Arctic Fire

by Stephen W. Frey

  “Hey, Ross.” Troy waved at Turner. Then he smiled and nodded at Karen. “Hey, Karen.”

  “Hello, Troy.” Her eyes were watery too. “I’m so glad you’re OK.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Troy agreed with a roll of his eyes. “Beeeelieve me.”

  Everyone laughed loudly, even the woman on the porch.

  “I remember your name,” Troy said, pointing at Turner. “I remember my brother talking about you.”

  “Ross lives here in Alaska,” Jack explained. “He’s been a big help getting me this far, let me tell you.”

  “Thanks, Ross,” Troy called out. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  “No worries, pal,” Turner called back. “Your brother’s a good man. I wanted to help him any way I could.”

  Jack put a hand on Troy’s bony shoulder and smiled. “By the way, Troy, we really are brothers. Half brothers, anyway.”

  Troy’s eyes opened wide. “What?”

  Jack quickly explained what Bill had told him in his office on Wall Street. And then they hugged again…even harder this time.

  “I can’t believe it,” Troy muttered, shaking his head. “This is awesome.”

  “We got that box from the Bankses’ cabin in Minnesota,” Jack said. He gestured toward Karen. “She got your letter and told me about it. We stopped at the cabin on the way out here.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Not really.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll explain later.” Jack would tell him about the cop when they had more time.

  “Did you read what I put in there?” Troy asked.

  “Every word. It’s incredible.”

  “Yeah, well, that guy Shane Maddux is crazy. I mean, really crazy. What about President Dorn?” he asked worriedly.

  “He’s OK,” Jack answered, “as far as we know, anyway. There wasn’t anything on the news when we left Dutch. We haven’t heard about any kind of assassination attempt.”

  “What about an LNG tanker blowing up in Boston Harbor?”

  “No.”

  Troy’s shoulders sagged. “Thank God.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “Well, did you call someone after you read the stuff?”

  “Who was I supposed to call, brother? And not get arrested or thrown into an insane asylum. And not get Shane Maddux and Roger Carlson very, very pissed off at Karen and me.”

  “I didn’t think about that,” Troy admitted.

  “Candidly,” Jack continued, “I wasn’t sure you really wanted her to contact anybody. I couldn’t figure out why you’d write it all down and then put it in a box. I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t report Maddux yourself.”

  “I put all that in there in case I was killed. I had a feeling something was up, and I wanted Maddux to go down if he murdered me. I was going to take out Maddux before he could shoot President Dorn, but I never got the chance. He took me out first.”

  “He thought he did,” Jack said defiantly. He was remembering what Hunter had said at the memorial service. “But you’re one of those untouchables, brother. I swear you are.”

  “Maybe.” Troy gestured at the house. “There’s no landline here, and cell phones don’t work this far out. But we need to talk to people fast. I’m sure Maddux is still planning to kill Dorn. It’s just a matter of time, I’m telling you. He hates the guy.”

  “We can be back in Dutch Harbor in less than an hour. You can make your calls from there. Let’s grab your stuff and go.”

  Troy chuckled as he pulled the pockets out of his jeans and then spread his arms wide. “You’re looking at everything I own.” He nodded toward the front porch. “Before we go there’s someone you need to meet.” Troy grabbed Jack’s arm. “But hurry. We’ve got to make those calls soon.”

  As they were climbing the porch steps toward where the older woman was standing, Jack had to catch Troy. He was weak, and it was strange for Jack to see him so fragile. He’d always exuded so much strength and energy.

  “This is Betty,” Troy said, smiling affectionately at the older woman, who was still holding her shotgun when they made it to the porch. “Betty, this is my older brother, Jack.”

  Jack stepped forward and hugged the woman gently. He loved the way it had sounded when Troy had said the word “brother.” It was accurate now. “Thanks for taking care of him, Betty.”

  “She sure did take care of me,” Troy agreed. “She was basically my nurse. I would have died without this woman. I didn’t even wake up for a few days after I got here.”

  “Actually, it was almost a week before you woke up,” Betty corrected him in her gravelly voice, balancing the gun on her forearm as she pulled a pack of Camels from her coat pocket and lit one. “I was worried he was gonna catch pneumonia,” she explained, stuffing the cigarettes back into her pocket, “but he fought it off. There were a couple of bad nights, but he’s a strong kid.”

  Troy smiled. “I think it was your fish chowder that saved me, Betty.” He glanced at Jack. “I couldn’t even pick up a spoon for a day or two after I woke up. She had to feed me.”

  “How’d that feel?”

  “Pretty pathetic.” He put a hand on Betty’s shoulder. “But thank God she was here.”

  Jack pointed at the ocean beyond the wide inlet and the barrier island, then at the raft. “So Troy washed up on the beach over there?”

  The woman exhaled a thick cloud of cigarette smoke as she shook her head. “My husband found Troy when he was out fishing. He was about five miles offshore when he spotted the raft and pulled him in.”

  “And your husband’s out fishing again?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, he’s gone a lot.”

  Jack gazed at the deflated raft. He’d noticed how Troy hadn’t mentioned Betty’s last name when he’d introduced her.

  “Thanks, Betty,” Troy whispered into the older woman’s ear as he hugged her. “We’ve gotta get going, but I’ll be back to see you soon.”

  “You better.”

  He kissed her on the cheek, and then he and Jack moved carefully back down the stairs after Jack had given her another hug as well.

  “You all right, brother?” Jack asked.

  “I could use five thousand calories a day for two weeks, and a month of R and R,” Troy admitted, moving as fast as he could in his weakened condition. “But we don’t have time for that. Do we, Jackson?”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “How did you and Karen hook up?” Troy asked as they headed for the seaplane with Turner and Karen lagging behind a little to give them privacy.

  Jack explained how Turner had pointed him toward Baltimore—and Karen.

  As Jack finished explaining, Troy broke into a huge grin. “You like her, don’t you, Jackson?” he asked quietly.

  “What?”

  “I can tell what’s going on with you two,” Troy said good-naturedly. “It’s obvious.”

  “What’s obvious?” Jack demanded defensively. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re into her, and don’t even try denying it. I saw the way you’ve been looking at her.”

  “I haven’t looked at her once in the last five minutes.”

  “No, it’s been twenty times in the last two.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “She’s into you too, brother.”

  Jack’s eyes raced to Troy’s. “You really think so?”

  “I knew it!” Troy pumped his fist several times quickly. “I knew you liked her.”

  “I more than like her,” Jack admitted as he leaned toward Troy. “But how did you know?”

  “I’m your brother.”

  Jack glanced over. “Yeah, right.” He thought again about how it sounded so good to hear that—and to realize it was true after all the years of thinking he was adopted.

  Troy patted Jack on the shoulder. “Well, good for you. I’m really glad you found each other. Charlie would be glad too. And I mean that.”
>
  Jack wondered if Karen had heard him. Troy had said it pretty loudly. “Thanks.” He wanted to look back at her, but he didn’t.

  “So how are Lisa and Little Jack?” Troy asked.

  As he was about to answer, Jack heard a thumping in the distance that sounded like the heartbeat of a giant. Seconds later, two small black helicopters appeared on the horizon out of the dusk. They were skimming thirty feet above the water’s surface.

  “Jesus Christ!” Troy stopped short and stared intently for a second at the two choppers that were bearing down on them. “Everybody back to the house!” he shouted. “Now! Go, go!”

  “What the hell?” Jack yelled as they all turned and sprinted the way they’d just come. “What’s going on?”

  “Those are the new MHs!” Troy shouted, already breathing hard. “Those are Special Forces’ Little Birds, and they are very dangerous machines. I’d recognize them anywhere, even from that distance. And I’m sure Shane Maddux has something to do with them. That’s his style. Believe me, they aren’t coming to save us.”

  Jack held Troy’s arm as they loped along, trying to support him. “Shouldn’t we try to get to the plane and get out of here?” He was worried Troy was going to fall as they ran.

  “Negative,” Troy replied decisively. “Even if we somehow got airborne, they’d shoot Turner’s plane out of the sky like it was a hot air balloon floating through a summer evening. It’d be a turkey shoot.”

  “Jesus.”

  “We’d never make it into the air, anyway. Those things will be here in a few seconds. They’re damn fast.”

  “Why didn’t we hear them before now?”

  “They’ve got six blades up and four on the back. The more blades a chopper has, the quieter it is. They’re built for stealth…and killing.”

  They were still twenty yards from the house when the lead chopper roared overhead and laid down two lines of withering fire ten feet apart. The bullets barely missed Jack, Troy, and Turner as they blew by in exploding parallel paths. But Karen shrieked loudly and tumbled to the ground just as the second helicopter—trailing directly behind the first one—held up and hovered above them.

  Jack turned around to help her, but Troy grabbed him by the shirt collar and tried to keep dragging him along toward the steps leading up to the porch. “No, brother!” he yelled as Jack struggled against him. “It’s too dangerous out here. These are serious motherfuckers. We need to be inside and behind cover to have any chance.”

  “I’ve got to get to her,” Jack shouted above the roar of the engine above them and the hurricane-force winds whipping down all around them. “I can’t leave her out here.”

  A rope dropped from the right side of the hovering chopper as the other one roared back around from the far side of the house only a few feet off the ground. Two figures dressed in black dropped quickly down the rope, one after the other, as the first chopper settled to the ground two hundred feet away from the house. It landed directly behind the spot where the two men had just hit the ground. The rope blew wildly around beneath the still-hovering helicopter without the weight of the men on it.

  As Jack whipped his Glock .9 mm from his belt and ripped free from Troy’s grasp, there were two loud blasts from his right. He raced for Karen, who was trying desperately to get to her feet, when one of the two men who’d just dropped down the rope hurtled backward. He’d been hit in the chest by a blast from Turner’s shotgun.

  Jack squeezed the trigger of his Glock four times in rapid succession, and he dropped the other guy who’d slid down the rope from the hovering chopper. But not before the man raked Turner’s huge body with machine-gun fire.

  Turner hurtled backward as the chopper above Jack descended suddenly until it was only a few feet above him, sending him sprawling to the ground. When he looked up through blowing dirt and sand, he saw another man jump from the helicopter, grab Karen, heave her into the chopper, and then haul himself back up into it.

  “No, no!” he shouted as the helicopter lifted up and raced away. He fired every round left in his clip at the helicopter as it disappeared into the fading light above the Bering Sea, but that quickly Karen was gone. “Damn it!”

  Four more men raced through the twilight at Jack and Troy from the second helicopter. Jack dashed to Turner’s body and ripped the .44-caliber Magnum from his belt. “Brother!” he shouted as hurled the gun at Troy.

  Troy caught the .44 neatly out of midair and in the same motion dropped to the ground and began firing as Jack grabbed Turner’s shotgun and fired at the men too.

  At the same moment, two shotgun blasts exploded from an upstairs window of the house, and one of the men racing at them went down. Then Troy put another one of them to the ground just as Jack saw another figure toss something at the window.

  The top floor of the house exploded a second later.

  And then a brilliant flash exploded directly in front of Jack. His nose filled instantly with the foulest stench he’d ever smelled, and then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 36

  AS JACK came to consciousness, he heard someone shouting but he couldn’t really understand the words—or see anything. The anesthetic released in the explosion outside had been terribly powerful. His head was pounding like it never had. Like on top of having the worst hangover ever, his brain was being split in two by an ax with each word being yelled. Then the words began to make sense, but he still couldn’t make out the images around him. Everything was still a blur.

  As his vision finally began to clear and the pounding subsided a little, Jack realized that he was tied tightly to a chair, and that Troy was secured to another chair a few feet away. A small man dressed all in black stood directly in front of Troy. Jack recognized him right away. He was the man who’d been walking beside the tall guy with the long blond hair wearing the Arctic Fire jacket in Dutch Harbor.

  “What information did you give away, Troy?” the little man yelled. “And who did you give it to?”

  “Screw you.”

  “Address me properly. I am your leader. I am Red Fox One.”

  “Fuck you, Maddux. You aren’t my leader anymore.”

  So this was Shane Maddux, Jack realized as he glanced away from Maddux and toward the only other person in the room. This man was standing by the doorway of the cramped living room holding a small machine gun with both hands. He was dressed all in black too. But, unlike Maddux, his face was obscured by a ski mask.

  “You just signed your brother’s death warrant,” Maddux said gravely. “You shouldn’t have said my name, Troy.”

  “You’re gonna kill us both whether he knows your name or not. Don’t act like you aren’t.”

  “But I might have been humane about it.”

  “Don’t give me that shit. You love it. You can’t wait to torture both of us.”

  “I need to know what information you’ve given away and who you’ve given it to,” Maddux demanded again as the tone of his voice turned urgent. “And I need to know now!” he roared. “Do yourself and your brother a favor. Tell me quickly and I’ll have some sympathy for you.”

  “No.”

  Maddux motioned at Jack. “Do you really want to see what I’m capable of doing to him?”

  “Fuck you, Shane,” Troy snapped. “You just threw a grenade at a sixty-year-old woman and blew her to bits. Do you think I really have any doubt about what you’re capable of doing to my brother?”

  “She killed one of my men. She had it coming.”

  “Too bad she didn’t kill you too.”

  Maddux moved several steps over so that he was standing in front of Jack. “This won’t go well for you, and you have your brother to thank.”

  “Fuck you, Maddux,” Jack said defiantly, making certain the little man understood that he knew his name. “Do you really feel OK about killing that poor woman upstairs?”

  “She’s inconsequential to my life or to the well-being of the United States.” He raised both eyebrows and shrugged. “She had to
die for the good of the whole. It’s as simple as that.” He shook his head. “She was probably a criminal, anyway. So we’re better off without her.”

  “You’re sick. I feel bad for you.”

  “Don’t feel too bad, because I’m going to—”

  Maddux’s words were drowned out by the blast of a large-caliber bullet. The man clutching the machine gun stumbled back against the wall, spraying the ceiling with bullets as his finger constricted on the trigger.

  As the machine-gun fire stopped, an older man stepped through the front door into the living room, aimed a revolver at the masked man, and calmly fired a head shot. Blood exploded from the man’s head, and he keeled over limply as the older man swung his gun smoothly at Maddux.

  “You bastard,” the old man whispered. “That woman you killed upstairs was my wife.”

  Jack trained the .44-caliber Magnum on Maddux, who was now tied to the same chair Jack had been tied to only minutes before. Troy had lashed Maddux to the chair and then told Jack to watch him carefully before going somewhere with the old man. “Where’s Karen?” he asked.

  Maddux laughed loudly. “You’ll never get anything from me I don’t want you to get.”

  “Where the hell is she?” Jack demanded again.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Maddux retorted arrogantly.

  “He’s right,” Troy said as he moved through the front doorway and into the living room. He was followed by the old man, who gazed at Maddux sullenly while he stood over the body of the man he’d shot a few minutes ago. “You’re wasting your time, Jack.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Troy lifted the crude wooden box he was carrying and gestured at Maddux. “Get him to tell us everything we want to know.”

  “You just said it was a waste of time trying to get him to talk.”

  “No. I said what you were doing was a waste of time. But I know how to get to him.”