Ice (7 page)

Running down the hallway, he pushed open the double doors with a bang and every head in the room looked up. Scanning the room until he saw the man he had left in charge, John Harper stormed over and bellowed, “What the hell is going on?”

“Busby took off.”

“What? His orders were to stay on the ground!”

“Yeah, well, apparently he didn’t listen.”

“Where are they?”

“That’s why I called you,” the man said, pointing to a blinking light on his console. “They went down.”

“Christ,” Harper groaned, seeing the emergency locator transmitter signal flashing on the screen. “Do you know where?”

“Right smack-dab in the middle of the storm of the century.”

“Can we get to them? Send a team in on snowmobiles, or even on foot?”

“No way. All the reports that we’re getting say that the temps are dropping, and when those three storms finally become one, it’s going to be hell.”

Seeing the expression on Harper’s face, the man touched his sleeve and whispered, “I’m sorry, John, but they’re gone. Even if they survived the crash, there’s no way they can make it through that storm.”

“But what if—”

“John, trust me, they’re gone.”

***

Gradually, the darkness dissolved as the bitter temperature brought Alex Blake back to the land of the living. Swallowing several times to rid herself of the metallic taste in her mouth, she ran her tongue over her lip and felt the split at the corner. Licking away the blood, Alex slowly opened her eyes. Adjusting to the lack of light, as well as to the pain now throbbing in her head, she carefully reached up and felt her left temple. Wincing at the stickiness she discovered, she closed her eyes and took a moment to gather her thoughts. In her mind, she could still hear the terrible sounds of the crash, but everything else was just a swirl of images. Unsure of her injuries, Alex took a few deep breaths before she tried to move.

As if doing slow-motion aerobics, she carefully tilted her head from side to side, and then shrugged her shoulders and lifted her arms. Grateful that she only felt the dull ache from bruised muscles, her confidence grew. Shifting to find the buckle of her seatbelt, her movements were brought to an abrupt halt when a knife-like pain shot through her right thigh.

“Fuck!” she screamed as bolts of pain ran down her leg. “
Fuck
!”

Afraid to move, she sat like a statue until the pain eased. Outside, the snow-covered ground reflected the minimal moonlight which had managed to find its way through the clouds, but inside the plane, it was eerily dark. Unable to see Busby or Campbell, and believing that her screams would have caused a response if they were still alive, Alex’s heart sunk. She was alone.

Finding the courage to move again, she ran her hand over her right thigh, trying to find the injury that had taken her breath away, and when she did, she hissed at the discovery. Poking through her black denim jeans at mid-thigh was a shard of steel.

“Shit,” she muttered, carefully running her fingers along the spire. “Shit. Shit.
Shit
!”

Feeling her heart begin to race, Alex rested her head against the seat and forced herself to calm down. Panic was the last thing she needed to do. Allowing her mind to return to the minutes before the crash, images of the contents of the airplane filled her brain, and the slightest of grins appeared on her face. Gingerly leaning forward to reach the back of the pilot’s seat, she ran her hand along the edge until she found the long flashlight clamped to the side. Pulling it free, she pushed the soft rubber button and blinked at the brightness as the LED light came to life. 

Preparing for the worst, Alex shined the light downward and grimaced at the twisted piece of metal covered in blood she saw protruding from her thigh. Debating on how she was going to hold onto the sharp, slippery steel, she reached into her pocket for her leather gloves. It was only the slightest of movements, so when another lightning bolt of pain shot through her leg, Alex was stunned. Crying out, her voice echoed in the cabin as she fought back tears.

“Jesus Christ!”

Taking several deep breaths to prevent herself from passing out, Alex swallowed the saliva building in her mouth and tentatively reached under her thigh. She prayed that she would be wrong, but when her fingers traced the fragment of steel protruding from the seat cushion before it entered her leg, Alex swallowed hard. She was impaled.

“Oh, fuck me,” she muttered.

Mentally weighing her options, and knowing that there was only one, Alex decided to face one demon at a time. The first was finding out if anyone else was alive. The second would be freeing herself from the shrapnel piercing her leg.

Taking a deep breath, she aimed the flashlight at the cockpit, hoping that George Busby had survived, but he hadn’t. Lying across the center console with his neck at a deadly angle, he stared back at her with empty eyes. Paling at the sight, Alex swallowed hard and then reluctantly shined the light in Maggie’s direction.

Still buckled in her seat, Maggie was hunched over, and with her face completely hidden behind her hair, Alex had no idea if the woman was alive or dead. Careful not to move her leg, she reached over and pressed her fingers against Maggie’s neck. When she felt the thumping of a pulse, a fresh dose of adrenaline burst through Alex’s veins. Knowing that she needed to free herself before she could tend to Maggie, she flashed the light around the cabin. Seeing the shopping bag lodged between the seats, Alex searched until she found the paisley scarf, and placing it within reach, she removed her belt. Folding the leather strap several times before placing it in her mouth, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed herself off the seat.

The belt muffled her screams, but nothing could stop the tears from rolling down her face as spasms of pain radiated up and down her leg. Whimpering in the icy solitude of the cramped cabin, it took several minutes before Alex was calm enough to shine the light toward her seat. Using the end of the flashlight, she bent the bloody spike protruding from the seat to the floor, and wrapping the scarf around her thigh to stop the flow of blood, she pulled it tight.

Settling back into her seat, she was about to wake up Maggie when she felt the plane shift ever so slightly. Hearing the groan of the fuselage as it rubbed against something outside, Alex frowned. She knew they had landed. She remembered the hard thump as the belly of the plane touched down and the whirling spin as it skidded across the field…or was a field? Realizing that they could have easily exited the forest and ended up on the side of a mountain, or precariously perched at the edge of a cliff, her heart began to pound.

Unlocking her door, Alex carefully pushed it open and shined the light around. Seeing snow-covered earth as far as her eye could see, a small grin appeared on her face, but it disappeared almost as quickly. Another loud groan filled the air as the fuselage strained against something unknown and the plane shifted again.

Baffled, she climbed out and slowly put pressure on her injured leg. Discovering that the pain was now dull and quite manageable, she walked carefully around the wreckage searching for the source of the noise. Following the sound with the LED beam, Alex found her answer. The tail of the plane was submerged in water.

“Fuck me!”

No sooner had the words left her mouth when something crackled under her feet. Shining the light on the ground, and seeing nothing but snow, Alex shuffled her feet, and feeling the ice beneath them, the color drained from her face. Swallowing hard, she carefully retraced her steps, holding her breath as the frozen water cracked and strained with every step she took. Reaching the cabin door, she flashed the light toward the nose of the plane, and seeing it buried in a small stand of spindly trees, Alex couldn’t help but smile. Land was only a few feet away. Taking a long, calming breath, she carefully climbed back into the plane.

As if working on a criminal case, Alex methodically sorted the facts. The pilot had told them to head north, so shining the flashlight on her wrist, she checked the compass displayed on the heavy silver watch to get her bearings. Relieved that north was in the direction of the trees rather than the lake, Alex began to make ready for the trip. Within seconds, she found Campbell’s carry-on lodged under a seat and the half-filled bottle of water she had placed in the holder on the door, but her backpack was nowhere in sight. Scratching her head, Alex was about to give up when she spied it wedged under the pilot’s slumped body.

“Shit,” Alex said under her breath, staring at the lifeless form. Taking a few moments to get up the nerve to disturb the dead, she gently extracted the backpack from under his shoulders. Grimacing as he slipped further between the seats, she reached over and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, George. I’m so, so sorry.”

Settling back into her seat, she hunched her shoulders as a gust of wind and snow whipped through the plane. Fighting off the chill, she emptied the bag containing Maggie’s disguise and began tearing apart the black wool skirt. Using the first strip as a bandage, she wrapped it around her head to stop the flow of blood still trickling down her face, and wincing, she pulled it tight. What was left of the skirt, she quickly fashioned into two scarves, and after covering her head with one, she set the other aside.

Leaning over, she placed her hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “Campbell, wake up,” she said firmly. When Maggie didn’t move, Alex began to shake her gently. “Campbell, you’ve got to wake up. We need to get out of here.”

After several attempts, Alex was on the verge of slapping the woman into consciousness when she heard Maggie begin to moan.

Grinning slightly, Alex said, “Campbell…come on, darling, you need to wake up.”

“Don’t call me that,” Maggie mumbled as the fog in her head faded away. Leaning slowly back in her seat, she moved her head from side to side to work out the stiffness before finally opening her eyes.

“How do you feel?” Alex asked. “Is anything broken?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Maggie replied as she slowly moved in her seat.

“Good, because we need to get out of here, and we need to do it right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We landed on a lake…or a pond…or some other fucking piece of frozen water, but the point is, we’ve broken through the ice, and we need to get our arses out of here before the plane sinks.”

Achy and feverish, Maggie had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to die. With a sigh, she said, “You go…I’ll stay.”

“Not on your life, darling,” Alex snapped, grabbing their luggage and tossing it out the door. “Now, either you get out of here on your own, or I’ll pull you out. Your choice!”

“Please, just let me—”

Grabbing Maggie’s chin, Alex forced their eyes to meet. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully. I will
not
leave you here! You got that? The pilot told us to travel north, and that’s exactly what
we
are going to do.”

“The pilot—”

“He’s dead, so it’s just you and me. Now, come on, get out of that seat and let’s go.”

“I’m going to die regardless,” Maggie explained. “I’ll only slow you down.”

“Jesus Christ! I don’t know what kind of life you’ve got…maybe it’s shit…I don’t know, but you are
not
dying on my fucking watch! Now get out of this bloody plane
right now
!” Carefully climbing outside, Alex waited as Campbell began to shift across the seats to the open door.

Grimacing in the darkness, Maggie closed her eyes for a few seconds to allow the pain to pass. She had no clue as to the extent of her injury, but as she felt warm blood leak from her body, she knew that she’d be in God’s hands soon. Pulling her coat tightly around herself, Maggie climbed out of the plane and allowed Blake to guide her north.

***

They methodically plodded through the forest for over an hour, trying their best to brace themselves against the wind that whipped through the pines, but it was impossible. The squalls of winter’s fury had become so strong that both were knocked to their knees more than once. Ice and snow pelted their faces until they were raw and chafed, and fingers and feet protected by gloves and boots simply didn’t have a chance against the rawness of Mother Nature at her fiercest.

If there was one word in the English language that described Alex Blake, it was tenacious. When she set her mind to do something, it would be done. From graduating with honors, to tracking down criminals in the bowels of London, most of her achievements could be directly attributed to just one thing…her stubbornness. Tell her no, and she would find the yes. Tell her impossible, and she would prove you wrong. So, as Alex trudged through the snow, she knew that death was trying to wrap its icy tentacles around her, but she had other things on her mind. Fuck death.

Alex stopped and glanced over her shoulder, watching as Maggie struggled to follow in her footsteps. Slogging through the ever-deepening snow, Alex had slowed her strides in order for the shorter woman to keep up, but as each minute passed, the snow grew deeper and Maggie was falling farther and farther behind.

The frigid temperature helped to keep Maggie’s fever in check, but just barely. She was rapidly reaching the point of exhaustion, and after stumbling several times, Maggie knew that her life’s blood now flowed freely from the wound on her side.

Looking to the north, Alex peered through the darkness, and shielding her eyes from the unrelenting snow, she shined the flashlight through the trees. Up ahead she could see a clearing, and set back into the opening was something boxy and dark. Narrowing her eyes, Alex strained to make out what it was, and sprinting toward it, her heart began to pound with excitement. Mindless of the distance she was putting between her and Campbell, Alex high-stepped it through drifts until the cabin came into view. Grinning, she spun around to shout out her discovery, only to find that Campbell had been swallowed up by the storm.