Chapter 50
Snag
“Hello!” The man shouted the words. They carried across the open snow-covered airstrip like they were spoken in a sound chamber void of other sounds. He waved his rifle above his head in what appeared to be a signal of friendship. The rifle was in one hand and the other held a rope over his shoulder that dragged some object behind him.
Some instinctive sense told Karen that the man posed no danger to her. There was even something about him that looked vaguely familiar. She loosened her grip on her rifle. Her heartbeat settled, even though dropping her guard went against everything Will had taught her.
“Always expect the unexpected,” she remembered him saying whenever he took her to Snag. Once in the summer, she had let her guard down. He had carried her out to the encampment and stayed for a day. The grizzly mother made no sound. Karen didn’t even see the cub. Will was with her, moved quietly to her back, grabbed her shoulder while putting his hand over her mouth so as to silence any sound. He pulled her behind him and held his rifle in a tight grip. Slowly, they moved backwards away from the creature. Later, she had realized that the cub was just beyond the bend of the path she was taking. If alone and without being aware, within twenty paces she would have been on top of the cub. It was a lesson that followed her from then on, as before she had often hiked with her head down, looking at her boots and the flora of the green Yukon summer. The failure to keep one’s head up in the Yukon could mean death.
“Hello?” she called back. They headed separately in the direction of the cabin, where their paths would meet. As she got closer, she studied the man with his new parka, new backpack, and red snowshoes.
“You don’t remember me.” Kevin Moncrief dropped his rifle and the rope. “I was in Somalia.”
She felt immediate comfort from the words. Somalia was a nightmare that had pushed her to the brink of survival until William Parker and his men had come to her rescue. If this stranger knew to mention those words, then he could only be here because of Will.
“So, where is he?”
“Right now, I’m not totally sure.”
She sensed a hedge and caught a brief look of guilt flashing across the big man’s expression. She suspected that he at least knew what side of the planet Will Parker was on.
“I’m Moncrief.”
“The one who served with him?”
“Yep.” Moncrief turned to the shape in the snow at the end of the rope. “Sorry.”
“Why?”
“This morning he came at me.” Moncrief pointed to the bloody carcass of a fox tied to the rope. “One of your animals?”
“Sort of.” She was a scientist first and foremost. Like a rancher raising cattle, she tried to not attach herself to the creatures. Naming them was more of a method of keeping track than any deeper bond.
“One sick animal.” Moncrief kept his distance. Even though the carcass was already stiff, foam around the muzzle was still visible. “Came at me like he’d OD’d on crank.”
“Right.” Karen knelt and studied the creature from a careful distance. The fur was white and the only color against the snow was a small streak of blood that followed the trail. “Did you touch it?”
“No, ma’am, as kids we learned quick not to touch sick animals and rattlesnakes.”
“Seen something like this before?” Karen knew that rabies, while often spoken of, was rarer than strikes of lighting. Few ever came in contact with rabid creatures.
“My dad had to shoot a dog once,” Moncrief said. “It was just as sick as this one. But Dad told me to stay away even if it’s dead. Just like with rattlesnakes. They can still bite when they’re dead.”
She nodded. “So, why are you here?”
“There is a small chance that trouble might show up. Will just wanted to make sure you would be all right.” Moncrief smiled. “Sorta like sending flowers.”
She looked at the dead fox, then at his gun, and smiled. “Roses or lilies?”
Chapter 51
The Aircraft on Approach to Landing in Anchorage
Despite fighting a fifty-knot headwind across Canada, the Gulfstream beat the pilot’s expectation of arrival by nearly an hour. The jet flew at Mach .85. A private jet wasn’t supposed to be able to fly near the speed of sound, but this was the fastest general aviation aircraft in the world. It flirted with the speed of sound because, like its competitors, Gulfstream knew its customers wanted to cross continents and oceans ever-faster and higher.
The five passengers were separated into several spaces. They seemed out of place in the $80 million aircraft’s tan leather lounge chairs. The dark wood and gold trim marked the cabin as a form of transportation for the chairman of a major corporate board, not special-operation types. These passengers, except for one, looked like men who’d earned most of their frequent-flier miles in the cargo hold of a C-130 military turboprop.
Frank Caldwell looked around the cabin as they started the descent into Anchorage. Alexander Paul sat in the back with his computer and the aircraft’s satellite telephone, speaking with callers throughout the journey. He had a Waterford crystal old-fashioned glass half full of a scotch of some kind. A young pixie of a flight attendant with short, strawberry-blond hair kept his tumbler full. Caldwell had found Paul to be the rare type of person who didn’t show his liquor. Perhaps this was because the man was already mean and short-tempered; despite the flight attendant’s best efforts, he gave her the same scowl each time she came to refill his drink.
The three bodyguards who traveled with Paul sat in the front in seats that faced each other. They all had beards, which had probably been initiated during their service in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Caldwell recognized the other signs of such veterans: heavy tattooing on block-sized arms hardened by hours in the weight room; and the almost total absence of conversation between men who were comfortable with breaking down doors and killing anyone behind them. In fact, like many twilight warriors, they used much of the flight to recharge their batteries and sleep.
Caldwell sat in another seat, alone, looking at the satellite photos of Snag. A small cabin sat at the end of a runway that was covered in snow, but remained visible due to the straight runway and absence of trees around it. One photo was recent and showed the tracks of an aircraft that had landed and marked its path with its skids.
Why the weapons? he wondered. There didn’t seem to be any danger other than a fox or an eagle. Even the bears had bunked down for the season. A CDC doctor didn’t seem to require anything other than asking her for some help.
He looked out through the large oval window. The aircraft was engulfed in clouds as it continued its decent.
Probably over Snag, he thought. With the speed of the aircraft, they would have started their descent from 41,000 feet on the other side of the mountain range from Anchorage. He thought of the scientist, somewhere below him, under the cloud cover, marching through the snow like some figure out of a National Geographic documentary, looking for her animals in the outback and not even thinking that the sound far up in the sky was an aircraft heading for a collision with her.
They’d be arriving at Snag soon enough, after they’d switched aircraft in Anch—
“Caldwell!” Paul called from the rear of the jet.
Caldwell stood and walked back to him while the aircraft jiggled in the turbulence. He didn’t say anything.
“Where will we meet the chopper?”
“Ross Aviation.”
“Someone is joining us.” Paul seemed to indicate that another special-ops guy would meet up with them.
“Yes, sir.” Caldwell didn’t understand the mystery. “Do I need to get him some cold-weather gear?”
“Yeah, he’s already at ANC. He can hook up with our contact there to get what he needs.” Paul took another swallow from his drink.
Caldwell had given up drinking when he got
off active duty, but he recognized the look and smell of a high-grade scotch. As Caldwell studied his superior, the large oval windows of the Gulfstream illuminated the cabin in cold, white light. Paul’s expression looked distant and he had his chin tilted up in a way as if to ask, “You dare mess with me?” His gray hair betrayed a receding hairline, and his skin had acquired dark spots that signaled too much sun exposure over the years. Paul’s deep-seated, dark eyes suggested a brooding soul and stood atop a strong nose— like that of a Roman emperor—and pointed chin. Age had camouflaged his eyebrows, turning them gray and leaving them almost an afterthought on the man’s face.
As he regarded Paul in the Yukon light, Caldwell realized that he had made an error in taking the job. His friends would have dismissed such grumblings if he told them he went to work in an $80 million private aircraft, but they hadn’t spent a day with Alexander Paul. West Point had taught Caldwell principles of leadership. One of the most important was number six: It’s essential that a leader know his men and look out for them. Paul didn’t seem to care much for that commandment.
“I’ll tell the chopper pilot to be on the lookout for the guy.”
“Okay.”
“Anything special we need to know?”
“He’ll stand out.” The question was dismissed with the answer.
“The pilot told me a few minutes ago that the mountain range is still under the storm. It’s clearing on the other side, but a chopper can’t go over this weather.”
Paul’s reaction was exactly what Caldwell expected: He looked at his watch and, from his expression, made a calculation involving time zones on the other side of the planet.
“We need to get there.” The order was clear. “They still haven’t found him.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was only one answer for a man like Alexander Paul.
Chapter 52
The Treasury Department’s FinCEN Center
“It took an act of Congress.” FBI Special Agent Donahue’s superior handed the paper to his lead investigator.
“They didn’t want to cooperate?” Donahue had convinced his boss that, when talking about Virginia Peoples’s death with her FinCEN boss, that the man’s reaction had seemed odd.
“Hell, no.”
The two agencies worked together on many cases, but the one investigative branch that Virginia had been working in seemed separate from the rest.
“Justice had to hash it out.” Donahue’s boss was old-school and didn’t tolerate well the lack of cooperation between federal agencies.
Donahue nodded. “Good enough. I’ll go back over there with this and get a download of her computer.”
* * * *
“I don’t know why this took a subpoena.” The director of the FinCEN operations center wore thick glasses and seemed like a stick figure inside his cheap suit.
Donahue sat in a chair by the front desk of the FinCEN center with another fellow special agent who had expertise in both computers and software. They had been waiting nearly an hour for the agency to comply with the court’s order.
“Anyway,” said the IT man, “I won’t waste any more of your time.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Virginia’s computer is blank.”
“Blank?”
“Yeah, you can check it. The hard drive has been completely deleted.”
“Are you talking about the files?”
“Everything. Even the operating system.”
The two agents looked at each other.
“Is her supervisor here?”
“No, he left a message that he had to leave early for a doctor’s appointment.”
Donahue shrugged. “Well, we’re going to have to pull the hard drive and take it to our forensic lab.”
The special agent with computer expertise followed the director to Virginia’s desk.
“I understand.” The op-center director seemed in shock and disbelief. “I would have never thought this. I can give you whatever you need on Byrd, Virginia’s boss.”
“Got his home address?” The agent thought this would be a good place to start if he was, in fact, at a doctor’s appointment.
“Sure.” The operations-center director crossed over to a secretary’s desk, opened up a screen on the computer, and hit print. “This is all of his contact information.”
“Yes, thanks.”
“First, Virginia’s death and now her boss?” The director seemed shell-shocked.
“Yes, sir.” Donahue suspected there was much more to it all.
“He won’t be there, will he?”
“No.” It was Donahue’s guess, but it was a guess that would be proven right in a way.
* * * *
The agents also pulled the hard drive from Darrel Byrd’s computer.
“This is probably a waste of time.” The operations director didn’t seem uncooperative. More than anything, he appeared to be in shock. “Both he and Virginia knew computer technology cold. If they wanted anything deleted, it’s not coming back.”
“Virginia was the target of a murder.” Donahue decided it did little harm to let the FinCEN operations-center director know how deep this was getting.
“Oh, god.” The director sank into a chair. “I thought it was a random robbery that went wrong.”
A cell phone rang.
“MPD.” The second agent held up his cell phone, showing an incoming call. Metro police had been alerted by the two agents and given the address where Virginia’s missing supervisor lived.
“Yes?”
The agent leaned against the supervisor’s desk with his cell phone up to his ear.
“Okay, we’ll see you there in half an hour.” He killed the call.
“Gone?” Donahue sat in the chair behind the desk, looking at the computer, but turned to his fellow officer.
The operations-center director leaned forward to listen as well.
“No, he’s still there.” The agent said it in a way that didn’t sound quite right. “We were wrong.”
“What?”
“When we guessed he’d be long gone.”
“And?”
“Looks like a small-caliber bullet to his head.”
The op-center director inhaled sharply and sank deeper into the chair.
The agent put the phone back in his coat pocket. “And a suicide note.”
“Suicide?” The IT man spoke the word as if exhaling a breath.
No one with an FBI badge believed it.
Chapter 53
Near the Dacha West of Moscow
Will watched the Russian soldier sitting in the chair with the glow of the fire lighting his face. A dim lamp near the front door provided the only other light in the room. The man looked half asleep. Sniper school and a childhood of hunting had taught Will the self-discipline of freezing in place. He didn’t stop breathing. That would be a mistake, leading to an unwanted and noisy gasp for air when his oxygen ran out. Instead, he slowed his breathing to small sips of air. In so doing, he also slowed his heart rate and could remain frozen like a buck that had heard a sound in the forest.
As he watched and waited, Will relaxed his muscles, thinking how important it was to become small…waiting for the next move.
It didn’t take long.
A barely audible noise came from around the side of the cabin. Will moved only his eyes, taking a glance in the direction of the sound. A window was slowly being pulled open.
He turned his eyes back to the room and the guard, who remained motionless.
A figure was climbing out of the window, moving in an intentionally slow way. The window was at ground level and, fortunately, had only a short drop to the bank of snow below. The man stopped when his feet hit the ground, stayed motionless for a moment, and then slowly pulled a small backpack through the wi
ndow. He was heading around the corner of the cabin, mistakenly toward the main road, when he stopped. A glance to the back caused him to freeze as he recognized the shape of a man who was standing almost within reach.
Will slowly raised his hand to stop Ridges. As he leaned slightly forward to speak, he glanced back through the window into the main room of the cabin.
The guard’s chair was empty.
Instinctively, Will reached into the pocket of the Tyvek suit and felt for his pistol, then pulled back close to the tree. Again, he gave the hand signal to Ridges not to move. They both froze in place.
The door to the back porch opened.
The guard came out into the cold without a jacket or hat. He walked to the end of the porch and unzipped his trousers, belched, and began to urinate on the fresh snow. He had finished and was turning back to the cabin when he stopped and stared at the tree trunk where Will was standing. It was as if he were focused on a Gergely Dudás puzzle, looking for a panda in a field of snowmen, like one trying to see the missing piece directly in front of him, when it suddenly stood out.
Before the man could speak, Will was on top of him. The man was clearly strong and well-trained, but he didn’t say a thing. Instead of calling for help, he smiled at Will, as if to say, My bad…I’ll handle the American.
It was a mistake.
Will moved without a moment’s hesitation. His elbow slammed into the man’s rib cage, causing all of the air to come out of his lungs. Before the guard could recover, Will headbutted the bridge of the man’s nose. The guard had somehow produced a knife, and he swung the blade blindly at Will, who followed with his elbow to the man’s throat. A moment later, the guard was unconscious on his knees, looking like a victim of an execution, slumped and with blood coming from his ear and mouth. He was, however, still alive.
Will stood over him, waiting to see if movement came from any other direction. Everything became still again. The snow kept coming down, quickly covering the man in white powder. Will turned back to the side of the cabin.
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