Barrow, Alaska, 9:32 a.m.
The two men were on top of King before he could see what the last man standing in their group was pulling out of the back of the truck. King ducked a wild right hand thrown by the first man and pushed him down to the ground. His momentum did most of the work. He then managed to get his forearms up in front of his face to block the punch thrown by the second man. The guy followed it with a kick, which King checked by raising his leg. The shin-to-shin contact was too much for Ryker’s crony, and he hopped off in pain. King’s Muay Thai training had deadened the nerves in his own shin, so now he could focus on the man coming from the back of the truck. Through a squinted eye he was happy to see the glint of a metal baseball bat instead of a shotgun.
The extra time he took to discern the man’s weapon of choice took too long. The first man he’d pushed to the ground was quicker than King expected, and he jumped on King’s back. He tried to put King in a choke hold, but he was sloppy. King slid his right hand through the small gap between the man’s arm and his own neck, grabbed his forearm while reaching back with his other hand and wrapping it around the back of the man’s head. King arched forward as he pulled the man on his back and slung him onto the ground in front of him.
“Stop! I’m calling the police!”
Both King and the man with the baseball bat shouted, “No!” at the same time. Cali looked at King like he had three heads.
“They’re trying to kill you!”
King saw her point, but the last thing he wanted was more law enforcement.
“Please,” King said. “Just let me handle this.”
The man with the bat laughed as his buddy King had just shucked from his back rose to his feet. “Yeah, just let him handle it.” The man spit what King assumed was tobacco on the ground.
Cali just stood there with her phone in her hand, unsure of what to do or say next. King could hear a groan from beside him. Ryker was regaining consciousness, and the man with the hurt shin had finally stopped hopping in pain. King needed to move to end this now or he was going to have a problem.
King stepped forward and chopped the man in the throat who had climbed his back. As he bent over in pain, King grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him in the way of the baseball bat being swung his way by the second man. The bat bounced off the man’s back he was holding. King dropped him and rushed the man with the bat before he could pull back for another swing. He lifted up from under the man’s arms and threw him into the grill of one of the trucks.
“Behind you!” Cali shouted.
King whipped around and weaved out of the way of a haymaker from Hopping Man, then twisted his hips and landed a left hook that popped his jaw. He turned back to the man with the bat and stepped on his arm, pinning the bat against the ground. He glanced over his shoulder and back-climber guy was on his way. King jerked the bat free, spun out of the way of another wide punch as he swung left-handed, hitting him in the stomach with the bat.
By this time, Ryker had made it to his feet. King was lucky. He just so happened to be looking Ryker’s way when he was reaching for the small of his back. There is only one thing ever hidden there. King knew a gun was coming out.
“Ryker! No!” Cali shouted.
But King had already launched the bat. It flew end over end and struck Ryker in the leg. It was by no means a destructive blow, but it was enough to give King the chance to chase behind the bat and dive into Ryker as he tried to dodge the bat and pull the gun at the same time. The gun went off as King landed on top of him. He wasted no time delivering an elbow to Ryker’s jaw. Once again, Ryker was out. That’s when he heard Cali scream.
King jumped up off Ryker, fearing the worst, that Cali had been hit by the stray bullet. Instead, she was looking at the round man whom King had kicked unconscious. He was on his knees, clutching at his neck. There was just enough light to see the blood spraying from it.
Cali screamed again.
“Call an ambulance!” King shouted to her.
He removed his coat and ran over to the man who was gasping for air. He wrapped his coat around the man’s neck, tied the arms of the coat, and pulled it as tight as he could. But once King was on top of him, he could tell it was no use. He’d seen enough wounds like this to know this man was going to die.
“There’s no time for the ambulance,” King shouted to the men who were trying to recover. “You have to drive him, fast, or he’s going to die!”
There was no animosity left in the men. Instead, two of them rushed over to the big man and hoisted him up under his arms. King lifted his legs, and they carried him over to the back of the truck. The other man was trying to get Ryker up off the ground. King rushed over and helped the man lift him.
“This is a crime scene now, Xavier,” Cali said. “You can’t move him. I have to call the sheriff. Ryker just shot that guy.”
“No he didn’t!” the man lifting Ryker said. Then he looked King in the eye. “I saw you shoot Ronnie. Didn’t you see it, Rick?” he said to the man who’d had the bat.
“Sure as hell did! Now let’s go!”
King dropped Ryker. He didn’t have time to argue. He couldn’t be involved either way. He just needed to go.
“Bullshit! I saw the whole thing!” Cali shouted.
Rick climbed into his truck. “Yeah? You sure about that?”
“I’m damn sure!”
The other men had come to help get Ryker into the truck.
The guy who’d climbed on King’s back earlier stopped and took a long look at Cali. “We know where to find you. Just remember that, sweetheart.”
King’s instinct was to change the man’s mind on that statement with a violent amount of force. But the ambulance Cali called was crying in the distance, and the truck with the man with the hole in his neck was already backing up. The sheriff would hear the ambulance call on the wire. There wasn’t much that happened in Barrow, so he’d be all over this.
“You just try me, you redneck!” Cali said.
King walked over and took her by the waist. Through all that was happening, he could feel his arms going numb from the cold. He needed to get inside and get the only other coat he’d brought; then he needed to get the hell out of there. He’d just completely blown everything he was in Alaska for. The next few steps were going to be all about saving what little bit of this mission he could.
With the virologist actually there, in Barrow, under an alias—working under lockdown and top secret conditions—King knew he couldn’t just leave things as they were. There was far too much at stake. He was going to have to call in a favor, but the new director of the CIA wasn’t going to like it.
Chapter Fifteen
Moscow, Russia, 8:35 p.m.
When the SUVs stopped at the hangar, four men jumped out. Sam watched intently from the SUV she’d commandeered from the dead man a few moments ago. She didn’t want to start the engine for fear of revealing her location to the men by the hangar. However, the sirens she heard were getting louder, and it was happening fast. Her next thought was which route to take. If she went out the exit, she would almost certainly pass the police, or military, or whatever was heading her way. If she took Zhanna’s route through the fence, it would be clear that she was someone trying to flee the situation and would probably get the attention of everyone.
Sam watched as the men in suits split up under the lights fixed to the hangar. Two went inside the hangar, and two went to check out the dead bodies left lying in the parking lot. This was the best chance she was going to get. She started the SUV, put it in drive, and eased out of the parking space. She didn’t turn on the SUV’s lights just yet. She was hoping the drivers in the vehicles by the hangar would be distracted by the bodies lying in front of them. As soon as she made it to the lane that led to the exit, she flipped on the headlights. The last thing she wanted was for the police rounding the corner to see an SUV driving without its lights. They would be after her for sure.
As she rolled toward the entrance,
she pulled out her phone and dialed Zhanna. As it rang, off to her right out on the road the flashing lights became visible. Her stomach turned. She was in a terrible position. Not only had she been shot, but in order to escape, she had to lose the only evidence she had of what the meeting was about. And to make things worse, Zhanna’s phone rang all the way to voice mail. Not a good sign.
Sam approached the exit. As she rolled through the gate and turned on her left turn signal, to go in the direction Zhanna had driven, she had to stop and wait for the train of four police cars to swerve around her and zoom through the private airport’s entrance. As she eased out onto the road, she glanced in the rearview mirror. So far, the police cars all kept heading the same direction. Sam dialed Zhanna again. After the first ring, she noticed in her side mirror that one of the police cars she’d passed had just broken off from the other three. Its headlights whipped around the opposite direction, and Sam immediately laid on the gas pedal.
They were coming after her.
As the call to Zhanna kept ringing, Sam took the first right turn she came upon. It was dark. The private airport was outside the city in a rural area. If she didn’t get some distance between her and the police car circling back for her, being isolated out there would make it much harder for her to get away. A city would offer traffic she could blend into, get lost in. The only thing around her now was the occasional home and darkness.
The call went to a generic voice mail, and Sam made another right turn. Now she was worried. She of course cared about the safety of Zhanna, but if someone found her and took the only vials left from the briefcase, millions of people’s lives could be in danger. Sam sped down an empty road. She had no idea where she was going. A sick feeling washed over her. Her mind began thinking the worst. That Zhanna was in trouble, that their only lead on the potential deadly virus was dead, and she had no plan as to what might be her next move.
Her phone began to ring.
Hope returned when she saw the number. The same number she’d been calling to reach Zhanna.
“Zhanna, thank God. Where are—”
“You are British?” A man’s voice with a thick Russian accent interrupted Sam’s momentary relief.
Her blood ran cold. They’d captured Zhanna.
Sam couldn’t speak, so she just continued to drive, focusing on the man’s voice and anything she may be able to hear in the background. Her mind was racing. Was Zhanna hurt? Dead? Does this man have the vials? If so, what can she do now without any evidence from the briefcase? Before the man spoke again, the image of the tail number on the plane that the man with the briefcase of vials flew in on popped in her head: Z450XY. If she couldn’t find Zhanna and this man, the tail number was her only lead.
“Who do you work for?” the man asked.
Sam put the call on speaker and switched to the text message app in her phone. She pulled up Dbie Johnson’s contact, Alexander King’s resident techie. She typed out a message as the man breathed into the phone: Run down the tail number of this private plane. Z450XY. I need to know who owns it and where it comes from. Before you do that, track down this phone’s location immediately. 341-555-2943. Life or death.
Dbie instantly messaged back: On it.
Sam had given her Zhanna’s number in hopes she could find its location.
“Don’t feel like talking?” the man said. “No problem.”
“Wait!” Sam said. She had to make the call last as long as she could so Dbie could get a location. And she also wanted to probe and see if she could get anything from this man. “I have the other two vials.” She had no choice but to push all her chips into the pot.
“So this woman is important to you,” the man said through what sounded like a grin.
“She is. Please don’t hurt her.”
As Sam glanced down at her phone to check and see if Dbie had messaged, flashing blue lights caught her eye in the rearview mirror. Sam had become so engrossed in the phone call and messaging Dbie that she’d neglected to make a few more turns to help her lose the police. She stomped on the brakes and took a quick left, sped up, and squealed the tires for another right. She floored it again, but she had no idea where she was going.
“Ul. Lesnaya d. 5, kv. 176,” the man gave an address. “Six in morning. No vials? No woman.”
The man ended the call.
Sam spotted an underpass up ahead. She must be near the highway. The police would find her if she went that way, so instead, she drove into the trees in the field beside her, shut off the lights, and killed the engine. She hoped the police wouldn’t see her and would drive on by, but if they didn’t, she had a backup plan.
Sam received a message from Dbie. She didn’t have to open the phone to know what it said. The man had ended the call and busted the phone before Dbie could find the phone’s location.
Sam checked her rearview. After a few more seconds, the police car went driving by. But before she could breathe a sigh of relief, she heard tires squalling on pavement. The police had seen her. She didn’t want to have to kill an innocent police officer, but she couldn’t be taken in.
All she could do was hope her backup plan would work.
Chapter Sixteen
Barrow, Alaska, 9:35 a.m.
King threw on his coat, grabbed his Glock, phone, and knife, all while Cali was taking a shot of Canadian whiskey in the kitchen.
“Not sure that’s going to help,” King said as he walked in from the bedroom.
“Can’t hurt.”
“Just how well do you know those guys?”
“Better than I know you, obviously,” she said as she set down the bottle.
“We don’t have time for this. Or I don’t. It’s up to you what you want to do next.”
“What the hell are you going to do? There is nowhere to hide here. You do understand that, right?”
“That’s why I’m asking how well you know them. Will they try to hurt you to keep you from telling the sheriff you saw Ryker shoot the big guy and not me?”
Her pause was enough to tell him what he needed to know. If she was right, and there really was nowhere to hide, King was going to need help.
“Call the police,” he said.
She looked at him like he’d asked for a lethal injection. “You can’t be serious.”
“You called him Josiah last night, so you obviously know him. Call him and tell him to come here.”
“Guaranteed he’s already on his way here. And yes, I know him, X, but you’re the new guy in town. He’s not going to stand by you.”
“But will he stand by you? He seemed awfully fond of you.”
“I-I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter. Will you please just call him so he doesn’t try to barge in with a gun? This mess with Ryker is the least of my worries.”
“I assure you it isn’t,” Cali’s hands were on her hips. “He thinks he runs this town. He’ll come after you. He and even more of his redneck crew. Josiah won’t be able to stop him. That’s just the way it is here. He only put Ryker in jail last night as a favor to Ryker. Those Russian guys are the only people here more dangerous than Ryker.”
“You don’t understand.” King searched the drawer for a backup beanie hat. “Just call the sheriff and everything will make sense.”
“Okay. But I can’t help you once Josiah gets here.”
King looked up at her. “How could you help me if I left before then? You said there was nowhere to hide.”
“There isn’t . . . here. But my dad has a plane. I can get you out of here before tonight.”
Before King could ask for more details, they heard a car pull up and then a voice coming out of a bullhorn.
“No need to call the sheriff,” Cali said as she walked toward the door.
King pulled his phone and dialed Robert Lucas. He answered in one ring but didn’t immediately speak.
“X2112,” King said. It was his verification code for the director of the CIA to be assured it was him.
; “X? Speak freely. Everything all right?”
“I wouldn’t be calling if it was.”
Cali stepped outside into the cold to head off the sheriff.
“That’s what I was afraid of. How bad is it?”
“It’s a long story. I have to blow my cover, but only to the sheriff in town.”
“No way, X. Get on the next plane out of there. We’ll send someone else.”
“There’s no time. Our target is here. I have to follow up.”
That brought a long sigh. King knew his proposal would be met with pushback.
“Let me make a couple of calls, and I’ll talk to the sheriff.”
“No time for that either,” King said. “He’s here to take me to jail, and I have to go to work tonight. I’m going to find out what they’re hiding here.”
King knew that would do the trick. While the absolute last thing Director Lucas would want to happen would be for an agent to let people know who they were actually working for, there was one thing worse than that: a virus spreading and killing thousands or more when it could have been stopped.
Cali and Josiah walked through the door and shut it behind them. Josiah was holding handcuffs.
“I’m going to need you to talk to the sheriff right now, ’cause he just walked in.”
“Put the phone down,” Josiah said to King. “You’re under arrest.”
“I told you, they came after him, Josiah,” Cali pleaded. “You have to listen to me.”
“Right now I have to take him in. We can sort this whole mess out down at the station.”
“I’m not going to resist, sheriff,” King said as he put up his hands. Then he extended the phone toward him. “But can you please take this call first?”
The sheriff walked over and took the phone. Probably out of sheer curiosity. What potential prisoner would ever ask the sheriff to talk to someone on the phone?
Josiah took the phone but spoke to King. “What the hell is this? Your mommy to plead with me to let you go?”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 30
