“Just what we needed, another warm welcome to this frozen outpost,” Giordino said, huge clouds of vapor surging from his mouth.

“Look on the bright side,” Pitt gasped. “There were a couple of seconds there when I forgot how cold it is.”

Without hats, gloves, and parkas, both men were cer tifiably frozen. The abrupt sprint had gotten their blood surging, but their faces and ears tingled in pain while their fingers had nearly turned numb. The physiological effort to keep warm was already sapping their energy reserves, and the short run left them both feeling weakened.

“Something tells me our warmly dressed new pals will be along shortly,” Giordino said. “Have a preference to which way we run?”

Pitt looked up and down the coastline, his visibility limited by the slowly dissipating fog. A steep ridge appeared in front of them, which appeared to rise higher to their left. The ridge eased lower to their right, rolling into another, somewhat rounder hill.

“We need to get off the ice so we’re not leaving tracks to follow. I’d feel better taking the high ground as well. Looks like our best bet to move inland will be down the coast to our right.”

The two men took off at a jog as a brief gust of frozen ice particles blasted their faces. A rising wind would become their enemy now, scattering the fog that provided concealment. They hugged the face of the low cliff, approaching a steep, ice- filled ravine that bisected the ridge. Deeming it impassable, they ran on, searching for the next cut that would lead them inland. They advanced a half mile down the beach when another extended gust swirled down the shoreline.

The wind scorched their exposed skin while their lungs labored to absorb the frozen air. Just breathing became an exercise in agony, but neither man slowed his pace. Then the metallic rapping of machine-gun fire echoed again, the bullets ripping a seam across the cliff a few yards behind them.

Glancing over his shoulder, Pitt saw that the gusting wind had cleared an opening in the fog behind them. Two men were visible in the distance, advancing in their direction. Zak had split his security team into three groups, angling them ashore in different directions. The duo sent to the west had caught a break with the wind, exposing the two men on the run.

Up the coast, Pitt saw another bank of fog billowing toward them. If they could stay clear of gunfir e for another minute, the moving mist would conceal them again.

“Those guys are starting to annoy me,” Giordino gasped as both men stepped up their pace.

“Hopefully, that polar bear is thinking the same thing,” Pitt replied.