The Kill Switch

“Who’s a good boy?”

Kane leaned forward, until their noses touched.

“That’s right. You are.”

It was a routine of theirs.

Standing but keeping a grip on Kane’s vest collar, Tucker navigated the catwalk steps until they were only a few feet above the racing ground. He poked his head past the caboose’s side, looking forward, waiting, watching, until he saw a particularly thick snowdrift approaching.

“Ready, boy?” he said. “We’re go

The snowdrift flashed into view. Tucker tossed his rucksack out into the darkness.

“GO, KANE! JUMP!”

Without hesitation, the shepherd leaped out into the night.

Tucker waited a beat, then followed.

8

March 8, 11:24 P.M.

Siberia, Russia

Tucker immediately realized all snowdrifts were not alike, especially in Siberia. Having gone through weeks of thawing and freezing, the drift’s face had become armored by several inches of ice.

He hit the frozen surface hip-first, hoping to transition into a roll.

It was not to be.

He crashed through the top of the berm before his momentum flipped his legs up and over his head, sending him into a somersault down the drift’s rear slope. He slammed onto his back and began sliding on his butt down the long, steep surface, his heels stuttering over the ice-encrusted snow. He tried jamming his elbows into the drift, to slow himself, but got no traction. To his right, alarmingly close, rose a lizard-back of boulders.

Above him, he heard a growl. He tipped his head back in time to see Kane’s sleek form come galloping down the slope. The shepherd was there in seconds and clamped his teeth into Tucker’s jacket collar. Once latched on, Kane sat down on his haunches and lifted his head, his strong back muscles straining to take Tucker’s weight.

Ahead and a few feet to the right, a sapling jutted from the snow. On impulse, he swung his left leg out, curled it, and hooked the trunk with his ankle. The momentum whipped him around, dragging Kane along, too, before jerking them both to a sudden stop.

All was quiet.

Tucker lay perfectly still and mentally sca

“Kane? How’re you doing, pal?”

The shepherd replied with a muffled growl that Tucker recognized as roughly, Okay, but now it’s time for you to do something about this.

“Hang on, give me a second . . .”

Tucker lifted his hips, freeing his right leg from under his butt, then extended it and hooked it around the sapling trunk above the other ankle. He set his teeth, flexed his legs, and dragged himself and Kane up the slope until he could reach out and grab the sapling with his left hand. He then reached back with his other arm and snagged Kane’s vest.

The shepherd unclamped his jaws, and with Tucker’s help, Kane scrabbled up the slope, his nails scratching on the ice until he reached the sapling.

Finally, Tucker let his legs uncurl and swung his body around, his feet again facing downhill. He slammed his heels into the ice several times until he had formed adequate footholds, then sprawled back to catch his breath.

Kane gave his hand a lick: relief and reassurance.

Tucker sat up and got his bearings. While plunging headlong down the slope in almost complete darkness, the angle had seemed precipitous. Now he could see the grade was no more than twenty-five degrees.

Could be worse . . .

To their right, fifty feet away, a line of skeletal birches and heavy Siberian pines snaked down the slope. Far below, a dark smudge ran perpendicular to the incline.

A river. But which one? For every charted stream and lake in Siberia, a dozen more were unrecorded and u

But first he had to find his rucksack. All his supplies were inside it.

He looked around, sca

He had only one hope: to borrow someone’s keener eyes.

Tucker turned to Kane. “SPOT RUCKSACK,” he ordered.

Thankfully, rucksack was one of Kane’s thousand-word vocabulary. When traveling, most of Tucker’s worldly possessions—and survival tools—were contained in that pack.

After twenty seconds, Kane let out a low-key yelp.

Tucker twisted around and followed Kane’s gaze uphill and sideways, toward the tree line. Even with Kane’s guidance, it took Tucker another thirty seconds to spot it. The rucksack had become wedged into the fork of a white-barked birch tree.

He rolled onto his hands and knees, grasped Kane’s vest collar with his left hand, then began sidling toward the tree line, kicking toeholds into the ice as he went. It was slow work, eating up too much time. Halfway there, Tucker realized Kane needed no support. The shepherd’s nails worked as natural pitons.

Working together, they reached the forest of Siberian pines and birches. Under the shelter of the bower, the snow was powdery and soft. Leaving Kane propped against a trunk, he climbed upward and angled toward the tree into which the rucksack was wedged.

In the distance, a branch snapped.

The sound echoed across the night’s stillness—then faded.

Tucker froze. Where had the sound come from?

Above, he decided.

Slowly Tucker reached forward, grasped the nearest trunk, and laid himself flat. He sca

He strained as silence followed—then another crunch.

Somewhere above, a person was moving—not casually, but with purpose. Either a hunter or Felice. If so, she was even more dangerous than he’d anticipated. Almost fifteen minutes had passed since he and Kane had leaped from the train. Felice would have had to pinpoint their position, choose her own jumping-off point, then backtrack here at a ru

Possible, he realized, but such speed spoke to her skill as a hunter.

But was it her?

He turned his head. Twenty feet below, Kane lay on his belly, half buried in the softer snow. His eyes were fixed on Tucker, waiting for orders.

He signaled with his free hand: move deeper into the trees and hunker down.

On quiet feet, Kane moved off. Within seconds he was lost from sight.

Tucker returned his attention to their visitor. Using his elbows and knees, he burrowed himself into the powdery snowpack until only his eyes were exposed. Two minutes passed. Then five. The footsteps continued moving downhill at a stalking pace: step, pause . . . step, pause. Finally, a shadowy figure appeared from behind a tree, then stopped and crouched down.

The person’s build was slim and athletic in a form-fitting dark jacket, a cut that was too modern, too tactical. Definitely not a local rural hunter. The head turned, and from beneath a dark wool cap, a wisp of blond shone in the stark starlight.

Along with something else.

A rifle barrel poked from behind a shoulder. How had Felice smuggled a sniper rifle onto the train? As he watched, she unslung her weapon and cradled it against her chest.

She was forty feet up the slope and to his right. If she kept to her line, she would pass within feet of his trapped rucksack. Not good. He was now playing cat and mouse with a SIG-trained sniper. The solution was simple if not so easily executed: kill Felice while he still had the element of surprise.

Moving with exaggerated slowness, he reached to his belt and withdrew the stolen P22. He brought it up along his body and extended it toward Felice. He aimed the front sight on her center mass, clicked off the safety, and took up the slack on the trigger.