Bear wasn't sure about this helicopter stuff. He didn't understand what held the damned things up. But it sure covered the distance as they raced along twenty meters above the treetops in excess of sixty exhilarating kilometers an hour.
They had flown from Tetlin Redoubt to St. Anthony Redoubt the day before and spent the night there. They left early this morning, long before the winter sun rose, so they would be in the target area during the brief subarctic day.
He noticed the captain watching him with her superior little smile that said he was only shit and she knew it. He wished he could catch her without her bodyguard corporal and his machine pistol. Today the dog of a soldier even carried a Kalashnikov.
Between the three of them they could stand off a dozen Indians. He thought them heavily armed for this mission. The captain remained adamant about only the three of them going into Indian country alone.
With Wolverine White dead, there wasn't anybody he trusted to fight at his back anyway. Now he faced the world alone.
"Ten minutes to landing zone, Captain," the pilot said in his jovial voice. He would stay with the aircraft and keep the engine warm. If the other three weren't back in exactly twenty-four hours, he would return to base without them.
The captain and the corporal rechecked their weapons and gear. Bear stifled a comment and peered out the window. A promyshlennik never neglected his weapons; they were ready when he walked out the door of his cabin.
The two soldiers laid their automatic rifles down and tested straps and bindings. When they finished with themselves, they glanced at each other to double-check. Bear felt certain the look they exchanged wasn't regulation.
Cossacks were like that, he mused. The enlisted men were animals, the officers were clever at manipulation, and they all worked in tandem with the Czar's intelligence service. Bear had to keep telling himself that these people weren't really Okhana agents, merely hired mercenaries.
He didn't like them, but they paid good, steady wages and he didn't have to take their orders if he didn't want to. He could always quit. Promyshlenniks were known for their independent spirit.
"Are you ready, Crepov?" the captain asked.
"Am I ready for what?"
"Are you ready to take the field and find these men for us?"
"I wouldn't have entered this borscht-maker if I wasn't."
"Good." She turned to the corporal. "Crepov will lead, I will go behind him, and you will follow me."
"But, Captain, I think it's not good for you to be between him and me. What if he attempts—"
"Corporal, I am armed."
"Da." The corporal evenly regarded Crepov, then stared out at the passing scenery.
You'll pay for that one, pet.
The engine changed pitch and they banked to the left. Crepov looked out his window and found himself staring straight down at a snow-covered meadow. A branch of the Toklat River, frozen and brittle, wound along about a kilometer away.
The craft dropped in a tight spiral and Crepov's heart tried to fly out his mouth. He swallowed in a vain effort to make it retreat. His gorge attempted to follow, but he successfully kept it down.
Just as Crepov thought the noisy machine would crash into the ground, it leveled off and gently landed. The engine died and the great blades swooshed to a stop. He slid the door open and stiffly dropped to the snow-covered ground.
After allowing his legs to know the earth for a moment, he turned and pulled his skis off the special rack on the landing skids. Mounted on the other side of the tubular skid strut was a 9mm machine gun that the pilot could fire after aiming his machine at the target.
Crepov decided there might be something to these things after all. He placed his skis, stepped into them and clamped the bindings over the toes of his boots. After stretching his legs for a minute, he struck off toward the game trail he had spotted from the air.
"Where are you going?" the captain snapped. "I didn't order you to move out."
Crepov stopped and twisted to regard her.
"I'm going to do my job. I will also do as I please. You may do the same." He moved out again, setting a track for them to follow.
Not until he reached the game trail did he look back. They were methodically closing his hundred meter lead. He carefully examined the trail.
Only small game and predator tracks; no ski had passed since the last snow. From the crust on the white mantle, he would estimate the last snowfall at over a week before.
The captain slid up to him, trying not to breathe hard. Crepov pointed to the trail.
"What?" she asked, looking at it then back at him.
"No human has been by here yet. Are you sure this is where our quarry will pass?"
"Yes, as sure as I can be."
"Then let's find a good ambush site." He skied down the trail toward the tree-covered ridges.