“Somebody is testing a virus,” CIA Director Robert Lucas said with confidence. “I can feel it.”
“All right, Robert,” the president said. “We can get into that in a minute.” The president shifted his focus to the secretary of health. “Right now, I want to hear from who you brought with you, Andrew.”
Andrew cleared his throat. “Of course, Mr. President, this is Donna Ingram. She’s been a top virologist for years. I’ve given her all the data, as you asked.”
The president reached across the couch in the Oval Office and shook Donna’s hand. Next to the tall and big-shouldered Andrew, Donna looked even more petite. Her short dark hair bobbed as the president shook her tiny hand. She seemed young, but the president could never tell anymore. When you get above sixty, everyone seems young.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Ms. Ingram. Give it to me straight. We need to know what engines to fire next to get ahead of this thing.”
“Thanks for having me. I won’t waste your time. This is absolutely a manufactured virus. But that isn’t what scares me.”
The president sat back in his seat. “Well, it is what scares me, so now I’m really nervous.”
“You should be,” Donna said.
She produced a folder and took a sheet of paper out. She extended it toward the president. He took it, but it all looked like a foreign language to him. “Just explain it to me.”
“Chart one shows the incubation period from the town that was completely wiped out. As you can see, there was little to none. It just wiped people out. Chart two, fresh data from my biologist who was sent in to Yupak yesterday shows that the last few people to get sick had been in contact with the first people to get it over a week ago. Only just showing signs of being sick this morning.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” the president said.
“It’s much worse,” Robert chimed in. “If this really is a manufactured virus, whoever is creating it will want a long incubation period.”
“That’s right,” Donna said. “If someone is wanting to infect a massive amount of people, they are going to want the symptoms to lie dormant for as long as possible.”
The president understood now why it was bad. “So those who are infected will go on about their lives not knowing they have it, meanwhile infecting a much larger amount of people.”
“Exactly,” Donna said. “It seems to me that they unleashed two different strands of this at the same time. One to Eleanor, Alaska, where the town died off in a week, and the other to Yupak where only two have died in probably two weeks, but still everyone is sick. They’ve already learned a lot about their virus, just in this one test. I’m afraid it’s time to clear out that region of Alaska, Mr. President. There could already be another testing strain in another town, and we don’t even know it.”
President Gibbons stood. “Thank you, Andrew, and thank you, Ms. Ingram, for coming. Please continue to update me by the half hour. We’ll take it from here.”
Donna shook his hand and stopped as she walked toward the door. “Mr. President, call me Donna. And if I may?”
“Of course.”
“If this is what we all think it is, if this makes it to the lower forty-eight states, this could be the one we’ve all been fearing. It could bring all of North America down.”
Chapter Two
Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska
Alexander King began his walk to the only bar in town. Everything was frozen. Not in a hypothetical sense but literally: all things outside were frozen solid. And had been for months. When King met with the president of the United States two weeks ago, and he’d asked King to take the most important assignment of his career, even though President Gibbons told him it was Alaska, King had no idea it would be like this.
Pure misery.
The ice crunched beneath his feet as he walked the snow-covered dirt road. There was no pavement in Barrow. The weather would never allow for any such thing. All the roads had to consist of gravel and dirt. The road he walked along was just that under the four inches of frozen snow he plodded through. On both sides of the road were rows of wooden houses. All just like the one he was staying in. His one-bedroom, four-room house was as basic as it gets. While he thought he would never long for the small flat he’d stayed in for months in London almost a year ago, he did. And he certainly never imagined he’d long for the weather. But London now seemed like a tropical paradise.
Not only had the average temperature been negative five degrees Fahrenheit, but until a week ago, there had also been no sun. Zero. He supposed he felt fortunate that his assignment hadn’t started until Barrow’s sixty-five days of night were over, but today had exactly two hours of sun. That’s it. Oh, and a couple of hours of what they called civil twilight, which basically meant you could walk the streets without tripping over something in front of you. It was like a lamp on in the other room in your house. You could see, just not very well.
King wrapped his scarf a little tighter around his neck. He was thankful that it wasn’t as windy that night as it had been the previous six days. This was the third night in a row he’d made this walk after his day sleep due to his night shift at the Volkov Mining Company. Normally he would never leave the house if he didn’t have to in weather like this, but the weather and the days filled with night weren’t even the worst part about Barrow. The worst part was that you couldn’t buy liquor without a city-issued permit. Which meant no permit for an undercover special agent like King. He obviously wouldn’t be going to the police station to obtain that permit under any circumstance, because he had to keep his head down and do his work. He also prayed to the gods that he wouldn’t be there in Frozen Land long enough to really need it.
In a sense, he was lucky to be able to make this walk at all. Only three months ago, there was no such thing as a bar at all in Barrow. The village voted that there could be only one, as they thought it would help keep people from buying their booze from bootleggers. King honestly felt like he’d stepped back in time, or into another world entirely. Most people in the town of four thousand were native Alaskans. A lot of them still only spoke Iñupiaq, the language they’d known their entire lives. King sensed how out of place he was. Only a small percentage of people looked like King, and an even smaller amount differed from there. The uptick in the Caucasian population had been the recent influx of Russians moving in. Something it didn’t take long for King to figure out that wasn’t a popular thing here in the village.
So here he was, in the northernmost city in the United States, the ninth most northern city in the world, walking to a bar like he would in any other city at nine o’clock at night if he’d run out of booze. Some things never change.
It was quiet in the frozen town. No one was really out on the roads. The frozen arctic ocean just a couple hundred feet away ensured not much else could make noise either. Since it wasn’t time for one of the two commercial flights a day, the airport was silent as well. The fact that there were no roads in and out of this region of Alaska—not to mention no boats could float on ice—the term isolation had been taken to a whole other level. But right in front of him sat the most bustling place in all of Barrow—and for King, the only piece of his home he could get so far from the lower forty-eight: good ole Kentucky bourbon. And thankfully, a heater.
King walked through the door and into the warmth. His cheeks felt like needles were stabbing into them as the heat penetrated his cold skin. The bar wasn’t big. Probably the size of a McDonald’s in total, but decorated much differently. The hardwood floor met the hardwood walls, which held the likes of deer heads, moose busts, and even a full-sized Kodiac bear in the far corner. The bar top ran along the entire right side of the room, ending in the restrooms and a juke box, which fortunately was playing “Walk The Line” by Johnny Cash.
Though the population of Barrow was 65 percent native, the bar, at the moment, was nearly 100 percent Caucasian. King had heard some chatter over the last couple of days that alcohol was se
verely frowned upon by most natives. That was clear by the patrons gathered there. In the middle of all the four-top tables in the bar was a pool table. Probably the most popular place in the city since the bar had opened. Certainly one of the most dangerous as well. King had already seen two fights in two visits, and they were already ramping up, from what he could tell. The place was full. Only one lone seat at the far end of the bar. He put his head down and made his way there.
King didn’t plan on staying long. His second security shift of the day started in just an hour. The first few days on the job he was just being trained on how to keep the Volkov Mining site secure.
Tonight he would start the real reason he was sent to the northern edge of the world: to try to stop the manufacturing, and therefore the spread, of a virus that could potentially put an end to the American way of life as everyone knew it.
Chapter Three
King removed his scarf and his coat and draped them on the back of his stool. As he removed his wool skull cap and ran his fingers through his thick brown hair, the other reason he’d made the freezing cold walk to the bar three nights in a row began walking his way.
And she was really something else.
Her sandy-brown hair bounced in her work ponytail. From the looks of her white V-neck T-shirt and snug blue jeans, it was clear she knew how to stay in shape. But it was her smile that melted what was left of the cold for King, and it was at full sparkle when she spoke to him.
“Let me guess. Bourbon, neat.”
“Is there any other way?”
“Not sure, I’m a tequila girl. But judging by your accent, you come by your love of bourbon honestly.”
She picked up one of only three bottles of bourbon the bar had—Maker’s Mark—and poured him a drink. The other two bottles weren’t up to par.
“Kentucky,” King said.
“Yeah?” She set the glass down in front of him. “What’s a Kentucky boy doin’ all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
King took the glass in his hand and gave her a nod. “Thank you. And I just needed a change of scenery.”
“Bullshit,” she said with a grin. “People go to Cancun for a change of scenery, not Barrow freakin’ Alaska.”
“That right?” he said as he took a sip.
“That’s right. People are either here because they were raised here, trying to strike it rich here . . .” She nodded to the Russians who were getting obnoxiously loud by the pool table. “Or they are running from something. Now I know you weren’t born here, and I also know that you work security at Volkov Mining, so you aren’t trying to get rich . . . so what was her name?”
“Natalie,” King lied. Though that was her name, it wasn’t why he was in Alaska. He was going to have to get used to lying, no matter how much he hated it. But at least there was a bit of truth to it.
She was drying a glass with her towel. “Well, she must have been something to drive you all the way out here.”
A man approached the bar aggressively and slammed a beer mug down on the bar top. “Who the hell you talking to, Cali?”
Cali took a step back. “Excuse me? You can’t talk to me like that, Ryker.”
“Okay.” The man shifted his focus to King. “Who the hell are you, and who do you think you’re talking to? She’s with me.”
Ryker was a big man, young, probably late twenties. He was clearly native Iñupiat by his dark hair, accent, and other Native American features. King didn’t care who the man was; he only cared about not getting involved.
King held up his hands. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Make no mistake,” Cali said. “I am not with you, Ryker. Leave the man alone, he’s new in town.”
“I can see that. We don’t take too kindly to newcomers around here.”
“Really?” Cali interrupted again. “You’re going to be that guy? Mister Cliché Townie?”
Ryker looked over and pointed his finger at Cali. “You shut your mouth.”
King stood from his bar stool. He hadn’t meant to. It was just a reflex. He could not afford to make an example out of this guy.
Ryker got in his face. His breath wreaked of alcohol. “Ooh, the big man stood up. You gonna do something?”
Cali rounded the corner of the bar and forced her way in between King and Ryker. She pushed Ryker back, but he grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed her aside. King watched as she fell to the floor, and before he could stop himself, King two-arm shoved Ryker so hard his feet left the ground and he landed hard on his back.
King instantly regretted it, because now he knew he was going to have to take a beating. He couldn’t be the new guy in town who knew how to fight. King just hoped someone would pull Ryker off him before it got too bad.
As soon as Ryker got back to his feet, the door to the bar opened behind him. A man in a police coat walked in and momentarily drew the attention of the bar. Ryker didn’t turn around. He was seething, solely focused on King.
“Ryker, no!” Cali shouted.
Ryker stepped forward and hit King in the forehead about as hard as King had ever been hit. It had been near impossible to resist blocking the attack and countering like he was capable of doing, but he was just hoping for the police officer to hurry over. Ryker moved down to King and picked him up by his shirt. Cali grabbed at Ryker, but he used his free hand to pound King in the stomach. The air left him as he slumped back onto the floor.
“Sheriff, do something!” Cali shouted.
“You aren’t so tough now, are you?” Ryker stood over him.
Thankfully the sheriff wrapped his arms around Ryker’s chest and pulled him backward. “All right, that’s enough!” he shouted. The sheriff moved Ryker aside and pulled King up. King was still trying to catch his breath. “You in here causing trouble, newcomer?”
“Ryker is the only one causing trouble, Josiah,” Cali said to the sheriff.
Ryker stepped back up, but the sheriff held him back.
“You always let a woman fight for you?” Ryker was high on booze and adrenaline, and he wanted more.
“Get the hell out of here, Ryker,” the sheriff said. “In fact, everyone get out!”
The jeers from the patrons were loud. They weren’t happy about having their night ruined. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Russians begin taking their frustrations out on guys who were clearly with Ryker.
The sheriff pulled his gun and turned to the angered men. “No more fights tonight, you hear me? Go home, or go to jail!” Then he turned back to Cali and King. “Damn Russians. You one of them, blue eyes?” he said to King.
“He’s not Russian. He just got hired on for security at Volkov. He’s from the States.”
“Yeah?” The sheriff walked over. “You stir things up like this where you’re from? ’Cause I won’t have it here.”
King wiped the blood from his mouth. “I told him I didn’t want any trouble.”
“Really? What I saw, you put him on his back. That’s not easy. He’s dumb, but he’s strong.”
“He was just trying to protect me,” Cali said. “Ryker pushed me.”
“He pushed you?” The sheriff’s focus shifted. He was upset.
It was clear to King that Cali was a very popular woman in Barrow.
“It’s fine, Josiah,” Cali said. “He’s drunk.” Then to King. “I’m really sorry. Let me get you some ice.”
“I’m fine.”
“He hit you pretty hard,” the sheriff said. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’ve had worse,” King said.
If they only knew.
“I doubt it, Ryker’s a boxer. Always did hit like a truck.”
The sheriff tried to help King over to the bar stool, but King shrugged him off. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I came at you like that.” The sheriff adjusted the holster jutting out from his hip. “We don’t get a lot of newcomers except these damn Russian guys. Didn’t mean to lump you in. Welcome to
Barrow. Name’s Josiah.
“Xavier,” King said. “Friends call me X.” The name that his handler and longtime friend Sam Harrison had given him was one that felt familiar. People had been calling him Xander for years, X for short. The name Xavier made it more natural for him as a cover.
“Nice to meet you, X. Piece of advice?”
“Of course,” King said.
“Keep your head down for a while till people get used to you. You’re not off to a great start. You don’t want to get on the bad side of guys like Ryker. All it is, is more trouble for you. Then that will be more trouble for me.”
Cali handed King a bar towel full of ice. He pointed at Cali. “She always getting guys in trouble?”
Josiah laughed. “You bet. Ever since she moved here from Los Angeles, Cali’s been constantly stirring the pot.”
“I can’t help that you all don’t get many new women here. How you boys handle it is your fault, not mine.”
Josiah clapped King on the shoulder. “Don’t get any ideas. I’ve been trying for six years.”
Josiah’s shoulder radio squawked. Josiah, we’ve got some trouble a street over from the bar. MORE fighting.
“Shit, I’ll see you all later.” The sheriff walked away as he answered, “I’m right here, I’ll handle it.”
The bar was empty. Neil Young was singing about a harvest moon on the jukebox, but the rest of the room was quiet.
“Sorry about all this,” Cali said as she wiped down the counter. “Not much of a welcome. These idiots are going to get this place shut down.”
“I gather this establishment isn’t popular in some circles here?”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 25
