JAKE HOLLISTER PEERED above a crest of snow, spotted his quarry and began taking pictures of the polar bear and her cubs. He was barely aware of the numbing cold.
“You’re out of your frigging mind,” whispered his assistant, using the sotto voce they’d perfected over the years they had worked together.
“That is entirely a matter of opinion.”
“Fine. It’s my opinion. We’re miles from nowhere. It’s the time of year when nobody is crazy enough be out here except Inupiat and scientists. And that money-grubbing bastard pilot is probably drunk. Oh, and did I mention? We’re thirty feet from the largest bear on the planet, hiding behind a chunk of ice the size of my girlfriend’s ass.”
“Vera has a very nice ass. I’m sure she’d be pissed that you’re comparing it to a piece of ice,” Jake murmured, focusing on the mother bear’s face. She was wary, possibly venturing out for the first time with her cubs since their birth. He’d never come to the Arctic so early in the season, when the polar bears were leaving their winter birthing caves. It was risky, but what was life without a few risks?
This was their twenty-first day of shooting. They had at least another two months planned, though they might be able to wrap up earlier if he got the shots he needed. Maybe. Editors sometimes failed to recognize that wild animals didn’t show up on cue. Jake wouldn’t compromise, so if he wasn’t satisfied, he didn’t turn in a single photo.
Toby handed him another camera, taking the one Jake had been using and tucking it into a case. They’d worked together so long that Toby seemed to instinctively know what equipment Jake would need next.
“These days Vera is pissed whenever I leave,” Toby grumbled. “She’s starting to talk marriage.”
Jake refocused with the second camera, most of his attention on the bear and her cubs. “That is why it’s never a good idea to get into a serious relationship when you’re in this line of work.”
Toby mopped his face, somehow sweaty despite the cold. “Hell, it isn’t a good idea to be in this line of work. Why do you always have to get so goddamned close? You’ve got telephoto lenses that could photograph Cindy Crawford’s mole from the moon.”
Jake didn’t bother explaining.
The camera whirred as he continued taking pictures. He’d never wanted to have an assistant, but when he’d taken an assignment to Indonesia eight years earlier, the magazine had insisted he take Tobias Mahoney with him. Short, wiry and endlessly complaining, the guy had risked his life to save Jake when an uprooted tree had knocked him into a rain-swollen river. They’d been a team ever since. Complaints included.
“I’m running if she starts this way,” Toby announced, settling the camera bag straps around his neck for a quick getaway. “I’ll save the cameras, but she gets the rest of your equipment.”
“She’s too fast—you’d never get away from her on foot. But unless the wind changes, she’ll never know we’re here. Provided you pipe down, of course.”
With a faint smile, Jake continued working. There was an amazing quality to the silence around them. It was both an absence of noise and an extraordinary clarity of the few sounds they could hear. Ice cracking. Wind across the snow. The faint snuffling cries from the bears. None of it could be captured in a photograph, yet he kept trying, because most of the world would never experience the Arctic. He was lucky to have been this far north several times in his career, though usually in the middle of the summer when there was a relative abundance of insect and animal life. Now it was mostly ice and the three bears they’d spotted from the plane.
The cubs were playful; one even lay on its back, grabbing at the mother’s tail. Then suddenly the adult bear whirled their direction, standing on her hind legs and sniffing the air, some instinct telling her that danger might be afoot.
Toby choked and Jake nudged him with an elbow, still shooting. If he could just catch that look in her eyes...the wildness of an animal protecting her young.
When the bear dropped to all fours and took several steps in their direction, even Jake was considering a strategic retreat. Then the bear stopped and bawled to her babies. They headed west with amazing speed and were soon hidden behind a ridge in the landscape.
“Gawd,” Toby gasped, clasping his hand to his forehead. “This is the last time, Jake. The last frigging time I’m doing this for you.”
“You say that every trip.”
“This time I mean it.”
“You always say that, too.”
They hiked back to the plane with Toby still issuing a long stream of grievances. Their pilot was watching for them. Gordon was a seasoned bush pilot—Toby’s comments on his ancestry and drinking notwithstanding—and couldn’t be blamed for charging a fortune to fly a photographer around northern Alaska to look for an animal powerful enough to destroy his plane.
“Ready?” Gordon asked.
“What do you think?” Toby stomped snow from his boots and climbed into the back of the plane. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I want a hot meal, or whatever passes for one in that village.”
“Does he ever shut up?” Gordon muttered to Jake in a low voice.
“Not so you’d notice.”
Takeoff went as smoothly as it could for a plane on skis, and Jake spent the first few minutes of the flight methodically putting the SD cards from his digital cameras into pouches, which he then tucked into a zippered pocket inside his parka. When he finally looked out, they’d climbed high enough that the land below them was mostly a featureless field of white.
“I hate the cold,” Toby griped. He was drinking a cup of coffee from the thermos they had filled that morning.
“You hate everything.”
“Huh. You want some coffee?”
“Not right now.”
Just then a low grunt from the pilot caught Jake’s attention. Gordon’s face was gray and beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead.
“What’s wrong?”
“Chest...tight...hurts like one of your bears is sitting on me.”
Jake leaned over and loosened the other man’s collar. He took the pilot’s pulse; it was fast and thready and his fingernails had a bluish tinge. Jake had a fair amount of experience with first aid from working in remote areas, but this was more than a cut or busted leg.
“Do you have any health conditions—asthma or something?” he asked casually, figuring the mention of a possible heart attack could cause panic.
Gordon groaned. “N-no.”
“Okay. Maybe we should radio ahead to the village.”
“Yeah. And I’ll have to...to bring us down. Won’t have time to find...a good spot.”
“Just get us down. Try to relax and breathe deeply.” Jake shot a glance into the backseat and saw Toby’s alarmed expression, but there was little he could do to reassure him.
The pilot called for help on the radio, giving their position as he angled the plane downward. Jake murmured encouragement, at the same time taking quick looks outside; the featureless field of snow looked more and more irregular the closer they got.
At the last moment the pilot groaned and lurched forward. There wasn’t any time to react. Jake’s side of the plane took the hardest impact and his last thought before losing consciousness was that all that soft-looking