Hostage by Chris Ryan

gale blowing through the entrance the next morning.
    Alex pointed to the lee side of the stand of trees and they set off again, driving slowly along until he spotted what he wanted. Three spruce trees were growing shoulder to shoulder in a line, so close together that their lower branches merged together under their covering of snow. He brought his spluttering snowmobile to a halt in front of the three spruce trees and turned off the engine. The others parked up beside him one by one and turned off their engines too. The deep silence of the interior settled around them as they eased off their goggles and clambered stiffly from their machines.
    'Fingers? Toes?' asked Alex. His face was so stiff with cold, the words came out slurred, but the others knew what he meant. They each checked for any sign of pins and needles or numbness that could be the start of frostbite. Next, Alex peered into each face in turn, checking noses and cheekbones. They all looked fine, just pinched with cold and tiredness.
    Amber raised her frosted eyebrows, which looked very white next to her dark skin. 'Do we pass inspection?' she asked.
    Alex grinned, pleased to see that she was back to her old, sarcastic self. 'Yes. You pass. And here's your reward.'
    He reached inside his outer jacket and removed a small cloth bag which was hanging from his neck by a cord. He opened the drawstring and produced five bars of chocolate.
    'Oh! I love you!' yelled Amber, tearing off her outer gloves and grabbing one of the chocolate bars. She ripped off the packaging and crammed the chocolate into her mouth. "Sgood,' she mumbled.
    Everyone else grabbed a bar and began to eat as though they had not seen food for days. In such low temperatures their bodies used up huge amounts of energy just to stay warm, and since they had arrived in northern Canada they had all discovered a craving for fat in any shape or form. Here, even Amber could safely eat chocolate without worrying about blood sugar levels because she would burn it all up again within a couple of hours.
    'Now, that is what I call survival expertise,' said Paulo, grinning at Alex with chocolate-coated teeth. Paulo knew that all the food in the trailers would be frozen solid and he had not been looking forward to the long, drawn-out process of lighting a fire and thawing everything out before they could start cooking. 'It is a good trick,' he added. 'Wearing your food. I shall have to remember that.'
    Paulo looked down at Li, expecting her to meet his gaze with laughter sparkling in her uptilted eyes. Instead, she stood next to him, silent and pale, gazing back the way they had come. There was an awkward silence as the rest of Alpha Force remembered that Li had lost a dear friend that day.
    'Right,' said Alex, breaking the silence. 'We've had our energy boost. Now let's make camp.'

E IGHT
    Alex had chosen the three spruce trees because of their spreading, interlinking lower branches. Snow had built up on the top side of the branches, weighing them down so that they bent to the ground. More snow had piled up around the outside of the bent branches, effectively anchoring them in place. Underneath the tent-like branches, where the snow could no longer reach, a natural hollow had formed.
    Once they had unloaded the snow shovels from the trailers, Alex showed Amber and Hex how to dig down carefully into the snow beneath the trees to enlarge the existing hollow without disturbing the outer branches. Li and Paulo set off into the trees to collect as much dead wood as they could find. They were going to need huge amounts of fuel to keep them warm through a night of sub-zero temperatures. Alex concentrated on getting a fire going. First, he dug out a fire pit in front of their shelter trees. Using the snow he had dug out and the snow that Amber and Hex were clearing from under the trees, he built a snow bank behind the fire pit to create extra shelter and reflect the heat from the fire back into the hollows under the