AFON
I stand in the dark with my thumb over the call button.
Lukas is one touch away. It'd be easy. If I call, he'll send men, no questions asked. Reznik's camp will get cleaned out in a night and the problem will come to a swift and bloody end.
Best of all, Caroline would go home safe. That's the upside, and it's a big one.
Then there's the downside: Lukas doesn't do favors. Men like him don't know the meaning of the word "altruism." He'd help, but it would come at a price, and the interest on a loan from Lukas Lazarev is the rest of your life. I already paid fifteen years to that man. I got out, against all odds, but there will be no second exit.
So… no. Not yet. Not unless there's no other choice, and there's still a choice.
I put the phone back in my pocket and stand in the cold a while longer, until my fingers stop wanting to dial it.
Then I go inside.
In the morning, I rig the mountain.
"What are you doing with our dinner forks?" Caroline asks from the doorway. She's wearing my flannel and my spare jacket over it, which means she's wearing more of my wardrobe than I am.
"These are tent stakes."
"Okay, sure, same difference. What are you doing with the tent stakes?"
"Making noise."
I run paracord at ankle height across the two trails that lead up to the hut, the old mining road from the south and the deer path that comes around the ravine. I tie each line to a stack of tin cans with pebbles inside. Anybody who hits the cord in the dark will bring the cans clanging down on rock. It's not pretty, but it's loud, and loud buys me ten seconds. Sometimes, that's the difference between a fight and a slaughter.
Caroline limps along behind me, supervising. "Question," she says.
"Nope."
"Isn't this overkill?" she asks anyway.
I don't deign to respond.
She frowns. "Fine. New question. What happens if Wolf hits the cord?"
"Wolf knows where the cords are."
"How? Did you brief him? Was there a PowerPoint?"
"I walked him through. Twice. He's careful." I tie off the last line and test the tension with two fingers. "You, on the other hand, fall over tree roots in broad daylight, so listen closely and remember what I'm telling you. There's a line here, a line by the woodpile, and a line forty feet down the south trail. Don't go past the woodpile without me. Repeat that back."
"I don't go past the woodpile without you."
I nod, temporarily satisfied. "Good."
"I'd like it noted that I'm being extremely cooperative."
"Noted."
She grins like she won something. Maybe she did. I don't know how scoring works with her. I've stopped trying to keep track.
I spend another hour on the rest. I drag a dead spruce across the mining road at the narrow spot, low enough to step over if you know it's there, high enough to put a running man on his face if he doesn't. I pile loose shale on the slope above the deer path where a boot will send it clattering. I clear the snow off a flat rock thirty yards out so I have one clean shooting position with cover and a full view of the clearing.
It's not a fortress. Not by any stretch of the imagination. At best, I'd call it a poorly built alarm clock.
But for now, it's as good as we're gonna get.
