The most basic kit for any bush venture added a headlamp and at least fifty feet of parachute cord. Quinn wore his headlamp now to make sure he didn’t inadvertently leave behind anything important but planned to turn it off once they started to move, preferring to navigate by natural light. Wearing a beacon on your skull was a good way to get turned into a bullet sponge.
Inside his pack, Quinn carried a second flashlight because, as he’d learned from hard experience, Two is one and one is none when it came to critical pieces of gear. The second light was larger and used two of the ubiquitous 123 lithium batteries. A small plastic case contained spares as well as an extra photo battery for the Aimpoint Patrol sight mounted on Aunt Abbey’s rifle.
The cold weather had both Quinn and Beaudine layering in virtually every piece of clothing they had, including Lovita’s pink fleece that he’d dried by the fire and given to Beaudine. Freedom of movement made large parkas impractical, but Quinn felt relatively comfortable with his waterproof Sitka shell layered over a fleece jacket, the wool shirt, and wool long johns. Aunt Abbey had provided Beaudine with much the same system. As with the woolies, everything was a little large, making the FBI agent look as though she was dressed in her big sister’s clothes. She didn’t seem to mind. Warmth beat style every time in the bush.
Both Quinn and his brother had worn Mechanix gloves for years, first when working on their bikes — long before they had fallen into favor with the tactical community. He kept two pair of the lightly insulated gloves in his pack year round.
Quinn carried his personal trauma kit, but augmented it with bandages and some extra QuiKclot gauze from the plane. He gave the high-calorie energy bars from the aircraft to Beaudine, preferring the taste of Lovita’s salmon strips and fatty akutaq to the cookies that tasted like coconut and sawdust.
Gorilla Tape, a hundred feet of 550 cord, Quinn’s Vortex binoculars, and the Russian’s .338 Lapua sniper rifle rounded out their gear. Quinn figured they each carried around twenty-five pounds, not including the long guns — sickeningly light since it was everything they had.
Beaudine came in from the shadowed timberline and crunched across the gravel as Quinn pulled the last tab tight to secure the sleeping bag. She must have gone down the stream and washed away the blood and grime from the crash. Her face was now clean and pinked from the cold water.
She handed him the toilet paper.
“Keep it,” Quinn said, waving away the baggie. “I found another roll in the survival kit.
Beaudine thanked him and shoved the new treasure in her pocket before looking up at him. He flipped up the lens on his headlamp so he didn’t blind her.
“Sorry about getting all weepy before,” she said.
Quinn shrugged. “It happens.”
“Not with me,” Beaudine said. “I was raised under the iron notion that only my pillows should see my tears.”
Quinn kicked snow into the fire, throwing the camp into darkness and sending up a hissing cloud of steam. “You’re like your cousin in at least one respect,” he said, chuckling.
Beaudine’s brow furrowed, lopsided because of her wound. “How’s that?”
“You both get philosophical when you take toilet paper into the woods.” Quinn shouldered his pack and then picked up the rifle.
“I spilled some pretty gnarly details about my family,” she said, falling in to crunch along beside him in the dark. “It doesn’t make you worry about working with me?”
“Makes me worry for the other guys,” Quinn said. “I don’t know, maybe we really do heal stronger in the broken places.”
“Math and Hemingway,” she said. “You must have done well in school. Anyhow, that’s a nice platitude. My grandma used to say stuff like that—‘The good Lord won’t give us a trial we can’t handle.’ Well, the good Lord must think I’m a badass.”
“I know what you mean,” Quinn said, eager to move past the philosophizing. It was easy to see that Beaudine and Thibodaux shared the same blood.
Beaudine stopped when they slid down the gravel to the edge of the swollen stream. She peered into the darkness down the rough animal trail. It was little more than a depression in the snow that ran next to the stream.
“I get a definite vibe that you really like this stuff,” she said. Vapor clouded her face in the chilly blue reflection from the snow.
“Guess I’m just used to it,” Quinn said.
“Well,” Beaudine continued, “remember how I told you that the FBI had the lead on this so I’m the one in charge?”
“I do.” Quinn raised both hands. “Loud and clear.”
“Turns out this wilderness stuff scares the shit outta me,” Beaudine said. “I am officially putting you back in charge.”
“We’re after the same thing,” Quinn said. “Who’s in charge matters a lot less than who’s still alive when it’s over.”
“And that is exactly why you’re in charge,” Beaudine said. She nodded toward the gun slung over his shoulder as they wove their way around snow-covered willows. “Now, tell me about the gun you took from the Russian. I know a sniper rifle when I see it. Can you shoot it well enough to protect us from this Worst of the Moon?”
“I hope so,” Quinn said. “It’s a chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum. Awesome round. My ex-wife was shot with one just like it.”
Beaudine gave a low whistle. “We all got stories, I guess.”
“Yes, we do,” Quinn said. “Anyway, it’ll shoot further than I’m capable of.”
Beaudine stopped in her tracks and looked at him. The stitches he’d given her crawled diagonally from her eyebrow nearly to her hairline like a dozen tiny black spiders. “But you can shoot long range, right? I mean, you have experience with that kind of thing?”
“I can and I do.” Quinn gave her what he hoped was his best calming smile. “But it’s going to involve some math — weaponized math… but it’s still math.”
“Of course there would have to be math,” Beaudine said. She took her frustration out on a scrub willow, knocking off the snow with her fist as she turned to continue down the silver ribbon of trail. “Yet one more reason you should be in charge.”
The sun was just a pink line over the eastern horizon fifty-five minutes later when they broke out of the willows onto a wide gravel flat at the confluence of the creek and the Kobuk River.
Each step had seen them slogging through loose gravel, powering through mucky, boot-sucking tundra, or leaping between the sometimes knee-high hills of grass and relatively dry ground Quinn called tussocks. Beaudine had to concentrate to keep from wheezing.
In the lead, Quinn paused while still in the cover of thick willow and alder scrub, holding up his fist to signal that he wanted to stop. He’d warned her that there would likely be a fish camp at the confluence of the two waterways and that they should stay quiet on approach. He needn’t have worried. Just when she’d found a guy that was worth talking to, she didn’t have the energy to say a word.
Snow sifted down through frozen leaves as Quinn drew back an alder branch so Beaudine had a better view in the direction he was looking. He pointed across the creek with the blade of his hand.