Darkness (22 page)

Gina frowned. “They’re clearing the runway.”

Cal followed her gaze.

“Shit.” He stood up abruptly. Picking up the backpacks, he slung them over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

Gina stood up, too, but she was still staring down at the tractor. “Why would they be—” She broke off as the answer sent cold chills sliding down her spine. “They’re expecting a plane to land.”

“Looks like it.” His voice was grim. He started walking and she followed. Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to put as much distance as possible between herself and what was going on below.

They were maybe halfway up the mountain, high enough so that she could see but not hear the tractor, and at this point the trail was wide enough for them to walk side by side, with about five feet on the other side of it before a sheer drop-off plunged some three hundred feet into a snowy ravine. As it curled around the mountain, she knew from experience, the trail got narrower, and steeper.

“That can’t be good,” she said, catching up and falling into step beside him.

“Nope.”

“Unless a plane’s coming to pick them up and take them away from here?” She knew it was a forlorn hope even as she said it.

“I’d say they’re bringing in more people.”

“Why?” Her voice was full of trepidation. She looked back down at the camp. Except for the glow of its headlights, the tractor once again had been swallowed by fog. The light spilling from the windows of the main building created yellow rectangles in the mass of gray, keeping her oriented. She and Cal were above the dense blanket of fog covering the low-lying areas now, and as they climbed higher it was like looking down on a rolling bank of storm clouds from the window of an airplane. Up where they were, the mist was lighter and finer, more lacy tendrils and a less solid block of condensation. The honks of a formation of Aleutian cackling geese as they flew past overhead were the only sounds other than the wind and the sea.

Cal said, “They’ll be concerned about possible witnesses.”

Gina digested that. “They can’t afford to leave anybody alive.” Her voice was hollow with realization.

He said, “We’ve got some time. Nobody’s landing anything in this fog.”

At that indirect confirmation that she was right on with her deduction, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified. “Oh, goody. We just have to worry about the killers who are already here. For now.”

A corner of his mouth quirked up in response. He slanted a glance at her. “How well do you know Attu?”

“I’ve studied a map: I know the layout and where things are generally.” Glancing back down at the industriously moving headlights, she shuddered. “I’ve walked some of the trails, although the farthest I’ve gone is about half a day’s walk from camp.” She flicked a look at him. His head was bent slightly, to hear her better over the blowing wind, she thought. Seen in profile, his features looked as hard and unyielding as the craggy black mountain rising behind him. “I’ve gone around the eastern tip of the island in a Zodiac.”

“Big mistake, huh?” The hint of humor in his voice caught her by surprise.

“Oh, yeah.”

He smiled at the fervency with which she said that, and once again she found herself thinking what a great-looking guy he was. Good-looking, good with his hands—the memory of their kiss and his subsequent feel-up of her body sent a reminiscent pulse through her—why, if she hadn’t been on the run for her life and he hadn’t been a dangerous stranger that she not only knew nothing about but didn’t want to know anything about and, oh, yeah, if life hadn’t smashed her romantic tendencies like a glass at the end of a Jewish wedding ceremony, she just might have been interested in him.

But given the above conditions, not a chance. Even if he was an excellent kisser.

He said, “You know of anyplace where we could hide out and still keep an eye on that runway?”

Gina frowned, considering. “There’s a lookout post near the top of Weston Mountain.” She pointed. The peak loomed to her left, its summit wreathed in fog that hid the tiny, tumbledown cabin on sky-high stilts that was the lookout post. “Well, the remains of one. You can see the whole camp from there. When it isn’t so foggy, that is. Artillery Hill”—she pointed toward the west, where fog obscured the lower-elevation knob near the bay—“has some old Quonset huts still standing. Plus there are storage sheds all over the place. And caves.”

He looked interested. “Caves?”

She nodded. “There’s this massive cave system throughout the mountains. Lots of natural caves, and then the Japanese apparently dug tunnels connecting them so that they could move around the island and launch guerrilla attacks on our guys during World War Two.”

“Any in the right place so we can shelter in it while keeping watch on the runway?”

“The entrance to one is up there.” Gina pointed to nearby Terrible Mountain, the southern face of which overlooked the camp.

“And you know this how?”

“Some of the puffins I’m studying have burrows up around it. I’ve seen the entrance, but I’ve never been inside the cave.”

“How long approximately would it take us to get there?”

“Without going back through camp”—which would be the quickest and shortest route—“probably about four hours. We’d have to go through Jackson Pass.”

“You know how to get there from here?”

“Yes. Theoretically.”

“That’s good enough. Let’s check it out. We going the right way?”

Gina nodded. They had reached the point where the trail started narrowing, and he made a gesture to her to precede him, saying, “Lead on, Macduff.”

That made her shoot him an aren’t-you-funny glance over her shoulder, but she kept going, climbing doggedly up the icy path, taking the left-leading fork despite the fact that it snaked around the edge of a cliff that fell away into clouds and felt as thin and perilous as a tightrope underfoot. There were a couple of questions she had to ask, and she braced herself for answers she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to like.

Glancing at him over her shoulder, she said, “Why would we rather hide in a cave than, say, a Quonset hut?”

Their eyes met, and there was something in his that told her she’d been right about not liking the answer she was about to hear.

“If they haven’t already, they’re going to be launching a massive search for us. Not just a ground search, but a high-tech scan of the island. Thermal imaging, infrared, satellite pictures, the whole bag of tricks. If we’re in a cave, there’s less chance of us showing up on anything. Get deep enough inside a mountain and even thermal imaging won’t be able to spot us.”

Okay, she’d known she wasn’t going to like it.

“Who
are
these people?” she burst out. That was another question she really didn’t want to hear the answer to, but now she reluctantly concluded that she needed to know.

He was close behind her. His broad frame blocked the worst of the wind that was huffing past in great gusts now, and once again she wondered whether he was shielding her intentionally.

He said, “I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when I am.”

That sounded evasive. She glanced back at him, but his face told her absolutely nothing. She decided to mark that as a topic to be pursued later and moved on to what she considered a more urgent question. “Why do we need to watch the runway?”

“Because after it lands, we’re going to steal the plane that’s coming in.” He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

Gina stopped dead and turned to face him. “
What
?”

“
Careful
.” His hands shot out to steady her, catching her upper arms and curling around them. He was clearly concerned with the drop-off beside them, while she, having traversed this trail a number of times, barely noticed it. He continued, “We need to get off this island. That’s the quickest and surest way I can think of to do it.” Turning her back around, he gave her a little push that started her walking again. “Keep going. You want to be out here in the open when whatever’s blowing in hits?”

That last was a rhetorical question, so she didn’t reply. Anyway, even as she started walking again her mind was busy boggling. Just the thought of stealing a plane and escaping in it felt impossible.

“That’s crazy.” She was suddenly short of breath, and not from the climb.

“You worried I can’t fly us out of here? I can.”

No, no, no
. Gina shook her head emphatically. “I’m worried that trying to steal a plane, much less fly it out of here, is stupid.” Her mouth felt dry. “They’ll catch us. The smart thing to do is hide and wait. The ship that brought most of us here will be back in five days. So will the Reever—the plane that brought the rest of us.”

“You got a ship
and
a plane coming for you?”

“The Reever can carry a maximum of six passengers. And the ship is a freighter with a regular run to Siberia. It has accommodations for a few passengers, and it was just easier for some of us to travel on it. Bad weather sometimes keeps the Reever from flying, but the ship will definitely be here on time.”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced back again. His expression spoke for him. It was grim, and suddenly she knew why they couldn’t wait for the plane or the ship.

They were never going to make it five days.

Chapter Nineteen

I
f he’d shown up five minutes later, she’d be dead. That was the thought that lodged itself in Cal’s mind as Gina cast a frowning glance back at him. Bundled up from head to toe like she was, she still made a slender and unmistakably feminine figure against the bleak backdrop of mountain and fog and threatening skies. Her blue eyes were clouded with worry, her cheeks were rosy with cold, and long strands of honey-colored hair had escaped from her hood to blow around her head. Even pressed tightly together as they were at the moment, her lips remained enticingly full. Kissable, he thought as his eyes dropped to them, and he remembered the hot way she’d kissed him before he shook the recollection off.
Sexy as hell
was his instant assessment of how she looked as she climbed the path ahead of him with long, athletic strides.
Beautiful
and
brave
were also in the mix, the beautiful part obvious and the brave because she was still trucking, still making rational decisions after finding her friends dead and nearly being killed herself. Not that any of that made any real difference to any course of action he planned to take. She was under his protection now, and he was going to do his best by her whether she agreed with it or not. He found himself thanking God that he’d listened to his instincts earlier and followed her back to her camp.

“I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.” Her voice was sharp.

That the runway was being cleared bothered him. There was already a ton of muscle here—who or what were they bringing in? Pondering that question, he answered her almost at random. “We’re running for our lives?”

The look she gave him told him that she wasn’t in the mood for even that lame attempt at humor.

“It’s the
why
I’m interested in,” she said.

He couldn’t tell her. His contract was subject to the rules that governed the highest security clearances, and anyway, the objective of saving her life was to let her keep living it after it was saved. Around the circles he ran in, people who knew too much tended to die young. Their current situation being a case in point. The man he’d killed back there in the camp kitchen—he hadn’t known him, but he knew the type. He was hired help, a paid killer whose allegiance went to the employer with the biggest bank account. The only question was whom he was working for. Whom
they
were working for. Cal still didn’t know, not for sure. Somebody who could infiltrate his company, get to Hendricks, and do what Cal would have thought was impossible, which was get to Ezra.

When Ezra had fired through that door on the jet, he’d aimed low. The only conclusion Cal could draw from that was that Ezra hadn’t been intending to kill him. Although how Ezra had thought that was going to work out in the long run Cal couldn’t quite fathom. He refused to feel anything—grief, loss, anger at the betrayal—for his erstwhile friend. He had no time for emotion now. Emotion got you killed. He meant to live, and to keep the woman frowning at him alive, too. It was a big job, and he wasn’t going to let feelings get in the way of that.

The fact that he had one gun, a Beretta 92FS semiautomatic pistol with about half a clip in it, only served to make things interesting.

He told her, “You’re better off not knowing.”

Her frown turned into a full-blown scowl. “You know what you can do with that. My friends were
murdered
today. I was almost murdered today. I think I have a right to know why.”

She stumbled on a rock in the path. He once again automatically reached out to steady her. He let go almost instantly, as soon as it became obvious that she wasn’t going to pitch face-first over a cliff, but not before he registered that the body part he’d grabbed had been her slender upper arm, which he could feel even through his gloves and her parka.

Damn. He was still all too aware of her as a woman.

Which was a complication their situation did not need.

“Well?” she demanded, sounding testy.

In the spirit of throwing her a bone to keep the peace, Cal said to her back, “You and your friends fall under the heading of collateral damage. My plane was the primary target.”

“Why?”

Jesus, she was persistent. “Because of some information we had.”

“What information?” she shot back.

Okay, enough. “Can’t say.”

She cast another dark glance over her shoulder at him. “Oh, wow, way to be transparent.”

Hugging the very edge of a five-hundred-foot drop, the path took a sharp turn upward at that point. As she looked back at him she was silhouetted against nothing but gray fog and grayer sky. For a moment there it looked as if she would fall off the side of the mountain if she took one more step, and he felt a stab of alarm over her safety.