“Your tracking skills are admirable. My guess is they’ve stopped to set up camp.” Li Yuan squeezes his shoulder.

  It’s well past dusk, the trees clogging the air with thick shadows. If Gun had found Sulan—if they were coming after them—she would be here by now. Uneasiness churns his stomach. The thought of anything happening to her makes him want to shred his fists against a tree trunk.

  Sulan is fine, he tells himself. She and Billy are capable and smart.

  But why haven’t they come?

  “You’re worried about Sulan,” Li Yuan says, watching him. “I am, too. She and Gun should have been here by now.”

  “We should try to get a look at the sledder camp before it’s full dark.” Taro doesn’t have the stomach to discuss Gun. “We can figure out a plan once we see what we’re up against.”

  “Agreed. You lead the way.” Li Yuan smiles at him. “You’ve shown yourself more than capable.”

  The compliment makes him uncomfortable. He hasn’t suffered nearly enough to earn a compliment.

  He crouches close to the tracks, studying them. Based on the rate of snowfall and the light dusting in the sled tracks, he estimates them to have passed through here thirty minutes ago. Closing his eyes, he listens and smells the air.

  A distant yip. The faintest hint of smoke to the northwest.

  He opens his eyes, breaking away from the sled tracks. The dogs will be the biggest challenge. If they hear or sense them, they could expose them. He circles southwest, maneuvering downwind of the animals.

  It’s almost full dark when they reach the camp. Taro and Li Yuan slide forward on their bellies, taking cover in a dip of earth. A scattering of trees fills the one hundred yards between them and the camp, providing them plenty of camouflage. Only their eyes and the white hoods of their snowsuits are visible.

  Taro counts twenty-one mountain men, all of them dressed in fur and leather. Every one of them looks as hard and chiseled as the land around him. There are a few women among the ranks. If possible, they look even tougher than the men.

  Rifles are slung across their backs. Knives and more guns hang from belts. The sheer number and quality of the weapons draws his attention. He would expect that in a corporate mercenary corps, but not among men in the middle of Alaska a little better dressed than cavemen. Those items can only be purchased with deep pockets.

  There are three dog sleds, all of them piled with supplies. Lashed atop the provisions are bodies. Taro recognizes his father’s slack form. The big man lies unmoving atop a stack of plastic crates and furs. He is so still that Taro wonders if he might be dead. The thought makes his heart hammer. Aston can’t be dead. Can he?

  Maxwell and Agnus are lashed side by side on another sled. Dr. Hom is on the third. All are as still and unmoving as Aston.

  “Tranqued,” Li Yuan whispers. “They must be tranqued.”

  They bodies are so, so still. He hopes Li Yuan is right.

  The mountain men unload Aston and the others from the sleds. Their hands and wrists are bound before they’re lashed to a tree on the edge of camp. Relief trickles through Taro as he watches this. The mountain men wouldn’t bother securing them if they weren’t alive.

  Dr. Hom’s head lolls back, revealing a scrape across his cheek and forehead. Aston has red stains on both arms and across his chest; his face is bruised and swollen. Maxwell is equally as bloody with a black eye. There’s no blood on Agnus, although she does have a nasty bruise on one side of her face.

  When all four are secured to the tree, one man delivers two vicious kicks to Aston’s abdomen. The big man shudders with the impact, but doesn’t stir. The two mountain men laugh.

  “Leave the prisoners alone,” barks another man. “They’re property of Leader.”

  “He killed Chas,” snaps the man who kicked Aston.

  “He killed a lot of us. And once Leader sees him fight, he’ll give us all credits for capturing him. Enough credits that some of us might be able to buy promotions. Now get back to work.”

  Muttering, the two men obey, moving off to unload other supplies from the sleds.

  “We can get them loose, but there’s no way we can carry them unconscious,” Li Yuan says.

  “Their wounds could be serious, too.” Taro doesn’t take his eyes off the camp. “Maybe they’ll wake up if we wait.”

  “Perhaps.”

  They continue to watch. His sweat freezes, chilling him to his core. He sucks on snow. It’s painfully cold in his mouth, but eases the dryness of his tongue and throat.

  The sky darkens, filling up with stars. The mountain men build roaring fires and feed the yapping dogs. Four sentries disperse into the trees to keep watch. A few begin cooking while the rest wrap up in fur blankets and gather around the fires. Bottles of moonshine are passed around.

  Taro’s stomach rumbles at the smell of food. In some ways, the discomfort is comforting. He knows it well, just as he knows pain. He can operate well in both states. Rescuing his father and the others will need nothing less than his best A game.

  “Four sentries,” Li Yuan says. “We can take care of them.”

  He nods his agreement. It’s their unconscious family and friends he hasn’t worked out how to handle.

  “We may have to kill them all.” He hates the sound of those words as they leave his mouth. Just another affirmation that his father’s training has made him into a killer. “I don’t know how we’re going to free them in their current state without neutralizing the entire camp. You and I can’t move all four of them.”

  “Now would be a good time for Sulan and Billy to show up with Gun,” Li Yuan replies.

  In truth, Taro would not be disappointed if Gun magically disappeared off the planet. But Li Yuan is right. They could use some backup right now. Even if that backup is Gun Anderson.

  “They would have followed if they could,” Li Yuan adds with a sigh. “We need to operate as though they aren’t coming.”

  Taro agrees. As he watches, he sees Maxwell’s arm twitch. He nudges Li Yuan. “Maxwell might be waking up.”

  But Taro isn’t the only one who notices. While most of the mountain men are raucously consuming moonshine, the head man notices.

  “Ned, Ricky,” he barks. “The tranq is wearing off. Dose them all again.”

  Damn. Taro clenches his fist, grinding snow to fine powder. He and Li Yuan really might have to kill the entire camp. There might not be any other choice.

  The odds are terrible. Twenty-one against two. Even if they come up with a cunning plan, the odds are poor. But what else can they do?

  A man with a leather satchel approaches Aston and the others. He pulls out four syringes. Plunging a needle into each person’s neck, he systematically administers the tranquilizers. When he’s finished, he returns the satchel to a plastic totes on the back of a sled. The tote is on the outside of the sled, facing away from the inner camp perimeter.

  “If there are tranqs in that bag, there might also be adrenaline,” Li Yuan says. “It would be foolish to travel with one but not the other. If we can wake them, we may be able to get away without initiating a battle.”

  Relief flows through him, though it’s tempered by caution. “There’s no way to know without getting the satchel and checking for ourselves.”

  Li Yuan nods. “We take out the perimeter guard. After that, one of us stays in the trees as cover. The other sneaks in to check the contents of the satchel.” She turns, her dark eyes meeting his. “How light footed are you?”

  *

  Taro had been five years old when his father gave him his first lesson in thievery.

  “You know that vase Mrs. Vasquez keeps on her kitchen table?” Aston asked.

  Taro nodded, tilting his head all the way back to see his father. His dad was a giant. Taro was sure he was the biggest man on the planet.

  “I want you to bring me that vase.” Aston laid a set of lock picks on the table.

  Taro may have only been five, but he knew better than to feign ignorance. Looking from the keys to his father, he felt ill.

  “Stealing is wrong,” he said.

  “This isn’t about right or wrong. This is about learning how to do something without getting caught.”

  “But I don’t want to steal from Mrs. Vasquez.” Mrs. Vasquez gave him tamales sometimes, when she had one to spare.

  “What you want is irrelevant,” Aston replied. “Life isn’t about what you want. It’s about doing what needs to be done, no matter how unpleasant. Now go.”

  As instructed, Taro sneaked into Mrs. Vasquez’s condo and stole the vase while she slept. He felt so bad, he left an apology note in the space formerly occupied by the vase.

  When Mrs. Vasquez came to their condo and politely asked for the vase—a Pre-‘Fault family heirloom—to be returned, Taro felt like slime. She never raised her voice and never berated him.

  She also never gave him another tamale.

  That was the first and last time he let himself get caught stealing.

  *

  “Yeah, I’m light footed,” he says to Li Yuan. The cold of the snow beneath his stomach and thighs seeps into him. “I can get to the tote and satchel.” It’s location on the outer perimeter is ideal for their plan.

  “You’re sure?” Li Yuan asks.

  He nods. “Dad used to make me sneak into our neighbors’ condos to steal things.” Mrs. Vasquez had only been the first in a six-month lesson on sneaking and thieving. Taro could get in and out of just about anywhere and steal anything.

  “Aston used to make you . . .? Nevermind.” Li Yuan shakes her head. “I suppose your father expected your life to be like his. That’s why he raised you the way he did. I’m not sure either of us did right by our kids, even if we meant well.”

  Aston speaks rarely of his younger years, other than to mention he’d been in a gang. “Were you guys ever . . . together?” Ever since Taro met Li Yuan, he’s wanted to know if she dated his father.

  “Me and your father? Yes. We were together for years.” Li Yuan doesn’t look at him when she speaks, keeping her eyes on the camp. “Life and circumstances brought us together when we were teenagers. We were always very different. Those differences eventually drove us apart. He’ll always be a dear friend, even if he irritates me half the time.” She turns to look at him then. “That friendship extends to you, Taro. You can always count on me if you need anything.”

  He nods, wondering how Dr. Hom feels about all this. He and Aston worked together at Global. Even plotted together against Global, which required no small amount of trust. From everything Taro has seen, the two men have rapport with one another. But how can Dr. Hom stand being around his wife’s ex? How can Aston stand being around the man his ex-girlfriend married?

  Sulan isn’t his girlfriend—not officially, anyway—but the thought of her seeing Gun makes Taro want to hit something. As a rule, he avoids asking advice of Aston. If things were different between them, maybe he could talk about the situation with him.

  Li Yuan nudges him with her elbow. “Everyone has settled down to sleep,” she whispers. “I’ll cover you while you get the satchel. If there is adrenaline, you need to cut them free and drag them away before waking them. If there’s no adrenaline . . .” Her voice trails off, as if to say they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. “Are you ready?”

  Ready to sneak into a camp of armed men with the hope of finding adrenaline in a med kit so they can wake four unconscious people and free them? No, not really.

  But all he says is, “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  They start with the sentries. One is stationed at each compass point around the camp, making them easy to pick off. By the time they eliminate the forth one, he and Li Yuan have amassed a nice stash of weapons.

  As Taro lowers a man to the ground, neck broken, his chest swells with self-loathing. It’s so strong inside him he feels suffocated. He and Li Yuan are so proficient at killing, not even the dogs take note of their action.

  Aston would be proud.

  This is for Sulan, he reminds himself. The sooner they rescue Aston and the others, the sooner he can return to Sulan.

  Li Yuan nudges him with a questioning look. He nods to tell her he’s okay.

  She melts into the trees. Armed with two rifles, fives knives, and two handguns, she looks ready to take on the mountain men camp.

  Taro has just as many weapons. He’s so used to them, they fit around his body like a second skin. Taking one of the animal pelts from the dead man, he drapes it around his shoulders. At the very least, it will throw off the suspicion of any dog who happens to notice him.

  The animals sleep in a heap on the northern edge of camp. Mounded together in the dark, they look like a single monstrous, twitching beast. The two camp fires burn low, men and women sleeping close to the flames wrapped in furs.

  Taro oozes around the camp perimeter, boots soundless on the well-trampled snow. The sleds make a half circle around the camp. He reaches the one with the satchel and feels around the mound of animal skins, searching. He finds the plastic tote.

  Extricating it from the sled is slow, delicate work. It requires shifting around other supplies without making any noise.

  He makes good progress until the fire briefly flares up. As it does, his father’s slack face and lolling head are bathed in light. The strong, impenetrable man Taro has known all his life has disappeared, turned into a helpless mound of flesh.

  Taro is so jarred by the sight that he bumps the tote against the side of the sled. Something inside makes a soft, metallic clank.

  In reality, it’s a muffled sound, barely discernible amid the snores from the sleeping men. To Taro’s ears, it sounds like a gong going off.

  He freezes, one hand flying to the gun on his hip. He scans the sleeping men and women, ready to open fire at any sign of danger.

  One man grunts, turning over in his sleep. No one else twitches. Even the dogs are undisturbed in their furry ensemble.

  Letting out a breath, Taro returns to his task. There’s just enough light from the moon and stars for him to make out the handle of the leather satchel. He extracts the bag and opens it. Inside are the soft shapes of bandages and the glint of syringes. The syringes are old-fashioned ones that have been prefilled by hand. There are no expensive preloaded injectors.

  It’s too dark for him to read the labels on this side of the sled. He needs to get closer to the fire. Which means closer to the sleeping mountain men.

  This is a bad plan. It would be better to open fire. It’s what his father would do.

  It’s also mass murder.

  Jaw set, Taro eases toward the light. One by one, he lifts out the syringes and squints at them. Someone labeled them with a black marker. The tiny, precise handwriting makes him squint.

  Tranq. Tranq. Tranq. Tranq.

  Just how many tranquilizers does one raiding party need?

  He counts another dozen tranquilizers syringes before coming to one marked with a simple Ad.

  Ad for adrenaline? Maybe. It could stand for a dozen different things. It doesn’t necessarily mean adrenaline.

  But it’s logical to think it might be adrenaline. If these people need to wake someone up, they would need a stash of it on hand.

  Taro rifles through the bag and only manages to find three syringes marked with Ad. There isn’t a fourth one.

  One of their party will have to be carried.

  Agnus is the natural choice. She’s the smallest. Having to carry her will slow them down, but what choice do they have?

  He wishes Li Yuan could weigh in on the contents of the syringes, but there’s no time to backtrack and ask her. The decision is on his shoulders.

  The yip of a dog makes him freeze. But it’s only one animal nipping at another who got too close. The dogs snarl at one another, shifting to put space between them, then fall back asleep.

  One of the women mutters in her sleep. “Credits,” she mumbles. “Those are all mine.” She rolls over. Others shift around her, but no one wakes.

  Taro leaves the satchel on the ground beside the open tote, then glides up to Aston and the others.

  Up close—even in the shadows away from the fire—his dad looks even worse. He’s pale and slack, with a seeping wound on his right shoulder that’s been left unattended. It’s so cold the blood on the outside of his snowsuit has turned to red ice. His snowsuit is more red and pink than white.

  Maxwell is in equally bad shape. The two men put up a spectacular fight before falling prey to the mountain men. Dr. Hom and Agnus have their fair share of bruises and small cuts, but neither look as bad as the two mercenaries.

  Taro cuts the ropes securing them to the tree. All four of them sag forward, Maxwell and Dr. Hom tipping sideways. One by one, Taro drags them into the concealment of the trees.

  When he has them all lined up in the snow, he pulls out the first syringe and hesitates.

  On a good day, he mildly dislikes his father. On a bad day, he loathes him. Despite this, he doesn’t like the idea of testing syringe contents on Aston. His impulse is to stick Maxwell first in case it turns out to contain something other than adrenaline.

  But that’s not right. If Aston was awake, he’d insist on being the guinea pig. Of that, Taro has no doubt.

  Just do it, he tells himself. Quit wasting time and get on with it.

  Using his knife, he cuts a square of fabric off the satchel and stuffs it into Aston’s mouth. After a moment’s consideration, he cuts a second square and shoves it in beside the first. Hopefully they will be enough to absorb any sound Aston makes when he wakes up.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Taro stabs the needle into his father’s neck and depresses the plunger.

  Aston’s eyes fly open, exposing irises that are fully dilated. Taro slams a hand over his mouth as a wild shout breaks from throat. The sound is reduced to a muted grunt, swallowed by the snores of the sleeping men.

 

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