Kodiak Sky

by Stephen Frey

  “He is my father, Mr. Jensen. He’s still alive. He’s in hiding because of his patriotism, and your treason.”

  Bill shook his head. “Your father’s been dead since the Alaskan Star went down in a storm on the Bering Sea almost ten years ago. He was lost along with his four crewmen. You know that. You must.”

  Skylar gazed at Bill for several moments before raising her weapon again and aiming it directly at his heart. “That’s exactly what President Dorn said you’d say.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I know this is difficult to hear, but your father’s dead, Skylar. And I can prove he died on the Alaskan Star in that storm.”

  She shook her head slowly as she cocked the revolver. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to give you a chance to do that. I have my orders, Mr. Jensen, and I will carry them out.”

  “SO?” JACK asked.

  “So she made contact,” Troy answered, glancing over his shoulder at Jennie. “I listened to her the whole time she was on the phone with the guy.” She’d moved the chair to a corner of the bare room and was sitting in it sobbing, face buried in her hands again. “There was no code going on between them. The conversation was too basic, and there wasn’t any cadence embedded in it. I would have recognized if something was up.”

  “And?”

  “And we’ve got a meeting place set up out in New Jersey.”

  “How long until we meet?”

  “Three hours. That’s plenty of time for us to get out there.”

  Jack gestured at Jennie. “How do you know she won’t call them after we leave?”

  Troy held up Jennie’s cell phone. “And we’re bringing her with us.”

  Taking her with them created another set of problems, but it was probably the only option at this point. “How much is the ransom?” Jack asked.

  “Two hundred grand. A hundred each.”

  “So they have both of them?”

  “That’s what the guy said to Jennie on the phone. I heard him say it.”

  A wave of relief rolled through Jack. He’d been afraid this human exchange was going to involve only L.J.

  The wave that had eased through him was small, not much more than a tide, really. They still had to get Karen and L.J. back. He didn’t know much about this business, but he knew the money-for-human trade wouldn’t be straightforward. And of course, the guy might be lying about having Karen, too. Hell, he could have been lying about having either one of them. They might be walking into an ambush.

  “The guy really thinks we can come up with two hundred grand that fast at this hour?” Jack asked, glancing at his watch. It was almost midnight.

  “I told her to tell them we had it in a safe at home. I told her to tell them we’d gotten a lot of cash out of the bank today because we figured someone would call.”

  Jack patted Troy on the shoulder. The kid wasn’t just an amazing athlete. “Nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Jack patted Troy’s shoulder again. He didn’t seem fine. “Don’t worry about all that stuff Jennie said. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Troy pursed his lips. “I mean, she was right. I was with a woman when I was in Spain two months ago.” He shook his head. “And then there was one in Venezuela, very recently.”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s not like you and Jennie are married.” That didn’t sound very good, he realized. But, given the danger they were heading for in New Jersey, he had to keep Troy focused on the situation.

  “I’ve never been able to stay loyal to any woman I’ve ever been with.” Troy shook his head as he kicked at the floor.

  “Life’s pretty fragile for you, brother. I’m thinking that has a way of making you more spontaneous than most of us.”

  “You mean more irresponsible, don’t you? I told Lisa and Jennie I was committed to them. But I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”

  “Now isn’t the time to beat yourself up about it. And look, you called it. Jennie cheated on you, too. She’s just as wrong as you.”

  Troy took a deep breath. “I don’t blame her. She’s right. I was gone a lot, and I was only half there when I was with her. I was always thinking about the next mission. It sucked for her.”

  “Like I said, I don’t think now’s the—”

  “It isn’t just that I cheated, Jack. It’s more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean somebody knew I was in Spain.”

  “So?”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “I thought I did.”

  “Someone knew I was in Spain.”

  “Help me here.”

  “When we go on covert missions, which this mission to Spain was, we follow extensive procedures to lose ourselves in the background, if you get my drift. When I leave for a mission, I don’t just drive to JFK, get on a commercial airliner, and head to Europe. From the moment I leave my door, wherever that is, I take strict precautions to make sure no one knows what I’m really doing. And I don’t use civilian transportation.”

  Jack stared at Troy for several moments. “You mean, it would be tough for someone to follow you?”

  “Impossible,” Troy replied, “especially at this point in my career. Not to brag, but I’ve gotten pretty good at disappearing, since I’ve been doing it for a while. So it was someone who had significant resources, because—”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  Jack dashed past Troy for the window just as Jennie reached it. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her rise up from the chair. But he hadn’t put two and two together fast enough. She was going to jump—and it was five stories down.

  As she hurtled through the glass, Jack tried desperately to catch her—but missed.

  Jack stared down as she fell, unable to turn away and shut his eyes even as she crashed into the pavement.

  “THIS IS crazy,” the man muttered as he glanced over his shoulder into the back of the van at the woman and the little boy. “I mean it was crazy to start with, but now it’s out of control.”

  Both kidnapping victims lay on the floor, bound and gagged tightly—even the toddler, who hadn’t stopped crying since they’d picked him up from Jennie this afternoon. The man felt bad about what both of the victims were going through—the little boy was so young, and the woman was handicapped—but his partner, Kyle, didn’t. And Kyle was in charge.

  He always was whenever they did something like this. He had been, ever since they were kids growing up together, though they’d never done anything like this before.

  “We could end up getting killed or going to jail forever,” the man said, looking over at Kyle, who was driving. “And the guy in Harpers Ferry is not gonna be happy about this.”

  “Fuck that Aussie prick. And who says he has to know about this, anyway?”

  “He’ll find out. That guy finds out about everything sooner or later. You even said so yourself.”

  “When it comes to this, we’ll be long gone by the time he does.” Kyle sneered. “He’s not paying us nearly enough for the risks we’re taking driving these people around. I mean, a hundred grand each? We should be getting way more than that, Ray, especially since we’re doing overtime duty. That jet was supposed to be here to pick up these people at ten o’clock tonight. That was over two hours ago. Now it’s not gonna be here until five this morning, maybe.”

  “So it had mechanical trouble. Shit happens. There’s not much they can do about it. It’s not like they don’t want to make the pickup.”

  “Yeah, but we should get paid more now because we’re taking more risk.”

  “Hey, I’m happy with
a hundred grand.”

  “I’m not, and I’m calling the shots.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ray muttered. “It’s just that all we got left to do in this is drop them off when the plane finally gets here from Philly. And we make a hundred grand each. A hundred thousand dollars means a lot to me, Kyle.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Then why take a chance to screw it up?”

  “Because now I got us two hundred grand each. These guys who are trying to get the kid and the woman back are bringing another hundred grand each for us in a couple of hours. So now we’ll have two hundred grand each.”

  “Come on, man. Where are they getting two hundred grand at this time of night?”

  “Jennie said they had it. She said they figured somebody might call them about a ransom, so they took it out of the bank today.”

  “It’s bullshit. They don’t intend on paying us nothing. They intend on killing us.”

  “I know that,” Kyle said as he pulled the van into a Walmart parking lot beside Ray’s beat-up old Explorer. “You really think I’m that stupid?”

  “Of course not,” Ray answered unsteadily. Actually, he did. “So what are we gonna do?”

  “We’re gonna ambush ’em, Ray. We’re going to leave the van out in the open, at the spot we agreed to meet ’em at, where we can see it and them good. And then we’re going to ambush ’em when we’re sure they’re alone.” He gestured toward the back of the van. “We’re gonna leave one of those people in the van as bait and watch it until they come. Then we’re gonna kill everybody.”

  “Holy shit,” Ray whispered.

  “What’s eating you? We’ve been in combat together. This won’t be any different.”

  “If you know they aren’t really bringing any money with them, then why are we doing this?”

  “Because they both have a bounty on their head. It don’t matter if they’re dead or alive, the bounty’s good. And it’s way more than a hundred grand each.”

  “How do you know?”

  Kyle grinned. “I overheard the Aussie prick when he didn’t think I could.”

  “How much is it?” Ray asked. “The bounty, I mean.”

  “It’s in the millions for each of them.” Kyle’s grin grew wider. “Now get the rifle out of your truck.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “SEVEN MILES out,” Jack called as he followed the map moving across his phone’s small screen.

  Troy was driving, and he’d told Jack to count out every mile after they’d turned off the Jersey Turnpike at Exit 9 fifteen minutes ago. Getting off at Exit 8A would have been a more direct route to the small town of Creighton, which was eleven miles east of the turnpike in the central part of the state, an hour south of New York City. But Troy had wanted nothing to do with predictable as they approached the hostage exchange location, which was a cemetery on the west side of the little town of fewer than three thousand residents.

  Neither of them was familiar with Creighton, so they were flying blind. Despite not knowing the area, Troy was determined to keep surprise on their side. Troy coveted surprise and stealth, Jack knew. He had ever since they were kids tracking wildlife on the Jensens’ vast property. He loved seeing how close he could get to a deer or rabbit before they raced off. Then he’d chase to see how long it took the animals to lose him.

  More than once Jack had hiked home alone after Troy disappeared into the forest in pursuit of something. Jack always tried to keep up for a while, but inevitably, he was never able to. And it wasn’t like he was slow. He was the fastest kid in his class—but the slow kid at home.

  “Give it to me every half mile now,” Troy ordered as they sped along a one-lane road that twisted and turned through the dark, heavily wooded area. “When we get to four miles out, I want to stop and figure out a back way into that cemetery,” he said as he swerved to avoid a deer darting across the road in front of them. “See if you can find anything on the map, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Jack winced as he shifted in the passenger seat. The bullet had only grazed his side, and the bleeding had stopped hours ago. But the wound still hurt like hell.

  “Jesus,” he muttered as the horrifying scene came rushing back to him for the umpteenth time since they’d left Brooklyn.

  “What’s wrong?” Troy asked.

  “A little sore from that bullet,” he answered, dodging the truth. He wanted to talk about what had happened, but he knew Troy didn’t.

  “You’ll be all right. We’ll clean it out when we get home, when we’ve got Little Jack and Karen.”

  They’d barely spoken during the drive south from the city.

  “Six-point-five,” he called out as he glanced over at Troy. “Hey, are you—”

  “I’m fine,” Troy interrupted in a steely voice. “I don’t want to talk about it. We’re gonna get L.J. and Karen, and then we’re gonna go home. Leave me alone about the other stuff, okay?”

  When Jack called out “four miles,” Troy pulled off into a driveway entrance to check the map on his phone. It was a few minutes after two-thirty in the morning, so they still had almost half an hour to make it to the exchange location.

  “What was that text you got earlier?” Jack asked. “Right before I got the one about Karen’s ransom.”

  Troy hesitated. “I can’t tell you what it—”

  “Don’t give me that,” Jack shot back. “Even if it’s RC7-related, you can’t be holding out on me at this point.”

  Troy scrolled through the map on his phone for a few more seconds. “All right, I got a ‘go deep’ message.”

  “Explain.”

  “It means dive into any hole you can find as fast as you can, because RC7 agents are under attack. It means take all necessary precautions and trust no one. It’s a code we worked out a long time ago. It means something very big and very bad is going down.”

  Jack glanced around the area. Christ, one more thing. “What is it?”

  Troy shrugged. “Message didn’t say. They never do, for security reasons. But I bet it’s wrapped up with L.J. and Karen being kidnapped on the same day. And I bet it’s related to someone telling Jennie where I was last month. I think it could actually involve Dad.”

  “Seriously? You really think he’s still alive?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said it involved him. What I should have said was that it could involve Red Cell Seven.” Troy hesitated. “Like I said before, we make certain we aren’t being followed when we leave for missions, and while we’re on the way to the destination. We check constantly for any signs that something’s up, and I didn’t notice anything the whole time I was on my way to Spain or while I was there.”

  “So what exactly are you getting at?”

  “I don’t think anyone followed me to Europe. I think whoever told Jennie where I was didn’t have to follow me because they already knew where I was going.” Troy hesitated. “And the fact that she knew enough to accuse me of killing Lisa Martinez is another red flag.”

  “Are you saying it’s an inside—”

  “I think we’ll know a lot more in thirty minutes,” Troy answered, nodding ahead of them into the darkness as he put the SUV back in gear.

  “If we’re still alive in thirty minutes,” Jack muttered under his breath.

  “THERE’S BEEN a development.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sterling asked as he spoke on his cell phone.

  “The plane’s been delayed.”

  “I know that, but it’s almost ready. They’re installing the new part as we speak. I just got a text. They should be wheels-up in ten minutes. Then it’s a fifteen-minute flight from Philadelphia, if that. Then you’re done. Then your part is over, and you get all your money.”

  “I want more,” Kyle said firmly. “We weren’t supposed to have them for this long.”

 
“Too bad.”

  “The little kid’s been whining for hours, and the woman’s awake again. The sedative’s worn off. She’s a fucking pain in the ass.”

  “Deal with it. Stuff a rag down her throat.”

  “I did, way down.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “I just told you. I want more money.”

  Sterling had been waiting for this. Jennie Perez had warned him that Kyle might be a loose cannon. “Get them to the plane. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Bullshit. Then I’ve got no bargaining power. Then I’ve—”

  “What’s going on?” Sterling asked loudly as Kyle interrupted himself to talk to someone else at the other end who sounded aggravated.

  “I’ve gotta call you back,” Kyle muttered. “Remember, I want more money.”

  “Kyle! Kyle! Damn it,” Sterling hissed as the line went dead.

  He gazed into the darkness of his room at the inn as he considered what he’d just heard. Zero hour for Operation Anarchy might have to be moved up. And so what if the payday ended up at only two hundred and fifty million? So damn what. It was still an immense amount of money.

  A SINGLE, narrow street wound its way from the main road through a dense oak and elm forest to the Glen Haven Memorial Park, and Troy wanted no part of it. One way in and one way out through woods like that made them too vulnerable, he claimed. Obvious and without cover, they could be picked off easily or trapped.

  So they’d run to the cemetery through the trees and the darkness from a secluded spot a mile-and-a-half away, where they’d parked the SUV.

  As long as Jack had known Troy, he still marveled at his younger brother’s endurance as they closed in on the cemetery. They’d both been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and it had already been a hell of a day. But Troy wasn’t missing a beat. His mind and body were still working at peak efficiency, even though he’d taken a bullet, too. He was barely breathing hard, and his strides looked smooth and effortless.

  Jack was operating on pure adrenaline, but he could feel exhaustion creeping up on him. Fatigue hadn’t made a dent in Troy, not even a ding.