Arctic Fire (6 page)

“That’s ridiculous,” Carlson snapped. “I can’t believe you’d say that. I can’t believe you’d use your Falcons to manipulate me.”

“
What?
Are you questioning my team’s credibility? Are you questioning mine?”

“Sorry,” Carlson said quickly, grimacing apologetically. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Incredible, Maddux thought. He’d never seen the old man back off anything so quickly. There had to be at least a kernel of doubt in Carlson’s mind too.

“Look, Shane, we’ve been over this several times. President Dorn’s only been on the job for nine months. The Oval Office still has that new car smell for him. Wait until the one-year anniversary. Everything will be fine by then. I promise.”

“But if the president’s so damn appreciative of us figuring out what was heading for Boston, how could he have any doubts about how valuable we are to him and the country? I wouldn’t be picking up any of these rumors.”

“Have patience, son,” Carlson advised paternally. “Give Dorn a little more time. He’s young and, unfortunately for everyone, very inexperienced. He’s new to how things work in Washington. He wasn’t a senator or a congressman before he was elected commander in chief. He was a damn civil rights lawyer. He’ll come around.” Carlson chuckled softly. “You’re putting too much faith in those guys of yours, Shane. Your Falcons aren’t always right.” His laugh grew louder. “There was that one time fourteen years ago when one of them was wrong.”

In the twenty years they’d known each other, Carlson had rarely used humor to deflect anything. That wasn’t his style. “Did you really tell the president what could have happened in Boston?” Maddux asked.

“Of course.”

Maddux still had his doubts, but he knew he wouldn’t get anything more out of Carlson. Despite how close they were, their relationship had its limits. It had to. “I hope so.”

Carlson held up a hand. “I have something that’ll take your mind off what you’re hearing.” The older man reached into his suit pocket and pulled out an envelope, then tossed it onto the coffee table in front of Maddux.

Maddux grabbed the envelope and tore into it like a wolf tearing into a fresh kill. When he’d finished reading what was typed on the single sheet of paper inside, he looked up gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Enjoy it, Shane. You deserve it.”

Maddux knew he should have left it at that, but he couldn’t. He’d trained himself to keep his eye on the ultimate objective, but there were still times when he needed to make his peace too. “Be careful of President Dorn. I know you think there’s no problem with him, but my information’s coming from three sources, Roger. When it triangulates like that, there’s an excellent chance it’s accurate. In fact, I’d say the odds are almost a hundred percent at this point.”

“Don’t worry, Shane, everything’s fine.”

“Roger, I—”

“It’s
fine
, Shane. Trust me.”

Maddux slipped the envelope into his coat pocket and stood up. “I do trust you, Roger. You don’t even have to say that.” He started for the basement stairs and then hesitated. “I’ve never begged you for anything, but I’m begging you for this, Roger. Please look into it one more time.” If Carlson did as Maddux asked, there would still be time to stop the train even though it had already left the station. If not, Maddux would move forward unilaterally. He loved the old man, but he loved the country more. “I’m telling you. President Dorn wants to destroy us.”

A
S QUICKLY
as the storm had erupted, it had died. The sleet and snow were gone; seas had settled back to long, gentle swells of eight feet; gusts had calmed to less than thirty knots; and the
Arctic Fire
was cruising steadily toward a big payday in Akutan with only forty nautical miles left to go.

Troy stood at midship on the starboard side of the vessel, near the crane that pulled the traps back aboard. He shook his head. He still couldn’t believe what had happened. He’d dodged
another
bullet.

The bridge was only thirty feet behind him, and he could see Sage and Duke up there through the reinforced glass yelling at each other, furious at losing so much expensive equipment to the sea. He couldn’t hear them, but they were doing a lot of finger-pointing and waving, like they always did when things went wrong. Evidently they’d already put the fact that their
nephew and son had cheated death by a yellow thread well into the rearview mirror.

Troy stared into the darkness shrouding the ocean, thinking again about how Speed Trap had come so close to death—but he hadn’t. How they’d been standing right beside each other when the huge wave had smashed into the ship, but he’d come out of it so much better.

The same thing had happened before. He’d survived situations like that unscathed or barely bruised while others around him had been badly hurt, even killed. He hated to admit it because it was unnerving, but maybe Red Fox One was right. Maybe he was untouchable; maybe he was the ultimate survivor.

He leaned on the deck wall next to the crane and glanced toward the stern. Even though the sun had set, he could make out the shadowy shapes of the ever-present seagulls. And hear their sharp cries as they hung a few feet off the surface behind the ship, moving gracefully up and down with the waves. The same flock had been with them since they’d left Dutch Harbor, patiently waiting for any scrap of bait or piece of crab that might come their way.

It looked so peaceful to be a seagull, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t peaceful or easy to be any wild creature, Troy knew. Every day was a brutal struggle to survive, and there was no help for the sick or wounded. Only the strong made it, and that was nature’s law. It was a cold reality, and it didn’t necessarily work well for the individual. But ultimately it worked for the species, and that was the only thing that mattered to nature.

It was the same way for the United States. All that mattered was that she got stronger every day, even if brave men and women had to die. But the pain and agony those men and women endured was worth it if their sacrifices ensured the survival of the country and its place as the world’s only superpower.

Troy touched his forehead. The gash he’d suffered in the chaos of the storm was only an inch long, but it was deep and he’d needed seven stitches to pull it together. He’d done the job himself with a sewing needle and black thread he’d found in an emergency kit on the
Fire
’s galley wall. He grinned as he thought about watching in the mirror as the needle plunged in and out of his skin. He was just glad his mother had no idea what had happened. She might have rented a boat in Dutch Harbor herself to come out here and get him if she had.

He knew his decision to sail on the Bering Sea had come as no surprise to his family, but that it was a bitter disappointment for her. She had hoped that after making it to the peak of Vinson Massif on a frigid Antarctic afternoon two months ago and completing the Seven Summits, he was finished tempting fate and had finally chased the daredevil demons from his soul.

She’d told him all of that very directly. She’d also told him that she wanted him to follow his father’s footsteps into New York City’s world of high finance. Bill Jensen was a Wall Street superstar, and she assumed her husband could get Troy any job he wanted at the huge bank he ran.

But Troy had made it clear to her then that a move to Manhattan still wasn’t in the cards. That he still wasn’t ready to trade in the razor’s edge for a suit and tie, a cramped Upper East Side apartment, and a ride on a crowded six train down to Wall Street every morning. There were too many challenges left on his daredevil list, he’d told her over the phone from a distant corner of the world he wouldn’t identify.

Maybe his mother was right, Troy thought to himself as he gazed into the darkness shrouding the Bering Sea. Maybe the razor’s edge was finally getting too sharp.

“Troy?”

He whipped around, startled by the voice. He’d been a world away. “What?”

Sage and Duke stood beside each other in front of him. They were big-boned, broad-shouldered men who were each over six feet tall. Looming behind them was Speed Trap’s older brother, Grant. Grant was a man-mountain who stood six-seven, weighed 270 pounds, and had even longer, starker blond hair than his kid brother. Speed Trap was nowhere in sight.

“We gotta talk, Troy,” Captain Sage said.

It was strange to see the captain out here on deck. Since they’d left Dutch Harbor, Troy couldn’t remember seeing Sage anywhere but on the bridge. “What about?”

Sage kicked at a crab leg lying on the deck, and Duke looked away.

Something in the back of Troy’s mind clicked. He didn’t like those looks in their eyes. “Hey, what the hell’s—”

“You’re going over,” Sage interrupted in a steely voice. “You can jump, or we can throw you over. It’s up to you.”

Troy straightened up. His senses were instantly on full alert, and his pulse was racing. Sage and Duke were passing a death sentence. Their expressions were grim, but he could see that they were committed to carrying it out.

“So you don’t have to pay me? Just so you can save eighty grand?”

“That was a lot of traps we lost,” Duke mumbled in a hollow voice. “And eighty grand’s a lot of money.”

Troy’s eyes flashed back and forth between the two men, searching for compassion from one of them. But he didn’t find it. “This is how you thank me for saving Speed Trap’s life?”

“It’s a raw deal,” Sage agreed.

“A raw deal?”

“Yup.”

“That’s all you can say?”

“Yup.”

“Over eighty grand. That’s what this comes down to?”

Captain Sage stared steadily into Troy’s eyes for several moments. Then he shook his head slowly. “This ain’t over eighty grand,” he whispered. “You and I both know that.”

How could Sage possibly know that? The question raced through Troy’s mind as he brought his fists up.

Then it hit him. There’d been a sly wolf hiding inside that suit of sheep’s clothing after all. The man hanging on the fence in Nuevo Laredo had rolled over on him. The man had said all the right things when they’d met, but he’d been lying the whole time.

Red Fox One was behind this execution.