“You did what you could, and we thank you for looking after Teegan and Yegorahn,” Samson stated in a firm tone. “Nobody blames you for that.”

  “Just me,” she muttered bitterly. “At least Teegan’s okay, although you guys are apparently keeping him away from me. In case there is any confusion on the matter, I very much want to see him.”

  “He’s asked several times to see you,” Mountain admitted. “I just … I didn’t want you upset.”

  “Why would seeing him upset me?” she asked, astonished.

  He gave a ghost of a smile. “I don’t know for sure. I was just following my instincts.”

  “Don’t follow that one anymore,” she quipped. “It’s totally fine, and I would very much like to see him, particularly if he’s up and walking and doing better. I just have to see it with my own two eyes.”

  “I can assure you he is up and around, doing much better.”

  “In that case, I definitely want to see him. You’ve got questions, well, so do I,” she stated, with a headshake. “The only time he was really coherent, I asked him what happened to him. However, everything he said was a jumble, telling me it wasn’t safe here on base, and I didn’t dare bring him back. He kept blabbing about how he would be killed. Honestly, seeing him like that? … I didn’t know what to do. I thought about it for a while. I finally decided that I would get him healthy enough, so either we could come back here together or he could carry on and make that decision on his own. I really didn’t want to make that call for him.”

  “We certainly appreciate your keeping him alive,” Samson repeated, with that same smile. “Do you have specific memories of the things he said while he was in your care?”

  She winced. “Everything he mentioned was pretty crazy,” she murmured. “It’s not as if anything made any sense.”

  “By anything, you mean?”

  “Anything, everything. He was talking about not being safe. He was talking about how a killer was on the base. He mentioned talk of betrayal and all kinds of stuff. Honestly, it had the makings of a great thriller story, but I was missing the punch line. I was missing the plot, and I sure as hell didn’t know who the boogeyman was, and that was the most bothersome point of all.”

  Samson remained passive and didn’t say anything, his face masked.

  Amelia continued. “Without knowing who the bad guy was, how could I dare bring Teegan back in? I couldn’t hope for the best with some naïve, optimistic attitude. That wouldn’t work for me. Knowing what I know now, I probably didn’t make the right decision in keeping him out there. However, at the time, with the limited information I had, it was the only choice I felt good about. I knew that, as long as I could keep him warm and could let his body begin to heal, then maybe I would have a chance of figuring out what was wrong here. I, for sure, didn’t want to turn over Teegan to the guys who had tried to kill him in the first place,” she muttered. “In the end, that didn’t work out so well for either of us, and I ran out of options.”

  “Actually it worked out better than you can imagine,” Samson stated, giving her a calm and steadying smile. “Believe me, we are very grateful for all the help you provided to Teegan and now sharing this information with us. From what I understand, Teegan would never have survived without you.”

  “Maybe so, but it doesn’t seem that I was any help at all,” she muttered in frustration. “As a matter of fact, all of this feels terribly wrong.”

  “Because?”

  “I feel as if I should have gotten more information from him, as if I should have had something to go by, and instead … it feels as if it was such a betrayal to bring him back,” she admitted, the words flowing out, as she realized just how much it had all bothered her. “Here is this guy depending on me to keep him alive, and then I got shot, the second time. Nothing I could do but turn him over to the very people who had likely tried to kill us both in the first place,” she cried out.

  Seeing her getting so upset, Mountain jumped up, walked over, and wrapped his massive arms around her.

  She hated that the shaking had already begun, but it had, and, by the time she calmed down, after releasing that load of guilt, Mountain’s expression was stern. “Look. You did the best you could. You did everything you could, which was far more than most people would or could have done,” he declared, stressing his point. “Please stop beating yourself up over it.”

  She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Tough love, huh?”

  “If I thought tough love would work, I would be all for it. But, in this case, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself. You saved Teegan. I know you saved him because I was out there looking for him … the whole time.”

  “So why didn’t I trust you enough to give him to you then?” she asked in confusion, wondering why she couldn’t trust anyone with Teegan. “I certainly saw you enough. You and Chef. I saw him out there with several other people. All kinds of people were out there.” She sighed and dropped her head to the side. “With dogs, without dogs, lots of people were outside traveling around, including you. I saw you, … but I didn’t trust you enough to bring in Teegan.”

  He nodded, then looked over at Samson, who studied her intently.

  Samson asked, “When you say you saw Chef Elijah out there, do you know him?”

  “I had met him several times, when survival ops were going on here, while I was gathering data. For this training period, having found Teegan early on, I’d watched Chef for a while, learning his habits. Then I waited until after dark, after the dinner rush, when I was pretty sure he would be alone in the kitchen here on base. In fact, he liked to feed leftovers to the dogs at night, so I approached him outside, told him that I was in trouble and needed supplies.”

  Both Samson and Mountain were on the edge of their seats, as if she were about to open the door to Valhalla.

  “He literally opened up the back door and told me to take what I needed, and, for that, … believe me, I’m very grateful. I didn’t do it often, but, once I had Teegan to look after,” she admitted, taking a deep breath, “it got a bit harder. I also managed to get a few medical supplies and other things, which made a huge difference. I know Chef wasn’t supposed to be helping me, but honestly he’s a good guy, and I can’t believe he has done what you guys are saying he’s done.”

  “Not sure he has either,” Samson agreed.

  “Then maybe that’s part of the problem. There’s that sense … of frenzy, a sense of … finality.”

  “An ending, you mean?” Samson asked, with a questioning gaze.

  “I guess that’s what I mean.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something my father used to tell me all the time was to listen to the words in my head, yet not so much the words themselves but the feelings attached to them. He would tell me that so many of the answers we need in this world, we already know, but we don’t listen closely enough to what our hearts and our minds are telling us.”

  Samson studied her, then slowly nodded. “I would agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Sounds to me as if you were blessed in many ways to have such a good man in your life.”

  She nodded. “I absolutely was. You don’t realize how much you need your family, want them, rely on all the information they give you, until they’re gone.” She shook her head, saddened by the memory of her loss. “Losing my great-grandfather was hard, but losing my father was … devastating,” she murmured, and then, as if shaken out of a stupor, she held her head high. “Yet they both died in their sleep, happy with their lives, satisfied that they had lived to the best of their ability in peace with the world around them. I could only hope for half as much when I go,” she whispered, “but I sure as hell don’t want to go because some asshole put a bullet in me.”

  At that, Samson laughed. “And we don’t want that to happen either, which is why you’re still under guard, why your presence here is still being kept quiet, all while we track down every detail we can. I don’t suppose you remember anybody else you saw out there.”

  “I saw lots of people,” she replied in frustration, then pointed to Mountain. “I already told him most of it. Sometimes people were alone and drifting, groups too. Sometimes groups of threes, and sometimes with these long rifles. I’d never seen them before, but I don’t know much about the military equipment you guys have here anyway.”

  “Go on then. Any description helps.”

  “Okay, … sometimes that white camouflage gear blends in so damn perfectly that it’s hard to see people and becomes more about looking past that and understanding the movement.” Then she frowned. “One time … he almost saw me that day.”

  “What do you mean? Who? When?”

  “I was outside one day, before I ever got shot,” she said a bit forcefully. “I was in one of my ice caves, … checking my data readings because I wasn’t sure what was happening. Some of the data appeared to be wrong, and I wasn’t happy that the meters might not be working properly.” She took a moment to collect her thoughts. “You would think that the meters are conditioned for that level of cold, but they’re really not,” she explained, with an apologetic shrug. “Anyway, I was hunched down around the ice cave, when I heard a sound and froze—because one of the first things you’re taught is not to move, right? It’s the movement that catches the eye, and this guy was moving quickly. He didn’t appear to see me, and he was heading north at a fast pace. However, I was close by. I would say only five meters away from him. I froze and didn’t do anything, not until he was gone.”

  “You didn’t say hi? You didn’t reach out to him in any way?”

  She winced. “God no. Absolutely nothing inside me made me think for even a second that I should reach out and talk to this guy. He was clearly on a mission, and he was heading after something—or someone. Honestly I thought it was one of your war games again because somebody was ahead of him, and it looked as if he was prepping for a shot. One of my dogs made a sound at that point, and he shifted, he turned. I have no idea what happened, so maybe he saw me. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. He didn’t like something anyway, and he took off.” She shrugged. “I figured maybe it was lucky for the guy he was chasing.”

  “Any idea who the guy was?”

  “Elijah,” she stated, “at least I figured it was Elijah. Not too many people are his size either.” She looked over at Mountain intently. “It definitely wasn’t you, and I’m thinking now that maybe this was before you ever got here. You’re bigger than he is, … but still, Chef’s built like a bazooka.”

  “Elijah is big,” Mountain agreed.

  “And you’re saying he was out there ready to shoot someone?” Samson asked.

  “No, no, no,” she denied urgently. “Elijah was the one out there about to get shot.” Both men exchanged a look and then turned back at her. “I figured it was part of your war games, the training missions or survival ops or whatever. Are you saying it wasn’t?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Elijah does ski for the fun of it, but he doesn’t participate in our war games,” Mountain muttered. “I don’t think he ever went out on any of the training missions.”

  “And yet he could,” Samson noted. “He’s still military, and he’s still required to get in some survival training. He’s part of the team, particularly if he chose to be here. So, if it was before we got here, maybe he was out there, taking part in a war game. Not to mention the fact that he could have requested it,” Samson added.

  “That’s another question to go ask him then,” Mountain noted, looking at Samson. “And, if he was the one out there, and he wasn’t there for any war games, why would somebody want to kill him?”

  “That is a very good question.”

  *

  Leaving an exhausted Amelia in Sydney’s capable hands, Mountain and Samson immediately headed down to talk to their incarcerated chef. Elijah looked up, settled deeper into his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, and remained silent.

  Mountain sat across from him, holding up a hand to him. “Elijah, … nobody here believes anything that’s been rumored about you,” he began carefully, “or whatever’s been implied. Those of us tasked with the job to try and prove it, are trying to prove you had nothing to do with it.” He caught the surprise in the older man’s gaze and nodded.

  “You’re very well liked here, and people don’t want to believe that you had anything to do with any of this,” he muttered. “Trouble is, … it doesn’t seem you’re terribly interested in clearing your name or pointing the finger at whoever is responsible for this shit.” Chef’s lips curled at that, and Mountain nodded. “By that look, … I understand. I do. We all make friends here. We all have favorites. For all I know, you spawned a daughter, who nobody knows about, and somebody here raped her, and you decided on some payback. Of course this is a very convoluted way to go about that, and I don’t see it, but, hey, we have to consider everything.”

  At that, Elijah snorted at him. “You guys really are grasping at straws, aren’t you?”

  “Of course we are,” he replied in a desperate tone. “You know that too because a group of us is trying to prove you’re innocent, and another group of us is trying to prove you’re guilty.” He took a moment to gauge Chef’s reaction, then added, “Nobody wants to believe you’re guilty, but we need answers one way or another. We need answers, Elijah.”

  “It doesn’t matter what the answers are,” he said, his tone gloomy. “I’m guilty.”

  Mountain pounced on his words. “Okay, but guilty of what?”

  Elijah looked down, as if angry at himself for giving Mountain anything to go on.

  “Whatever it is, … it appears it could be a completely different thing. We understand you helped Amelia.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m definitely guilty of that, and I would do it again too. It’s not as if she was hurting anyone, and clearly she needed a hand. I didn’t know that she was trying to keep Teegan alive at the time, but I’m certainly not sorry I helped her, … even if it wasn’t for Teegan.”

  “It was for Teegan and for the other man, Yegorahn,” Mountain confirmed in a sad tone. “I’m sorry she couldn’t keep the other one alive, but I’m grateful that you helped her. For Teegan’s sake, I’m grateful.”

  Elijah nodded.

  Mountain studied him carefully. “So, no matter what anybody here says about that aspect of it, you’ll always have my thanks.”

  At that, Chef didn’t say anything right away, but he seemed to relax a bit. “So, the rumors have to do with a whole lot more?” Chef asked.

  “Murder, death, payback, God only knows,” Mountain shared. “Too many factors are involved that we can’t quite sort it all out. Amelia is doing much better by the way, and, with any luck, she’ll pull through, if we can keep whatever asshole here who’s after her from making a third attempt.”

  “A third?” Chef asked, startled.

  Mountain looked at him and nodded slowly. “Yes, a third. She was shot the first time in the shoulder, but managed to deal with it herself, even while caring for Teegan and living off the land by that time. She was doing all right and was managing with Teegan, but then, when she was shot later, more recently, twice this time, she knew she was in trouble and couldn’t look after him and herself. Somehow she managed to get Teegan here, believing she had to take the risk or he would surely die anyway. So, she saved him by delivering him to us, then went back to the tundra and tried to survive on her own. In the end, she couldn’t control her bleeding, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that she managed to get herself back here, or she wouldn’t have survived. Frankly, while she is doing better, she’s definitely not out of the woods because she’s lost so much blood.”

  “Jesus,” Chef muttered, “some people are made of steel.”

  “That is quite true, and she’s definitely one of them,” Mountain agreed, with a smile. “Thankfully Teegan was the beneficiary of her strength and cunning. She also told us about something she saw some time back. She was able to identify you as one of the parties involved, since she knows who you are because you helped her.”

  Elijah shrugged and didn’t say anything, as if expecting Mountain to continue.

  “She didn’t realize it at the time, but she had inadvertently interrupted somebody lining up a shot to kill you,” Mountain shared and then watched him closely.

  At that moment, Elijah turned, startled, and then slowly shook his head.

  Mountain nodded. “Yes, it’s true.” Then he provided the circumstances and the location. “I immediately told her that she had the wrong person, that you mostly stayed indoors and haven’t participated in the war games and the survival training here that I knew of, but she is adamant it was you because she had already seen you multiple times outside, and her surety is merit enough. She has also pointed out what we already know, which is how we come to identify people by their size, posture, and movement, since we’re typically all dressed the same out there. She is certain it was you, and I believe her.”

  He winced and nodded. “That’s correct. She saw me several times, skiing, feeding the dogs treats outside. … Once I realized she needed help, I would regularly take out some foodstuffs for her.” He dropped his head, and they couldn’t see his face. “We had a system, a specific date and time. I would leave some leftovers, some canned goods. If for any reason she couldn’t make it soon enough, everything would freeze, and the cans would explode anyway. However, that didn’t happen very often,” he noted, with half a smile.

  “She didn’t even tell us about that part,” Mountain shared, with a glimmer of a smile. “Even now she’s trying to protect you.”

  “There is no protecting me,” he stated with finality, and yet a note of sadness filled his tone that made both Mountain and Samson stop and look at him in surprise.

  “I don’t understand,” Mountain said. “Something is here. You know something—something that would make a lot of sense if you would explain it, but, for whatever reason, you’re determined not to.”