“Hell, no! Up, I guess.”

“We don’t have a leader. Since you’re running first in the lead, the show is yours, Kayla.”

“You mean I can do whatever I want? Hot damn!”

“Yep,” Sam said.

“Spinally was a Marine platoon leader,” Kayla said. “Maybe he’ll catch up.”

“No way. You’re it, Kayla. We’ve been out here forty minutes. That means it will take us fifty minutes to go back down because we’ll be slipping and sliding all the way.”

“Okay. On the count of three, I’m going to turn around and head down.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sam said, as she relayed the information to the other members of her team.

On the count of three, all members of Team Three executed a perfect about-face and headed down. Spinally started to shout as they passed him.

“Hey, chickee baby,” Olivia shouted as she playfully cuffed their ex–group leader on the arm as she whizzed past him.

Sam was stunned to see that only Pappy and three members of Team Five remained.

“Get your ass back on the line, Rainford!” Pappy shouted.

“I have to listen to my group leader, and she said we’ll make it back to the compound in the ninety minutes allotted. Your group leader is back there somewhere,” Sam shouted as she waved her arm backward. “In spyspeak, that means he fizzled out. Tough break.”

Sam laughed again as she heard Pappy say, “Son of a bitch!” She laughed harder when he slipped in the snow, and a Team Five member toppled over him. By the time both men righted themselves, Team Three was so far ahead, slipping and sliding like greased lightning, there was no way the others could catch up.

Back in the compound, Team Three jogged in place as they waited for the others to make an appearance. Sam wasn’t sure, but she rather thought the dropouts were in the dining hall warming themselves by the fireplace.

The moment the stragglers trudged through the snow to the center of the compound, Kayla ripped off a snappy salute and said, “Dismissed.”

The unit headed for the dining hall, where a glorious pot of hot chocolate and fat slices of piping-hot buttered cinnamon toast waited for them. As one they wolfed the feast down and went back for seconds.

Sam looked at Kayla, who appeared worried. “He’s going to try to bust your chops. Don’t let him do it. It’s a given that he’s going to be pissy because he has to go back out again with the ones who didn’t make it.” Sam chomped down on her third slice of toast just as the door to the dining hall blew open.