Arctic Fire

by Stephen W. Frey

  Jack stared over the desk as the old man went quiet. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

  He stood behind the bedroom door, focused on his breathing, on regulating it as he’d learned to do long ago. The front door had just slammed shut, and the sound had sent an explosion of adrenaline bursting through his system.

  He heard the footsteps on the stairs come closer; heard the man’s humming grow louder; saw the figure flash past him through the crack between the wall and the door; and watched the man toss a jacket onto the bed and go into the bathroom, still humming happily.

  Then he stepped from his hiding place and silently closed the bedroom door. The man wouldn’t be humming much longer.

  “What the—” The man whipped around as soon as he saw the reflection in the mirror over the sink. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Death.” It was what he always said at this moment, and simply uttering the word sent another mad rush of near-ecstasy-inducing adrenaline searing through his system. “Justice.”

  The man’s eyes bugged out of their sockets as he stabbed in the air. “Get the hell out of my house right now, asshole, or I’ll kill you!” he yelled. “I swear to Christ I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands, you little shit.”

  For a split second Shane Maddux caught his image in the mirror behind the man and he had to smile. No wonder the man wasn’t intimidated. The guy in the mirror was a little shit. Five-six and 140 pounds dripping wet, with a face only a father could love. Only his father hadn’t loved him. And maybe that was ultimately why he’d grown so fond of the deal he’d forged with Roger Carlson. One of the reasons, anyway.

  “Do you have any last words?” Maddux asked calmly.

  The man rushed toward Maddux before he’d even finished, screaming wildly as he tore across the bathroom floor.

  Maddux delivered a wicked chop-kick to the man’s left kneecap, then stepped smoothly aside as the man collapsed to the floor, writhing and screaming in pain.

  Maddux’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at the man struggling on the floor. The guy was a confirmed sex offender who four years ago had raped two young boys in the next town over. He’d admitted to everything during his initial interrogation with the detectives, but he’d gotten off when his case had finally come to trial because of a technicality and a young prosecutor’s inexperience. In fact, he’d laughed about the prosecutor’s mistakes in front of a crew of reporters on the courthouse steps a few minutes after the judge had been forced to let him go.

  Maddux pulled a pistol from his pocket, pressed the barrel to the man’s forehead above his terrified eyes, and fired.

  The order Carlson had given him in that envelope had been executed—and justice had been served. The system didn’t always work. Sometimes it needed help. Maddux was happy to provide that assistance.

  He stared down at the dead man. Blood was pouring down the guy’s face like a stream racing down the side of a steep mountain. Maddux had always wanted to do the same thing to that priest who’d assaulted him four times in less than two weeks when he was a kid. He’d always wanted to put a bullet through the bastard’s head.

  That priest was retired and living happily outside of Chicago. Maddux took a deep breath. Maybe it was finally time for a trip to the Midwest.

  The moment he was past the doors of the First Manhattan building and out onto Wall Street, Jack lit a cigarette. After a week of warm weather, it had turned cold again in the Northeast. The temperature was down into the thirties, and the wind was whipping through the steep canyons formed by lower Manhattan’s tall buildings and narrow streets. But Jack wasn’t inhaling the smoke to warm himself up. He was doing it to calm himself down.

  He wasn’t Troy’s adoptive brother after all. In fact, they were half blood brothers. He was a member of the Jensen family. At least, a lot more of one than he’d thought he was ten minutes ago.

  It was so much to process, and his mind was still reeling. Who was his real father? Was he still alive? And why had Bill chosen that particular moment to drop the bomb? Was it simply that he was so weak because of Troy’s death that he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer?

  Jack shook his head as he walked. Bill was a strategic and deliberate man. He usually had an obvious agenda for everything he did—and at least two more hidden ones. As far as Jack knew, Bill had never done anything out of weakness in his life.

  He took a long drag off the cigarette as he headed up Wall Street toward the old Trinity Church. Well, to hell with Bill and this new information and to hell with trying to figure out why the old man had picked ten minutes ago to drop the bomb. The answers to all the questions would still be here when he got back from Alaska. They’d been waiting for thirty years. They could wait a little longer.

  He was going to Alaska no matter what, he promised himself as he reached Broadway and stopped at the curb, waiting for the light to turn so he could cross. Something was calling him up there, something he couldn’t ignore. And nothing was going to stop him from going.

  Except money.

  Bill was right. He didn’t have much saved, and the trip was going to cost at least five grand, probably more. He’d been hoping Bill would offer to help, but that possibility had been flushed down the toilet right away. Bill wasn’t going to give him a dime, even though he’d been proudly funding Troy’s worldwide joyride for the last six and a half years.

  When the traffic light at Wall and Broadway turned, Jack took one more drag from the cigarette, then flicked it away and stepped off the curb.

  “Hey, buddy!” someone shouted from behind him. “Hey, look out!”

  Jack’s eyes flashed to the right. A white van was racing down Broadway straight at him.

  CHAPTER 11

  JACK TOOK several deep breaths, then knocked. It had been thirty minutes since the van had run the light on Broadway and almost killed him. But he still hadn’t completely calmed down, he realized as the door opened in front of him. He still had that irony taste in his mouth from his lungs pumping so hard, and his fingers were still shaking.

  “Hi, Jack,” the young woman murmured from inside the apartment.

  “Hi, Lisa.”

  Lisa Martinez was a twenty-year-old first-generation Puerto Rican-American who lived with her three older sisters on the third floor of this run-down project that was in one of Brooklyn’s poorest neighborhoods. She stood slightly over five feet tall and weighed just over a hundred pounds. She had large, brown, almond-shaped eyes; lovely full lips; and caramel-colored skin. And her beautiful face was framed by long black hair.

  “It’s good to see you, Jack. Come in.”

  “Thanks,” he said, following her into the apartment. “Are your sisters here?”

  “No, I’m by myself. Except for the baby, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  She led him to a rickety dining room table, which stood in front of a grimy window. The window overlooked a row of basketball courts littered with trash and broken glass. They were used more for closing drug deals than anything else.

  As they got to the table, Lisa gave him a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek, then pulled back and motioned for him to sit down. “Coffee?” she asked in her heavy Spanish accent. “It’s really good. We just got it.”

  He liked her accent and the way she always waited a few moments to give him that hug and kiss every time he visited. It was as if she was nervous and had to find her courage to do it. “That’s OK.” He eased onto one of the four metal chairs ringing the small table. After just a few seconds of being with her he’d already started to relax. She had this soothing effect on him he didn’t understand—but loved. “But thanks.”

  “Cherry Coke?”

  He shook his head. “It’s really OK, sweetheart.” It was obvious that she wanted to please him, and he was thirsty. But he didn’t like Cherry Coke, and it seemed like that was the only thing they ever had to drink here besides tap water. “I’m fine.” He searched her dark eyes for clues to how she was really doin
g. She hid her emotions well for a young woman, though he wasn’t sure she was trying to. It always seemed to him that it was a natural gift, that it wasn’t anything she’d perfected. “Are you OK?”

  She looked wonderful for having given birth only two months ago, maybe even better than she had when they’d first met over a year ago. She still had that pregnancy glow about her, but the extra weight was gone. In fact, she looked slightly thinner to him than she had before she’d conceived.

  Lisa shrugged. “All right. You?” she asked as she eased onto the chair beside his.

  “I’m fine.”

  He kept gazing at her. She was so nice and so beautiful, and he understood why Troy had been so attracted to her.

  He let his chin fall slowly to his chest and took a deep breath. Troy…he couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  “Are you sure? It looked like you were going to say something bad.”

  “I was just thinking about this guy I need to call,” he lied.

  “Oh.”

  He wanted to tell her about the terrible thing that had happened. But now that he was here and he was gazing into those soulful eyes and that vulnerable expression, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t make himself break her heart. He knew how much she loved Troy.

  He reached into his suit coat and pulled out an envelope. It had five hundred dollars inside, and that was all he could spare right now. He figured he was going to need the rest of the money he was pretty sure he’d scraped together today to get to Alaska. In fact, he’d probably need more than that when it was all said and done. But he’d work that out later on the fly, while he was in the middle of everything.

  “Here.” He held the envelope out for her. “Take it.”

  Lisa caught her breath and put a hand to her chest when she saw the cash. “Ay dios mio!” she shrieked, springing out of her chair to give him a huge hug.

  “Don’t get too excited,” he said when she finally pulled back. “It’s just five hundred bucks. I’m sorry that’s all I can give you right now.”

  “You’re so good to me. Why?”

  “I have to be,” Jack answered simply. “That’s just the way it is.”

  Lisa gazed at him for several moments, and then she turned and trotted into one of the bedrooms. A few moments later she was back, cradling her two-month-old son in her slender arms. He was wrapped snugly in a blanket and sleeping soundly, but Jack could see the tiny features of his handsome face as well as a shock of jet-black hair protruding from beneath his blue knit hospital cap. This little boy was her first child.

  Lisa held the baby out and smiled. “Here, you hold him.”

  Just the thought of doing that sent Jack’s heart rate into the stratosphere. He’d only held babies a few times in his life, and he’d been sweating profusely after only a few moments each time.

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”

  Lisa laughed as she pressed the little boy against Jack’s chest. “Make sure you support his head.”

  “OK, OK.” He took a deep breath as he gazed down at the tiny human being resting in his arms. “Well, hello there, little Jack,” he said quietly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  CHAPTER 12

  SPEED TRAP was eating dinner by himself at the crumb-strewn table in the galley of the Arctic Fire. Tonight it was two hot dogs and some baked beans that had been sitting in a big, uncovered pot on the stove since yesterday afternoon, undoubtedly attracting all kinds of attention from bacteria. Even in the frigid air on the Bering Sea, those nasty creatures survived. So he’d zapped his helping of beans and the two hot dogs in the microwave that was on the dishwasher beside the stove.

  The ship would make Akutan in a few hours to unload a second excellent haul of kings—not quite as big as the first, but enough to make him another fifty grand. And he was using these last few minutes of downtime to put some much-needed energy into his system. He’d eaten nothing for thirty-six hours because they’d been hauling traps back on board almost nonstop, so right now any food at all looked good to him. Even things he wouldn’t touch on land with someone else’s ten-foot pole.

  “Hey, little brother.”

  Speed Trap glanced up as he stuck the last bite of the first delicious mustard-covered hot dog into his mouth. “Hey, Grant,” he said through the mouthful. His older brother was so tall he had to stoop constantly when he wasn’t outside. “What’s up? Other than your head on the ceiling.”

  “Funny, you little hemorrhoid.”

  “Shut up.”

  Grant took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair opposite Speed Trap’s. On the back of the jacket was a large, multicolored image of the Arctic Fire cresting a wave and the name of the ship written in script beneath the image. Last Christmas, Captain Sage’s wife had made the jackets for all four of the ship’s regular crew members.

  “I should take you up on deck and hang you over the side, you little shit.”

  “Try it,” Speed Trap shot back. “See what happens.”

  Speed Trap had never gotten into a fight with Grant, and the truth was, he never wanted to. Grant was huge and mean. As far as Speed Trap knew, he’d never lost a fight. And when he got drunk, he looked for them. That was when Grant caused riots because people started stampeding out of his way.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Shut up, little brother. You know I’d kick your ass.”

  After grabbing the biggest bowl he could find from the dishwasher, which hadn’t been run in a week, Grant moved to the stove and ladled a healthy portion of beans into the dirty dish. After that, he grabbed some saltine crackers from the cupboard and sat down at the table in the chair opposite Speed Trap’s without bothering to nuke his helping. He’d always had an iron stomach, and the fact that the beans had been around for a while didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t care that they were cold either, Speed Trap knew. Grant’s priority when it came to eating was simply getting the food into his mouth and then his stomach as quickly as possible.

  “Hey,” Grant said as he shoved the first spoonful of beans past his teeth, “you just beat your DUI and your resisting charge over in Seward. How ’bout that?”

  Speed Trap had been about to start in on the second hot dog, but when he heard Grant’s headline the bun’s forward progress came to an abrupt halt an inch from his mouth. “What?” He put the bun slowly back down on his plate and broke into a broad smile. “Really?” But his smile faded quickly. Grant was always teasing him or lying to him about something, and Speed Trap was worried that he was being stupid and gullible and just taking the bait one more time. He figured Grant was going to bust out laughing at him at any second. “Damn it, are you bullshitting me?”

  “Nope. This is straight dope, dude. I was up on the bridge, and I overheard Uncle Sage talking to somebody on the phone about it. The shit’s been taken care of. All your charges were dropped. You don’t even have to go to court. They even gave you your license back. It’s nuts.”

  Speed Trap gazed at Grant for a few moments, then finally decided he wasn’t being set up for that sucker punch after all. “Why? I mean they had me dead to rights. When I went to first appearance the morning after I was arrested, the judge laughed at me. He told me with my record I’d get at least six months in the slammer, probably a year.”

  Grant shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, pal.” He gulped down several heaping spoonfuls of cold beans and then stuffed a couple of saltines in behind them. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, like a shark’s did when its jaws closed down on prey. “Weird things like that always seem to happen on this ship,” he said through his mouthful of food. “Know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, like how about all those brand new traps that were waiting for us on the dock in Dutch after we put off that first load in Akutan? To replace the ones we lost in the storm, right? I figured we’d be in Dutch for at least a week waiting for
new stuff.” Speed Trap shook his head. “So what happens? One day in port and we’re out of the harbor and back on the crab.”

  “Exactly,” Grant agreed. “Nobody gets traps that fast. No fucking way.” He stared at the microwave for a few seconds. “What about that guy we picked up in the raft west of St. Paul last year during the opilio season? That was insane.”

  “Yeah, that was insane.”

  “I mean, there’s nothing at all on the radio about that guy. No heads-up from the Coast Guard boys, no chatter from any of the other boats. Then boom, there he is in the middle of the Bering Sea, waving us on from the raft and tapping his watch like he’s late for a dinner party.” Grant’s eyes narrowed. “The weirdest thing about it all was that Sage didn’t seem surprised. It was like he knew the raft was going to be there.”

  “Think he did?”

  Grant hesitated. “I’ll tell you this, little brother. We’ve never, and I mean never, dropped traps anywhere near that area of the Bering Sea before. Not during the king hunt or the opilio season. Even before you started crabbing with us we didn’t.”

  “And the test line we sank out there wasn’t very long,” Speed Trap added, referring to the line of traps Sage dropped in places they were unfamiliar with to see if crabs were foraging on the bottom. “Uncle Sage doesn’t drop many test lines to begin with, but when he does, they’re longer than that. You know?”

  “Yup.”

  “It was like he dropped that line to make us think he was into that spot, that he thought it could be a honey hole, but he really wasn’t. It was more like that was our excuse to be in the area. I mean, when we pulled the traps back up there were crabs in them.”

  “But we didn’t stick around. Yeah, I’m with you.” Grant reached across the table, grabbed Speed Trap’s hot dog, and took a huge bite—which was nearly half of it—before tossing what was left back on his younger brother’s plate. “You know that guy stayed in Sage’s room until we got back to Dutch too. He never came out once. Not that I saw, anyway. Sage doesn’t let anybody use his room, not even Dad.”