Snowbound

SIXTY-FIVE

The pager in Roddy’s pocket vibrated. He inhaled the spike of adrenaline, moving now toward the east-facing window at the end of the north wing, wading through the snow. He reached the window’s base, took a moment to calm himself and rack the slide on his suppressed Beretta 93R, slipped his finger into the trigger guard.

He peeked over the windowsill, peered through the glass, the night-vision world green and grainier than a B horror movie. He spotted a man sitting against the wall, not ten feet away, at the opening to a stairwell, with what appeared to be a shotgun across his lap. Roddy ducked down, listened. No sound of movement. He hadn’t been seen.

Three, two, one. This time, he stood upright, the detachable stock pressed tight against his shoulder, squeezed the trigger twice, half a dozen 9-mm rounds piercing the glass.

The man with the shotgun shook like the epicenter of a tiny earthquake, his body riddled with bullets, and fell over. He hadn’t made a sound. Only the shatter of glass could have compromised Roddy’s presence, and he didn’t think it had been that loud.

Never saw that coming, did you, my man? I’d have made a helluva Special Forces solider. It’s gonna be so much fun to talk about all this with Jonas and the boys. After the Alphas are gone. He pictured them having beers, laughing in Stoke’s poolroom at the Fairbanks warehouse, each taking turns telling everyone how they’d stormed this lodge like it was fucking Normandy.

Kalyn’s walkie-talkie chirped.

Suzanne’s voice: “Kalyn, you there?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s not with you?”

“No.”

“She left the lobby at least a minute ago, heading back your way.”

“Well, she isn’t here,” Suzanne replied, in tears now, “and I don’t hear her coming.”

“Just sit tight. I’ll find her.”

Kalyn slipped her radio into her pocket and stared down at her sister, who lay unconscious on the floor. “Sorry, Luce,” she whispered, “but I didn’t come all this way to see you killed.”

All right, buddy, time to focus. Roddy played the move several times in his head. Stand quickly. Both hands on the windowsill. Leap through. Roll twice across the floor and sight up the corridor while lying on your stomach. Extra clips in your pocket. Use controlled bursts. Don’t freak out, and remember to breathe. Three, two, one.

He came to his feet, gloves on the windowsill, such an adrenaline charge running through him that he swung both feet over at once, clearing the sill by several inches, with enough energy to jump a mountain.

Screaming, something gone terribly wrong, like he’d landed in the mouth of a shark, then realizing what it was with a crushing desperation, saw in that gray-green light the rusty metal teeth of a grizzly snare sunk into his shinbones, clamped halfway up his throbbing tibias.

He tore his gloves trying to pull the jaws apart, grunting, teeth gritted, veins rising from his forehead. Oh God, I fucked up. The Alphas are gonna kill me.

But the jaws didn’t budge. He could hear his legs splintering as he stared at the man he’d shot, the teeth burrowing deeper, closing slowly, and through the bone-fracturing pain, he realized there was something wrong with the guard—longhaired, pajamaed—and it was this: He had rigor mortis. He was stiff, rigid, dead for hours, maybe a day. What the fuck?

And the grainy green turned to blinding white as a shotgun boomed. His vest caught most of the pellets, but the force knocked him back onto the floor. He ripped off his goggles, reached for the Beretta, footsteps coming toward him and the unmistakable horror of a twelve-gauge pumping, thinking, The vest will buy me time to spray them. He aimed at the light, but the time wasn’t there. They don’t make a vest for your face.