You acted like you were grieving! You stood up at Patty’s memorial and talked about how wonderful she was, but you killed her. Liar! Murderer! Dick!” She lunged for the door, but he caught her easily, pushing her back into the chair as if she were a child. “What are you … going to do to me?”
The drug was acting fast.
His face swam before her as he put on his parka, a hat, gloves, and mask. “We’re just going for a little walk out the back fire escape. Oh, don’t worry. I disabled the alarm. I’m hoping I got the dose right and you can still walk, but if you can’t, that’s okay. I’ll carry you or drag you by your hair. I don’t care.”
She screamed. “Help! Help me!”
Steve laughed, took her phone and station radio. “They can’t hear you.”
“I need … my parka… my hat. Please!”
Darkness dragged her down, the world around her blurring.
“No parka for you.” He slipped an arm around her waist, opened the office door, and walked through the dark administrative wing toward the rear fire escape. “Everyone’s gathering for the meeting. I’m sorry you’re going to miss it.”
He pushed open the fire escape, frigid air blasting her in the face, burning her skin, searing her throat. “It’s eighty-five below, so it should be quick.”
He was going to leave her to freeze to death.
The thought snaked its way through her mind, brought an adrenaline rush.
“No!” She tried to scream again, tried to jerk free of him.
Steve half-dragged, half-carried her down the stairs, then threw her in the snow. “I’ve heard that hypothermia is a relatively painless way to die—unlike methanol poisoning. Oh, yes, I kept Patty in my office after she drank the wine to make sure she couldn’t go for help. It took hours of stomach pain before she finally lost consciousness. When I was sure she was beyond help, I carried her to her room and left her.”
Samantha’s heart shattered. “Patty.”
“You’ll see her soon enough.” Steve dragged her somewhere, the Aurora Australis flashing overhead, the Milky Way bright. “Your Norse god will be joining you before too long.”
Thor!
“L-leave … h-him… a-alone.”
It was so cold, unbearably cold, the ice chilling her through her jeans and sweater.
Then the stars disappeared. Was she beneath the station?
“I-I’m s-so c-cold. Please…”
“Sorry, Sam—oh, I mean Samantha.” He tied her up, trussed her like an animal. “I can’t risk you crawling anywhere. Now, be a good girl and die.”
“Steve.”
He walked away, leaving her on the ice.
Her teeth chattered, cold making her bones ache, her throat raw, her skin on fire.
Had Patty felt alone like this? Had she felt this afraid and desperate?
Tears filled Samantha’s eyes, her eyelashes instantly freezing together.
She didn’t have the strength to force her eyes open again, the cold seeming to devour her, the wind gnawing through her with icy teeth.
Her last conscious thought was of Thor.
18
Thor locked up the laptop and took the stairs two at a time, heading for the B1 Lounge, already late for Hardin’s damned staff meeting. Jones and Segal were there, waiting for him. The three of them had spent the rest of the afternoon questioning Hamidi and Wei again, and Thor had just finished uploading the video to Cobra’s server.
Wei and Hamidi claimed that Wei had paid for their hotel and meals with his credit card and that Hamidi had paid him back with cash. Hamidi said he’d entered the Schengen Area through Frankfurt and had then taken a train to Copenhagen. Shields would check with German authorities to confirm his date of entry, but since he’d taken a train, there was no way to prove he’d been to Denmark.
Wei had shown them selfies of the two of them eating at a café on Strøget, in front of Rosenborg Castle, and standing on Langelinie with the Little Mermaid sculpture behind them. Thor had sent those photos to Shields, too. They looked real to him, but someone who could hack a satellite would have no difficulty faking selfies.
Thor wished Shields would get back to him on Hardin. The more Thor had thought through the evidence, the more uncomfortable he felt about the site manager. Hardin could go anywhere in the station at any time without arousing suspicions. He had access to the entire facility and its computer resources and coms. He had denied Ryan’s request to send Patty’s body home. Also—and this was important—people trusted Hardin. Patty had trusted him, and if she’d decided to report what she’d seen, she would have gone