“It just did,” replied Aleksi. “And before you start having second thoughts, let me remind you that not only did you ask for this, but you don’t have any choice. This is the best way to get to Harvath.”
To get to Harvath, though, they were going to have to survive the trip. And as he watched Pavel pour a tall shot of vodka, that was now one of his biggest concerns.
CHAPTER 60
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Here,” Christina said, as she pointed at a spot on Teplov’s topographic map. “Jompá and his brother Olá were just out there yesterday. They said the wind has been so strong that the surface is completely swept clean. The lake looks like a black mirror.”
Harvath prayed they were right. The only thing that could possibly give them away would be footprints. But as long as there was no snow on top of the ice, they might just make it.
He had to give Christina credit. She had been an exceptional saleswoman. Jompá and Olá had every reason to say no, but using the money from Teplov’s backpack and leveraging her relationship with their village, she had convinced them to say yes.
As instructed, she had left Sini and Mokci out of it. In fact, as the husband and wife had been reunited, a plan was hatched to get them on their way, unseen, back to their own village.
The Wagner thugs were mercenaries, not detectives. They’d be anxious to pick up Harvath’s trail. Retracing their colleagues’ footsteps back to Friddja, hoping to find a witness to interrogate, was too much work.
Harvath quickly studied the map and asked, “Where’s the rendezvous?”
She placed her finger on a spot, up a river, two kilometers inland. “It’s a small hunting camp, part of a chain, shared by the Sámi. Jompá and Olá will meet us there.”
Memorizing the map, Harvath fired up the snowmobile. He needed to let Nicholas know where they were headed, but more important, he needed to get the hell out of there before the Wagner assholes arrived. The call would have to wait.
As soon as he felt Christina wrap her arms around his waist, he hit the gas and took off.
Driving a car under night vision, even down a gravel road, was tough enough. Navigating a snowmobile, at high speed, through a forest, though, was like playing Russian roulette.
Harvath clipped so many trees along the way that he was positive that the Audubon Society was going to put him on a hit list.
The sled’s fiberglass body got beat to shit. The rest of it, thanks be to the “escape gods,” remained in working order. Nothing critical was damaged.
Just as he had done when he had fled the trapper’s cabin, whenever he hit an open piece of ground, he pinned the throttle.
The sled screamed beneath them and raced forward. As its skis jerked and bumped over the frozen terrain, the frigid air smelled to him like freedom. Suddenly, all he could think about was home.
Every atom in his body ached to be free, to be back in America, and to be back among the people he loved.
Making himself more aerodynamic, he dropped his shoulders, put his head down, and leaned over the handlebars, urging the snowmobile on. They couldn’t get to their destination fast enough.
Soon, the ground began to slope downward, and through the trees up ahead, he could see it. Through his night vision goggles, it looked like an oblong, asphalt parking lot.
As he sped out of the forest, he made sure to leave plenty of visible tracks along the shore before speeding out onto the ice. There, he flipped the goggles up so he could see the surface unaided. It looked like a piece of polished black marble.
Flipping the goggles back down, he cruised to the other side of the small lake, being careful to avoid the thinner ice, and found the perfect spot to unload Christina and their gear.
Here, the woods came right down to the shore. As soon as they set foot in the snow, they’d be in the forest and their path would be difficult if not impossible to detect.
After unloading everything and making sure Christina was safe, he got back on the snowmobile.
“Be careful,” she warned him.
“I’ve already been swimming once on this trip,” he replied. “I don’t plan on doing it again.”
Hitting the gas, he spun on the ice, got control of the sled, and then steered toward what looked like the most logical spot.
Several streams, two of which were quite wide, fed