Her selfless warrior, p.6
Her Selfless Warrior, page 6
“I’ll take that bet.”
“You really think that Gideon didn’t know about that?” Lark sounded surprised.
“No. Now that you mentioned it, you’re absolutely right; of course, he did. I just liked the sound of us having another dinner at a hotel.”
Her laughter rushed over him like an Atlantic wave during a summer heatwave, welcoming and refreshing. The elevator door swooshed open. He walked a little bit behind her, admiring how the blue-colored dress molded to her thighs and ass.
She stopped in front of a room and waved her phone in front of the lock. He watched as the green light showed and she opened the door.
“We’re going to go into your room so I can set your things down,” he told her.
Lark nodded.
He turned on the lights, ensuring everything was in order, before setting her suitcase on the provided rack. “I assume you want your backpack on the desk?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Am I allowed to see you again tomorrow?” he asked as he positioned himself in front of her.
Lark nodded a third time.
“Are you going to ever talk again?” he teased.
She started to nod again, then cleared her throat. “Yes.”
He smiled slowly and reached up to cup her cheek. Her pulse was beating wildly in her neck and he stroked over it with his thumb. Her skin was so soft, that the fall of her hair felt like silk as it drifted over the back of his hand.
“What time should I be over?” he asked quietly.
“Um, don’t you have to work?”
“Tomorrow is Saturday.”
“Oh yeah.” He moved his thumb so it feathered over her bottom lip.
“Lark?”
“Hmmm?”
“What time?”
She licked her bottom lip and he groaned. He’d known Lark Sorenson for three years now, and he knew damn good and well that she wasn’t teasing him, which only made it worse.
“Do that again.” He traced his thumb over her now wet bottom lip, and his cock pressed against the zipper of his slacks.
She shook her head, and her eyes focused.
Damn. Dazed had been a good look for her.
“Until I sample the kiss, Barona, there’s no need to make plans for tomorrow.”
“Point taken.”
She reached up and pushed the fingers of her right hand into his hair, her short nails scraping against his scalp. After one more stroke of his thumb, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers.
Electric. Her nails dug in deeper and it felt good.
He pulled her other hand up so it could rest on his chest, then he gently cupped her jaw, turning her head slightly so the angle was right, and pressed another whisper-soft kiss against her lips.
“Two,” she moaned.
“Those weren’t kisses. I was just testing the waters, Honey.”
She opened her mouth again, probably to say something, but he wasn’t having any of it, so he covered her mouth with his. He slid his lips against hers. The texture was warm, wet velvet, and when he ran his tongue along her inner lip he tasted her berry-flavored sigh.
Lark started to pet him, her left hand kneading his dress shirt.
He wanted nothing more than to feel her fingers, her hands, touching his bare skin. For just a moment he was tempted to unbutton his shirt, but he stopped himself. That wasn’t part of this, so instead, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, then deepened the kiss.
Lark slid her hand upwards and twined it around his neck. Even in her high-heeled boots, she was a tiny little thing and had to really reach. Kostya bent further, his tongue coaxing her mouth open even more.
Lark let out a little mewl, and he stroked his hand up her back even though he really wanted to grab the firm globe of her ass.
Just a kiss, Barona.
He traced long, languid strokes up and down her spine as he explored her mouth, glorying in her taste and passion. She scraped her nails down along the back of his skull until she reached the sensitive nape of his neck. He thought he would explode. He pulled away from her.
“Lark,” he groaned. “What you do to me.”
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
He moved his hands and slowly cupped her cheeks. They were hot, he figured his were too. “You don’t really mean that.”
She breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Then she nodded. Her smile was shaky.
“You’re right, just a kiss.”
She sounds as regretful as I feel.
She took a step back and looked around her hotel room.
“So did you figure out what time I should pick you up for breakfast?” he asked.
“I already made plans to go over to Cullen and Carys’ house to see their baby girl.” He liked that again she sounded regretful. “It will be a quick visit because Carys is taking a little bit of a road trip to see her friend Sarah since Cullen’s out of town, so this is my chance to see the little cutie.”
“Why don’t I go with you?”
Lark’s expression brightened. “That’d be great.”
“So eight o’clock, we can have breakfast, then head on over. How does that sound?”
“Good.”
5
The call came just as Kostya was pulling up to the Hilton the next morning.
“Kostya, where are you?” Simon Clark said by way of greeting. That was not good.
“Atlantic Avenue,” Kostya said, not wanting to tell him the Hilton. It would bring up too many questions.
“Get to base as fast as you can. You’ve got half your team in that fucking training thing with the Marines, right?”
Kostya drove past the valet and whipped his Bronco back out the driveway to Atlantic Avenue.
“Not half, only six. Gideon’s with me.”
“Thank fuck.” Kostya heard the relief in Simon’s voice. “We’ve got a problem. Get everyone to the ready room, STAT.”
Before he could even say yes, Kostya was met with a dial tone.
He took one more longing look at the Hilton in his rearview mirror and stepped on the gas. He figured nine miles over the speed limit shouldn’t get him pulled over. He depressed the call button on his phone and called out Lark’s name.
“If you’re running late, that’s good. I am too,” Lark said as she answered the phone.
“I wish it were that simple, Honey. I’m not going to be able to visit with you and Carys. As a matter of fact, it’s wheels up for me and the team and I don’t know when I’ll be back in town.”
“That’s an immediate thing, right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, I’m not going to ask any questions, even though that goes against the journalist code.” Her laugh was half-hearted.
“I appreciate that.”
“Can I tell you to stay safe?”
“I would appreciate that too.”
“Stay safe, Kostya, I mean it. I’ve decided I want another kiss.”
He stopped at the red light and smiled.
“You do realize I didn’t promise to stop at just a kiss next time.”
He saw the crosswalk light counting down; he needed to text his team.
“I get the feeling you know how to play things by the seat of your pants. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”
“Yeah, I guess we will,” he agreed.
“I mean it, Kostya, you and all of your team—you get back here with every single hair in place, you got it?”
She was a fierce little thing.
“I hear you. I’ve got to go, Honey.”
“Okay, goodbye.”
She hung-up.
He scrolled through his phone and went to the group text for his team and typed in three short words before the light changed.
* * *
READY ROOM, STAT.
* * *
He had drilled into every one of his men to have their go bags with them at all times. It was the reason why they all insisted on always being the ones to drive.
His phone rang. It was Gideon’s ringtone.
Fuck! This is not going to be good news.
“Talk to me,” Kostya answered.
“Got Mike’s kids. Gotta do a pass-off. It’s gonna take me an extra thirty to get them over to the precinct,” Gideon said calmly.
“Okay. As soon as the kids aren’t with you and you’re safe, call me, I’ll conference you into the ready room so you can listen in.” Kostya knew that his paranoid computer geek friend had a satellite phone, so security wouldn’t be an issue.
“You got it.”
Kostya hoped to hell that was the only call he was going to receive. He had six of his men that were mission-ready—they were the best of the best, and if Commander Clark was saying now, he meant now.
He made it to base without attracting the attention of any member of the sheriff’s department, which was a blessing. When he hot-footed it to their building he saw Ryker’s Harley parked in close. There was not a man or woman on Earth who would touch that thing while they were gone if they valued their life, but Kostya was going to see if there was a place to stow it inside. The last thing he wanted was that beauty to be murdered if a hurricane hit while they were off God knew where.
When he got to the ready room, Commander Clark, Ryker McQueen, Lincoln Hart, Sebastian Durand, and Landon Kelly were present. Landon gave Kostya a grin as he went over to the podium where his boss was shuffling through some papers. The man was radiating energy, which again, concerned Kostya because Simon Clark was known for being cool as a cucumber. It wasn’t that he was nervous or upset, just that Kostya could tell that something was up.
“Do you have six or seven men?” Simon asked.
“Seven,” Kostya immediately answered. “Gideon’s the only one who won’t be here immediately. He has to drop off his brother’s children.”
Simon nodded, looking down at a report, before thrusting it at Kostya. “We can go over some of the basics before Gideon arrives. You’re going to be dealing with damn near arctic conditions.”
Kostya winced. They’d trained up near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska twenty-five months ago, in January. Five days of diving, then they’d spent two weeks in the Denali Park and Preserve. Mateo and Lincoln hadn’t been with the team then and Jase was one of their best trackers in the snow and he was on the training mission. He knew Mateo Aranda was good, because his team—
“What?” Simon interrupted him mid-thought. The man didn’t miss a trick.
“Aranda came from Blue Cascade. I talked to Kelsey Hick’s team when he transferred Mateo my way, and they’d just done a mission in the Andes, so he’s good to go. From what I read in Lincoln Hart’s file, he’s supposedly checked out in arctic conditions, but I’ve got to ask him what he’s done. I know he grew up in Minnesota, but that doesn’t automatically make him prepared.”
“One of the reasons you’re going, even though you’re not up on rotation, is the training you did up in Alaska two years ago,” Commander Clark explained.
Kostya smiled at Mateo, who nodded to him as he came into the room and sat down. That just left Nolan and Gideon. As soon as he thought that, Nolan O’Rourke came in wearing a frown. Which was unusual; normally you could never read Nolan’s expression.
“How do you want to work this?” Simon asked.
“Gideon has a sat phone. As soon as he’s clear he’s going to call in, are you good with that?” Kostya asked his boss.
Commander Clark nodded. “Let’s get started. It’ll take me a minute to access the briefing on the network. I was kind of depending on Gideon to take care of things.”
“Don’t we all?” Kostya sighed.
Despite his words, Simon Clark quickly set up his laptop and pulled up the presentation he needed. “Hit the lights.”
Ryker McQueen was already at the wall and had them off before the commander finished his request. Five headshots appeared on the screen. Two women and three men.
“We’ve got five American biologists who have been missing for eight days. They were due to check-in at the Koivusuo Strict Nature Reserve in Finland six days ago.”
“Then why are they saying they’ve been missing for eight days?” Nolan asked with his hand up in the air.
“They called in using one of their satellite phones eight days ago, so the European head of the Intercontinental Wolf Center thought everything was fine, even when they were so late showing up at the rendezvous point. He figured that the bad snowstorm was the problem.”
“He didn’t call them?” Kostya asked, managing to keep the outrage out of his voice.
“Not until yesterday,” Simon sighed. “That was when he found out that not one of the team was picking up their satellite phones. What’s worse, he finally had the bright idea to go back and check out the GPS tracking on the call he had received eight days ago. It turns out that the team was two kilometers over the border into Russia. They were in the Republic of Karelia.”
“Wait a minute,” Sebastian Durand interrupted. “How is that possible? I thought the border between Finland and Russia was littered with landmines?”
“Not on the Finnish side. They entered the Ottawa Agreement in 2012,” Nolan explained. “But yeah, they sure would have them on the Russian side,” he sighed. Then he turned to look at Simon. “But begging your pardon, Commander, how in the fuck did these yahoos manage to stumble their way into Russia?”
“All I can tell you is that without civilians doing dumbass things, we would probably be out of jobs,” Simon sighed. “I’m willing to give them a little bit of leeway since the weather was so damned bad, but still….”
“So our job is to go into Russia, hunt them down, and bring them home, is that it?” Kostya asked.
“I wish it were that simple.” Simon rubbed the back of his neck. “It gets worse.”
“What were the wolf biologists doing over there in the first place?” Lincoln Hart asked.
“Currently, Finland is going ahead with culling the number of wolves and these biologists chose to go over and study that particular subspecies of gray wolf. Apparently, they want to talk the Finns out of their plan.”
“During winter?” Lincoln asked. “Are they nuts?”
“Lately the weather has been turning on a dime,” Nolan defended. “They probably didn’t know it was going to get so bad.”
“True,” Lincoln admitted.
“Each member of the team has at minimum ten years of field experience,” Clark went on to explain. “They’re not neophytes, which is another reason that the guy wasn’t all that worried when they didn’t check in on time. The team leader of the expedition is Doctor Gwendolyn Lord. She’s been doing this for twenty years. Last year she and her daughter did the Iditarod together.”
“Well hell, then there isn’t really an excuse for the team to have gotten lost like they did, no matter how bad the weather was. What the hell?” Ryker shook his head in amazement. Kostya had to agree with his assessment.
“The Republic of Karelia is huge, Commander. Can you narrow down exactly where the last sat call came in from?” Kostya asked.
Clark switched to the next slide.
“First, here is a weather map, showing the whole area. We have Finland and Western Russia. You can see the Republic of Karelia there. Before I zoom in, you need to see the storm bearing down on the Southern and Central parts of Finland on into the Western part of Russia, then on down to St. Petersburg. According to every weather agency, this blizzard is gearing up to be a once-in-a-century event. This is going to be a hell of a lot worse than the one that the biologists were caught up in. Some of the techs in the Pentagon think that even the satellite phones won’t work, and the GPS will be really iffy. This might be a little tougher than normal. Are you up for it?”
“Hell yeah,” Kostya’s team all yelled out.
I love these guys.
“Okay, now to answer your next question.” He switched to the next slide that showed the Koivusuo Strict Nature Reserve, and a dot over on the Russia side of the map. “This is where the call came in from. They were thirty kilometers away from the Reserve, about two kilometers over the Finnish/Russian border.”
Kostya shook his head.
“What’s that other place you have circled?” Lincoln asked.
Clark pointed to what looked like a small lake well over the border. “This is Lake Julia, or Kostya, feel like doing the honors?”
Kostya pronounced, “Ozero Yulya-Viyeks”Yarvi” with a Russian accent, “but Lake Julia will suffice,” he said with a hard smile.
“When Captain Hale and I were briefed over at the Pentagon this morning, we were let in on a little secret, and it dovetails nicely with a very plausible scenario of what could have happened to our biologists.”
Kostya felt his lips twist into a warped smile.
Here comes the kicker.
“Now, what has everybody’s panties in a twist is that all of them had satellite phones. All of them have at least seven years of fieldwork, and the idea that all five of them aren’t answering doesn’t seem possible.”
“Unless they’re all dead,” Kostya said.
“Now, there’s our optimistic Russian lieutenant,” Ryker grinned.
“Can it,” Clark quickly spit out. He wasn’t used to the way that the men of Omega Sky teased one another. Kostya gave Ryker the side-eye and Ryker shrugged, but he shut up.
“Now, before I was so rudely interrupted, I had more to say,” Kostya said drily to deflect Clark’s attention off of his man. “I find it hard to believe that not one of them would have called in if they were in a dire situation, not if they were such seasoned field workers. Isn’t that how you see it?” he turned to Clark.
Clark nodded. “What’s more, the Pentagon had eyes on activity going on in the Russian side of Karelia near Lake Julia. That’s about one hundred and forty kilometers over the border. There was activity being monitored last fall, before the snow.”
“What were they seeing?” Kostya asked.
“A lot of supplies were being sent in, things like cement trucks, supply trucks, and personnel. It looked like they were gearing up to build something. The area they chose was in the Karelia Forest, so there is no way that a finished installation would have been captured by a satellite with all of that old forest growth.”
“You really think that Gideon didn’t know about that?” Lark sounded surprised.
“No. Now that you mentioned it, you’re absolutely right; of course, he did. I just liked the sound of us having another dinner at a hotel.”
Her laughter rushed over him like an Atlantic wave during a summer heatwave, welcoming and refreshing. The elevator door swooshed open. He walked a little bit behind her, admiring how the blue-colored dress molded to her thighs and ass.
She stopped in front of a room and waved her phone in front of the lock. He watched as the green light showed and she opened the door.
“We’re going to go into your room so I can set your things down,” he told her.
Lark nodded.
He turned on the lights, ensuring everything was in order, before setting her suitcase on the provided rack. “I assume you want your backpack on the desk?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Am I allowed to see you again tomorrow?” he asked as he positioned himself in front of her.
Lark nodded a third time.
“Are you going to ever talk again?” he teased.
She started to nod again, then cleared her throat. “Yes.”
He smiled slowly and reached up to cup her cheek. Her pulse was beating wildly in her neck and he stroked over it with his thumb. Her skin was so soft, that the fall of her hair felt like silk as it drifted over the back of his hand.
“What time should I be over?” he asked quietly.
“Um, don’t you have to work?”
“Tomorrow is Saturday.”
“Oh yeah.” He moved his thumb so it feathered over her bottom lip.
“Lark?”
“Hmmm?”
“What time?”
She licked her bottom lip and he groaned. He’d known Lark Sorenson for three years now, and he knew damn good and well that she wasn’t teasing him, which only made it worse.
“Do that again.” He traced his thumb over her now wet bottom lip, and his cock pressed against the zipper of his slacks.
She shook her head, and her eyes focused.
Damn. Dazed had been a good look for her.
“Until I sample the kiss, Barona, there’s no need to make plans for tomorrow.”
“Point taken.”
She reached up and pushed the fingers of her right hand into his hair, her short nails scraping against his scalp. After one more stroke of his thumb, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers.
Electric. Her nails dug in deeper and it felt good.
He pulled her other hand up so it could rest on his chest, then he gently cupped her jaw, turning her head slightly so the angle was right, and pressed another whisper-soft kiss against her lips.
“Two,” she moaned.
“Those weren’t kisses. I was just testing the waters, Honey.”
She opened her mouth again, probably to say something, but he wasn’t having any of it, so he covered her mouth with his. He slid his lips against hers. The texture was warm, wet velvet, and when he ran his tongue along her inner lip he tasted her berry-flavored sigh.
Lark started to pet him, her left hand kneading his dress shirt.
He wanted nothing more than to feel her fingers, her hands, touching his bare skin. For just a moment he was tempted to unbutton his shirt, but he stopped himself. That wasn’t part of this, so instead, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, then deepened the kiss.
Lark slid her hand upwards and twined it around his neck. Even in her high-heeled boots, she was a tiny little thing and had to really reach. Kostya bent further, his tongue coaxing her mouth open even more.
Lark let out a little mewl, and he stroked his hand up her back even though he really wanted to grab the firm globe of her ass.
Just a kiss, Barona.
He traced long, languid strokes up and down her spine as he explored her mouth, glorying in her taste and passion. She scraped her nails down along the back of his skull until she reached the sensitive nape of his neck. He thought he would explode. He pulled away from her.
“Lark,” he groaned. “What you do to me.”
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
He moved his hands and slowly cupped her cheeks. They were hot, he figured his were too. “You don’t really mean that.”
She breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Then she nodded. Her smile was shaky.
“You’re right, just a kiss.”
She sounds as regretful as I feel.
She took a step back and looked around her hotel room.
“So did you figure out what time I should pick you up for breakfast?” he asked.
“I already made plans to go over to Cullen and Carys’ house to see their baby girl.” He liked that again she sounded regretful. “It will be a quick visit because Carys is taking a little bit of a road trip to see her friend Sarah since Cullen’s out of town, so this is my chance to see the little cutie.”
“Why don’t I go with you?”
Lark’s expression brightened. “That’d be great.”
“So eight o’clock, we can have breakfast, then head on over. How does that sound?”
“Good.”
5
The call came just as Kostya was pulling up to the Hilton the next morning.
“Kostya, where are you?” Simon Clark said by way of greeting. That was not good.
“Atlantic Avenue,” Kostya said, not wanting to tell him the Hilton. It would bring up too many questions.
“Get to base as fast as you can. You’ve got half your team in that fucking training thing with the Marines, right?”
Kostya drove past the valet and whipped his Bronco back out the driveway to Atlantic Avenue.
“Not half, only six. Gideon’s with me.”
“Thank fuck.” Kostya heard the relief in Simon’s voice. “We’ve got a problem. Get everyone to the ready room, STAT.”
Before he could even say yes, Kostya was met with a dial tone.
He took one more longing look at the Hilton in his rearview mirror and stepped on the gas. He figured nine miles over the speed limit shouldn’t get him pulled over. He depressed the call button on his phone and called out Lark’s name.
“If you’re running late, that’s good. I am too,” Lark said as she answered the phone.
“I wish it were that simple, Honey. I’m not going to be able to visit with you and Carys. As a matter of fact, it’s wheels up for me and the team and I don’t know when I’ll be back in town.”
“That’s an immediate thing, right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, I’m not going to ask any questions, even though that goes against the journalist code.” Her laugh was half-hearted.
“I appreciate that.”
“Can I tell you to stay safe?”
“I would appreciate that too.”
“Stay safe, Kostya, I mean it. I’ve decided I want another kiss.”
He stopped at the red light and smiled.
“You do realize I didn’t promise to stop at just a kiss next time.”
He saw the crosswalk light counting down; he needed to text his team.
“I get the feeling you know how to play things by the seat of your pants. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”
“Yeah, I guess we will,” he agreed.
“I mean it, Kostya, you and all of your team—you get back here with every single hair in place, you got it?”
She was a fierce little thing.
“I hear you. I’ve got to go, Honey.”
“Okay, goodbye.”
She hung-up.
He scrolled through his phone and went to the group text for his team and typed in three short words before the light changed.
* * *
READY ROOM, STAT.
* * *
He had drilled into every one of his men to have their go bags with them at all times. It was the reason why they all insisted on always being the ones to drive.
His phone rang. It was Gideon’s ringtone.
Fuck! This is not going to be good news.
“Talk to me,” Kostya answered.
“Got Mike’s kids. Gotta do a pass-off. It’s gonna take me an extra thirty to get them over to the precinct,” Gideon said calmly.
“Okay. As soon as the kids aren’t with you and you’re safe, call me, I’ll conference you into the ready room so you can listen in.” Kostya knew that his paranoid computer geek friend had a satellite phone, so security wouldn’t be an issue.
“You got it.”
Kostya hoped to hell that was the only call he was going to receive. He had six of his men that were mission-ready—they were the best of the best, and if Commander Clark was saying now, he meant now.
He made it to base without attracting the attention of any member of the sheriff’s department, which was a blessing. When he hot-footed it to their building he saw Ryker’s Harley parked in close. There was not a man or woman on Earth who would touch that thing while they were gone if they valued their life, but Kostya was going to see if there was a place to stow it inside. The last thing he wanted was that beauty to be murdered if a hurricane hit while they were off God knew where.
When he got to the ready room, Commander Clark, Ryker McQueen, Lincoln Hart, Sebastian Durand, and Landon Kelly were present. Landon gave Kostya a grin as he went over to the podium where his boss was shuffling through some papers. The man was radiating energy, which again, concerned Kostya because Simon Clark was known for being cool as a cucumber. It wasn’t that he was nervous or upset, just that Kostya could tell that something was up.
“Do you have six or seven men?” Simon asked.
“Seven,” Kostya immediately answered. “Gideon’s the only one who won’t be here immediately. He has to drop off his brother’s children.”
Simon nodded, looking down at a report, before thrusting it at Kostya. “We can go over some of the basics before Gideon arrives. You’re going to be dealing with damn near arctic conditions.”
Kostya winced. They’d trained up near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska twenty-five months ago, in January. Five days of diving, then they’d spent two weeks in the Denali Park and Preserve. Mateo and Lincoln hadn’t been with the team then and Jase was one of their best trackers in the snow and he was on the training mission. He knew Mateo Aranda was good, because his team—
“What?” Simon interrupted him mid-thought. The man didn’t miss a trick.
“Aranda came from Blue Cascade. I talked to Kelsey Hick’s team when he transferred Mateo my way, and they’d just done a mission in the Andes, so he’s good to go. From what I read in Lincoln Hart’s file, he’s supposedly checked out in arctic conditions, but I’ve got to ask him what he’s done. I know he grew up in Minnesota, but that doesn’t automatically make him prepared.”
“One of the reasons you’re going, even though you’re not up on rotation, is the training you did up in Alaska two years ago,” Commander Clark explained.
Kostya smiled at Mateo, who nodded to him as he came into the room and sat down. That just left Nolan and Gideon. As soon as he thought that, Nolan O’Rourke came in wearing a frown. Which was unusual; normally you could never read Nolan’s expression.
“How do you want to work this?” Simon asked.
“Gideon has a sat phone. As soon as he’s clear he’s going to call in, are you good with that?” Kostya asked his boss.
Commander Clark nodded. “Let’s get started. It’ll take me a minute to access the briefing on the network. I was kind of depending on Gideon to take care of things.”
“Don’t we all?” Kostya sighed.
Despite his words, Simon Clark quickly set up his laptop and pulled up the presentation he needed. “Hit the lights.”
Ryker McQueen was already at the wall and had them off before the commander finished his request. Five headshots appeared on the screen. Two women and three men.
“We’ve got five American biologists who have been missing for eight days. They were due to check-in at the Koivusuo Strict Nature Reserve in Finland six days ago.”
“Then why are they saying they’ve been missing for eight days?” Nolan asked with his hand up in the air.
“They called in using one of their satellite phones eight days ago, so the European head of the Intercontinental Wolf Center thought everything was fine, even when they were so late showing up at the rendezvous point. He figured that the bad snowstorm was the problem.”
“He didn’t call them?” Kostya asked, managing to keep the outrage out of his voice.
“Not until yesterday,” Simon sighed. “That was when he found out that not one of the team was picking up their satellite phones. What’s worse, he finally had the bright idea to go back and check out the GPS tracking on the call he had received eight days ago. It turns out that the team was two kilometers over the border into Russia. They were in the Republic of Karelia.”
“Wait a minute,” Sebastian Durand interrupted. “How is that possible? I thought the border between Finland and Russia was littered with landmines?”
“Not on the Finnish side. They entered the Ottawa Agreement in 2012,” Nolan explained. “But yeah, they sure would have them on the Russian side,” he sighed. Then he turned to look at Simon. “But begging your pardon, Commander, how in the fuck did these yahoos manage to stumble their way into Russia?”
“All I can tell you is that without civilians doing dumbass things, we would probably be out of jobs,” Simon sighed. “I’m willing to give them a little bit of leeway since the weather was so damned bad, but still….”
“So our job is to go into Russia, hunt them down, and bring them home, is that it?” Kostya asked.
“I wish it were that simple.” Simon rubbed the back of his neck. “It gets worse.”
“What were the wolf biologists doing over there in the first place?” Lincoln Hart asked.
“Currently, Finland is going ahead with culling the number of wolves and these biologists chose to go over and study that particular subspecies of gray wolf. Apparently, they want to talk the Finns out of their plan.”
“During winter?” Lincoln asked. “Are they nuts?”
“Lately the weather has been turning on a dime,” Nolan defended. “They probably didn’t know it was going to get so bad.”
“True,” Lincoln admitted.
“Each member of the team has at minimum ten years of field experience,” Clark went on to explain. “They’re not neophytes, which is another reason that the guy wasn’t all that worried when they didn’t check in on time. The team leader of the expedition is Doctor Gwendolyn Lord. She’s been doing this for twenty years. Last year she and her daughter did the Iditarod together.”
“Well hell, then there isn’t really an excuse for the team to have gotten lost like they did, no matter how bad the weather was. What the hell?” Ryker shook his head in amazement. Kostya had to agree with his assessment.
“The Republic of Karelia is huge, Commander. Can you narrow down exactly where the last sat call came in from?” Kostya asked.
Clark switched to the next slide.
“First, here is a weather map, showing the whole area. We have Finland and Western Russia. You can see the Republic of Karelia there. Before I zoom in, you need to see the storm bearing down on the Southern and Central parts of Finland on into the Western part of Russia, then on down to St. Petersburg. According to every weather agency, this blizzard is gearing up to be a once-in-a-century event. This is going to be a hell of a lot worse than the one that the biologists were caught up in. Some of the techs in the Pentagon think that even the satellite phones won’t work, and the GPS will be really iffy. This might be a little tougher than normal. Are you up for it?”
“Hell yeah,” Kostya’s team all yelled out.
I love these guys.
“Okay, now to answer your next question.” He switched to the next slide that showed the Koivusuo Strict Nature Reserve, and a dot over on the Russia side of the map. “This is where the call came in from. They were thirty kilometers away from the Reserve, about two kilometers over the Finnish/Russian border.”
Kostya shook his head.
“What’s that other place you have circled?” Lincoln asked.
Clark pointed to what looked like a small lake well over the border. “This is Lake Julia, or Kostya, feel like doing the honors?”
Kostya pronounced, “Ozero Yulya-Viyeks”Yarvi” with a Russian accent, “but Lake Julia will suffice,” he said with a hard smile.
“When Captain Hale and I were briefed over at the Pentagon this morning, we were let in on a little secret, and it dovetails nicely with a very plausible scenario of what could have happened to our biologists.”
Kostya felt his lips twist into a warped smile.
Here comes the kicker.
“Now, what has everybody’s panties in a twist is that all of them had satellite phones. All of them have at least seven years of fieldwork, and the idea that all five of them aren’t answering doesn’t seem possible.”
“Unless they’re all dead,” Kostya said.
“Now, there’s our optimistic Russian lieutenant,” Ryker grinned.
“Can it,” Clark quickly spit out. He wasn’t used to the way that the men of Omega Sky teased one another. Kostya gave Ryker the side-eye and Ryker shrugged, but he shut up.
“Now, before I was so rudely interrupted, I had more to say,” Kostya said drily to deflect Clark’s attention off of his man. “I find it hard to believe that not one of them would have called in if they were in a dire situation, not if they were such seasoned field workers. Isn’t that how you see it?” he turned to Clark.
Clark nodded. “What’s more, the Pentagon had eyes on activity going on in the Russian side of Karelia near Lake Julia. That’s about one hundred and forty kilometers over the border. There was activity being monitored last fall, before the snow.”
“What were they seeing?” Kostya asked.
“A lot of supplies were being sent in, things like cement trucks, supply trucks, and personnel. It looked like they were gearing up to build something. The area they chose was in the Karelia Forest, so there is no way that a finished installation would have been captured by a satellite with all of that old forest growth.”
