Jonas, page 2
She leaned back and snuggled in with Ina as she unfolded her thin blanket. “Next time you want me to get my mind off…um, things, maybe just suggest a nice outing for gelato.”
“Don’t talk about gelato when I’m freezing.”
“Hello? Hello down there?”
The voice made her lean up, and there, some seven meters up on the trail, was a man waving a torch.
“Down here!” she said in Slovenian, but then realized the man had spoken English.
Oh, wait—
“I’m coming down to you!”
Perfect. Now some impulsive bloke would careen down the hill and land on them, or worse, knock them off their perch into the abyss below. “Stay there! It’s too slippery!”
Of course the man ignored her. She barely made him out in the dim light of her headlamp as he moved down the slope, working his way from one craggy outcropping to another, like Spiderman.
Or like he might be going through a minefield.
So, maybe she’d been a little hasty in her judgment. Still…please don’t kill us…
Another man moved behind him, his headlamp catching the orange jacket of the first.
Yep. Mr. America.
But a couple of trapped, injured people on a ledge couldn’t exactly complain who their rescuers might be, right?
“Over here!”
Spidey worked his way down to them, taking his time, and finally slid down to the ledge. Truth was, the grade wasn’t as steep as it was fast, and the ledge was large enough to pitch a tent, maybe host dinner for a futbol team, so now she felt a little silly when he looked at her, breathing hard, and said, “You okay?”
“We’re fine. My friend tripped, and—”
“Oh, wow. That’s bad.” He’d crouched and now gently touched Ina’s ankle. “Do you have anything to splint it with?”
Ina moved his hands from her ankle. “I think I can walk on it.”
He gave her the same look that Sibba probably had.
The other man landed behind him. Tall and dark, she also remembered him from the summit. “Good thing you had your light on. It’s so dark up here we might have missed you.”
“I can’t believe you came out in this storm,” Ina said, a little bit of emotion in her voice.
“Glad to help,” said the first man. “My name is Jonas.”
“Ina. And this is Sibba.”
He glanced at her, nodded. “I’m glad we found you. It’s going to get cold tonight.”
She didn’t know why, but the concern in his voice caught her, held her. He had dark eyes, maybe blue, and stayed on her for a moment.
He turned back to Ina. “Can you get on my back?”
“I can try.”
He pivoted around, still crouched. “Nixon, can you grab her pack?”
“Sure, boss,” Nixon said and picked it up. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll go up with her. You stay behind me in case I slip. Then we can come back for—” He looked at Sibba, one eyebrow up.
“I can walk.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Because you don’t need to be a hero. I don’t mind coming back for you.”
Maybe she minded. The fewer people who risked their lives up here, the better, thank you. “Listen, Spiderman. The last thing I need is for you to fly off this mountain trying to save me. I’m. Fine.”
He held up a hand. “Okay. But if you change your mind—”
“I hear what you say.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Oh blimey. “I’m fine. Really. It’s you who we should be worried about. You sure you can climb up this with someone on your back? It’s slippery—maybe we wait for rescue?”
“I’m all the rescue you got. Right here, right now.”
“But—”
And then he took her hand. Warm, solid, and so painfully…kind? She simply didn’t know what to do. Especially since it sort of grounded her. She hadn’t realized she’d lost herself a little, let the storm loosen her bones. But yeah, being out here, in the rain, in the wind and even the lightning…
Maybe she needed his grip more than she wanted to admit. Still. “Just…don’t fall.”
“I got this,” he said, his gaze in hers. He smiled, and it in was something she couldn’t place. Tease? Trouble? Warmth? “What was it you called me? Spidey?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“It’s already in my ears, like a chant. Spi-dey, Spi-dey.”
Of all the rescuers…couldn’t she have gotten a nice Swede?
His smile turned solemn. “Okay. You stay behind me. Nixon—”
“I’ll make sure we all stay on the mountain.”
Then Jonas stood up and took off his jacket. “Ready, Ina?”
Ina leaned up, grunting, and Sibba helped her onto Jonas’s back. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I can help walk.”
“Nope. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He handed his coat to Nixon. “Strap her onto my back—tie the coat around her backside and under her legs. Then I don’t have to hold them.”
Okay, she had to give him points for ingenuity.
Nixon tied on the jacket, then grabbed Ina’s pack. Sibba picked up her own pack. “I’m right behind you,” she said to Ina, in Slovenian.
Sibba hadn’t put Jonas as a big man the first time she saw him. But then again, she’d barely looked at him.
But he was big. Six foot three, maybe, and strong.
And, apparently, capable, just like he said, because he worked his way up from the cliff, nearly on his hands and knees, grabbing onto boulders and outcroppings. Sibba trekked behind him, also bent over, her hand on Ina’s back.
They went slowly, and Nixon moved up beside her to also help steady him.
Jonas’s feet dug into the shale, finding purchase, and he grunted now and again, more toward the top as he found the trail. He finally crawled onto the wider path, illuminated by Nixon’s headlamp.
Sibba pulled out her torch again.
Rain rivered down the trail, and she cast her light on the path they’d just climbed.
“Don’t do that,” Jonas said, adjusting Ina, still strapped to him. She’d managed to hold in her moans, probably so as not to rattle him. But her eyes were closed, her jaw tight.
“Don’t do what?” Sibba said.
“Don’t look down. You’ll just scare yourself.”
She lived in a state of scared, really, so this…
Okay, this might have taken off a year of her life. Which put her life expectancy at…well, at least today.
She didn’t look ahead any farther than that.
But she wasn’t going to tell him that, so, “I’m not afraid.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I promise. Keep your eyes on me, and you’ll be fine. I won’t let you get hurt.”
Usually that was her line, which felt a little weird.
“Want me to take her, boss?” This from his friend, Nixon.
“No, you light the path. She’s not heavy.”
Ina seemed in no rush to get off Jonas’s back, the way she grinned at Sibba. Oh brother. Fine, he was…capable. And maybe a little heroic. But it didn’t matter—she didn’t have room for anyone extra in her life, no matter how capable and heroic he might be.
“Let’s go,” Jonas said, hiking Ina up higher on his back and now looping his arms under her knees.
Nixon moved to the front and shed light on the path as they walked. Jonas braced himself against his friend’s shoulder as they reached the rougher parts. But after a hundred meters, the ground started to level out, turned muddy instead of rocky, and despite the chill, the moan of the wind, the pelleting of rain, she didn’t hate the walk.
Mostly because it drowned out all other thought. One step. One step more. Next step. Another. She didn’t have to think about how close they’d come to disaster.
“You okay back there?” Jonas turned as they came to a rocky patch. “Watch your step.”
“I’m not the one carrying a ten-stone backpack, freezing to death without a jacket,” Sibba said.
Ina lifted her head off Jonas’s shoulder. “What? Eight stone, max!”
“I have no idea what that means,” Jonas said, but he was grinning, even as he took a moment to breathe. The rain ran down into an array of light-brown whiskers, dripped off his jaw.
“It means you’re doing great,” Sibba said, and offered a return smile.
So, maybe not quite as arrogant as she’d first thought.
They finally reached the hut, the place dark, just the glow of the stove illuminating the main room, with tiny lights flickering on the tabletops as they came in. A few people stood in the room in front of the fire, most of them silent, eyes wide, morose.
Some of them got up when Jonas came in and set Ina on a tabletop. When he untied her, his hands shook. Maybe from cold. Poor man was soaked through. “Anyone here a doctor? She needs her ankle looked at.”
When no one moved, Sibba translated.
One of the women moved away from the stove and came over, identified herself as a doctor and asked for details as she then worked off Ina’s shoe, her sock.
Sibba noticed how Jonas walked over to the fire, held his hands out, then began to peel off his thermal shirt.
She spotted a hint of a washboard stomach as his thermal shirt rose before he tugged down the inner T-shirt over it. He draped the shirt by the fire.
He was shivering, his arms wrapped around himself, staring into the fire with a tight jaw. As if reliving something.
Or just, suddenly, overwhelmed.
She glanced at Ina, but the doctor was busy examining Ina’s injury, so she joined Jonas by the fire. “You okay?”
He exhaled, swallowed, nodded.
“Not a fan of storms?”
“Not a fan of nearly dying in storms.” He glanced at her. “But no, the storm doesn’t scare me.”
Interesting clarification. Then Nixon brought over a cup of hot cocoa, and Jonas slid onto the top of a table to blow on the cocoa and sip it. He was handsome in the light, with his light-brown hair twining out of his stocking cap, a hint of whiskers. She liked his hands, the way he gripped the cup, and for a moment, her mind went to his hand in hers.
So maybe she didn’t dislike all Americans. “Thanks for coming for us. I know I should have gone for help, but I just couldn’t leave her—”
“Hey. I get it.” He met her eyes. Yes, blue, although when she let herself look, they had shades of green in the center. His gaze fixed on her. No smile, just a grim set to his mouth. “I wouldn’t have left my friend behind either.” Then he glanced at Nixon, who made a face, then looked away.
Jonas took another sip of cocoa.
Ina made a sound behind her, and Sibba turned to see the doctor probing her injury. She should get back to her—
“It’s okay to be scared, you know.”
Sibba turned back to Jonas. “What?”
“Back on the mountain, you said you weren’t afraid. But…it’s okay to be afraid.”
No, it wasn’t. Not for her. Not ever for her. Fear made mistakes. Fear got people killed.
“I wasn’t afraid.” She gave him a smile. “Thanks again.”
Then she walked over to the doctor examining Ina’s injury.
Jonas and his friend were gone to bed by the time Ina’s ankle had been wrapped. Sibba checked the roster of rooms in the hostel, then helped Ina down the hall to their bunk room.
She opened the door. No electricity for lights, but in the darkness, she found a cot and set Ina down on it.
A grunt made her still. Oh. No.
She turned on her torch. Faced it toward the ceiling.
In the dim light, Spidey and his buddy Nixon were mostly dead to the world, wrapped in blankets, sleeping on the two lower bunks. She’d nearly set Ina down on top of Nixon.
Perfect.
But for a second, her gaze landed again on Jonas. He had long lashes that gentled his face, turned him peaceful and sweet in sleep.
“Where are we going to sleep?” Ina said quietly. “I’m not sure I can climb to the top bunk.”
Sibba walked over to the bunk and pulled the mattress off the top. Put it on the floor, then added the other one. She gathered up the blankets and pillows and tossed them on the mattresses. Helping Ina onto the floor, she tucked her in. Then she lay beside her and closed her eyes, listening to the breathing of the men in the room.
And realized, suddenly, that for the first time in months, her own breath spilled out, full, even, unhindered, the ever-present grip of fear in her gut gone.
Keep your eyes on me, and you’ll be fine. I won’t let you get hurt.
This, she hadn’t seen coming. But maybe, just maybe, it was all right.
“Good night, Ina,” she said.
And then she was dead asleep.
Two
One Month Later
Another day to live.
Please.
If she didn’t sweat to death first.
“This is unnecessary.” Sibba adjusted the chest plate in the Kevlar suit from where it landed on her hip bones and tried to see through the steamed-up visor.
Not a hope.
She took off the hood. Set it on the table in the house where her kit, along with a handful of uniformed police and one particularly nervous rookie bomb disposal expert, watched her.
Or maybe their gaze was on the tractor in the middle of the yard that still sat, as if frozen in fear, after plowing up history.
Dangerous history in the form of a fifty-kilogram German iron bomb with a transverse fuze. It still stuck halfway out of the dirt, having been churned up with the other debris while cleaning the yard after the storm that whipped down from the mountains and through the small town of Železniki. Nestled in the craggy foothills, the town was a relatively recent development, with newer houses sprouting up in the washes and valleys.
“Is this your first callout since the storm?” The question came from the director general of the Hazardous Device Unit out of Ljubljana, a bear of a man named Vlasic.
“No. Had two in as many days. This is the third. But it’s the biggest.”
Aka, the one that could get more than her killed. She pulled off her gloves and set them on the table.
“It’s best you wear the Kevlar, ma’am.” The bomb expert, standing behind her—unnecessarily far behind her—seemed to be sweating also, his voice shaking a little. Frankly, he almost whispered.
His name was Milovik, according to the nameplate on his BDUs. Young, maybe early twenties. No doubt saw his life flashing before his eyes. And hers.
“Ma’am, please—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “Listen. This suit is designed to protect me from shrapnel propelled at close range—say a grenade or even a land mine. But it’s hot and hard to move in and has a higher center of gravity, and I can barely see with my breath fogging up the visor, and frankly, gentlemen”—she turned to the group—“that mother goes off and this entire area is dust and vapor. So the best this suit will do is slow down the quick death that I deserve if I can’t disarm this thing.”
The air in the room evaporated as all the men simply stopped breathing.
They watched in silence as she climbed out of the suit and left it standing there, as if under its own power. She’d used the Kevlar mostly as a precaution in her first survey of the bomb, scanning for the faded numbers stamped on the fuze head and examining the remaining damaged tail fin. She’d taken dozens of pictures and now took a closer look through her phone.
More silence as they watched. But she was used to this sort of shock and awe and abject terror when working around civilians.
Finally, she put the phone down and opened the BDO box with all the kit inside to immunize the fuze. She quickly catalogued her tools, as if she hadn’t already checked the kit a dozen times, before and after every callout, then pulled out her BDO book of fuses. She flipped open to confirm that the directions on which fuze head to drill contained the type 15 early impact fuze specifications.
Then she slipped it into a satchel and hung it over her shoulder. Met the eyes of Vlasic and nodded. “Please get your men back and stay put. I’ll be in touch.” She lifted the radio.
He nodded. “Good luck, Sibba.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Just skill. Counting on luck will get me killed.” Then she walked out the front door.
The storm—a local weatherman called it a derecho—had taken off roofs as far south as her town of Cerkno, and frankly, she’d expected a call like this.
Over much of northern Slovenia, like other parts of Europe, unexploded ordnances littered the terrain, buried now after so many years. And not just German ordnance, like here, near the Austrian border, the hotbed of partisan resistance, but American and British ordnance in deeper Slovenia—once Yugoslavia, who had allied with the Third Reich.
So, despite their independence, Slovenia bore the scars of both sides of the war. Scars hidden deep beneath the rugged beauty of a flyover country until events like a derecho, or the wildfires of this summer, unearthed the hidden terrors.
Then the battles of the past revisited them, raking to life the old demons.
She blew out a breath and waited until Director Vlasic and his men got in their cars and drove down the road, parking some fifty meters away.
Might not be far enough, but really, she simply hadn’t wanted anyone watching her. She needed her entire focus on the device.
The bomb lay half exposed, a corpse, still lethal in its dormancy, the dirt around it fresh and raw. The smell of old iron mixed with the scent of yesterday’s rain, and for a moment, she was following a stranger to safety on a mountain during a rainstorm.
And not sure why, but still wishing he’d taken her up on her offer to fly off it together the next morning.
Maybe because, you know, you only have one life.
Focus.
The wind lifted the collar of her jacket, and she wasn’t sweating yet.
But her body had begun its familiar, focused buzz. She reached up then and pressed her finger against the cool gold cross at her neck. Closed her eyes.
