Russian Amerika: Chapter Thirty Eight

38 - A kilometer from Chena Redoubt

    As the helicopter receded into the distance, Bear Crepov smiled at Major Kominskiya.

    "I didn't think you'd really get off the machine. I thought you'd turn rabbit on me."

    "This is not the first time you have misjudged me," she said, shrugging into her pack. "Shall we get to work?"

    "We have much to do, you and me," Bear said carefully. "And not everything involves enemies."

    She turned and looked at him. All he could see inside the ruffed hood of her parka were twin points of starlight reflecting off her eyes.

    "I agree," she said, and pushed off to the northwest, toward Chena Redoubt.

    Crepov tightened the hood down around his face and followed her. The cold burned in his scar and nipped at his nose.

    Experimentally, he sniffed at the air. His nostrils tried to stick together. He immediately knew it was at least minus 35øC.

    The survival habits of three decades unconsciously took over. He slowed his pace to avoid working up a sweat, yet skied actively enough to stay warm. He pushed out the fur ruff on his hood to its maximum in order to create a barrier of warm air between his face and the sub-arctic night.

    He thought only of Valari Kominskiya's body and what he planned to do with it at his first opportunity. And there would be an opportunity.

    The rest of his training kicked in and he studied the land around them. Chena Redoubt had been home to him more than once. He'd hunted caribou, moose, wolves, and men in this oblast. Bear knew this countryside as well as he did the streets of Tetlin Redoubt.

    Valari skied ahead of him at the same speed he maintained. Good. There was nothing he hated more than worrying about someone else, whether he had to or not.

    The fact clicked in his mind that she wasn't breaking trail; she followed one.

    "Major!" he hissed. "Stop."

    She slid to a halt and looked back over her shoulder.

    "Yes?"

    He pulled up beside her.

    "This trail you are following must be known to the rebels if they have put out even one patrol."

    "My God, you're right." She glanced around. "What do you think we should do?"

    He grinned deep inside his parka hood. She was beginning to really interest him. Capable but submissive, he liked that in a woman.

    "Follow me. I'll break trail and we'll come in behind the redoubt. There's a place where worthless items are thrown in winter and avoided in summer."

    "Lead."

    The Aurora Borealis flared into existence, danced and capered above them. Bear had to slow considerably as he broke trail. If one sweated heavily inside arctic coverings the chances of freezing to death attained unbeatable odds.

    Between the dark, scattered cabins whose presence proclaimed the outskirts of Chena, the kilometer-long stone wall of the redoubt loomed before them. Nothing moved, no sound issued from the cabins around them. Starlight on the bright snow gave enough illumination to see they were alone outside the fortress.

    "Perhaps everyone is dead?" she said.

    "No. They are either tired or lazy. A lapse like this will not last if they know what they are doing."

    "And?"

    "I do not think they are lazy."

    "They also seem to know what they are doing. Now what?"

    Good question.

    After a moment's thought, he stabbed his ski poles into the snow, unslung his weapon and carefully propped it against them, creating a pyramid. He shook the pack off his back and dug out the rope and anchor hook. He silently measured the height of the fortress wall with his eyes.

    If anyone guarded the parapets above, he and the major would soon be dead or captured. He preferred death. Bear looked back at Valari.

    "Step back, give me some room, and cover me."

    He swung the hook in an ever-widening circle. Abruptly he released it and the metal claw sailed up and over the thick, slightly-inclined wall. By the time they heard the soft thump as it landed, both their gun muzzles pointed upward.

    Nothing.

    Bear allowed himself to breathe again and slung his weapon over his shoulder. He bent down and tripped the bindings on his skis, straightened and leaned toward Valari.

    "I will find out what's up there and signal you when it's safe. Don't take any naps while I'm gone." He hauled himself upward, hand-over-hand, while his mukluk-encased feet silently walked up the frost-rimed stone.

    When his head cleared the wall, he hesitated, searching the snow-filled roof for movement. The gleaming white and indigo shadows undulated away from him like a frozen wheat field. Paths where guards usually patrolled bisected the snowed-in roof.

    Nothing moved. He pulled himself across the wide icy wall and jumped down into the trench worn in the snow. He crouched low, keeping his head below the surrounding walls. His breath puffed out and momentarily obscured his vision. He tried to breathe more slowly.

    The path became a roofless tunnel through the deep snow and he hurried down straight sections, stopping to ease around corners. Very quickly it became obvious that the roof stood empty of anything other than the elements. However, something nagged at the back of his mind, a tiny, insistent warning that wouldn't allow him to stop until he'd covered the entire plain of connected stone roofs.

    Those little nags had kept him alive in the past. Men who didn't listen to their gut usually died before their hair showed any gray. He crept around another corner - and froze.

    Two figures shambled toward him, heads down. He couldn't see any weapons, but this was no time to take chances. He brought his weapon up and took careful aim.

    The first parka-clad form stopped and pulled on a wall. A door opened, emitting a great cloud of warm air which instantly fogged around the figures. Once the cold ate the fog, the two were gone.

    Bear continued to breathe slowly, keeping himself in the "look and listen" mode. It might be a changing of the guards. No, that wasn't it. The new guards always relieved the old ones on post.

    What had the two been doing? He pushed the question to the back of his mind and finished his roof reconnaissance. Finally he became satisfied of his solitude.

    He turned and hurried back to where Major Valari Kominskiya waited.