The ice looked almost cracked.
So, no sweat. No sweat at all. Of course, her body belied that statement by sending a cold, wet rush of perspiration to her armpits.
Another look back. They were close. Their next shot wouldn’t miss.
The sun was just starting to melt into the horizon behind her, a candle sputtering out before dying, leaving the world without detail or depth—the sky nothing but the flat outline of sharp black mountains, silhouetted against the day’s last gasp. Clouds stained the sky, dark as inkblots. Each one was like a drop on the windshield, drawn toward the next and the next, gathering to form a low, roiling ceiling. Was that the storm coming in?
Are you freaking kidding me?
One more problem she could add to the quickly growing heap.
Something connected with her plane, so hard it shook. Another bullet? She couldn’t see where she’d been hit this time.
Leo took another lungful of crystal-cold air to brace her, clear her mind.
Concentrate. Land.She could put this thing down on that ice. Looked okay—in parts. Sure, she could do it. Piece of cake.
One step at a time. One breath after another.
“Baby steps,” she told Dolores. Or herself, or whatever.
The lake’s kidney-bean shape nestled among steep, jagged mountains boiling up from the earth like lava from Mordor. It was close enough now to make out details. They hit her in quick, split-second bursts. The bluish-gray surface, mottled with little puffs of white, as if eddies of bubbles had flash frozen beneath the ice crust. Islands of pines floated like dark castles caught in a spiderweb sky. Near to the edge, the ice turned into reptile skin, chunks pulling apart into individual scales.
Oh man, it was definitely breaking up. Or about to. The aircraft would sink. No question about it. If it didn’t flip first and crush her to the ground.
She took another frantic look over her shoulder.
The helo was breathing down her neck, so near she could feel the thrum of its blades, could picture a sniper taking aim, could feel the hot metal piercing her.
No. Not happening.
Following an instinct she’d been born with, she swooped right, put her nose straight into the wind, and catalogued all the challenges she’d have to beat in order to stay alive.
She could do this, even if she was shaking and so nervous she was almost seeing double.
Obstacles? Meant to be overcome.
Like landing straight into the blinding sun, with night and a storm hot on her heels, avoiding those islands covered in evergreens and putting this thing down on a surface that looked smooth but would fall apart any second, full of bumps and breaks and ridges. Each one of those was capable of flipping a plane like this—especially since the landing gear consisted of big metal floats made for water landings, not slush.
“Yay!” The word sounded like a sob, no matter how much happy she tried to inject.
Another shot hit the plane, rocking it like unexpected turbulence.
She did her best to ignore it, squinting hard at the strange honeycomb pattern that gave the lake’s frosted surface a fishing net appearance. The complex swirls reminded her of an illustration of synapses lighting up the brain. And cracks, all over. Or… Could they be animal tracks? Maybe an odd freezing pattern, if she squinted really hard.
She flicked her eyes back. Shit. Shit. They were right there. Close enough so she could count the ship’s individual occupants.Manyoccupants.
All that manpower for little ole me?
Ignore them. They don’t matter. Concentrate.
So, best-case scenario, if breakup hadn’t truly started here, the ice on that lake would hold the Cub’s weight, which was what—eight hundred pounds, with her on board? Nine hundred? What about the helicopter’s fifteen thousand pounds? Would it hold up to that?
No. Definitely not.
That was one advantage. She took in a shaky breath. It was a start.
The bird swooped closer.
