“So you’ll go first?”

“Yes, and you can follow. We’ll leave a two-hour window for the initial cargo deployment, and start at eleven A.M. on Thursday. It won’t be light enough earlier.”

They were discussing a myriad of other details — the order in which the hazard tents would be erected, the grid of the ground ramps and location of the generator shacks — when Slater picked up the aroma of stew and heard a furtive knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, holding the phone to his shoulder, and looked up to see Nika holding a Crock-Pot between two pot holders.

“The Yardarm is doing their version of chicken Kiev tonight,” she said. “Trust me, you’re better off with my home cooking.”

Slater was embarrassed to be caught so much in possession of her office and started to rise from her chair.

“Finish your call,” she said, “and meet me in the gym.”

“Sounds like you’ve made a friend,” Sergeant Groves said with a laugh before they hung up. “Now don’t blow it.”

Slater straightened up his papers and tried to leave her desk the way he’d found it, then went down the hall to the community center’s gymnasium, where Nika had set up a card table underneath the scoreboard with a bottle of wine, the pot of stew, and a couple of place settings. It was about the least picturesque spot Slater could ever have imagined, which was why he found it puzzling that it felt so cozy and romantic. He instinctively tucked his shirt into his pants to straighten it out and ran a hand over his hair. Maybe he did need to get out more, as Sergeant Groves had often kidded him. “You’re divorced,” Groves had told him the last time they’d had a drink in a D.C. bar. “You’re not dead.”

“You really didn’t have to do this,” Slater said, taking a seat on the folding chair across from Nika.

“Inuit hospitality,” she said, dishing out the stew. “We’d be disgraced if we didn’t do something for a guest who had come so far.”

Slater opened the wine bottle and filled their glasses. He raised his glass in a toast to his host, then found himself tongue-tied. “To … a successful mission,” he said, and Nika smiled. Clinking her glass against his, she said, “To a successful mission.”

“And a terrific meal,” Slater said, trying to recover. “Smells great.” He draped his napkin in his lap. “Thanks so much.”

The conversation went in stops and starts. Slater, who could talk about disease vectors until the cows came home, had never been good at this small talk; his wife Martha had always been the one to carry the day. Between bites of the reindeer stew, he asked Nika about her life and her background, and she was happy to oblige. It even turned out that they had some friends in common on the faculty of Berkeley, where she’d received her master’s in anthropology before coming back to serve the people of Port Orlov.

“I wanted to preserve and record a way of life — the native traditions and customs,” she said, “before they disappeared altogether.”

“It can’t be easy to keep them going in the age of the Internet and the cell phone and the video game.”

“No, it’s not,” she conceded. “But there’s a lot to be said for that ancient culture. It sustained my people through centuries in the harshest climate on earth.”

As they talked, Slater discovered that she had an extensive knowledge of, and even deeper reverence for, the spiritual beliefs and legends of the native Alaskans. It was like receiving a free and fascinating tutorial … and from a teacher, he had to admit, who was a lot better-looking than anyone he remembered from his own school days. She was dressed in just a pair of jeans and a white cable-knit sweater, with her long black hair swept back on both sides of her head and held by an amber barrette, but she might as well have been dressed to the nines. If it weren’t for the scoreboard above the table, which revealed that Port Orlov had lost its last basketball game to a Visiting Team by twelve points, he could have sworn they were in some intimate little bistro in the Lower 48.

He wasn’t even aware of when, or how, she had deftly turned the conversation back to him, but he found himself explaining how he’d been drawn into epidemiology, then about what had happened in Afghanistan to derail his Army career.

“And yet they’ve entrusted you with this very sensitive assignment,” she said, refilling his glass. “They must still have a very high opinion of you.”

“I work cheap,” he said, to deflect the compliment.

But Nika, in her own subtle way, wouldn’t let it go, asking question after question about how the mission was going to proceed, in what steps and over what period of time. Normally, Slater would have been much more circumspect about sharing any of this information, but after she had been so open with him, and considering the fact that she had been so cooperative so far, in everything from sharing her office to letting the chopper remain parked in the middle of the town’s hockey rink, he would have felt churlish for holding back. It was only when she asked what time they would be leaving for the island that he heard a distant alarm bell. What did she mean by “they”?

“The team,” he said, “will be lifting off late Thursday morning.”

“Do I need to bring anything in particular along?” she asked innocently, as she produced two cherry tarts from a hamper beneath the table. “Sorry, I should have brought ice cream to top them off.”

“No, the team has everything it needs,” he emphasized.

“Okay, no problem,” she said, sticking an upright spoon into his tart for him. “I’ve got the best sleeping bag in the world and I’m used to bunking down anywhere.”

“Where are you talking about?” Slater said, ignoring the spoon and tart.

“On St. Peter’s Island,” she replied. “You didn’t think I was going to let you go without me, did you?”

“Actually,” he said, starting to feel played, “I did. This is a highly classified and possibly dangerous mission, and only authorized personnel — all of whom I have carefully handpicked — are going over there.”

Nika dabbed at her lips with her napkin, and said, “I had the tarts in a bun warmer. You should eat yours before it gets cold.”

“I’m afraid there can be no exceptions.”

“I agree,” she said. “Authorized personnel only. And as the mayor of Port Orlov, in addition to its duly appointed tribal elder, I have to point out to you that the island is encompassed by the Northwest Territories Native Americans Act of 1986, and as such it is within our rights and prerogatives to decide who and when and how any incursions are made there.”

Slater sat so far back in his chair it almost toppled over onto the gym floor.

“Now I’m not saying that official permission has been denied,” she said, taking another spoonful of her tart, “but I’m not saying it’s been granted yet, either.”

She looked up at Slater, her black eyes shining, an inquisitive smile on her lips. “If I do say so myself, this is one hell of a tart.”

And Slater, who had been up against some pretty formidable adversaries in his day, could only marvel at her aplomb. He’d never been snookered so smoothly, or so deliciously, in his life. Her veiled threat to delay the mission could be easily overruled by Dr. Levinson at the AFIP, but the paperwork and bureaucracy involved would tie him up on the ground for several days at least.

“Yep,” she said, nodding over her dessert, “a little vanilla ice cream and this would have been perfect.”

He had just acquired, like it or not, his own Sacajawea.

“Goddammit,” Harley muttered, “watch where you’re throwing that rope.”

“I didn’t see you there,” Russell said.

“And keep your voice down!”

“You keep yours down!” Russell shot back.

This expedition, Harley thought, was not getting off to the best start. First, they’d had to jimmy the fuel pump at the dock in order to gas up the boat.