Lakvik, Norway, March 6, 4:00 a.m.
There. She was done. Karen stared at the awkward jumble of wires and circuit boards on her sleeping bag. She’d worked on it most of the night while Anders slept peacefully on the other side of the fire. As best as she could tell, she’d just cobbled together a working signal detector and crude homing device. Only way to know if it worked would be to take it outside and test it. But she was freezing cold and it was really late. She’d grab a quick nap and then give her gizmo a go. She threw more fuel on the fire, which was doing precious little to stave off the frosty air.
Carefully, she moved her tracking gadget aside and slid gratefully into the quick, light warmth of her down sleeping bag. After roasting near the bonfire for much of the evening, the dark and chill of the hut seemed even more intense than usual. It probably didn’t help that she was dead tired either. What a bizarre emotional roller coaster the day had been. Clearly, she needed to take a few hours and get a solid block of sleep to re-center her nervous system and cure the sleep-deprived crazies in her head.
Except when she woke up a couple of hours later, she didn’t feel a whole hell of a lot better. When she tried to wake up Anders, he mumbled something about the whole village being hung over and not going anywhere soon. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
Karen was jittery. Her nerves jangled and her hands wouldn’t stay still. The idea of sleeping held no appeal to her. Her head might say Anders was right, but no way was she going back to sleep.
She lay down. Counted backwards from a hundred. Made it to one. Counted sheep. Counted dead grass roots sticking out of the sod walls. Tried self-hypnosis. Nothing worked. She was wired far too tight to get any more rest. And that was worrisome. Something was wrong with her. She never had trouble sleeping. Even on operational missions with tension through the roof, when it was her turn to stand down and rest, she could go unconscious instantly and sleep hard, any time, any place. Not so now.
She tossed and turned for several hours. Eventually, Lakvik began to come to life as people finished sleeping off the effects of the party, or rather the booze that had flowed at the party.
She jumped out of her sleeping bag, relieved beyond words at finally getting to move. It was an exercise in sheer torture to wait while Anders and her teammates got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed teeth and donned their gear in what looked like intentional slow motion. It was all she could do not to fling their rifles at them and scream for them to get moving. But finally, the Medusas stood in the middle of the village, surrounded by most of the Sami men of hunting age.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Karen explained. “We need to find a Norwegian Army team of about six men who are hiding somewhere in this general vicinity, and we need to find them fast. You know the area and are superb hunters, and we’re hoping that some or all of you might be willing to help us.”
One of the Sami men spoke up. “This is big country. To find a small group of men who do not want to be found will be like searching for a single blade of grass in a meadow.”
Karen let a sharklike grin slide across her face. “That’s why I built us a gadget to help.” She held up the backpack in which she’d carefully tucked the signal detector. “I’ve built a homing device that should pick up radio signals from these guys. It won’t be exact, but it should lead us in the right direction and put us reasonably close to our targets.”
The Samis smiled and nodded at that news, and the spokesman said, “Forgive me. I forgot for a moment with whom I spoke. Of course, you came up with a way to find your prey with ease.”
Karen’s eyes narrowed. She was about to just declare herself Freya and tell them all to bow to her and call her Your Majesty. It would be less frustrating than continually trying to fight their misconceptions of her. She ground out with scant patience, “I studied engineering in college. It’s no big deal. I just wired up a gizmo that detects radio signals. Any first-year student could do it.”
Vanessa muttered under her breath, “Give it up. You’ll never change these guys’ minds.”
Karen glared at her boss. And then blinked in surprise. In the first place, Vanessa outranked her. Junior officers didn’t throw mutinous glares at their superiors. Ever. It was blatantly unprofessional, particularly in front of outsiders to the team. Second, she respected Vanessa. Loved her like a sister. The Medusas didn’t fight among themselves. Their unity was perhaps their greatest strength. Vanessa stared back, clearly startled, herself.
“I’m sorry,” Karen said quickly. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve been really out of sorts the past day or two.”
Vanessa nodded just a touch tersely. “I noticed. If there’s anything you need to get off your chest, I’m always available to listen.”
Karen nodded glumly, disgusted with herself. She was turning into such a bitch. She took a deep breath. “Let’s turn on this machine and see if it works.”
Isabella helped Karen carefully don the backpack without disturbing the jumble of wires. Then, Isabella connected the last wire to the battery. Cautiously, Karen held one earpiece up to her ear. It didn’t electrocute her, and even better, she heard faint static. She walked down Lakvik’s main street toward the east, and the static didn’t change noticeably. She swung north out to the edge of the tent city. The change was miniscule, but perhaps the static got just the tiniest bit fainter. To test her theory, she turned around and headed to the south side of town.
All the while, the Sami men trailed along behind her in expectant silence. And as she strode around the village, she picked up more of an audience. By the time she reached the south end of the village and was sure the static had gotten slightly louder, she had an entire parade trailing along behind her. Children were being shushed in the back of the crowd. Women had stopped their chores and tagged along, and the Medusas brought up the rear of the whole thing, grinning at her over the heads of the shorter Sami people.
Great. She’d gone from Freya to Pied Piper. At least he got the satisfaction of killing all the rats who followed him out of towns. She gritted her teeth, seated the headphones more securely on her head and marched south out of Lakvik. They could all come for all she cared. She was going to go find Jack and put an end to this stupidity for good.
What the hell. If you can’t stop ’em, run to the front of the parade and act like you’re leading it. Whistling “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off To Work We Go,” she marched jauntily out of town.
She stopped about ten minutes out of Lakvik and waved all the Samis behind her to silence. Fortunately, the women and children had mostly peeled off and headed back to town. The remaining Samis were experienced hunters. They knew how to be quiet. She listened to the static again. Yup, definitely louder than in town. She resumed walking south.
About an hour out of Lakvik, it became clear that a course correction was needed. She went through the same routine, walking a bit to the east, then back to the west, and the static definitely got louder when she headed east. East she went.
The good news was the vigorous exercise seemed to burn off the worst of her unreasoning fury.
It was midafternoon and the sun was starting to go down when the static in her ears changed slightly. It took on a pulsing quality.
Karen called out, “Hey, Adder. Come listen to this.”
Karen held out the headphones to her teammate, who was the team’s communications expert. Isabella listened intently for several seconds. “We must be getting close enough to pick up their actual jamming signal instead of just the background field.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.”
Vanessa piped up and asked, “Any guesses as to how far we are from our targets?”
Karen looked around. They were near the top of a high ridge facing east. “Well, they’re probably sitting on top of a mountain. We definitely know they’re in front of us, because the ridge line at our backs would block any direct signals from the west. I’d guess we’re no more than three miles away.”
The other Medusas groaned. In the three miles stretching away at their feet, there must’ve been at least twenty mountain peaks. Karen concurred. She didn’t relish the idea of scaling every last one of them. Damn that Jack for putting such a difficult task in front of them! Who did he think he was, anyway? What kind of sadistic instructor tortured his students like this? The guy seriously needed taking down a peg or two. A brief, satisfying image flashed into her head of her hands around his throat, his face red-purple, his veins bulging, his eyes panicked. Aggression surged through her. Oh, yeah. They needed to find Jack. The sooner the better. Her palms itched to feel his throat.
“Hey, Python. Slow up there!” It was Vanessa.
Karen started and glanced over her shoulder. She was all but running on her snowshoes, and the only person keeping up with her was Anders. No surprise, there. He wasn’t an Olympic cross-country skier for nothing. But everyone else was straggling well behind. She slowed down to a pace mere mortals might be able to keep up with.
At about eight o’clock, the Samis wanted to stop and make camp for the night. Wimps.
Karen had drawn breath to tell them to get a move on and quit whining when Vanessa intervened. “That’s a great idea, gentlemen. Is there anywhere near here you’d suggest?”
Karen fumed inwardly. The bitch! This was her hunt for Jack, not Vanessa’s. And she was the one the Samis had asked about stopping, not Vanessa. Her jaw set in fury, she declined an offer by her teammates to share an igloo with them. She’d build her own damn shelter, thank you very much. Adrenaline made hefting the heavy roof blocks into place a piece of cake. She was vaguely aware of the Samis sneaking awed peeks at her as she attacked the snow, but she didn’t much care. So she was strong. Big freaking deal.
She endured sitting around the campfire, sharing supper with the Medusas and the Samis, but after a while, the whole kumbayah atmosphere was more than she could stand. Surly, she retired to her igloo to rest. She fiddled with the homing beacon a bit to narrow the signal bandwidth, then she lay down on her sleeping bag, too restless to sleep.
Her head said she needed some real zzz’s, but her body disagreed. She was a bundle of nerves and twitchy muscles. She needed to move, dammit! Jack Scatalone was out there somewhere, and her gut twisted with the need to cause him pain. To see blood fly. Oh, yes. It was time to move.
She waited until she thought everyone would be tucked in for the night, and then donned her Arctic camo gear and grabbed the signal tracker. She crawled out of her igloo and glanced around the camp. Igloos glowed here and there, low yellow humps in the landscape of moonlit blue-white. But the camp was still. No one moved about. Perfect.
She crept silently out of the site and into night, her killer instincts fully and gleefully aroused.
Oslo, Norway, March 6
Jens closed Astrid’s bedroom door quietly. Thank God she was finally asleep. She’d lain there for hours, just staring up at the ceiling. It would’ve been so much easier to comfort her if she’d cried or screamed or had hysterics. Personally, he didn’t give a shit if Willie was dead. But his baby girl’s pain was doubly his pain.
As he tiptoed down the stairs, he pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed Ivo. “Hey, partner. I got a favor to ask you.”
The kid sounded surprised. “Sure. What is it?”
“Will you take my daughter out?”
“Excuse me?”
Jens had to smile at the shock vibrating through Ivo’s voice. “Astrid’s pretty torn up about her boyfriend’s murder.”
“I don’t think rebound dating is going to ease her pain, sir—”
“This isn’t about her pain. Willie, the dead boyfriend, was passing her pills to take. She doesn’t know what they were, and she’s afraid—hell, I’m afraid—they were tainted. She says she met the guy Willie got his drugs from once. She thinks she might recognize the dealer if she saw him again.”
Ivo swore quietly, then asked quickly, “What do you need me to do?”
“Take her out to some of the clubs Willie and she used to hang out at. See if she can spot his supplier. I’m not going to sleep decently until I’ve tracked down these pills and know she’s going to be okay.”
Jens sat in his usual armchair in the living room, pretending to read a newspaper while he eavesdropped. Ivo was actually doing a really good job of talking to Astrid. The kid had gotten her to open up a hell of a lot more than he had in the past twenty-four hours.
“…think you’d recognize him if you saw him again?” Ivo was asking.
“I think so. He looked Mediterranean. You know. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Tanned skin.”
“Was he a big guy? Short? How was he built?”
The good news was Astrid had grown up a cop’s daughter. Her powers both of observation and description were pretty good. She answered, “Medium height. Slender build. But the guys with him were big. Beefy.”
“How many guys?” Ivo asked calmly.
Jens peeked over his paper at Astrid as she considered the question. Man, his partner was doing a great job of keeping her relaxed. Focused. He couldn’t have—hadn’t—done so well himself. All he’d managed to get out of Astrid were monosyllabic mumbles for answers and red-rimmed eyes that refused to shed their tears.
Ivo was talking again. “Do you think you could work with a sketch artist to come up with a composite of this guy?”
Astrid shrugged. “Maybe. It wouldn’t be very detailed.”
“Anything’s better than nothing,” Ivo replied placidly.
“You don’t even know if this guy’s the one passing the tainted drugs,” she retorted.
Ivo shrugged. “Well, you said Nicklaus was getting his stuff from Willie. And Nicklaus obviously got a hold of some of the tainted drugs. It’s not a bad guess that Willie’s supplier was the source of the stuff. Once we catch the guy you saw, we’ll catch the guy he got his drugs from, and the guy he got his drugs from, and so on, until we reach the source.”
She released a wobbly breath.
Ivo reached out and took both her hands in his. Gazed deep into her eyes. Totally unprofessional. Said gently, “You’re doing great, Astrid.”
His daughter flashed a watery, grateful smile at Ivo. The first smile Jens had seen since he broke the news to her yesterday. He was surprised that his protective instincts didn’t flare at the exchange. But if his partner could make her smile, Jens was all for it.
“Can you think of anything else that might help us find this guy?” Ivo murmured.
“He had a weird name. Started with a vowel.” Astrid frowned, concentrating like something was dangling just out of her reach. Then, suddenly, her face lit up. “Izzy! That’s it! I told you it was weird.”
Ivo glanced over Jens’ way. “I put a call in to the sketch artist before I came over here—just in case. He can see you tomorrow morning.”
In that moment, Jens could’ve hugged Ivo. God, he was such a sap. But hey. Dads are allowed to look out for their daughters.
They were also allowed to find the bastards who fed their daughters tainted drugs and bury them. Very, very deep.
Southeast of Lakvik, March 7, 1:00 a.m.
By narrowing the signal bandwidth even more while she listened to it, she was able to home in fairly accurately on Jack’s signal. In fact, she was able to narrow the transmitting site down to one of three mountain peaks. From there, it was simply a matter of choosing the tallest one to try first.
But what a mountain. It was steep, icy and criss-crossed by treacherous crevasses. It was insane to hike it alone. If she slipped and hurt herself or fell down one of the deep cracks in the ice, the odds of anybody finding her alive were absolutely zero.
And she didn’t care one bit. Pin pricks of cold and exertion stabbed her eyeballs, and a throbbing ache started right in the center of her head and radiated outward. With every pounding pulse of agony, her fury at Jack Scatalone grew. Arrogant bastard. Tried to mold the Medusas in his image. Didn’t care a bit if they were women and could use a break now and then. Never cut them an inch of slack. Parked himself on the highest goddamned mountain in Norway and dared them to come and get him.
Oh, she’d get him all right. He’d be on the lookout for a full frontal assault, or something equally spectacular from the Medusas. And why not? They’d learned about grandstanding from the master.
Jack wouldn’t be looking for a lone hunter coming in swift and silent on wings of fury. And that was why she’d spill his blood all over the snow. God, it would be a thing of beauty. One foot after another, step after step, closer and closer to vengeance.
She knew from the signal tracker that Jack and the Norwegians had to be on this southern face of the mountain. So, she worked her way gradually around to the north to come in from the opposite side. It put her in the way of even more wind-carved crevasses and deadly drops, but the danger only served to fuel the raging glory running through her.
In the end, it was an easy matter to spot the two low mounds of snow in the lee of a tall rock face. The spot was reasonably protected from the winds howling up here. Karen worked her way down a fissure in the rock face until she was crouched in a deep shadow at its base. One of the mounds was small and round, in the Alaskan Inuit fashion. The other one was longer and much larger, more oblong in shape, along the lines of what Anders had taught her to build. It could hold six guys. A tight fit, maybe, but she’d found their camp.
Exultation roared through her and she nearly laughed aloud. This was going to be so easy. Jack might as well have put a neon sign over his shelter saying, “Jack Scatalone is sleeping here. Come and get me.”
And that gave her pause. It was too damned easy. Jack knew better than to make a camp right out in the open like this. She took a closer look at the snow drifting across the two tunnel entrances leading to the shelters. Both openings had accumulated a small drift of snow with a tiny, perfect overhang of crystallized ice. They looked like waves exactly at the moment they break over, but frozen in place, never to crash down to the sea.
Those drifts were too perfect. No one had been in or out of those tunnels in a good twenty-four hours, if not more. The igloos in front of her were a trap!
Rage exploded across her brain like a fireworks display, great booming chrysanthemums of fiery red and blazing white. Jerk! Bastard! A roar of fury rose up in her chest, only barely cut off by the need to hunt. To find her prey. And to kill.
Jack had to be close. Her signal detector was pulsing strong and steady. She had to be all but on top of the damned transmitter. She lay down in the snow and began to move. By inches. Which was why she spotted the trip wire nearly buried in the snow as her eyeballs drew level with it.
She didn’t have Aleesha’s surgeon hands when it came to disarming traps. She’d better go around it. She glanced up. If she stood here in her white camo coat and pants, she’d show up against the black cliff as though a spotlight was on her. Better to go under it. She rolled ever so slowly onto her side, presenting her back to the camp. Her movements thus protected from prying eyes, she dug carefully with her hands, forming a shallow ditch beneath the wire. And then came the difficult limbo-dance maneuver to slide under the trip wire without touching it. No telling how sensitive a switch it was connected to.
The whole exercise took close to a half hour. And with each passing second, her impatience to get to the kill grew. She could almost taste blood on her tongue, and it was sweet and salty and satisfying.
It took another thirty yards of low crawling, which took another twenty minutes, to go around the fake camp. But eventually, she lay at the edge of a tall outcropping of rock, looking down the south face of the mountain. And spotted the second camp. This one was much better concealed, the shelters nearly flush with the snow and dotted unevenly across the mountainside in between upthrusts of rock and shadow.
She nearly crawled into a couple of more trip wires, but both of these were so placed that she could rise to a crouch and ease over them without showing herself.
The signal detector was now clicking quickly in her ear. “You’re getting hot,” it seemed to whisper. “Hotter. Burning hot.”
She lay in the snow, oblivious to its grasping cold as it greedily sucked the heat from her body. The fire within her replenished everything the snow took and more. She felt as if her coat was strangling her. She eased a hand up to unzip her parka a bit. Fingers of cold wind seeped down her body. Fire and ice collided in her and she reveled in the pain. God, to feel so alive was breathtaking!
Her eyes narrowed. Seven shelters. And one held her target. Using every bit of stealth Jack had ever taught her, she glided on her belly into the middle of the camp, like the python she was named for. Now, to figure out which one was his.
It took her two full circuits around the camp over the course of an hour to spot it. A footprint frozen into the snow just outside one of the tunnels. She hadn’t grown up hunting with her father for nothing. She was an extremely skilled tracker and read signs with the best of them. The print was the right size and depth for a man of Jack’s size.
Only person likely to have been in Jack’s shelter was Jack. The hut was too small to accommodate more than one man without the occupants having to get uncomfortably close. And more to the point, the print was an American combat-boot tread pattern. She’d noticed before that when Anders took off his boots and turned them upside down to dry, the tread pattern on Norwegian boots was different than hers.
Bingo. Houston, we have positive target acquisition.
She didn’t particularly care about being caught after she offed Jack. If he died noisily and the Norwegians came out to investigate, so be it. As long as she spilled his blood all over the snow first like she did that other guy’s. Ever so carefully, she buried herself not far from the tunnel entrance to Jack’s igloo. She left her eyes and nose above the snow, but that was all.
And now to wait.
Time lost all meaning for her. There was only the cold and the dark and the hunt. The wind blew, and a thin drift of snow accumulated on and around her. And the fire raged on inside her.
Sometime later, in the deepest still of the night, her predator’s trance was interrupted by a movement. Someone was coming out of Jack’s shelter. If she’d had a tail, its tip would have twitched. Adrenaline ripped through her, and every ounce of bloodlust within her surged forth. She was ready. Jack Scatalone was a dead man.
He rose up out of his tunnel, his foot landing in almost exactly the same spot as the previous footprint she’d found. He glanced at his watch and moved over to an antenna sticking up out of the snow. She’d found it earlier and had probed the snow to verify that the jamming device was, in fact buried in that spot. But that was no longer her target. She was hunting bigger prey, now.
Jack hunched down on his heels, his back turned to her.
Her fingers wrapped tightly around her knife, and she rose up slowly out of the snow, silent and lethal, a living specter of death. It was time.
Every muscle in her body uncoiled at once. She shot forward, too sudden and quick for her prey to escape.
Let fly the wings of fury! I am fate and my name is Death, Jack Scatalone.