by Basil Sands
Michaels popped his head up to take a shot at the vehicle, but the driver of the SUV opened up with an automatic weapon through the open passenger side window as he passed.
The staff sergeant stayed under cover as the SUV passed. The sound of the vehicle faded into the distance. He leaped from behind the Suburban and ran to the cruiser to check on his men.
Barnes was dead. Blank eyes stared into space, mouth gaping. Jones was dead as well. There was a large, dark, wet pit in the side of his skull, as well as several holes in his uniform, from which blood oozed onto the pavement where it froze almost instantly. Phelps was still breathing, but unconscious and bleeding profusely.
“I’ll be right back, buddy. Hang on.”
Michaels ran to the two troopers and found both in bad shape. Bartlett was alive. His breathing was wet and labored. Bright white tufts of stuffing puffed like cotton blossoms from four jagged holes in the center of his jacket. There was no blood coming from the wounds. His vest had stopped the bullets.
Sean Brady was not so lucky. He lay flat on his back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. His legs were straight and his arms flared out from his sides, as if he had fallen asleep preparing to make a snow angel on the road.
Trooper Sean Brady was definitely dead. Two clean wounds pierced his throat, just above his protective vest. A pool of freezing blood formed a morbid halo around his head. A large, unrealistically white piece of vertebrae lay on the pavement just beyond his head. A round gray ball of lead jutted from where it had lodged in the bone.
Staff Sergeant Michaels wretched violently.
His body’s reaction to the horrifying scene was interrupted when he heard a voice from Brady’s radio.
“7-63, do you copy?”
A pause, then, it repeated.
“7-63, do you copy?”
Michaels forced his body to control the urge to keep puking. He picked up the radio hand mike from Brady’s body and pressed the talk button.
“Uh,” he said, his voice shaking uncontrollably, “There’s been a shooting.”
“Who is this?”
He composed himself and went on, “This is Staff Sergeant Aaron Michaels, Alaska State Defense Force. I’m here with Troopers Brady and Bartlett at the checkpoint. They are both shot, and so are three of my men. Most are dead, except for Trooper Bartlett and one of mine, but neither of them looks good. One of the guys who did it is also dead, but the other got away.”
“Stay there, Sergeant. We’re sending backup and ambulances immediately.”
“I’ll start first aid oen the two survivors, but hurry up. I don’t think they’ll make it long in this cold.” Tears welled up in his eyes. He struggled for control.
“We’re on the way. Just sit tight.”
“Hurry up….dear God…..hurry up.”
He dropped the radio and went over to Bartlett. The trooper was still breathing and had a pulse in his wrist, so Michaels dragged him over to the Suburban. He opened the tailgate and flattened the backseats to make a large, open area.
He pulled the trooper up onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He laid him as gently as he could into the back of the long vehicle and closed the door. The interior of the large SUV was warming up already, and now Bartlett was out of danger of freezing before the ambulance arrived.
Michaels then ran back to check on Phelps. He slid Barnes’s body out of the vehicle and laid him on the ground beside the cruiser. The staff sergeant then got into the vehicle to check on the corporal. He felt for a pulse in his wrist, but couldn’t find it. He moved his fingers up to Phelps’s neck and could feel a pulse there, but it was weak.
“Come on, buddy! Hang in there don’t die on me!” Michaels placed his ear above Phelps’s lips to listen for a breath, but couldn’t hear or feel anything. He started CPR chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing.
“One, two three, four, five…breathe….breathe….one, two, three, four, five….breathe…breathe.”
It’s just a dream, a bad dream.
After fifteen minutes of compressions, bright lights flashed on the horizon. The red and blue lights of the ambulance spun and sparkled in the distance. It was two more minutes before he could hear the sirens wail.
He didn’t break the rhythmic pumping and breathing as he labored to keep his friend alive. Four minutes later, an ambulance crew ran to the cruiser.
“The Suburban!” Michaels shouted. “Trooper Bartlett is in the Suburban! He was breathing on his own when I left him there.”
Two medics ran to the SUV and two others took over the CPR. Other troopers and policemen, as well as a second and third ambulance, arrived moments later.
Movement in the back seat of the cruiser stopped. One of the EMT’s looked up from Phelps. He turned to the staff sergeant and shook his head. “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
Michaels stared in stunned silence.
Chapter 42
Parks Highway
Sunshine Checkpoint
20 December
04:07 Hours
A sudden flurry of traffic on the radio drew both Lonnie and Marcus’s attention. She turned up the volume.
“Officers down! Repeat, officers down! All units lock down the Parks Highway and all side roads from Healy to Trapper Creek. Suspect was last seen south-bound on the Parks in a maroon Ford Explorer, license plate CNYR43. Be advised—he is armed and dangerous. Airborne units are en route.”
Wyatt’s cell phone rang. She answered. “Wyatt.”
“This is Stark. You hear that APB?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The guy took out two troopers and three ASDF militia who happened to be on site. One of the militia guys managed to get a shot off and killed one of the bad guys, but the other got away. Where are you?”
“At the Sunshine check point.”
“Is Johnson with you?”
“Yes, sir. He’s right here.”
“Let me speak to him.”
She handed the phone to Marcus. He put it up to his ear. “Johnson here.”
“Johnson, you and your boys have got to stop this guy. The bio people here tell me that even if this stuff gets into a river or lake up there in the middle of nowhere, it could eventually cause just as much damage as if it went straight to Anchorage. I have the deputy director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security here. He wants to pass on an order.”
The voice on the phone changed. “Master Sergeant Johnson, can you hear me?”
“Yes, sir, I can hear you.”
“Master Sergeant Johnson, this is Torrence Hall, Deputy Director of the Department of Homeland Security. You are hereby reinstated to your full rank and position and are ordered by the President of the United States, with the assistance of Master Chief Petty Officer Harley Wasner and the SEAL team members under his command, to locate, engage, and render harmless any and all remaining members of the terrorist team designated NK-ALPHA. Do you understand and agree with this order, Master Sergeant Johnson?”
“Yes, sir, I understand, agree, and will comply.”
“Get it done, Top!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The voice changed again. “This is Stark. Give the phone back to Wyatt.”
Marcus handed Lonnie the phone and swung open the door of the truck.
“Wyatt here, sir.”
“Johnson and Wasner are in charge of getting this guy now, ordered by the President himself. I have already informed the post lieutenant down there of this decision and he is to give any assistance Johnson or Wasner request.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Stark out.”
“Wyatt out.”
Marcus called for Wasner on the radio headset.
“Wazzy, get back here with the guys. We’re moving up. The tango is on the way, last seen twenty minutes ago north of Healy. He killed four people, and lost one of his own. We’ve been given presidential orders to render him harmless.”
“Holy flying frog flippers, Batman! I love orders like
that! Let’s go, boys.”
The three Navy SEALs left their positions and ran back to the truck. As soon as they were in, Wyatt gunned the accelerator and punched north up the Parks Highway.
“While you were outside, a report came in, stating a sighting by a trooper helicopter passing through the position just north of Cantwell. The suspect blasted his way through the barricade with a machine gun. If we hurry, we can cut him off at Broad Pass.”
“We don’t want him to stop in the mountains themselves—too much cover,” Johnson said. “Let’s allow him to get south of that area, down to the blueberry flats at the south end of Broad Pass. There will be no place to hide there.”
“What are the blueberry flats?” Wasner asked.
“A huge, open tundra flat at the top of the mountain range. At least, it’s the top as far as the road is concerned. There are no side roads, and it’s nearly twenty miles of flat land in every direction. Tons of blueberries grow up there in the late summer. This time of year, it’s normally filled with snowmobilers, but at these temperatures, there should be very few people, if any.”
As they started north, the radio sounded again with a frantic voice. “Dispatch 7-44! We are under fire! Repeat—we are under fire. He….oh, shit! Man down! Man down!”
The radio went silent. Then another adrenaline-laced voice came over the airwaves. “Denali Highway checkpoint has been overrun! Two troopers are down!” The voice was frantic. “He rammed through the barricade, firing an automatic weapon. The son of a bitch tossed a hand grenade at us! Suspect is headed south at high speed.”
Wyatt pushed the truck up the highway as fast as it would go. A pair of headlights flashed on the horizon. The trooper F250 dipped into a small gulley and lost sight of the other vehicle. As they topped the next rise, it appeared again briefly before going down another sloping valley in the road.
“Turn off your headlights!” Marcus called out. “So he doesn’t see us come back up this hill and do something crazy.”
Wyatt did as he said. The pale light of the three-quarter moon and the stars reflected off the snow, illuminating the road.
She hurtled on at more than seventy miles per hour toward the oncoming vehicle. Their bellies jumped in ticklish flutters as the big truck rolled up and down the rises and dips in the road.
Coming over the last rise, they rounded a curve that brought the road up to the wide-open expanse of the blueberry flats. It was a massive, practically treeless area of smooth, white snow. It stretched for miles in every direction, just as Marcus had said.
In the distance ahead, the Explorer barreled down the road toward them. They would be meeting in minutes.
“Stop the truck here!” Marcus said. “Turn it sideways across the road. Make a roadblock right in the middle. Everybody else, get out.”
Lonnie stopped the truck, and the others immediately climbed down into the frigid night. She turned the truck sideways. The twenty-sixe-foot-long F250 nearly covered the whole width of the pavement, leaving less than two feet on either side before the roadbed vanished in snow of unknown depth.
Wasner called an order to his men. “Sniper positions on each side, thirty feet out. Verify the license plate, then Forth, you take out the engine with the fifty when he gets about a hundred yards out. You and Clark be prepared to take out the driver as needed—just make sure it’s not some unlucky grandma with infinitely bad timing.”
The two men stepped into their snowshoes, took their weapons, and bounded across the snow. They dropped into firing positions ten yards on either side of the truck.
The Explorer drew closer.
“When he gets about two hundred yards from us, hit your lights, Lonnie,” Wasner said. “We don’t want to have him ram the truck by surprise. As soon as you hit the lights, hightail it out of the cab and off the road. He still may not stop.”
A mile away, the Explorer’s headlights dipped violently and came to an abrupt halt. Shin had seen the truck’s shape glint in the moonlight across the road. He paused, then turned around and drove back about half a mile. Three sets of flashing police lights flashed on the horizon about ten miles away as more troopers made their way toward the SUV.
“Excellent!” Marcus shouted. “He’s boxed in. We’ve got him now!”
Brake lights glowed bright red in the distance as the driver of the Explorer saw the troopers bearing down on him. The SUV lurched to the right and disappeared from the road.
“Where’d he go?” Wasner shouted. “Forth, Clark, can you see anything?”
Forth looked through the night vision scope on his Barrett .50 caliber rifle. “There’s a turn out up ahead with a truck and snowmobile on a trailer. He’s trying to start the snowmobile!”
A moment later, they heard the high-pitched scream of a performance snowmobile pierce the night in the distance.
“He got the machine off and is headed into the snow!”
“Shoot him!” Marcus shouted.
The target was a mile and a half away. Not impossible, but not easy. Forth took aim and fired at the snowmobile. As the firing pin struck the bullet, the snowmobile disappeared into a dip in the snow and vanished. The shot exploded into the darkness, but the bullet only spent itself on open air, landing harmlessly in the snow three miles away.
In the back of the F250, a long track snowmobile sat under a black nylon tarp. Marcus called to Lonnie, “Do you have the keys to that thing?”
“They’re on the keychain in the ignition.”
Marcus ran to the truck and disconnected the quick release on the keychain that dropped the snowmobile key into his hand. He grabbed the helmet from between the front seats. He spun back outside, put his hand on the bed of the truck, and thrust himself up and over into the back, where the snowmobile waited to be put into action. Marcus yanked the tarp off the machine, slid his balaclava up to cover his face, then pulled on the helmet. Wasner lowered the tailgate as Marcus jumped onto the seat of the snowmobile. The machine started on the second attempt.
He let it warm up for only a moment before he punched the thumb lever throttle and accelerated like a rocket out the back of the truck bed. The machine landed at high speed on the snow and shot across the surface in pursuit. Marcus half-stood above the seat of the machine, letting the hinge of his knees swing with the force of the ride and leaning his body against tight turns and bumps as he careened across the mountain tundra in search of his target.
The North Korean’s snowmobile briefly crested a small hill off to the east. Marcus saw it and was on his trail. The speedometer on the machine pegged at 110 miles per hour. The snowmobiles headed due south, parallel to the road. He can’t possibly hope to make it all the way to Anchorage on that thing. He cut across the plain at an angle, hoping to intercept him.
Wasner called out to the others, “Get back in the truck and head south! Let’s try to catch up to them. He’s got to get back on the road some time.”
Lonnie, Wasner, Clark, and Forth piled into the truck. Lonnie straightened it back up in the lane, then took off to the south.
Out the driver’s side windows, they saw the headlights of the snowmobiles bob up and down as they bounced across the frigid surface. The temperature had dropped to negative sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The air itself had become deadly.
Chapter 43
Parks Highway
Blueberry Flats
20 December
04:45 Hours
Lieutenant Shin was cold.
When he took the snowmobile off the trailer, he found no helmet in or around the truck. Shin knew that he would need protection from the wind created by driving one of these machines. He had hoped that the small Plexiglas wind-shield that rose from the cowling would have provided more protection than it did. He had pulled his balaclava up to cover his face, and tightened the strings of his parka’s hood to reduce the amount of air that entered the opening as much as possible without restricting his vision.
All his efforts, as it turned out, did not do much to keep
him warm. In spite of the heavy wool pants over which he had pulled a pair of insulated Carhartt bib coveralls his entire body was freezing.
Carhartt bib coveralls are the most commonly seen winter clothing in Alaska and are typically worn along with the ubiquitous bunny boots. The coveralls come in three different levels of insulation: uninsulated, medium, and heavy. The medium and heavy insulation levels are visibly distinguished by the color of the inner shell—medium being red, and heavy being black.
The red insulation can maintain relative comfort at ambient air temperatures as low as –20, not accounting for wind. The heavy black insulation could maintain the same comfort level in ambient air temperatures as cold as –70, likewise not accounting for wind.
Lieutenant Shin’s Carhartt’s liner was red. Icy fingers of air forced their way through the tightly woven flap inside the zipper that sealed the lower part of the legs beneath the knees. A painful stripe of frostbite steadily grew along the upper calf of his left leg. He regretted not having purchased the thicker clothing. Icy tentacles of excruciating pain grasped at his right knee as the frigid air pressed through the not-quite-thick-enough liner and penetrated the wool trousers to find his skin.
In addition to the inadequate thickness of Shin’s clothing, the speed of the race made him aware of every loose flap and open end in his parka. The windshield did nothing to stop the swirling currents of one hundred-plus plus mile-per-hour air from rushing up the sides of the open bottom of his parka. What had been a temperature of –65 was now presenting itself with a wind-chill factor of nearly two hundred degrees below zero on any exposed skin.
The most exposed part of Shin’s body was the area around his eyes. That was the only place that did not have at least some protection by a layer of parka or cloth. He had tried to keep his face behind the windshield as much as possible, but every bump thrust his head above it and into the biting cold air. Frost formed around his eyelids and extended from the opening of the parka’s hood like a puff of white hair.
