LASKIN STARED DOWN THE STREET. No signs of life. He barked at everyone to proceed slowly towards the hotel, to keep their eyes open. “Let’s give these shitforbrains the benefit of the doubt and assume they might have posted sentries to protect their precious fucking Lazarus.”
They’d made good time, Laskin saying that they could rest all they wanted once Slaught was dead. Until then, the clock was ticking down and they’d keep moving. Soon after they’d crested the hill after starting out, Miller had bombed up beside him, pointing back down the hill, Laskin turning and seeing the sky lit up. Miller stopped, killing his machine. The others did the same, half turning to look back. Laskin bellowed at them to get the fuck moving, saying they still had a good hour and a half of riding to go, it was no time to be pissing and moaning about some dumbfuck who’d probably blown himself up smoking while gassing up his truck.
So they’d followed Laskin through the dark and the cold, arriving in the town just as the thin red sliver running across the sky started to bleed into the grey clouds. They’d left their machines around the corner at the top of the street, moving down slowly along either side, building to building. Behind Laskin was Turner, wheezing a bit as they pushed their way through the snow ridge that had been pushed back along the edges of the street. Turner pointed down the street, past the bulk of the hotel on the corner to the crooked shadow of an old, wooden building.
Turner asked, “What’s that thing anyway?”
Laskin looked at him over his shoulder. “Don’t you fucking pay attention to anything? This was a mining town. That’s a headframe.” Then he added, “Imagine what a shithole this must have been, a fucking mine in the middle of town.”
Across from the headframe, the big floodlights over the workbay were out. That was good. Laskin could see only a few dull lights burning inside the hotel. Everyone still tucked in their little beds, just the way Laskin wanted them. He was pumped to go in, catch them by surprise, and leave them wondering what the hell hit them. Miller had said he wasn’t sure that was exactly a plan but Laskin told him to shut the fuck up.
“Okay, Turner, you’re up, so quit sitting there with your head up your ass, get your fucking sensor out and get up there and tell us what we got.”
Turner set off awkwardly in the snow, sending Laskin back a sour look as he went. He didn’t get too far before he slipped off the hard-packed trail and plunged down to his knee in the snow, cursing and hauling his foot back up onto the trail, muttering loudly that this was fucked up big time.
Laskin shook his head, thinking that Turner was a big lardarse. If he’d had a proper team he wouldn’t be stuck out here for a second time around. He’d worked with a couple of A list teams in the past, especially back in the day before Talos had taken over, when free-lancers had more of a role, but Talos called the shots now. Fucked everything up. Man, he was ready for some serious R&R.
Turner came back huffing and puffing. ”Crazy thing, sir, can’t get a reading. Maybe it’s too cold?”
“Too cold?”
Miller said he’d give it a try, hadn’t had trouble because of the cold before. Turner just shrugged. Laskin stared at the building, the impulse to just hammer Turner hard to control.
“Fuck it. We’re going in. Burke and Leclerc, you two go and check out the workbay down there. The rest of you assholes come with me and be on your guard. No more fucking sucker punches.”
Laskin slipped around the side of the hotel and pushed open the door quietly, the team slipping in behind him. The hotel felt empty. He told them to stay a few yards apart, then sweep through the dining room. After that it’d be room by room.
They were part way down the first hallway when Miller whispered, “I got a live one right up ahead, sir.”
Laskin saw the darkness of the dining area and tried to remember where the lights were. He hissed, “There, on your right. Turner, hit the lights.”
“Shit” was the only thing Turner could come up with when he heard the gun cocking at his head.
“Getting sloppy?” Mitch said, flipping on the light switch.
Laskin could feel the guys watching him, decided to play it cool, only said, “Where the fuck did you come from?” and then turning to the guys, the bunch of them just standing there gawking, said, “Why don’t you guys do your fucking job for a change and keep searching?”
“Don’t think you’re going to find much,” Mitch said, pointing over her shoulder to a big hand painted sign tacked up on the wall. ‘Shop Closed. Gone Fishing.’
Laskin said, “Look anyway, turn this fucking dump inside out. I want to know where those bastards are, unless of course you have the inside line on them.”
She shrugged. “Just got in here awhile before you, had been waiting for a bit of light. Saw lots of tracks around the perimeter but that’s about it. Maybe it’s worth a look.”
“Okay guys, beat it, and come back with something I can use,” Laskin said, dismissing them with a jerk of his head and then turning to Mitch. “So, did you get yourself into a situation darling, or just off sight seeing?”
“Miss me?”
“Oh yeah, missed you on the long ride up here, thinking it was a fucking amateurish thing to do to run after the schoolyard crush.”
He saw her face tighten.
She said, “There you are, all dressed up for your ambush and all you get is me.”
“Some consolation prize you are. You here on your own?”
“Looks like.”
“Yeah, well, your Talos toadies are here with me. Turns out they’re a bit more professional than their boss.”
“You know Grier, if you were any good at your job, maybe you would have gotten your big fish already. So unless you’ve given up, maybe we should start tracking these people down.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I told you, just a few minutes.”
“So that’s leaves a good day and a half unaccounted for.”
“Okay, whatever, I can see this is going nowhere. I need to check in with my boys. Maybe when I get back we can skip our little spat and then get back to work. So where are they?”
“You aren’t going to bolt after your boyfriend again are you?”
“Oh Grier, if I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you were jealous.”
Laskin said they were at the workbay out back, watched her leave, then noticed Solanski and Turner had come back and were standing staring at him. “Start looking the fuck around you two assholes and find me something.”
They walked the length of the dining room, checking the chairs, shelving unit and even the dishes still left in the sink, but all of them knew there was nothing that was going to tell them anything except following those sled tracks, which no one really wanted to do. Turner muttered to Solanski that he’d rather be anywhere but in this shithole and that the place stunk of sardines.
Laskin shouted over at them, “Hey, more action and a little less fucking gossip.”
Solanski said, “Well, there just isn’t anything here besides cookie crumbs and empty chairs. Not really sure what you expected to find here. They’re gone, probably for a while, and who knows where Slaught is. Did Mitch say if she saw him?”
“Solanski, you mind your own fucking business and let me handle the big boy stuff, okay?”
Miller returned from the other rooms saying, “Not much to go on sir. Looks like maybe only some of them left and they didn’t leave in a hurry, things seem pretty tidy, looks like people had time to pack some stuff up, some personal items seem to be missing from the rooms, but, ask me, I think they plan on coming back. Lots of stuff left behind that people would normally take, family photos and stuff.”
Laskin turned on the other two. “That, you morons, is what I was talking about, some useful information.”
Mitch came back and said she’d checked out the first floor plus the chapel, that Leclerc and Burke were up on the top floor. “Nada,” she said, but Grier didn’t bother looking over at her, so she said, “Okay, you want to know where Slaught is? I don’t have clue. I never saw him, just one of the guys from here and that little piece of shit from training, Ricky.”
Turner said, “Ricky? You saw Ricky the Retard with them?”
Mitch shrugged. “I don’t really know what the deal was but he was with that Jeff guy. Just around the border area in some burnt out hunt camp.”
Laskin ran his hand through his hair, looking exasperated, but she was thinking it was more of a performance for his crew, that right now he was raging inside but was putting on a show, then he said, “Seriously, Mitch, please explain exactly how you managed to bump into those fellas?”
“There’s no need to be so testy Grier. It’s a bit of a story though and I think it might just be a bit more pressing to finish searching the building.”
“I disagree.”
Mitch couldn’t believe it. She’d seen the petulant side of him before but this was whacked. She was wondering if he was even fit to finish up the mission, talk about compromised emotionally. “Fine, I’ll explain the whole story to you, okay?”
“Can’t wait.”
Taking a deep breath, she said, “When we were down at Police Services Muspar mentioned in passing that Skinner wasn’t around, thought maybe he’d bailed. So low and behold, I check his locker and all his winter gear and his security passes were gone. But he’s not too clever because he left a couple of his little scribbles on some papers, including info about his Uncle’s hunt camp right near the border, just inside the Territories. Plus he had some stuff about Slaught. Then I checked the tracker I’d put on Slaught’s sled and, lo and behold, the coordinates lined up. Thought it was worth checking out.”
“Why are you telling me this? This is just bullshit. You telling me you took off after that little shit? That rummaging through that kid’s locker was a priority? You have got to be kidding.”
“I figured he was either pulling a Lone Ranger and was heading off to nab the guy himself, or else he was going to trade info, probably with Slaught. Either way, I figured I should grab him and haul his ass back before he mucked up the works.”
“Didn’t occur to you to get another opinion?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think I’d be gone that long.”
“I see, and that’s how we make judgement calls when we’re part of a team?”
“Spare me the lecture Grier. Scott approved the change in plan. I work for Talos, not you. Can we just move on, okay?” Lying now, but knowing Scott would back her up regardless.
“So why did it take you so long to get up here? You easily could have met up with us at the border?”
Mitch didn’t say anything.
“Oh, don’t tell me, the dweeb janitor got the jump on you?” Laskin was almost laughing now, smirking at her, added, “You must really be slipping, Mitch.”
“Grier, we are going to drop this and finish the mission, okay? That’s the priority. Every minute we waste here they could be further away. Time to move on.”
“No Mitch, we can’t move on. I think you were out of line.”
“Grier…”
“No, it’s no different than if any of these assholes had pulled a stunt like that.” Laskin waved his hand towards the guys who had stopped and were now just watching, Mitch knowing they were loving the fireworks, him going after her like that. “You’d have had their asses for that.”
Mitch felt the knot in her stomach tighten, decided enough was enough, moving towards Laskin, seeing Miller involuntarily taking a step backwards, but she could tell Laskin couldn’t help himself so he said, “I think you wanted to get to Slaught, thought Ricky might be onto something, and chased him up the fucking tundra like a groupie.”
“Fuck you, Grier,” Mitch said, slamming her gun hard across his temple, watching him spin sideways and then crumple up. She’d been waiting way too long for that one. Felt good. She turned to the guys. “You can stand around babysitting this waste of skin or you can help me to find that son of a bitch. Coming?”
Jordan pushed the cord back into his laptop. This, he told himself, would be his last try to get the damn thing working. He was crammed into the small maintenance cupboard off the main hallway, trying to jimmy-rig the surveillance system. Everyone else had gathered all their supplies and moved into the old Coniagas headframe across from the hotel. They’d made the decision to move everyone across the road and then down into the old shaft below the building. It wasn’t too deep and had stayed pretty dry, and down around the fifty foot level were tunnels running under the road and across to the hotel. The guys had found the tunnels when they’d gone down scouting around for silver to trade. Slaught had said the timbers were still solid and holding, but the silver was long gone.
Once safe down the shaft and into the tunnels, folks were supposed to wait there until they heard from Chumboy. There hadn’t been any word yet and people were getting anxious. Jordan couldn’t handle the stress so he decided to catch up on installing their spycam, Slaught having told him that it wouldn’t hurt to have a few more of the things around just in case. He had mostly given up hope on getting it to work, so when the picture sprang onto the screen as he popped the cord in again, and he saw Mitch and two other guys walking past him down the hallway, he at first thought it was a mistake.
Shit. No mistake. There she was.
He stared at the screen, considered pulling the plug so he didn’t have to watch. Shit shit, damnit. He pushed himself back a bit into the small space and felt his breathing start to speed up, feeling like he was hyperventilating.
Calm down dude, calm down. Breathe.
He closed his eyes, trying to think, and when he opened them again he realized she was no further than fifteen feet from where he was crammed into the cupboard. The group was dressed in their outside gear, Mitch popping up her hood as she went by. They’d be outside in no time, then only yards from the headframe. It had seemed like a perfect hiding spot just in case. Well, ‘just in case’ was in the building.
He snapped the laptop shut and held his breathe, picturing them passing by the door. He waited until they were out of sight then plunged his hand into his backpack, feeling around in the dark. A few screwdrivers, his Swiss army knife, good god, why him, of all of them? He was clearly the least equipped to deal with her. He kept rummaging though, a few extra USB jacks and, at the bottom of the bag, dusted in crumbs, the walkie-talkie. Thank god.
He listened carefully and then switched it on. It crackled loudly. Jordan hit the off button. Crap, that sounded loud. They’d be dragging him out by his feet any minute.
He tried to think. Okay, so he was hiding in a closet and his friends were about to get executed. All right, he had a small knife, a few screwdrivers and a lame-ass walkie-talkie. He stared at the walkie-talkie, remembering Johnny saying to him, “If it makes you feel better staying here, take this—worst case scenario, call me in.” Jordan figured this was definitely a worst-case scenario. If he was lucky, Johnny actually had the other walkie-talkie on him and was actually within range. He held his breath and turned it back on, praying for a miracle.
Chumboy had gone through the doors first, they’d agreed to that, the rest waiting outside till he gave them the sign. They had met up with Shaun and the boys at the junction of the main highway and the old airport road. The airport had been converted into the region’s last outpost when the government had finally established the border, making the road the last maintained official transportation route, everything north of it was left to ruin and ratshit. They hadn’t said much when they’d met up, except Shaun had said that that was one fucking-A sniper shot Chumboy had and did they see it go fucking nuclear out there.
Larose said it was kinda hard to miss and they better hope for their sakes that it didn’t bring Laskin running back to see what happened. He was wondering about that now, standing outside the sliding doors, his feet starting to seize up from the cold, heart pounding so loud he thought he was going to puke, right there in the snow. What a fucking disaster he was turning out to be. Even Ricky was doing better, punching in the security code for the gates like an old hand, Chumboy saying, “You got the magic memory Rickyman.”
Then Jeff had stepped inside the unmanned security hut and shut down the security cameras without much fuss and the rest, Chumboy had said, was going to be a cakewalk. Larose said, “Yeah, let’s hope they have toy guns too.” Then Shaun lifted up his pump action saying, “I’m not packing a toy.”
“For shit’s sake Shaun, you know the drill, we’re supposed to be unarmed.”
“Fuck that.”
Jeff intervened. “Dudes, let’s just get this over with and try not to completely mess this thing up, okay? Shaun? Just stay on the chain.”
Shaun just nodded but Chumboy, shaking his head slowly, stared at him for a few seconds before turning towards the doors. “If I don’t come out after five minutes, Shaun gets shit in my will.”
Shaun muttered, “You got shit to give anyway,” as the door closed behind him.
And now they were waiting, Larose wondering if he really meant five minutes, or if they should wait that long, a lot could happen in five minutes, it was up to three minutes now and everyone was looking grim. Maybe since this was the last outpost before the territories, it’d be crawling with security. Maybe they’d shot Chumboy with a silencer or something.
Four minutes. What the fuck was going on in there, Larose whispering maybe someone should go in after him, but Jeff said no, they were supposed to wait, they’d wait and then the doors slid open and Chumboy came out with a can of coke in his hand.
“You know, you don’t have this shit in ages, and you think, man, is it ever going to taste great when I finally have a nice, cold can of the stuff, and then it’s the same old crap. What a fucking let down.”
“So?” Larose feeling like he was going to explode.
“So, obviously the vending machines are not guarded, so the immediate coast is clear. I figure they must be in the office, which means there aren’t too many soldier boys in there. Maybe just a pencil pusher snoozing in there, otherwise he’d have noticed that his surveillance screens are down.”
Chumboy turned to head back inside but nobody was moving. “Uh, guys, show time, ready or not. Shaun and Harv, take the far set of doors, Ricky and Jeff, come in behind me. All set?”
And then they were in, the main area of the small airport empty and hollow sounding, their boots smacking on the ceramic floor. Chumboy headed towards the closed doors past the baggage carousel. He held his finger to his lips and slowly turned the handle of the door, saying as he went in, “Hey buddy, rise and shine, I stopped by Timmie’s and picked you up a double double.”
Sure enough, a guy was stretched out on the beige vinyl couch along the far wall, a picture of a small bush plane and a smiling crew hanging over it, his surveillance monitors scratchy and grey. The guy turned, rubbing his eyes, and Chumboy said, “Sorry about the whole Timmie’s thing, that was a lie, but I knew it would get your attention. Now could you please fire up your system here, we have a public service announcement we need to make.”
Slaught was glad to be done. It was a worry being away so long. He’d spent the day quartering the moose cow and dragging it out of the thick bush to load onto his sled. He was tired now, resting on his snowmachine. The wind was up, bleak streaks of ashen cloud against the pale mauve sky. Slaught was thinking that it was good to be out in the bush, in the silence, just taking some time to clear his mind. Then a loud crackling sound erupted behind him.
His hand went flying to the rifle lying on the seat of his sled. He stared towards the source of the sound, then scanned the area around him. Slowly, he turned, looking behind him, following the curve of the snow in behind the now blackening spruce, past the red sticks of dogwood poking up along the edge of the trees. Nothing. And then that fucking noise again, and again he jumped. Christ! It was coming from his backpack.
He recognized the crackle and hiss of a walkie-talkie, grabbed the pack, pulling it open, hearing the cackle again, distorted, pulling out his extra mitts, his matches, axe, flashlight, then finding it in the front pocket of the pack. It crackled again.
Sounded like “help.”
Slaught switched on, said “What?”
Then there was silence. Slaught tried again. “Who is this?”
Silence. Then crackling, and what Slaught took as, “Who’s this?”
Slaught peering at the walkie-talkie, thinking what the fuck is going on, “Jordan?”
“Yes,” he said, then the whispering, making it hard for Johnny to make out exactly what he was saying but he caught, “Help… they’re back…Hurry.”
“Who’s there?”
“Them.”
Shit. Them. That was fucking quick.
Slaught grabbed the axe and matches and threw them in the pack, jammed his rifle into its holder and said, “On my way. Sit tight.”
Jordan, glad to hear it, didn’t have much choice.