“No way,” Penn growled out.
“Suit yourself. Have fun wandering the bush in a snowstorm, guys.” She turned to walk away, and his gaze latched onto her thick ski pants that shouldn’t remotely look hot on a woman and yet somehow, on her, did.
He traded a look with Lipton, who only cocked a brow as if asking what the captain of Xtreme Ops would do to take control of his first mission. Take along a civilian as guide through dangerous terrain on a hunt for an even more dangerous man?
“Dammit.” He chased after her, caught her by the elbow and swung her around to face him.
“Just tell us what is wrong on the map.” She might be tough, but he wouldn’t be bested by a hundred-twenty pound snow puff.
She eyed him. “If you’re only heading that direction, you won’t find the hijacker.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know where he was going.”
Chapter Three
Cora’s blood pulsated with anger. That man could not disappear into the wilderness—he needed to pay. Her father lay there badly injured, fighting for his life, about to be life-flighted from the wreckage of his downed plane, also his livelihood, and all because of Ron Smith. Or Yahontov, as these men were calling him.
The big one folded his arms across his chest, making him look bigger, broader and meaner, but she’d lived around bush people her entire life and wasn’t buying his act.
“We are a special ops force sent here to recover this man who brought down your plane. Do you intend to withhold information from us?”
“No, but you’ll never live through the journey. Do you know how many people disappear in the Alaskan wilderness every year?”
“We’re trained.” His angular jaw studded with beard growth clenched.
“And I’m knowledgeable,” she shot. “Look, I want this man caught more than anyone.” She waved toward her father, currently being lifted by two men on the backboard to place him into the chopper. “Just a minute. I want to say goodbye.” She jogged after them, and the men stopped for her to hunch over her daddy.
Looking into his beloved eyes, her heart flexed. Would she ever see him again? There was still time for her to go with him. Her father had launched himself at the man to stop him. If Eagle couldn’t search for the bastard, she would do it for him.
Tears burned the base of her throat. “I love you, Daddy. They’ll take good care of you.”
“Cora…I love you, girl. More than anything.”
She leaned in and kissed one cheek and then the other. As a child, she had kissed her parents this way, both cheeks and end in an Eskimo kiss of brushing noses.
She rubbed her nose against her father’s before straightening. She looked to the rescuer. “Take good care of him, you hear me? Don’t make me come find you.”
He smiled. “I love a sassy woman, so you can find me anytime. But don’t worry, he’s in good hands.”
With a good amount of internal struggle, she stepped away. The men ran forward bearing her father and loaded him into the chopper.
Suddenly, the big man appeared at her side.
One of the search and rescue team turned to look at her. “Coming?”
“Yes, she is. In just a second,” Penn called out. With her arm in his grasp, he whipped her around to face him.
Some of the breath escaped her at seeing the scowl on his face.
He looked prepared to kill with the lethal shards shooting from his dark eyes, and the twist of his lips could be a noose.
Her heart rate picked up.
“Tell me where the target”—he drew in a deep breath and started again—“the man who hijacked your plane, is headed.”
“I’ll only share what I know if you take me. I’ve guided before on a smaller scale. I know this area like the back of my hand.”
“What reason would you have for coming here?” He looked at the nothingness surrounding them.
“There are plenty of places that haven’t been photographed or seen by human eyes, and it’s my goal to reach those places and show them to people. Every year I take a couple excursions into the back country. I sell my photos to science magazines.”
Another man approached them, this one as tall as Penn but with a quick smile. “What’s your name again?” he asked her.
“Cora Hutton.”
While Penn continued to glare her down, the other man tapped on his satellite phone. After a few seconds, he looked up. “She’s telling the truth. She’s featured in Smithsonian.”
Penn’s brow shot upward, into the edge of his thick hat.
“Take me with you as your guide and I’ll help you find this man. I want him dead.” The flat tone of her voice had both men’s stares boring into her. “There’s nothing I can do to help my father now anyway. It’s in God’s hands and the doctor’s. Look, this is remote, but that man was headed to a place even more barren. Hardly any planes even fly there because it’s so far north that it messes with some older instruments. There won’t be service there, no rescue, no civilization.”
They continued to stare at her. “Just man against nature. One wrong move and it’s death. No one would find you.”
“And you regularly visit this place?” Penn’s low growly voice sounded with disbelief.
She nodded. “I told you it’s a hobby. I go with a couple different groups. They’re looking to set world records of most explored tundra, but I don’t care about that. I just enjoy the thrill of finding remote areas that have yet to be explored. I also video journal it. You can find me on YouTube.”
Penn shot a look at the other man, who again punched his screen with a gloved forefinger. “She’s got a channel, and it won’t download in this weather, but I can see it’s true, Captain. I believe…”
Penn rounded on him, and Cora detected an undercurrent between them, some team dynamics she didn’t quite understand.
“You want to call the shots, Lipton?”
“No, Captain Sullivan. It’s just a recommendation.”
“You seriously want to drag a woman along with us? Look at her. She can’t possibly have enough endurance and will be dead weight.”
“But she says she knows the area and where Yahontov was going. We know he’s loose, on foot. We can’t let him disappear. It’s our first mission.”
That had her own brows arching. First mission? Knowing she was dealing with a bunch of rookies didn’t make her feel easier about the situation. She still had time to board that chopper.
But that left a man out there who could harm more of her fellow people.
As the pair talked in heated whispers, the man called Lipton pointed to the screen.
“…a cabin there in the background of the photo. A landmark for us to use. If we can find that location, we might not need her after all.”
She raised her voice to be heard. “You’ll die before you get two miles in.”
Penn stared at her for three full throbbing heartbeats before he shifted his gaze to the landscape behind her, a world she knew was rapidly being covered in a thick layer of snow. They didn’t have much time if they were going to do this.