Mason was still drawing a deep breath when the frigid water struck him in the face. It was even colder than he’d expected. Paralyzing. His limbs stiffened. Chest tightened.
The hood bobbed up just long enough to offer him a final look at the trees, and then down it went. Water poured over the dashboard and in the blink of an eye the car was full. Submerged. Tumbling. Upside down.
He shoved the suitcase up over the steering wheel. It went right out the gaping hole where the windshield had been and took him with it. His feet found the sharp rim of broken glass and he shoved off with all his strength. He could already feel his body starting to shut down.
Vision constricting.
Heartbeat slowing.
He broke the surface and gasped for air. Turned his back to the current. Stretched his legs out in front of him. Hung on to the suitcase for everything he was worth. Looked for Alejandra.
Glanced behind him. Nothing.
Ahead? Tires jutting above the surface, still spinning. The Bronco moving downriver ahead of him. It stopped abruptly. The sound of wrenching metal. The rear end swung around toward him. He bent his knees. Braced for the collision. Slammed into the rear quarter panel, spun around the side, and went under.
A tug on the collar of his T-shirt and his head broke the surface. He turned to see Alejandra. She barely managed to keep her own head above the water. Her lips were the purple of a deep bruise and her face had taken on such a pallid cast that her white eye nearly blended in. Her black hair was already crystallized with ice.
She let go and outpaced him on the current.
Mason clung to the suitcase. It wouldn’t matter if they survived the river itself if they lost the case. Without dry clothes, they were dead regardless.
The river wended to the right, working its way back toward civilization. The ice encroached from either bank. Chunks floated past him beneath the surface. Two months from now, the entire river would be choked with ice.
It might not have been much of one, but a break was a break and he was happy to finally catch one.
Mason could feel himself sinking lower and lower, and yet there was nothing he could do to stop it. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep his chin above the water.
He momentarily blacked out. Jerked involuntarily when he inhaled a mouthful of the cold water and nearly lost the case in his panic to reach the surface. He emerged, coughing and sputtering.
There were trees all around him now. Their heavy boughs hung over the water. Alejandra was to his right. Crawling across the ice toward the shore. Breaking through it with even her slight body weight and then climbing back on top, only to fall through again. He wondered why she didn’t just stand up until he tried to do so and couldn’t find the ground. He barely managed to transfer the case to one minimally responsive hand. Struggled to swim toward the shore. He was twenty feet downriver from where Alejandra had crawled onto the snow-covered bank when his feet finally touched the bottom. Another fifty before he was actually able to gain any sort of traction on the slick, rocky bed.
Breaking through the ice was physically the hardest thing he had ever done. He was frozen to the core, exhausted, and shivering so hard, he could barely control his limbs. It was all he could do to crawl into the snow and collapse onto his chest. Every inch of his flesh positively hurt from the cold.
His arms shook when he pushed himself to all fours. His shirt was already crisp with ice when he pulled it off. His skin was marbled pink and white and pale blue. He could hardly force his trembling fingers under the waistband of his boxers to slip them off. He turned to see Alejandra doing the same. She was maybe ten feet up the bank and rubbing her bare flesh for warmth. He hoped he didn’t look even half as bad as she did. Her skin was so pale, it was almost translucent. Her hair was white with ice and snow and her body was already barely steaming. She took a step. Fell. Rose. Took another step.
Mason opened the case and dumped out all of the clothes. Alejandra stumbled closer and fell to her knees beside the pile. She had the wings of an angel tattooed on her back. The scars they’d been designed to cover were obvious in this light. They were fat and puckered and rippled where the skin had torn. She was so thin, he could see the knots where her broken ribs hadn’t healed properly.
They dressed as quickly as they could, buried their wet clothes in the snow, and ducked under the canopy just in time to hear the mechanical thunder of a helicopter speeding in their direction. He pulled Alejandra into the snow-packed branches of a juniper as the sleek body of a Bell OH-58 Kiowa raced past, just over the treetops.
Their heat signatures were undoubtedly rising. They needed to get out of the open before whoever was monitoring the satellite detected their deception or the men broadened their search from the immediate vicinity of the crash site. If they hadn’t already.
Mason led Alejandra through the trees. They found the house roughly a quarter mile to the northwest. Whatever buffer their little dip had bought them was undoubtedly spent. He could hear the chopper in the distance. Not well enough to pinpoint its position, but at least well enough to tell that it seemed to be hovering over a single location, presumably that of the submerged Bronco.
The house itself was a ranch-style home that looked like it had originally been built sometime during the forties or fifties. There was a livestock shed behind it, but not an animal in sight. Probably built for cattle. They rounded the front of the house. No movement through the windows nor any sound from inside. A single trail of footprints, little more than dimples now, crossed the yard from the house to a large barn to the northeast. A pair of wide tire tracks led away from the left door of the barn and into the field to the north. Bits of straw tumbled across the accumulation. Mason’s best guess was that someone had left the house two, maybe three hours ago, loaded some hay into the bed of a truck, and drove off to feed the herd.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do from here.
They could hide in one of the buildings, but it wouldn’t be long before the men found them. And neither of them would last long out here in the elements. Despite the dry clothes, if they didn’t warm up in a hurry, they were dead.
He was starting to think that Gunnar had consigned them to their fates, when he heard the rumble of an engine from inside the barn. He glanced at the sheet of snow that separated the barn from the house. Still only one set of tracks, leading out. This didn’t fit at all with the scenario he’d crafted inside his head.
Mason knocked on the barn doors. They were held in place by a locking mechanism. From the outside. He knocked again. Waited. He finally had no choice but to unlatch the doors and swing the right one outward into the snow, just far enough to admit a column of light into the dark barn. It smelled of desiccated hay, grain dust, and old manure. The truck had been backed inside, as though to make it easier to load whatever was in the rear portion of the building. It was a GMC Suburban. There was a conspicuous gap next to it where the truck that was now out in the field had bled oil onto the straw.
He dropped the silver case, held up his hands, and spread his fingers in an effort to look as nonthreatening as he could. The Sigma in the holster under his arm undoubtedly gave lie to the illusion, though.
“My name is James Mason. I’m a special agent with the FBI.”
He approached the driver’s side door slowly. There was dust on the windshield, but not so much that he shouldn’t have been able to see the driver. The backseat and trunk were stuffed full of what looked like handcrafted furniture.
“There is no one in it,” Alejandra said.
“Then why is it running? It’s not like you can start…” He smiled. “Hurry up and get in.”
Mason slung the case behind the driver’s seat, climbed in, and hit the lights.
“Thank you, OnStar.”
All newer-model vehicles from General Motors came fully equipped with OnStar, the magical technology that, with the touch of a button, connected the driver to any number of emergency services. In addition to allowing you to unlock your vehicle remotely and make your lights flash and your horn blare when you forgot where you parked, the service had also added security features, giving you the ability to disable the ignition in cases of theft and power down the engine should the car be involved in a high-speed chase. It also enabled the owner—or someone skilled enough to subvert OnStar’s firewalls—to start the engine with a simple app that could be downloaded to any cell phone.
Alejandra had the heater blowing full force before she even closed her door.
Mason was so cold that the air positively burned, but he wouldn’t have traded the sensation for anything in the world. He pulled out of the garage and drove as fast as he dared; he didn’t want to attract any more attention than absolutely necessary, especially in a stolen vehicle.
The driveway wound through the trees and back to the main road, then headed north. He rolled down his window and listened to the chopper blades thupping to the south, near the river.
Right where he hoped they’d be.