Leo followed her inside, caught sight of the plane, and came to a dead stop. “No freaking way.”
“Shush. Don’t talk like that in front of Dolores.” Amka rushed forward. “She’ll take it personally.”
“Dolores?” Leo eyed the little Piper Cub with distrust. “She’s…beautiful,”for an antique.“But I pictured something a little more substantial than this.” Had they truly just raced to this side of the lake for this? No way could she outpace a helicopter in this aircraft. It would be like trying to beat a Maserati on a tricycle.
“Yeah, well, she’s all we got.” Amka patted the bright yellow fuselage. “I’d go myself if I could see worth a damn.” Leo bet that was true. Though she covered it well, anxiety rolled off Amka in waves. “Airfield’s due west. If you taxi all the way out to the eastern part of the lake, they won’t see you take off. Maybe won’t even hear you.”
Leo was banking on that. She’d need the head start or she and this little tricycle were fried.
Shoving back a wave of residual dizziness, Leo closed the boathouse door. “Could you at least have put the door back on? Or put in some windows?” She took in the floats. “Maybe some tires?”
“Door hinges are rusted. I was gonna fix that, but then I didn’t figure Dolores would be flying anytime soon. And I’m still waiting on the windows I ordered.” Even if she had the parts, there’d be no time to replace them now.Old Amka didn’t have to say it. If Leo didn’t get there before the helicopter, Campbell Turner was a dead man, and the virus would fall into Chronos Corporation’s clutches—again. Amka ran her hands over the plane for a quick last-minute check. “Least there’s a windshield. And hell, if she had tires, we’d have to take off from the airfield.” Which would be a problem. That she and Amka had managed to get down here unseen was a miracle. Getting in the air without attracting notice would be another. “Don’t worry, taking off from water’s a breeze. All you gotta do is take care of my girl and she’ll take care of you.”
“I will,” Leo promised as she threw her bag into the cockpit and jogged to open the boathouse door, revealing the kind of view people lost their heads over. A landscape that made women quit their jobs, leave their lives, and become Wilderness Wives. Perish the thought. She was about as far from a poet as a person could be, but even in her current rush, Alaska stole her breath.
Nestled beside the enormous lake, this tiny settlement was nothing but a lodge and guest cabins, along with a handful of blocky wooden structures that belonged to the few year-round residents, and an airstrip, where the massive Sikorsky S-92 helicopter had touched down less than ten minutes ago. Not a single paved road came within eighty miles of the place. The nearest highway was a hundred and fifty miles away, and it took even the fastest aircraft at least an hour to get to the nearest town—which, like Schink’s Station, was the kind of dot she’d tried to flick off the map before realizing it wasn’t a piece of fly poop.
The newly unfrozen lake’s diamond-smooth center was marred only by the occasional ripple, while the edges were jagged with piled-up remnants of what the locals called breakup. Jagged shards of ice, dark and grimy, rimmed the entire thing, creating a wall along the shore. Around it, the brown and green and white forest appeared deceptively sparse.
Crowning it all were the mountains, bathed in light so bright, it was like a filter had been removed. People lived out there, alone in the wilderness. In the time she’d been here, she’d heard of a handful of men—some with families—who’d claimed a homestead a few decades ago. Others hadn’t even gone the legal route. They’d just…gone. She squinted. How many of them were out there now? Mountain men who’d lost their taste for civilization? She shivered at the idea. Nope.
“Oil and gas are good,” Amka called. “Inspected her a couple days ago, so we just need to warm her up and push her onto the lake.”
Not checking every detail herself made Leo nervous. She cast the woman a look. “You sure? Last thing I need is for one of these cables to give out while I’m up there.”
Amka’s expression told her just how stupid a question that was. “I need you, remember? This is life or death.”
“Right.” Leo stepped onto a float and leaned into the cockpit. “Walk me through start-up.”
Amka pointed and talked and Leo nodded. A bird cawed overhead and while the sound was loud enough to startle her pulse into overdrive, Leo didn’t otherwise react. If the sound wasn’t man-made, she’d ignore it.
In the distance, a lowboomsignaled a hunk of ice calving from the glacier and smashing into the lake a fraction of a second later. Some aspects of Alaska were painfully slow, inching forward like that glacier cutting through the landscape. Other things, though, moved quicker than blinking. Weather changes, for example, could be as treacherous as an avalanche, as devastating as one of those mudslides that obliterated everything in its path. If the weather turned tonight, she’d be stuck out there. If it turned while she was in the air, it could be much, much worse.
A cold breeze ruffled her collar, making her glad she’d layered up. Hell, even with all these clothes on, flying this thing in the cold would be a trial.
Focus. She was a mess after last night—no sleep, no food in her system. She was weak as a freaking kitten. She sucked in a deep, bracing breath of Alaskan air. There was a freshness to it that dug deep into her lungs, cleaned them out, and made room for more. Beneath the woody, outdoor scent that air freshener companies would never figure out was the comfortingly familiar smell of fuel.
A scan of the horizon showed not a single cloud in the sky. “Clear as a bell out there.”
Old Amka snorted. “Don’t you believe it. Storm’s coming in. Better hurry.”
As if the odds weren’t stacked against her already.
“Get Eli—” Amka coughed and shook her head. “Get my godson out and keep going east. Refuel, then head into Canada.”
Leo narrowed her eyes. Something was off about this—beyond the obvious. “He know I’m on my way?”
“Daisy’s working on it.”
Daisy, her hostess at the Lodge. Geez, was the whole town involved? Had they all been sitting there laughing every time Leo’d flown Von and Ans out to search for Turner?
Shoving back the doubt, she leaned over. “Get in touch with my guys. Don’t stop calling them. Tell ’em to turn around and get right back here, soon as they land.”
“Yep. Like I promised.”
Even with the reassurance, Leo had to make one final attempt herself. She pulled out her sat phone and dialed. Still not working. Had to assume the newcomers were jamming the signal. She typed out a quick message to her teammates—Ans and Von, who’d left for Anchorage that morning, and Eric, Zoe, and Ford, back in San Diego. Only Von was set to return, since Ans had gone to check out a lead in Colorado, but she figured this was big enough to warrant bringing the whole team in.
Got trouble. Second team arrived in SS, target’s coordinates in hand.
