Chapter 104 - Passage through Tromsø
Forty-eight hours later, the bitter cold of Tromsø, Norway, offered no relief. The city was a jagged collection of lights clinging to the edge of frozen fjords, buried under three feet of hard-packed snow.
We moved through the industrial docks under the cover of a blinding blizzard. Vance had patched his shoulder in the cabin of an old fishing trawler we had hijacked at gunpoint and subsequently paid for with untraceable gold Sovereigns from the Shetland stash. He walked with a limp, his jaw set in a permanent grimace of pain, but his assault rifle stayed tucked tightly under his heavy parka.
"Safe house is three blocks inland," Vance muttered, his breath pluming like smoke. "Belongs to an old contractor who owed Marcus a debt from the Baltic campaign. No electronic footprint. Wood stove, canned rations, and a snowmobile convoy."
"How long until Victoria's satellites track the trawler's transponder?" I asked, carrying Clara against my chest, her head tucked safely beneath my collar.
"They already have," Vance replied bluntly. "Which is why we have forty-five minutes before hunter-killer teams sweep the harbor. We don't sleep here, Emily. We re-arm, refuel, and get onto the icebreaker."
The safe house was a converted fish-salting warehouse that smelled of brine, kerosene, and rotting timber. Inside, an old man with weathered skin and missing fingers didn't ask questions. He took two gold bars from my pack, pointed to a rack of winter-camo tactical gear, Arctic-grade survival parkas, and two crates of heavy-caliber munitions.
"The Svalbard channel is frozen solid," the old man said in broken English, his voice like gravel grinding together. "Only one vessel moves through the drift ice this time of year. The *Isbjørn*. Russian registry, private charter. Left an hour ago from the commercial quay, heading north to the permafrost shelf."
"Victoria's resupply vessel," I said, checking the bolt of a modified HK417 chambered in 7.62mm. The cold metal bit into my fingers, familiar and lethal.
"We aren't catching a resupply ship on foot, Emily," Eleanor whispered from the corner of the warehouse, huddled near the wood stove. Her eyes were sunken, dark rings tracing her cheekbones. "She knows we are here. She controls the Arctic radar grid."
"She controls machines," I said, turning to look at my mother. "I control the bloodline she spent seventy years trying to manufacture. She wants Clara. She won't sink the icebreaker if she thinks Clara is on board."
I racked the bolt of the rifle. The metallic snap echoed through the silent warehouse.
May you like
"Dress warm, Mother," I added, cold disdain lacing every syllable. "You spent twenty years pretending the cold didn't exist inside our house. Now you're going to face it where it was born."
***
