Page 78 of Air Force One
Packing the snow to the sides as much as possible, Holly dragged herself forward until she could see out the hole. Not the cave. High, horsetail cirrus clouds blurred the half-moon. It didn’t take many seconds to note that the direction of the clouds ran west to east—fast. Another weather front moving in. So it was a good thing she hadn’t waited until morning.
She froze with her body half out of her tunnel. She was looking down…a long way down. A glance behind her showed why. The big outcropping she’d built her cave against had caused a massive snow drift. Had she exited her cave and turned right or left, she’d have punched clear in the first few meters.
Here, she’d tunneled straight out through the long-axis of a snow drift that reached to a towering cliff’s edge. Or…was she lying on only more snow suspended over the abyss. Fit to crumble at any second.
Holly tried to retreat, but she’d plugged the hole behind her as she’d wormed along. Going to the right wasn’t an option either because of the cliff not having a top there either, though that was the direction of her escape route. Out of choices, she edged to the left out of the drift and did her best to disturb nothing until she was well back on firm ground. Or at least firm snow.
After moving once again close to the massive outcropping and away from the vertiginous drop, she faced the massive snowdrift across her route. She unzipped her coverall and parka to shake out what snow hadn’t already melted. The bitter wind took the opportunity to make her wet inner gear several degrees cooler.
Ordering herself to think wasn’t helping matters.
“Damn it, Sarge! We ever get to that warm, cozy pub, you’re buying! Not this girl.”
Sealing up everything as well as she could, she plunged through the drift. The passage from east side of the drift to the west side was both disgustingly easy and brutally cold. All the snow that she’d cleared out of the gear was replaced by a fresh load of snow looking for somewhere to perform its spring-melt magic act—transforming from lovely glittery stuff that caught the moonlight to freezing cold water running down her back, arms, and legs.
But she was through.
A kilometer more at altitude, then descend in a straight line. She doublechecked her GPS. Except nothing happened. She looked at it again through one eye. And then the other. Still nothing.
Oh, right. It was on her phone. And its battery was dead. No backup battery. No dedicated unit. No nothing.
Well, she still had the moon. Except not for long. Those clouds were moving in faster than she was moving out. She eyed the drift behind her. So far she’d made good about four meters from her cave.
She leaned back into ritual. Drain the water bottle. Pack with snow. Inside pocket. No colder than the rest of her.
Screw the one-more-sideways-kilometer plan, she needed to get down. Except there was a reason not to. Oh yeah, the abyss at the end of the snow drift. One kilometer. In deep snow, that was about two thousand steps. Somewhere in her escape from her icy-Hobbit-hole-of-doom, she’d lost one of the hiking poles.
It required a very careful concentration to get the strap around her wrist. It turned out the trick was to remove the heavy outer glove first. But when she set it on the snow to focus on the strap, the wind took the glove over the cliff.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy.” Holly finally decided to remove her other glove and put it on the hiking pole hand. She jammed the half-bared hand in her pocket.
Then she poked the pole into the snow in front of her. When she found no crevasse, she took a step.
One.
Poke. Two.
Three.
76
“I’ve got her on thermal.”
Mike didn’t wait for Tad to fully land the helicopter, he jumped out as soon as he dared.
“Hey you.” She blinked at him like a zombie affronted by the predawn light.
“You look like shit.” And she did. Not just her lips were chapped white, but most of her face. Her golden hair was matted and soaked by the rain falling at Mount Elbrus’ base. She had an outer snow glove on one hand but only an inner on the other. All that kept her propped upright on the boulder she sat on was a single bent hiking pole.
“You’ve said that before.” Holly’s voice came out as a dry croak.
“Most goddamn beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” And he wrapped his arms around her.
“Mike. You swore.”
“Damn straight.”
Her hug started tight and hard, but within seconds it faded. He shifted back, and almost lost her to the ground. Finally safe, she’d passed out.
