Mountain, page 17
“Not me. I won’t go that far,” he replied, with a gentle smile, as he cuddled her close. “I’ve been looking for you practically since I got here.” When she twisted and looked up at him, he nodded. “You know I was. I just didn’t know why. Obviously I was trying to get answers and to find my brother, but there’s so much more to it than that.”
“Instincts,” she suggested, “finding that part of you, finding that piece of your soul that’s been missing and that you didn’t even know about.” And then she laughed. “It sounds like so much garbage.”
“That’s because both of us have been hurt, and, in some ways, we’ve isolated ourselves,” he admitted. “I wasn’t even sure if you would see the attraction between us.”
“Seeing is one thing,” she noted, with a smile, “but doing something about it? Now that’s a completely different issue.”
He burst out laughing. “But you already made that choice, and that’s why you’re here.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I also figured that nobody in their right mind would cross you.” His laughter boomed, and she held a finger up against his lips. “Is it safe?” she asked in a low tone. “Or will somebody assume that I’m here?”
“I don’t know whether they will or not,” he said, squeezing her as much as he could without hurting her, “because, right about now, everything will blow wide open.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we’re up to that point.”
Just then came a distinctive knock on the door. He called out, “Come in.”
Samson stepped inside.
Mountain eyed him and nodded. “I can see you had the same reaction I did to what Elijah had to say.”
“It’s … I don’t want to say farfetched, but it’s damn frustrating.”
“Yeah, I know, and is Chef stringing us a line, telling us a story, still protecting a friend—or his son?”
“That’s the thing, … or his son.”
She looked from one to the other. “Whoa, wait, but he said, … didn’t someone say Chef’s son was dead?”
Mountain looked down at her. “His son isn’t dead after all, as far as we know, or so we’ve been told. His son is alive and still in the military but under a completely different name. In order to keep the son safe, he changed his name and took on somebody else’s name,” Mountain explained. “And the results of that was that we have somebody buried under a wrong name, being impersonated by somebody else.”
“But who the hell is it?” she asked, looking at him in surprise. Her gaze went from one man to the other.
“What do you think?” Mountain asked Samson.
Samson shook his head. “I think it could be either one, except there’s another horrible possibility in the back of my head too.”
“That they’re all in on it?”
“And yet that doesn’t make sense either,” Samson admitted. “And I can’t imagine how—in any way, shape, or form—that would make sense to Elijah.”
“And yet how does any of this make sense to anybody?” Mountain asked Samson. When another knock came on his door again, Mountain groaned. “Since when did my room become Grand Central Station?”
“Since you decided to hide in here, … with our damsel in distress,” Samson pointed out, with half a smile in Amelia’s direction.
Amelia looked at him, surprised, and then nodded. “I guess that makes sense, but maybe I should have stayed in the clinic.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Samson looked at her intently.
She hesitated, then replied, “If I said instincts, would that make sense to you?”
He shrugged. “As much as anything here does. Yes.”
“It could also have been overwhelming fear,” she admitted. “The killer’s comments were meant to send me off, but I didn’t want it to be permanent.”
Samson went to the door and walked back into the room again with Magnus, as the two of them looked at Mountain and frowned. Mountain nodded. “I understand. We need a meeting, but Amelia has an idea that I’m fighting against. The trouble is, it has merit.”
“Setting her up as bait?” Samson asked immediately.
She looked over at him from the comfort of Mountain’s arms and nodded. “It’s not a bad idea, is it?”
“I won’t say it’s the right idea,” he replied. “Nobody wants to see you get hurt again, and you’re taking a hell of a chance.”
“Sure, we all are,” she admitted. “So am I, but I’m in danger already. I still don’t understand why I would be a target, but I do understand that I am one. I’ll worry about the why after we’re all safe.”
Samson gave her a nod of approval. “That’s a good way to look at it, but let’s not take any chances right now.”
“But … you want to tell them?” Mountain asked her.
Amelia nodded. “My thought was that somebody could pretend to be me, and you guys could use them as the bait.”
Samson immediately nodded again. “Barret has already volunteered.”
She looked at him in surprise, contemplated it, and asked, “He’s not my body type, is he?”
“He is not. He’s a bit on the bigger side, but the height is more or less the same. From a distance, nobody will really know, and, if we give him some of your clothing, we’ll have a better chance at pulling this off. We already tested it out, and he can fit into your parka.”
She looked at him in surprise and then nodded. “Honestly, that’s probably all that would be required.”
“We would hope so, but there’s no guarantee,” he said cautiously. “However, taking this directly to you, the way the killer did, he’s almost issued a challenge, so I suggest we meet it and break it.”
Day 7 Morning
It was an odd thing to think of somebody else going out as a sacrificial lamb for her. Amelia mentioned it several times to Barret, who gently smiled and tapped her on the cheek. “You did your part. Let us do ours.”
“I feel as if you’ve already done so much,” she murmured.
Nikolai stepped up beside her. “Barret won’t be out there alone. I’ll go too, and others, and we’ve got a sled and will be taking your dogs,” he shared, with a nod. “I need to be part of this, and I’m pretty sure that this … I won’t say it all started with my father, but it certainly involves my father.”
She winced and nodded. “Got it,” she murmured. “Good luck, you guys. I’ll stay here and hope that it all happens way the hell out there.” Then she hesitated. “What about …” She winced. “What about Elijah’s son?”
“Yeah, that’s another problem because we don’t know who we’ll come up against in the wilderness,” Nikolai shared. “As long as he’s not here with you, then chances are we’re okay.”
“Maybe,” Amelia replied. “We also don’t know for sure that somebody else isn’t involved.”
Samson placed a hand on her shoulder. “And we’re prepared for that too. Now I need you to go back to your room and wait.” She hesitated, but Mountain gave her a look. She glared at him. “I won’t always be so agreeable,” she announced.
His grin flashed. “Is this being agreeable? I can’t imagine what you not being agreeable will look like.”
“You’re about to find out,” she declared, with a threatening note in her tone.
Mountain leaned over, picked her up with absolutely no effort, and gave her a bruising kiss. When he put her down, he whispered, “Now hang on to that thought, until we get back.”
And, with that, they snuck out in staggered groups. She slowly made her way back to his room, wishing she had brought coffee or something with her to help make it a little easier to wait. When a knock came on the door, and Sydney’s soft voice identified herself, Amelia opened the door to find Sydney with a tray of food and drink. Amelia looked at her in surprise and relief. “How did you know I was sitting here, wishing I had thought to bring something?”
“Considering that we’re still not letting you move around very much, you’ve already done more than you should have,” the doc said in a scolding tone.
Amelia sat back down on the bed, with the tray of goodies in front of her, and looked at Sydney. “Will you join me?”
Sydney nodded. “That was the plan. You’ll find other people will be coming by too, as we are all taking shifts.”
She stopped and looked at her carefully. “Meaning, I’m not allowed to be alone, huh?”
The doc gave her a cheeky grin. “What do you think? Yeah, not happening,” Sydney declared. “Mountain has done an awful lot to help everybody here, so we’ll all do an awful lot to help him.”
“And not me?” Amelia teased, with an eye roll.
“And you,” Sydney confirmed, with that same cheerfulness. “We want to ensure this comes to an end.”
“Me too,” Amelia muttered. “I want to know that, whatever I do from here on out, I can do without looking behind me all the time.”
“That’s the worst, isn’t it?” Sydney noted, her voice quiet. “We went through some tough times here before—I won’t even say, before this all blew up, since it was certainly in the process of blowing up. We just didn’t know it yet,” she explained. “Anyway it wasn’t fun for any of us, so I do understand what you’re going through to a certain extent.”
Amelia studied Sydney and realized she really did understand, and empathy had filled her gaze too. “You must be good at your job,” Amelia noted in a quiet voice.
Sydney looked at her in surprise and laughed. “I don’t know about that, but I do my best to help. Sometimes you can’t do what you need to do, and that’s heartbreaking, and sometimes, for all your efforts, it still won’t be enough, and that’s definitely heartbreaking too.”
“Surely some good is in it.”
“Yes, … absolutely there is. Sometimes there are miracles. Those are breathtaking too, and I absolutely love every minute of every day when that becomes a possibility,” she shared with a bright, cheerful smile. “The day that Teegan turned up, that was a miracle we all needed.” Sydney gave Amelia a clipped nod. “A miracle made possible by you. Mountain was absolutely devastated that his brother had gone missing for so long, and all the more frustrated when he couldn’t find him. And, because of his brother, Mountain’s the one who sounded the alarm up here. Because of everything he mobilized, this operation is ongoing right now.”
“So now it just needs to come to a conclusion.”
“Exactly, and that conclusion needs to be the right one,” the doc noted, “and hopefully before we lose anyone else.”
“And yet somehow I suspect that, before this is over, maybe even before this night is over,” Amelia said, “we could have more dead than anticipated.” Sydney looked at her, startled, and Amelia shrugged. “I think, when they’ve cornered this rat, it’ll become beyond dangerous, and it won’t be easy on anybody involved.”
Sydney nodded. “I won’t argue with you on that. … I hope it doesn’t cost us any of those people who are out there doing so much to keep the rest of us safe.”
Amelia realized Magnus was out there too. “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Sydney. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” But she got a headshake in return.
“I don’t live in a world of denial,” Sydney replied. “Absolutely no point, not up here. I’m perfectly aware of what people can be like and how rough this world can be. … So we’ll stay strong, wait and hope for the best.”
They huddled up, and they talked for a while about nothing and yet everything, as they tried to forget about what was going on around them. Later, when a knock came on the door, and Sandrine poked her head in, Sydney got up with a smile and ushered her in.
“My turn to man the clinic,” Sydney explained to Amelia. “You take care now.” And, with that, she was gone.
Sandrine bounced in and sat down in front of Amelia. “Hey. How are you holding up?”
“I was doing pretty well, until I realized how many were outside and how the rest have to babysit me.”
“Either that or you’re back in the clinic,” she pointed out. “Which would you prefer?”
“Here,” Amelia said immediately, and then she chuckled. “What a question.”
“Right?” Sandrine said, with a bright, cheerful smile. “Just think. So much is going on right now, and the base is abuzz. Nobody really knows what’s happening, but they all know something’s happening.”
“You’d have to be dead not to,” Amelia noted, with a headshake. “Everybody here is pretty damn smart.”
“They are, aren’t they? It’s been amazing to see how people here interact with each other. I came here very recently, so I wasn’t a part of any of the original mess and found myself in an odd scenario where I didn’t really fit in with anyone. For a while it was pretty wild, but I ended up spending most of my time with Teegan anyway. Of course Teegan and I have a history.”
“Maybe you should tell me about that history,” Amelia suggested, with a smile, “because he did mention your name a time or two.”
Sandrine stared at her in shock.
Amelia nodded. “When I tried to question him on it, he went silent.”
“No need to be alarmed, but I would guess it was mostly because he didn’t remember us anymore,” Sandrine suggested, with a laugh. Then she explained their history and soon had both of them laughing.
“Oh, gosh, the things that we get ourselves into, and then we don’t know how to fix it,” Amelia noted, with a laugh. “And I’m not even sure where or how I got into this, but apparently I’m somewhat involved with Mountain.”
“Oh, well, if you have to pick somebody to get involved with here,” Sandrine said, “you picked a good one. That man is all heart. According to what I’ve heard from everybody else, he didn’t leave a stone unturned, trying to find his brother. He was pretty damn sure that you had him, but he wasn’t convinced enough that he could rest about it. Yet he never could catch up with you. Then, when you brought in Teegan, Mountain just knew it had been you. He was desperate to talk to you and to see if you had answers. He spent days out there looking for you, once Teegan showed up here.”
“I know,” she muttered. “I saw him out there, but I wasn’t sure of his motives or what he was doing. I didn’t know he was Teegan’s brother at that point. I would watch him from a distance,” Amelia admitted, “unsure about what to do. Teegan had been so emphatic about not trusting anybody here at the base, so I didn’t feel comfortable calling out to Mountain and letting him know where I was. Plus, I’ve heard since then how Mountain didn’t show up here until after Teegan had been missing for about three weeks. So it’s not like Teegan knew his brother was here, although he was praying for him to get here.”
“And that just made it all that much harder on Mountain,” Sandrine stated, with a nod. “On the other hand, Mountain should have to work for it,” she teased, followed by a chuckle.
Amelia rolled her eyes at that. “I don’t know about work for it, but I think Mountain would do anything to keep his brother alive.”
“Almost as much as you did,” Sandrine noted, with a pointed look. “I can’t imagine all that you went through to do that, dealing with the fear of wondering who could be trusted or if you could trust anybody at all.”
“That was the problem, not knowing who was trustworthy, and knowing that, as far as Teegan was concerned, I couldn’t trust anybody in this base. So, I didn’t dare take this poor man and put him back into the same scenario that he’d barely survived in the first place,” she murmured. “And yet I didn’t have anybody to ask, to talk to, to help me work my way through it.”
“You got here in the end.”
“Only because I was shot again. If I’d known Mountain, as I do now, it would have been a different story,” she admitted, with a shrug, “but, even still, I’m going on instincts, trusting him at this point.”
“And so you should,” Sandrine said. “That’s the one person you can trust.”
There was something comforting about hearing that, and it confirmed what Amelia already knew, but it helped. It shouldn’t have helped, but it did, and, for that, she was grateful to have yet another little nudge of confirmation.
When they finished their leftover food and tea, Amelia asked, almost in desperation, “So, how long do you get to stay here?”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll get a steady stream of people,” she replied. “I am damn sure you won’t be alone.”
“I won’t argue with that,” Amelia muttered.
“It seems as if we’re all very heavily involved in keeping people alive here,” Sandrine noted, with a quick nod. “Too many people, too many things going wrong.”
“Got it.” Amelia nodded. “I’m worried about the men out there and now I’m worried about my dogs being out there too, part of the con, so I don’t even have them for comfort.”
“I understand. I think Joe wanted to come over and see you too, so maybe that’ll be part of your visitation today.”
“I’d be okay with that,” she said, with a bright smile. “I do like him.”
“We all do. He’s a sweetheart, and he’s just looking to go home at the end of this training session and have time with his wife.” She jumped to her feet and announced, “Okay, my time’s up. I’ll check to see if your next replacement is there.”
With that comment, she stepped out, closing the door immediately and leaving Amelia to question what she’d just heard.
*
Mountain had doubts if this would work, but they had to try. As he drove the snowcat up to the scientist’s camp, he looked over at Magnus. “I can’t imagine that, in this weather, he would even be bothered.”
“I can’t imagine in this weather that he can afford not to be bothered,” Magnus stated immediately.
Mountain frowned at that and grudgingly nodded. “I suppose it’s possible.”
Magnus smiled, trying to keep it light. “We have to give it a try, and we both know it.”
“Oh, I agree, and that’s why we’re here.” They parked at the scientists’ camp. Then the two of them got out and immediately geared up to now be directly in the weather and walked back to the military base, keeping to the rises. They were dressed in all whiteout gear, as they deliberately hid their tracks, keeping their own visibility to a minimum, yet with the best view for themselves as they possibly could.
