Field of Fire

by Marc Cameron

  “We can reach big city from Ambler?” Kaija said in broken English.

  Stubbins tied a plastic jug containing an extra five gallons of fuel to the back of his ATV. “There’s a milk run flight that will take you from there to Fairbanks. You should call and get a seat now though.”

  “I lost ID. We have problem with security in Ambler?” Kaija asked, seeming worried, but sounding far from guilty of smuggling deadly nerve gas.

  Stubbins scoffed. “There ain’t no security out here. I’ve flown from Fairbanks to Anchorage on some of the smaller planes without them checking ID. Takes longer to get there, but they’re more worried about weight and balance than who you are.”

  Kaija nodded, the faintest of smiles perking the corners of her mouth.

  Finished packing, Ray lit another cigarette and turned to his brother. “You about ready to go?”

  Frank Stubbins cocked his head to one side. “You hear that?”

  “We expecting a flight in this morning?” Ray said. He took a long drag on his cigarette and gave a disgusted shake of his head, blowing smoke into the cool air. “Why do all the visitors have to come when the caribou are passing through?”

  The roar of an approaching aircraft sent a sickening shiver of panic through Volodin’s belly. The smile vanished from Kiaja’s lips.

  Ray looked at Volodin and shrugged. “No skin off my back if you want to hop on that plane,” he said. “They’d probably take you to Ambler if they got seats. Be a lot quicker.”

  “No,” Volodin said, abruptly enough to bring a narrow look from Ray Stebbins. “What I mean is, we would much rather travel overland—”

  The plane came in low, clearing the housetops of Needle village by no more than a hundred feet, tilting the wings back and forth. They were clearly looking for something.

  “What the hell?” Frank Stubbins yelled. “Shithead’s gonna pay for flyin’ that low over the village. I’m gonna kick his ass whenever he lands. What’s he thinkin’?”

  Ray Stubbins sloshed through the mud and snow between the houses after his brother, keeping a wary eye on the airplane as it headed toward the gravel runway at the edge of town.

  Volodin looked at his daughter, trying to make sense of all the noise. Kaija winked at him, giving a quick nod toward Ray’s ATV. The key was in the ignition.

  “What?” He looked at his daughter in dismay. “You mean steal it? We cannot steal from these people. They were going to help us.”

  Kaija moved to the ATV, her long leg poised over the seat. She shot a worried glance over her shoulder toward the airstrip. “It is the FSB, father,” she whispered. “They are after you. We must leave at once.”

  Chapter 41

  East Harlem, New York

  August Bowen entered the gym first, peeling right to allow both Thibodaux and Garcia to fan out behind him. Petyr Volodin was just dumb enough there was a chance he’d be inside, and the big Cajun had vowed to give him a little “layin’ on of hands” when next they met.

  Thibodaux paused when they were inside and took a deep and audible breath through his nose. “You smell that?” he said, grinning.

  “What?” Garcia scoffed. “Old jockstraps and horse liniment?”

  “No,” Thibodaux said. “That’s the smell of pain, cheri. And I miss the hell out of it.”

  Two muscular Hispanic men stood at a computer screen behind the front counter. Oddly, a large screwdriver stuck up from a broken credit card machine beside the men. Bowen recognized them from a large banner behind the counter as the Ortega brothers, the owners of the gym. Both men wore sweatpants and loose tank tops to display their impressive muscles. They were not the large mirror muscles like those found on a body builder. This was a fight gym, and the broad shoulders and thick necks of the two men at the counter said they practiced what they preached.

  “. . . I’m tellin’ you, bro,” the shorter of the two Ortegas said, chewing on the end of a plastic coffee stirring stick. His name was Maxim according to the wall banner. “Luis is gonna kill it at the shock put this year.”

  “It’s shot put, dude,” Raul, the taller of the two brothers said. “You’re sayin’ it wrong.”

  Maxim shook his head. “No, it ain’t,” he said. “And you’re a dumbass. I said it that way all my life—shock put.” He over-enunciated the k and t of each word, puffing out his chest as if he could prove himself right with bluster.

  “You’re the dumbass.” Raul laughed out loud. His eyes shifted toward Bowen, amused. “I’m pretty sure it’s shot put.”

  Thibodaux stepped up to the counter. “Do you know what you call the big metal ball they toss around in the event you’re talkin’ about?”

  Maxim shrugged.

  “The shot,” Thibodaux chuckled. “Not sure if that helps.”

  “What the hell you want?” Maxim glared.

  Raul stood beside his brother, glaring. Shot or shock, it was clear they were united when it came to outsiders.

  “We’re looking for a guy named Petyr Volodin,” Bowen said.

  Garcia moved to the end of the counter taking a quick peek behind it. They’d decided before they came in that she’d be the one to look for hidden weapons.

  Maxim folded his arms across his broad chest. “Never heard of him.”

  “Really,” Bowen said. “Is that the way you want to go, genius? Because that looks like his picture on the wall with his arm around your shoulder.”

  The muscles in Maxim’s jaw tightened. “Are you cops?”

  “They are,” Thibodaux said. “I’m just their pet ass kicker.” He snapped his fingers. “Tempus fugit, boys. Times a wastin’. When’s the last time you saw Petyr the Wolf?”

  “Forget it,” Maxim sneered. “The gym-client relationship is sacrosaint. You know what I’m sayin’”

  Raul threw up his hands. “The word is sacrosanct, you stupid . . .” He looked at Bowen. “Look, we don’t talk to cops about our friends.”

  “Yeah,” Maxim said. “There ain’t no law that says we have to.” His eyes played up and down Garcia. “You come back later without your pimps, chica. I’d be happy to talk to you.”

  Bowen reached across the counter and slapped the plastic stir stick out of Maxim’s mouth. He squared off for a fight, but Garcia pushed him back.

  “I really wish you tough guys would let me stomp my own cockroaches.” She glared at Bowen. “Would you slap someone who insulted Thibodaux?”

  “He can take care of himself,” Bowen said, glaring at Maxim Ortega.

  “Well guess what, mijo,” Garcia said. “So can I.”

  She spun quickly, ripping the screwdriver out of the credit card machine and shoving it into a surprised Maxim’s groin, denting, but not quite piercing the fabric of his sweatpants. A string of Spanish curses Bowen couldn’t understand flew from her lips.

  “You just insinuated that I’m some kind of whore,” Garcia said in English, jiggling the tip of the screwdriver to make her point. “Is that what you meant to do?”

  Maxim shook his head. Raul raised his hands. Bowen turned outbound, keeping an eye on the other fighters at the gym just in case any of them carried a sense of misguided loyalty. No one even looked up.

  “No . . . no, I didn’t . . . mean that at all,” Maxim said. “You know . . . you guys can’t be doin’ shit like this if you’re cops.”

  “Well ain’t you a bona fide rocket surgeon,” Thibodaux said. “We’re not your average cops.”

  “But they are cops?” Maxim nodded, as though he’d won some debate. “And you’re a cop? Right.”

  “Don’t you worry about what we are.” Thibodaux cocked his head so he could look directly at Maxim Ortega with his good eye. “You ought to be concentrating on what you are, and from where I’m standin’ that’s a guy with his cajones balanced on a flathead. Amazing what kind of damage a screwdriver can do in the hands of an angry woman . . .”

  “About Petyr,” Garcia said. “Where would we find him?”

  “I got him set up in
a fight.” Maxim’s eyes flicked back and forth, searching for some kind of ally. No one else in the gym seemed to know or care that a beautiful Cuban woman was a fraction of an inch from emasculating one of the owners.

  “A fight?” Bowen said over his shoulder. “Here?”

  “It’s not that kind of fight,” Raul said. “Petyr needs some quick cash so we obliged him, that’s all. The fight’s unsanctioned, so it can’t be at a regular gym. Gotta be underground. We got an agreement with a guy in Chinatown.”

  “Who’s he fighting?” Thibodaux asked.

  “It’s a mismatch,” Raul said. “More of a spectacle, which means a bigger purse. More money for Petyr.”

  “And coincidentally more money for you,” Thibodaux said, turning his good eye so it looked directly at Raul. “I ask you again, who’s he fightin’?”

  “That’s still up in the air,” Maxim groaned. “I thought I had a guy but he chickened out when he found out it was against The Wolf.”

  “I’ll fight him then.“ Thibodaux laughed. “That would sure enough be a mismatch.”

  Raul shook his head. “No way,” he said. “You’re taller, and from the looks of you, you got better moves, but no one wants to see a mismatch that don’t look like a mismatch.” He nodded toward Bowen. “How about him. His face looks like he’s used to getting beat on.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Maxim whispered. He looked at Garcia, brown eyes pleading. “Come on, chica,” he said. “What say you take the screwdriver away from little Maximus and we talk some business? I’ll forgive you for comin’ in here and throwin’ around your weight, and you forgive me for bein’ rude.”

  Garcia stabbed the screwdriver back through the credit card machine.

  “Damn!” Maxim said, nearly collapsing against the counter. “That. That right there is why I ain’t married.”

  “Boxing or grappling?” Bowen said, turning around to face them now they were talking business.

  “It’s whatever you want it to be, man,” Maxim said. “You box?”

  “A little,” Bowen said. He saw no reason to bring up the fact that he was an Army boxing champion.

  “Okay,” Maxim grinned, the color flowing back into his cheeks. “We got ourselves a mismatch and you got yourselves Petyr the Wolf. I’ll draw you a map of where to meet up tonight. It’s kind of... complicated.”

  Chapter 42

  Needle, Alaska

  “Bank to the right!” Feliks Zolner snapped as Davydov brought the Cessna buzzing over Needle Village, just meters above the corroded-metal rooftops. They were close enough that Zolner could see the fresh caribou hides that hung, bloody, flesh-side up on banisters and clotheslines. Stubby-legged village dogs looked skyward, barking and howling in protest at the noise.

  Yakibov grunted from the rear seat, his face pressed to the window. “I only see a couple of men,” he mused. “It is mostly women coming out of the houses to look at us.”

  “The men will be out hunting at this time of year,” Zolner said.

  “Ahhh,” the former Spetsnaz commando said. “That is a fortunate development—”

  Zolner glanced over his shoulder. “I was under the impression you have a wife and daughter,” he said.

  “What can I say?” Yakibov shrugged. “I enjoy the benefits of travel—”

  “There they are, boss,” Kravchuk said from directly behind Zolner. “This side of the plane, eleven o’clock.”

  “Come around for another pass,” Zolner said, his voice calm as he pressed his forehead against the window. His eyes focused on his quarry, who now rode an ATV toward the edge of town at a right angle to the airport. From five hundred feet up, the surrounding tundra looked basically flat, but Zolner knew there would be dips and rolls to the terrain—places to hide. “Never mind,” he snapped at Davydov, pointing the blade of his hand toward the gravel airstrip off the nose of the airplane. “Get me on the ground, immediately!” His eyes back on the fleeing ATV, he spoke to Kravchuk. “Pass me the rifle when we land.”

  Zolner did not have to look to know that his spotter was busy sliding the CheyTac from its padded case, inserting the loaded magazine and removing the lens covers on the scope. Zolner would simply need to put a round in the chamber, acquire his target, and calculate a firing solution.

  The ground was not yet frozen, so the ATV was basically confined to a packed trail leading away from the village. For a brief moment, as Davydov brought the Cessna out of his downwind approach, the ATV and the airplane were moving in the same direction. Zolner looked at the airspeed, did a quick calculation and decided the ATV was doing no more than fifteen miles an hour—a mile every four minutes.

  The Cessna’s wheels squawked on the gravel runway two minutes from the time the ATV had left the last of the village road.

  “Stop here!” Zolner shouted, reaching back for his rifle with one hand as he flipped the latch with the other. He shoved the door open with his hip. As large a man as he was, Zolner sprang out of his cramped seat backward, the moment the plane came to a stop. He threw the big rifle to his shoulder and put the crosshairs of his scope on Doctor Volodin’s back.

  “Twelve hundred meters, boss,” Kravchuk said, looking through a laser rangefinder. “And moving away. Now twelve ten . . .” He stood beside the airplane, just behind Zolner’s left elbow.

  “Perfect,” Zolner said, counting the clicks as he rotated the top turret of his scope.

  “Wind is steady at—”

  The roar of approaching ATV engines drowned out Kravchuk’s words. Zolner considered firing anyway, but at over three quarters of a mile, if he shot without the correct firing solution, he might as well be pointing at the moon.

  Yakibov opened fire with his Kalashnikov, taking care of the two men coming up on ATVs. A series of thwacks pinged off the metal fuselage of the airplane, followed later by the report of a rifle. The people of Needle clearly knew they were not friendly visitors.

  Zolner cursed as he watched Volodin grow smaller in his scope. Instead of firing, he spun toward the sound of the oncoming gunfire.

  Davydov had his pistol out and took cover behind the rear tires of the airplane. Fuel began to drip from bullet holes in the wing.

  “Where are they?” Zolner said, spotting a man with a rifle as soon as the words had left his lips. He brought the scope up to his eye and set the crosshairs over the man’s chest.

  “Six hundred fifty-one meters,” Kravchuk said, seeming to read Zolner’s mind about the target that needed to be ranged. “He has some kind of hunting rifle.”

  “Ah,” Zolner said, holding off with the marked hash marks in his scope rather than taking the time to readjust the turret for elevation. “Six hundred fifty meters may as well be point blank . . .”

  The Native man continued to shoot. Bullets pinged all around Zolner and his men, but so far had only hit the airplane.

  Zolner took a deep breath, thinking of the name the Native people called him—Worst of the Moon. He exhaled slowly, steadily, locking bone and tendon, letting the crosshairs of the scope settle perfectly still on the man’s chest as he reached the quiet respiratory pause at the bottom of his breath.

  The trigger broke with a crisp, three-pound snap, sending 350 grains of copper and nickel alloy screaming downrange at 3200 feet per second.

  The Native man pitched forward an instant later, surely dead before he even knew he’d been shot.

  “Worst of the Moon, indeed,” Zolner whispered.

  Another shot ricocheted off the gravel at their feet—this one from a second shooter who seemed intent to go for more than the airplane.

  “Ten o’clock, boss,” Kravchuk said. “Hiding behind that wrecked fire truck. Four six one meters.” Another bullet hit a rock at Kravchuk’s feet and ricocheted away with a zinging whir. Kravchuk didn’t move.

  “Fools,” Zolner said over his shoulder as he swung the rifle toward the new threat.

  “Wind is gusting north now at fifteen . . .”

  Zolner shot the
second man in the neck. “Four hundred meters,” he spat in disdain. “These idiots make it too easy.” He spun back to reacquire Volodin in his scope, but the ATV had vanished, melting into the tundra.

  Chapter 43

  Quinn let off the throttle immediately when he heard the shots, slowing the boat so he could hear above the burbling grind of the motor. Another band of Arctic weather rolled in from the north, but they were pointed almost directly east and a low morning sun dazzled the surface of water in front of them. With little haze in the clear air and a sun that bounced in a great arc just above the horizon, eye protection was a necessity this time of year. Quinn and Beaudine had been separated from their sunglasses during the crash and now spent a good deal of time squinting.

  Quinn had to use his free hand to shade his eyes so he could see Beaudine, who crouched at the bow holding a plastic bucket. Constant vibration from the choppy river caused the wax patch to flake and separate from the aluminum. Water dripped from her elbows as she tried to stay ahead of the incoming deluge with a plastic margarine container that had been tied to the gunnel for just such a purpose.

  “You hear that,” Quinn said. He turned his head, birdlike, straining to hear over the idling motor. The frothy wake of brown water that spread in a giant V behind the boat caught back up to them as they slowed, sloshing and slapping against the stern. The current, slow as it was on the snaking river, caught the bow and began to turn it, shoving them back the way they’d come.

  Quinn rolled on the throttle again, pointing the boat upriver again as the shots faded away. He’d counted nine. Two of them, spaced by a period of about seven seconds, were much louder than the others, and hung for some time like a loud wind in the chilly air.

  Quinn gradually added more throttle, coaxing the little boat forward. It plowed the water grudgingly now, never quite getting up on step.