by AJ Frazer
The Jagged Edge
AJ Frazer
Copyright © 2020 AJ Frazer
All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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This book is dedicated to Kamal Sarma: mate, mentor, muse.
Contents
Preface
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Acknowledgments
Get in touch…
Preface
I guess I’m what you would call a lazy activist. While so many environmentalists, conservationists, scientists and policymakers have stood up to do something about climate change, I sat down. For a really long time. I sat to write this book in the hope of reframing the science, the opposing views and our individual responsibility of climate change; with the help of some good old fashion thriller (non)sensibilities.
Prologue
The sound of wire being cut fractured the silence of the cold dark night. With the final snip, Victor Sagen pulled back the fence and three dark shadows slipped through the small gap before he followed. Dressed in black, they ran silently through the knee-high grass, dropping face down before the grass gave way to the yellow clay of the inner compound. It was late spring and the ground was hard and still bitterly cold. The earth’s chill seeped through their layers of clothing and into their bones. Still breathing hard, they scanned the area for signs of activity.
None of them carried guns; the last thing they wanted to do was kill people. Stringent planning and precise execution made guns redundant. Sagen had vowed long ago never to carry a gun, not since he had sat drunk and hopeless on a lonely beach north of Los Angeles watching the sunset, with a loaded revolver in his lap.
They knew that the security detail at the facility would be on the other side of the site, drinking coffee and talking hockey in the stuffy warmth of their security room. Though the facility operated twenty-four hours a day, the night crew was a skeleton staff and the compound appeared devoid of life. Satisfied that no one was patrolling the perimeter, Sagen gestured for the others to move out. Three tall towers were spread across the vast area, lit by powerful sodium lights. To Sagen, the towers resembled the devil’s three-pronged pitchfork. The three shadows quietly splintered off toward their assigned drill towers. They each knew their objective.
Sagen stayed back to monitor their progress and ensure they weren’t surprised by a rogue guard. He had a comms unit connecting him to the others, but they were disciplined enough to only make contact if absolutely necessary. With his binoculars, Sagen scoped the area again, looking for any movement other than from his team.
A few minutes later, he spotted one of the others heading back. From the gait, Sagen could tell it was Jim Thorpe, his most experienced operative. Jim sprinted through the long grass directly toward Sagen and then threw himself down beside him.
Jim nodded. Sagen nodded back and returned to scanning the compound. He saw another figure running toward them. Judging by his build, it had to be Erik Clement, Sagen’s right-hand man. Military trained, he was athletic, sharp and brutally proficient. Erik sprinted over to them and slid into the long grass beside Jim. Immediately he rolled over and peered back toward the remaining drill tower. The only sound now was his breathing, which he brought quickly under control.
That just left Jared.
Sagen focused his attention on the remaining tower. As an ex-US Ranger, Jared Lee should have been the last person Sagen needed to worry about. He was a rare breed; off the field he was the team clown, but on a mission, he was hard as nails with a stoic resolve to complete it or die trying.
Sagen checked his watch—it had been over five minutes. Jared should have been back by now. Something was awry. Lowering his binoculars, Sagen looked to Jim. “Too long,” he whispered.
“I’ll go.”
“No. I will.” Sagen rose to one knee and handed Jim the binoculars before making for Jared’s drill tower. As he stepped into the main compound, he immediately felt exposed and vulnerable beneath the bright lights in the open space. The short run to the protective shadow of the nearest building seemed to take forever.
As he neared cover, a shape moving around the corner of another building caught his eye. Sagen skidded to a stop before concealing himself behind the wall of the closest building, hoping that the hum of the plant’s generators drowned out the sound of his feet on the hard clay. He prayed the shape was Jared but would assume nothing without a confirmed visual. Pressing his back against the wall, he willed himself to melt into it and disappear. Once he heard the swift but heavy footfalls coming his way, he knew immediately that it couldn’t be Jared—the man was always light on his feet. Sagen held his breath.
The footfalls grew closer and closer until finally the figure jogged right past him. Sagen watched the hulking silhouette make its way toward the grass fringe. It looked ape-like, with huge sloping shoulders. Once it was caught in the lights of the compound, Sagen saw that it wasn’t one person at all; it was Jared, carrying someone else.
Sagen set off to catch up. He’d only taken a few steps before Jared shrugged off the body behind him and spun around, crouching in a fighter’s pose. The sodium lights made the move look unnaturally quick.
“Whoa, easy,” whispered Sagen. “It’s me.”
Jared said nothing, just bent down and hauled the limp body off the ground and across his shoulders in one smooth powerful move. At five foot nine, he was not physically large, but the way he hoisted the deadweight reminded Sagen of his strength.
“Want a hand?” said Sagen.
“Nope,” grunted Jared.
Sagen jogged along with him to the rendezvous point, where Jim and Erik waited. Jared lowered the unconscious man onto the ground, more gently this time.
“You OK?” asked Jim.
“This gunslinger spotted me at the tower,” Jared said in his signature Southern drawl. “Couldn’t just leave him there.”
“All right, were there any others near the towers?” asked Sagen.
“Negati
ve.”
Sagen looked at Jim and Erik in turn. “Either of you?”
“No,” Erik said. Jim shook his head.
“OK, good.” Sagen pressed a small button on the comms unit in his ear to contact their spotter who was stationed on the other side of the facility. “Scout, do you still have eyes on the guards?”
“Affirmative. All but one are located in their station room,” a calm female voice came back with stark digital clarity. “I repeat, missing one.”
“Copy. We have the missing guard.” Sagen turned to the others. “We’re still a go then. Let’s get this guy out of here.”
They made their way quickly back to the hole in the fence, Jim shouldering the unconscious man the rest of the way. At the fence, they laid him down on the grass and Erik checked his vitals and airways. “He’ll wake up with a hell of a headache, but otherwise, he should be fine.”
“Does he have a cell phone on him?” Sagen said.
Erik felt around. “Here it is.”
“Battery and signal?” asked Sagen while taking off his jacket.
“Battery looks good … signal has two bars.”
“Good enough.” Sagen wanted to be sure the man could call for help when he came to. He handed Erik the jacket. “Here, wrap this around him.”
The team moved back beyond the fence line and out of the reach of the ambient light from the facility. Affixing BAE Systems military-grade night-vision monoculars, they set off across the open plain. The cold North Dakota air bit hard at their faces. A frost had formed and their boots crunched the crisp grass. Sagen counted out a hundred yards and signaled for them to stop. They crouched facing the dimly lit facility. Sagen raised his night-vision monocular to his forehead and retrieved a small metal cylinder from a leg pocket on his black tactical trousers.
“Scout, confirm,” he said into his comms unit.
“Confirmed. All present and accounted for. I repeat, confirmed go.”
“Copy, move out now and meet us at the rendezvous point,” he ordered.
Sagen breathed deeply, looking back at the twinkling lights, hearing the distant hum of machinery. Flipping the top of the cylinder, he placed his thumb on a small red button.
“Frack you.” He pressed down hard.
A second later, three explosions erupted simultaneously where the towers stood. The heat from the fireballs radiated toward them and cast them all in an orange glow. The guards in their station room were rocked by the explosions, but none were hurt. Which was always the way with Sagen’s meticulously planned operations.
Mission accomplished.
Chapter One
Descending the north face of the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey on Mont Blanc was challenging at best, let alone when a large rockfall had cut off the route midway down. Standing on a narrow, exposed ridge, Dominic Elliston and his climbing partner, Dax Beresford, had to make a decision. Either climb back up the ridge and find another route down, or traverse a snow-filled chute that seemed to hum with prehistoric danger.
The weather had been on their side all day, with bluebird conditions making the snow sparkle with brilliance. But weather like this was a double-edged sword in an alpine wilderness. The distance across the snow-covered chute was tantalizingly short—forty feet, at a push. But the steepness of the slope and the unusually warm weather conspired to create perfect avalanche conditions.
Contrary to popular belief, climbing down a mountain is even deadlier than going up. The majority of falls happen on the way down from a summit. But knowing this fact wasn’t going to help Dominic right now. Being on the wrong side of midday and with precious few daylight hours left, Dominic wished they’d taken one of the tourist routes like the Goûter Route or the Cosmiques Ridge, which were relatively easy ways to summit the mountain.
However, easy was never an option for Dominic. He usually found himself storming headlong into a situation, only realizing the true danger once it was too late. After all, that was basically the unofficial modus operandi of a Royal Marines commando. But that was a very long time ago. Surely by now, he thought, I’ll be more restrained, more considered. Then again, consequences were preferable to regrets and he only regretted not doing things. Though even by his standards, this was extreme.
Dominic studied the chute through his Julbo glacier sunglasses. “Assessment?” he asked Dax, although it came out sounding more like an order—a hangover from his military service.
Dax grimaced and rubbed the stubble on his weathered face. “Too late to go back up, too dangerous to cross here,” he said in his gruff New Zealand accent.
“No other options?” asked Dominic.
“Nope.”
“Weather?” asked Dominic. The weather was a constant, nagging stress, because up here it was the ultimate arbiter of life and death.
“Should hold out, but I don’t like the way this wind is building.”
“Then we should set up an anchor and traverse this chute. One at a time. It’ll be slow, but a damn sight faster than going back up,” said Dominic.
Dax scowled at the suggestion. “That slope just looks all wrong. The alpha angle is off. If the snowpack’s loose underneath, it could slip away big.” As a mountain guide, Dax was always a pessimist, always erring on the side of caution. Which, for some reason, always made Dominic feel more brazen.
“Better make sure the anchor’s solid then.”
Dax shrugged. “You’re the boss. So, you should go first.”
Dominic snorted. “Aren’t I paying you to take the risks up here?”
“You’re paying me to keep you alive up here. Better to have me on the anchor hauling your sorry arse up if you slip.”
“I never slip.”
“Yeah, right,” mumbled Dax. He started uncoiling the rope that was wrapped around his shoulder and torso.
“Never,” repeated Dominic.
The two had climbed many mountains together in the Himalayas, Europe, and parts of North America. Theirs was an easy friendship of mutual respect. Dax treated Dominic like a normal person. There was certainly no distance or deference on Dax’s part. Dominic could be himself around Dax; he didn’t have to live up to the persona that went with his professional life.
They’d been on the Mont Blanc massif for a week now and were due to fly out tomorrow. The thought of a luxurious hotel suite in Chamonix was intoxicating, but a dangerous distraction. When he was in the city—where he spent most of his time now—Dominic craved being in the mountains, yet as soon as he was in an inhospitable alpine environment, he longed for comforts of home. Forever eying the green grass.
Dax quickly set up an anchor while Dominic coiled the rope to avoid any possible snags on the rocks. He felt the cold wind find its way through the gaps in his clothing and stab at his sweat-dampened skin. He was all too aware that stopping for too long on an exposed face like this carried its own dangers.
Once they’d both checked the slings and carabiners that made up the anchor, Dax gave the obligatory call, “On belay!”
Dominic took a deep breath and felt the cold sting his sinuses. He stepped down carefully from the rock ridge onto the snow and sunk up to his knees. The snow was soft and wet—the worst kind. Pressing forward, his powerful legs negotiated the deep snow while he used an ice axe to steady his traverse. The crampons on his boots provided plenty of grip, not that he needed them in snow this deep.
Ten feet across, he stopped briefly to look up the chute. A dizzying expanse of snow and sky was above him. Downslope, the view made his balls tighten and his bowels loosen. The steep runout was a short distance to a lip of snow that dropped off to nothing but air and a deep valley below. Not wanting to mess about, he quickly carried on. With each footstep, he noticed the snow changing. It now had a hollow sound when he placed his feet. It was an alarming feeling to imagine he was on a fragile, thin layer of ice and snow. He prodded ahead with the ice axe to test the footing, which slowed him down even more.
He heard Dax call out behind him. “C’mon,
Dom. Let’s have a bit of hustle, mate!”
“Yeah, yeah!” Though he knew Dax wasn’t joking. The more time he was exposed in the middle of the chute, the greater the danger.
Approaching the midway point, a gnawing sensation of instability threatened to turn Dominic around. Halfway there is halfway back, so might as well keep moving forward. He concentrated on every minute shift of his body weight, straining his ears for something out of the ordinary, feeling for the slightest give in the ice. The metal rock cams, carabiners, and pitons clipped to his harness jangled as he moved across the exposed slope. The ice squeaked as it compressed beneath every step.
Then he heard it. Not so much with his ears, but in his chest cavity. An impossibly deep, groaning vibration that flooded his veins with primal terror. He froze, looking up the steep slope at the expanse of snow above him. Everything looked fine—solid and still. He felt the wind on his stubbled cheek, the sound of his Gore-Tex jacket rustling, the pricks of sweat itching his forehead beneath his beanie.
He dared not move an inch and realized that he was still holding his breath.
Twisting, he looked back at Dax.
Dax didn’t call or say a word, he just held up his hand in a hold signal before quickly sitting on the rock with his feet braced in front of him. Seeing this was like a hypodermic needle of dread being emptied into Dominic’s heart. Dax was bracing to take his weight on the belay. When he was positioned, he waved at Dominic to come back.
The simple action of turning around was like a series of yoga moves on the steep, unstable face of the ice. Slowly, carefully, Dominic raised one foot and swung it around wide to avoid catching his crampons. The snow and ice crunched underfoot as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
No further sound came from the ice. Everything seemed still. Even the wind felt as if it had eased. Taking a deep breath, he set off back toward Dax.
As he took his next step, a preternatural cracking sound pierced the stillness and Dominic felt his feet suddenly swept from under him. He was flung onto his chest and immediately began moving down the slope feet first. Without thinking, he went into self-arrest mode. He desperately hauled his torso up and over the ice axe and dug it into the snow. This did nothing to slow his descent as the roar filled his ears and he realized what was actually happening. It was an avalanche.
