the rest of the island. She was just somewhere on the central ridge. It was only a matter of time before she found herself trapped on a dead-end ledge or in a no-exit pocket.

She must find rock, bare rock, amid a universe of ice and snow, to lose her trail on. Then she had to find some kind of shelter. She was getting tired, so incredibly tired. She stumbled over a snow-covered pile of rubble and fell, striking her shoulder against a massive boulder.

No, not a boulder. Too big. A cliff face. God, if she could only just see where she was! If she could just lie here for a second and close her eyes… Jon, dammit, where are you?

She snapped her eyes open and forced herself to her hands and knees. Move, you stupid bitch! Don’t you remember? There’s no one in the world you can depend on but yourself. Everyone else dies on you. Move! You’re losing time and distance! The lights are getting closer.

Randi got to her feet and moved on, her right hand brushing the cliff face as a guide. What the hell did the world look like around her? All she could see were differing shades and textures of darkness.

They were well above the science station now. The cliff face was on her right, so she must be going west. Off to her left would be essentially nothing, the downslope. How steep would the drop-off be along here? Somehow it “felt” like another cliff edge. So she was on a ledge or shelf, then. What was ahead? That was impossible to say, but the ledge seemed to be tilting outward in an ominous trend.

She didn’t have to look back. She knew what was behind her.

Randi could be sure of only one thing. She wasn’t going to be taken. If she reached a dead end, she must find a way to make her pursuers kill her.

She heard the rattle of a machine-gun burst, and she instinctively threw herself facedown on the ledge before she realized there were no bullet strikes nearby. They weren’t that close yet. Someone back there was getting trigger-happy.

Randi’s relief lasted only a second. From somewhere above her she both heard and felt a deep, almost explosive crump. The reverberations of the gunfire had broken a snow cornice loose. Avalanche! Where? In front of her? Behind her? On top of her? It was impossible to tell beyond “close.” She cowered and threw her arms over her face.

There was a brief whispering rumble, and the ledge trembled. Feathery plumes of sprayed snow engulfed her, but there was no crushing impact, no frozen flood sweeping her away. After a wired, panicky moment she relaxed and dropped her arms. It had been only a small one. A few tons of freed snow at most, and it had passed a few yards ahead. She shook off the thin haze of snow that had caked atop her, and got back to her feet.

The question now was, could she get over the mound of loose snow that would be heaped on the ledge without losing herself over the side? Too bad it hadn’t fallen between her and the search party. It might have done her some good then.

Randi’s mind locked up for a second, then raced. The slide had done her some good. Possibly it had given her a chance.

What if her pursuers found her tracks leading up to the edge of the slide and then stopping? Would they think she had been swept away? They couldn’t be happy with being out here tonight, either. Maybe an excuse to quit the search would be all they’d need.

She took two or three strides forward to reach the edge of the loose slide snow. This would be it. She would have to go straight upslope from this point, and it didn’t matter what the cliff face might look like even if she could see it.