This is for all the money.
He assumed the ignition was in a similar spot to his own pontoon boat. When he found a yellow twist connecting the key to a large fishing bobber, he congratulated the owner for thinking a lot like him. It was a trick boaters used in case they ever dropped their keys in the water. In fact…
“Holy shit. This isn’t just a random boat. This is mine!” He quickly glanced around on the water, amazed that of all the boats and garbage floating nearby, he’d found the one that washed ashore in the shockwave the first night. The second impact must have flipped it back, and the rising flood moved it out onto the lake.
He turned the key, aware it was one more point of failure to his impossible plan. The first try only resulted in a half-start on the powerful motor hanging off the back of the boat, but the second crank got it started.
“Thank you, God, Susan, and every saint I’ve ever prayed to. We’re mobile!”
Ezra gave the motor some gas to get a feel for how it was running, but the mile-wide vortex of water was upon them. He’d have to leave nothing on the table if he wanted to escape. His hand pushed the throttle forward as far as he dared.
Then he pushed it a little more.
Denver, CO
Standing in the ruins of downtown Denver made all the turbulence seem worthwhile. Petteri’s transportation team earned high marks for getting him from Isla Socorro to the site of his first recovery operation. He additionally cut Howard a break for ensuring a suitable number of TKM mining and security teams made it to Denver; they’d begun setting up equipment, clearing routes for dump trucks, and prepping explosives designed to break up the asteroid fragment.
Petteri resisted the urge to rub his hands together like a happy miser. The building-sized piece of black rock was there in front of him. Dorothy deserved a bonus, too. She’d been right about the location.
“Sir!” one of his mineral guys held up his hand from next to an exposed face of Tuonela and attempted to walk over the broken surface of the street to get to him. “I have something!”
“What is it, man? Don’t kill yourself.” He kept up the pretense of caring about the individual worker, as he’d done by giving his autograph to one of his employees. He made a big deal about telling his workforce he was there, and that his door was always open, despite standing out on the street. Even during a disaster there was ample time to build his benevolent persona.
The man got close and held up a tablet. “Analysis of this fragment shows high concentrations of gold, platinum, and various rare earth minerals. Based on the estimated mass in this location, I’d say there’s a hundred billion dollars of raw materials here. More, if the world economy continues to tank.”
We have to get them all. Immediately.
“Thank you.” He pulled the man aside. The guy was blond. Young. Probably fresh out of school. Almost certainly easy to manipulate. “For now, I must insist you keep this information to yourself. I’ve recently been made aware of our competitors making an effort to steal our asteroid. If anyone tells them how much this is worth, we may lose all the other pieces. That would be terrible for our bottom line, to say nothing about the jobs of my excellent workforce—people like you. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “I understand completely. Can I tell my supervisor?”
Petteri thought about it. How long could he keep a lid on the story? Would any of his staffers trade such information to companies like PW Industrials for their thirty pieces of silver? He knew the right answer. “Don’t tell your supervisor right now. I’ll have my man get in touch with you and him, and then you can tell him in person. If anyone asks you before that meeting, reply that I asked you to only report the analysis directly to Mr. Howard. Sound fair?”
“It sure does. I won’t let you down.”
The minerals guy walked off as Petteri’s phone rang. It was the very man he wanted to speak with. “Howard,” Petteri answered when he tapped in, “I want you to corral a junior geologist and his supervisor at this crash site. They’re coming up with some value numbers I don’t want going into the wild.”
“I understand, sir. I’ve also got someone on the line you’re going to want to hear. It’s my lost man, Misha Gagarin.”
“Put him through,” he said dryly.
The line clicked before an accented voice spoke up. “Privyet, comrade Tikkanen.”
He held back for a few seconds. “You’re a hard man to get a hold of. I hope you have words I want to hear.”
“I do, sir. I was wrong when I reported in that my targets were dead. A planet crashed to Earth where I was in Yellowstone. I did not think anyone could survive. As I am sure you know by now, they did.”
There was no point in beating around the issue. “I made plans based on your mistake. Most of my men do not get the chance to fix such grave errors in judgment.”
“I understand, of course. I am fifty yards from the target right now. I called Mr. Howard as soon as I knew this girl was alive. I needed you to know not to hurt my family. It will not be necessary. For sure, the two rangers will be taken down.”
“Family is important to you?” he asked, already knowing it was a powerful motivator for the saps of the world.
“It is, sir. I support my mom and two sisters in Bryansk. They are all I have.”
The man sounded desperate and scared. Two qualities he appreciated in those doing what he referred to as “leveraged work” for him; the type of contractor who required collateral held over them, so they didn’t get out of hand.
“Fortunately, I’m happy to say your family is alive and well. For now. In an ironic twist, I’ve brought Asher Creighton’s sister out of danger. If you need to use her as bait, please do so. I bet he’d come right up to you if you mentioned Diedre’s name.”
“I will, sir, if I need to, though it should be possible to take them out without talking to them. I have three good men with me. We can take care of this.”
“Good,” he said, brightening in mood. “Once that’s done, Howard has some new targets for you. Not people, places. I can use your help to secure crash sites of my asteroid. Lots of money to be made from them. Lots of money to be protected at all costs. Do you understand?”
“I do, sir. Spesseeba. Thank you.”
“Yeppers,” he responded automatically, before cussing at himself for his impropriety. He hung up an instant later.
Dorothy, I’m going to kill you!
Petteri caught his breath a few seconds later and quickly calmed down. He wrote off his mistake as exhaustion, coupled with the relief things were going his way again. It had been a long day, sure enough, but he’d secured what was important: first dibs on the biggest mining prize in history. Cranes, tractors, dump trucks, and more security teams were on the way. Tomorrow, he’d start to dig.
Chapter 24
Billings, MT
While Misha spoke on the phone, Grace waved all the cars through the roadblock. She got lots of waves and smiles, though the woman and young girl in the first truck were the most satisfying. She couldn’t imagine being so close to loved ones only to be turned away. For her, family was half a country away. Except for Asher. He was quickly rising to more than a simple stranger she’d been shackled with protecting.
By the time everyone was through, she patted the pistol in her front pocket, bolstering her resolve to pull it out if a fight ensued. While doing that with her back to the assassins, she spoke quietly to Asher. “I’m not going out on my knees. If it looks like they’re likely to kill us anyway, I’m pulling out this gun.” She tapped the front pocket of her regulation park service trousers.
“I’ll do my best,” he agreed. “I don’t want to die today, either. Tomorrow would fit better in my schedule.”
She did a double-take in his direction.
He shrugged. “What? I get funny when I’m about to die.”
If they were going to die… “I’m sorry I called you ugly earlier.” Grace stepped so close there was barely an inch between their
faces. He was a couple of inches taller, so she had to look up. His brown eyes locked with hers.
“And I’m sorry you had to come drag my ass out of the fire. You would have never been put in this position if I’d stayed at the office in Montana.”
“Meh. Other than your hideous face, I’ve kind of enjoyed our time together.” She smiled happily to show how unserious she was, at least about the face part.
“This isn’t a last kiss type of thing, is it?” he asked.
Asher smelled like fire, even after changing clothes. Or maybe it was her hair. Whatever it was, it harkened back to their original meeting. She’d been so worried about doing proper park ranger work; how fast all that changed to simple survival. At the moment, she was under the gun of a hitman intent on killing her, she smelled terrible, and she was dying to lay down and catch some real sleep, but she couldn’t deny there was something happening between them.
“I don’t think—” she started to say.
“Oh, please! Not in front of my two friends.” Misha had come back.
She stepped away from Asher to face the big Russian. His gun was already out and pointed at her, making her realize she’d squandered any chance of surprise. A superspy would have kissed her new squeeze while pulling out the pistol and then come out of the smooch with guns blazing.
I’m not a superspy.
Misha pointed to her front pocket from about ten feet away. “Do you know what it means to have your gun imprint? No? It is what you have going on there. Your pants show the outline of a pistol. I must have missed it in the dark when you were at the door of the truck.” He laughed in a good-natured way, though she was humiliated by the mistake.
The two men in the black coats stayed by the Billings sign.
“After you two go into town, you and I are even, lady. Do you understand?”
Grace exhaled in surprise. “What?”
Misha lowered his gun. “I said I am letting you go. Get through this blockade and go into town. We will not follow you. Yet.”
“Are you serious?” Asher asked.
The Russian took a couple of steps toward Asher. “Petteri Tikkanen is relentless. He says he has not killed my family yet, but I need to confirm. His jobs for me have changed in the last week; I do not like contracting my skills for someone who uses family as hostage.”
“Neither do we,” Asher replied.
Misha gave Asher a serious look like he was about to say something to him, but then he shifted toward her. “I know this does not make any sense, but you saved my life twice, so I needed to balance out. I gave you help with the ropes as return number one. I am letting you go right now as return number two. The next time we run into each other, it will not be possible for me to offer another.”
She couldn’t believe him, as much as she wanted to. “But you didn’t have to do any of this. You certainly didn’t have to get my cars through.”
“I know. That woman Tessa was very kind to me. Took care of me on the drive here. I wanted to make sure she got to safety.” He looked behind him. “I did not see her truck.”
Grace weighed the pros and cons of lying to him. Would he end up killing her if she told the truth? Would knowing he’d opened the roadblock for nothing change his thoughts on doing the kind act? In the end, even knowing he was a bad guy, she felt compelled to tell the truth. “She’s dead. She got into an accident up on the mountain. Not long after you switched cars.”
Misha seemed surprised. “I hope you do not think I had anything to do with it.”
“Not unless you dropped a car from the cliff at the exact time she was below it.” Grace’s voice dropped, thinking about their senseless deaths.
“I could not work that out—” he started to say.
“I was kidding,” she huffed.
“Well, consider it on the house. Also…” He pulled out her phone and tossed it to her. “This is to prove this is not personal.”
She caught it, unsure what to say or how to feel. It sure seemed personal when the man was shooting real bullets at her, or shooting that police officer, but getting her phone back was proof of a tiny glint of humanity. “Thanks.”
“Go, but do not linger in Billings. If Tikkanen still has my family under threat, I will be forced to hunt you down.” He pointed to the men by the sign. “As you can see, I have reinforcements for next time. I assure you, it will not go your way.”
“What will you tell them about this meeting?” It was her turn to point to the two waiting men. “Won’t they know what you’re doing and tell on you?”
Misha smiled. The burn on his face and neck glowed an angry red. “There are people I trust, and people I do not. In my line of work, it is a rare thing to find those you trust, but when you do, you keep them close.” He waved her to move. “Get out!”
She turned for her truck but stopped a few steps later. It killed her to have to say it, but a little courtesy could go a long way. That’s what her dad would have said. “Thank you for this. I hope your family is okay, even if it means you’ll have to come after us. I’m trying to get back to my family, too.”
The Russian halted but didn’t turn around. “I listened to your phone messages; had to be sure you did not call someone about me. Also, I changed your ringtone. I hope you can forgive.” He then gave a half-wave and walked toward his friends.
When she hopped in the front seat, she was on her phone even before putting the truck in gear. It didn’t concern her in the least if the guy had listened to her messages or messed with her kitty ringer. There was one voicemail in the system, and she was positive it was from the person who called as Misha confiscated her device. The number was one she didn’t recognize, but the area code was from western Kentucky.
Hiya, Grace. It’s me. I was really hoping I’d catch up with you, rather than talking on your machine, but you know Mom and I don’t have cell phones, so I’ve borrowed this one from a friend. All I wanted to say is… All I wanted to say was, thanks to your warning, we got to safety last night. It passed overhead, heading to the south, I think. Anyway…your mother and I love you very much. Please be safe wherever you are. I’m on the way to you right this second.
I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. Love you.
“They’re okay!” she gushed to Asher. She checked if there were other messages, but it was the only one. “Oh, Asher, I’ve been holding in this terrible feeling all day that my parents were in trouble. I guess it was all just a dream brought on by our own problems. Thank God!”
“Billings, here we come,” he replied in an equally upbeat voice.
She used her pointer finger to beckon him to lean over the center console.
Then, relieved beyond words, she kissed him.
Cairo, IL
Ezra glanced over to the wraparound bench seat next to his captain’s chair. It had been barely forty-eight hours since Susan last lounged there. He sometimes let her drive, but she claimed to prefer to relax in the sun rather than pilot the boat. If she’d been with him at that moment, he was certain she would give him the helm, too.
He leaned into the steering wheel as he went into the trough of a huge wave. As they neared the tumultuous waters, the current seemed to pick up and become more unpredictable. When he hit the bottom of the wave, the bow hit an orange kayak tumbling under the water. It was only visible for a second, then was lost in the waves.
“We’ve got about five hundred yards of leeway!” he shouted to Butch. “It’s going to be close!” The big three-hundred-fifty-horsepower Suzuki motor was overkill for his pleasure boat, but he’d bought it in case he wanted to do some water skiing with Susan and Grace. He reflected on how that decision years ago made a difference in his current predicament. Still, as much as it howled through the roving currents, its noise was almost completely drowned out by the waterfall-like roar of the two merging rivers ahead of them.
The front of the pontoons left the water briefly as he came up the next wave. When they slapped back down, he’d made some progress goin
g north, but he was entering the conflict zone where the two waterways came together. It was the worst in the middle, where the water flew into the sky, though it remained rough going in a line to the north, like a zipper, where the weaker side currents also slammed into each other.
In seconds, he ran into the crosscurrent coming at him from the Mississippi River. The engine whined when the stern came out of the water, but the prop dug in and shot the boat forward as he made it over the crease. His depth finder beeped warnings it was too shallow; the device usually showed the natural contours of the river bottom, but now it showed a flat rectangle.
“We’re over a building!” he screamed, knowing there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Below, in the murky brown water, he saw hints of a building’s roof. The remains of the town of Cairo were down there.
Butch wasn’t able to do much beyond hold on to the deck, though he also kept a grip on his rifle and both backpacks. When they hit the next wave, the boat hopped, sending Butch and the stuff at least two feet off the deck. Ezra kept hold of the wheel, so he didn’t fly as far. The boat crashed into the next trough, worrying him he’d hit a roof; his heart dipped down into his legs.
“Oof,” he exhaled as his chest hit the steering wheel.
The spires of water were what he imagined at Niagara Falls. The spray blew in the wind, soaking him and every inch of the boat. At the same time, a wave jumped into the left front corner of the decking, crumpling the light metal railing. Bigger waves loomed to his left as he sped around the edge of the worst part of the two colliding rivers. Still nowhere near safe, he angled the boat up a wave at a diagonal, so he could then shoot down and away from the more violent chop.
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 39
