Night Strike
By
Michael W. Sherer
Night Strike
Copyright © 2015 by Michael W. Sherer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Cutter Press, Seattle.
Cover Design: Anita Elder Design and Michael W. Sherer
For Valarie, LoML.
And for Brian and Marceil Whitney—
with thanks for giving back.
Also by Michael W. Sherer
Blake Sanders Series
Night Drop
Night Tide
Night Blind
Emerson Ward Mysteries
Death On A Budget
Death Is No Bargain
A Forever Death
Death Came Dressed In White
Little Use For Death
An Option On Death
Suspense
Island Life
Praise for the Blake Sanders Series:
Night Drop
“Looking for an adrenaline rush? You'll find that and more in Night Drop. Blake Sanders is back, and that means the action is non-stop!” —Alan Russell, author of Multiple Wounds and Burning Man
“I LOVED this story. Night Drop is a fast-paced, tension-filled thriller that will grab you by the throat until the very last page. Blake Sanders is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in years. This is definitely Sherer at his best.” —KT Bryan, author of Team EDGE
Night Tide
“A great, great read! Even better than Night Blind, and that’s not easy.” – Timothy Hallinan, author of The Fame Thief
“…a cracking good story and a first-rate thriller.” – J. Carson Black, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Survivors Club
“A tight, well-constructed story and characters that leap from the page. I’ll definitely be back for more.” – Robert Gregory Browne, author of Trial Junkies 2: Negligence
Night Blind
“An appealing, empathetic lead…” —Publisher’s Weekly
“This is an exciting, well-crafted thriller and most certainly a satisfying one.” —Mysterious Reviews
“Thriller writer Sherer renders a sympathetic lead character and an engaging…story line in his latest…” —Allison Block, Booklist
“Loved every page of it.”
—Brett Battles
“A tightly paced page-turner that's impossible to put down. Terrific!"
—Allison Brennan
“Pay attention. You won’t want to miss a word."
—J.T. Ellison
“…rich, complex, and deeply satisfying.”
—Bill Cameron
Acknowledgements
I’m indebted to Brian Whitney for his knowledge of mental disorders and his therapist’s perspective on the treatment of patients suffering from them. Thanks, also, to Marceil Whitney for the outreach she does to the Seattle and Eastside communities at large at the Eastside Tennis Center, particularly those for at-risk youth. And a big thank-you for bidding on the gift of including her husband as a character in this book at an auction intended to raise money for her own organization, ETC.
Thanks to all my social media friends who encouraged me during the writing of this book. I’m glad to have met so many of you in person, making you real, not virtual, friends.
NIGHT STRIKE
C hapter 1
July 25—Seattle
He stood in the shadows under a small grove of trees and watched the figure on the far side of the freeway advance on foot across the overpass. At this hour of the night, light traffic made it easier to tell if the man had been followed. He himself had worked his way around an area of the city, first in his car and then on foot and by bus to be absolutely certain no one followed. Years had passed since they’d taught him how to evade surveillance, but after several hours he felt sure he was black. He’d seen no familiar faces, no face more than once, had caught no one ducking into doorways when he’d doubled back on his route. Unless they had an army—highly unlikely given their command structure—they had no clue to his whereabouts.
What worried him, though, was that he had no idea where they were, either. On one of the few occasions he’d had to endure face-to-face time with them—in a too-small, older model car that reeked of stale, greasy fast food remains, cheap cologne, fear and intimidation—he’d planted a tiny bug on the side of the front passenger seat down near the floor. The transmitter had a range of a quarter-mile at most, so their silence could mean they were farther away. But he hadn’t heard a peep all night, only static from his earpiece, and he worried that the bug’s battery may have run out of juice.
Clear skies had allowed daytime temperatures to rise into the mid-70s, but now, without a blanket of clouds, the heat dissipated rapidly. He was grateful for the black windbreaker to insulate him from the relative chill. For a moment he let his focus soften, let his mental gaze pull back to take in the wider portrait. The white noise of tires on the freeway below couldn’t block out the gentle lap of water on boat hulls moored in the yacht club marina a few hundred yards away. The view of pavement, some trees and little else couldn’t blot out his mental vision of Lake Union’s sparkling blue water, the Space Needle blasting off into a turquoise summer sky, the snow-capped peak of Mt. Rainier rising above Seattle’s hills in the distance. He loved this place. It was his home.
He opened his eyes. The overpass in front of him was six lanes wide with a sidewalk on either side, an empty concrete and asphalt desert that seemed to stretch forever before more trees sprouted from the median and parkways far on the other side of the freeway. On the closest end, stairs led down from both sidewalks to an express bus stop lane on the freeway below. He waited until the approaching figure started down the stairs on his side of the overpass before he stepped out from under the trees and crossed the intersection. Craning his neck to see if his appearance attracted anyone’s attention, he hurried across the open expanse of pavement and down the long flight of stairs. His knees groaned accusingly, reminding him again that he was too old to be playing this young man’s game. Those who had survived to an age where they enjoyed grandchildren and a slower pace in life were the ones who sat behind desks and pushed them around like chess pieces.
Nearly forty years since he’d come to this country. Forty years he’d answered to the name “Tony D’Amato” instead of “Anton Kuznetzov.” Since before the dissolution of the union. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Before glasnost. He’d been in Amyerika since the days the Cold War was as frigid as Yakutsk in January. And they’d waited all those years, biding their time until he’d thought they must have forgotten. They’d waited until he’d almost forgotten what it was like to live in a country without the freedoms he’d now enjoyed for close to half a century. And at an age when he, too, should be enjoying a few vnooki playing games at his feet as he sat by the fire with his newspaper, they had activated him.
The man far down the bus platform at the bottom of the stairs could be his ticket out of this life of spying. A strike hound that had been loosed on his tail, the man had sniffed Tony out with every intention of marking him to ground until the rest of the pack could come in for the kill. But Tony had thrown the man off the scent by proposing a deal—he’d give the man exactly what he wanted in exchange for protection, a new identity and a new life.
The man raised his
head and looked in Tony’s direction. He appeared relaxed, unconcerned, which worried Tony as much as if he’d seemed too nervous. Tony took a last look around as he stepped down onto the platform. No turning back now. He strode forward with purpose, ready to start a new life. He’d been an American too long to continue helping those svinyey, those pigs. The man watched him come, and Tony could see he missed nothing despite his casual air. His windbreaker had a roomy cut, so Tony knew he was armed, but his hands remained at his sides.
Twenty yards away now, and the man’s head bobbed almost imperceptibly in greeting. D’Amato opened his mouth to begin the dance, but the crackle in his earpiece prevented any words from escaping.
“Von tam!” a voice yelled in his ear. “I see him! Over there!”
D’Amato jerked his head around, looking for the car in which he’d planted the bug.
A different voice came through the earpiece. “Where? I don’t see anyone.”
“Down there, fool!”
D’Amato dropped to one knee and swiveled around. From the corner of his eye he saw the man at the end of the platform reach inside his jacket. The sound of a car engine revving took his focus to the overpass above them and then to the sweep of headlights as a car rounded the cloverleaf onto the ramp down to the freeway. D’Amato ran in a low crouch toward the man on the platform now, yelling to be heard over the screeching tires and whining engine.
“Get down!”
The man ignored him, focused instead on the car racing down the ramp toward them on the other side of the platform. He had a semiautomatic out now and planted his feet like a gunslinger from the Old West, gun hand extended as he fished in his pocket with the other. The car flashed past D’Amato and pulled even with the cowboy in a cloud of blue smoke, tires shrieking. The man got off one shot before a Jack-in-the-box popped out of the passenger side window and returned fire over the roof—pop-pop-POP! The man on the platform flailed as the first bullet ripped into his chest, his gun flying from his hand and skittering down the platform. The second and third bullets thunked into the man’s chest and head and he crumpled to the platform before his pistol stopped at D’Amato’s feet.
D’Amato snatched up the gun and backpedaled, feet scrabbling on the cement for a purchase as the driver threw the car into reverse, tires burning rubber as the engine redlined. They won’t shoot, he told himself. You’re too valuable to them. But his body had already reacted, turning him toward the stairs at a dead run. He couldn’t let them capture him, either. Another set of headlights swept down the freeway on-ramp, and D’Amato’s heart leaped in his chest. A delivery truck rumbled toward him, the driver quickly preoccupied by the sight of a car reversing up the ramp at full speed. As the trucker laid on his horn, D’Amato willed his aging muscles to put on more speed. The truck lumbered by, horn blaring, but D’Amato didn’t turn to look at the impending crash. He rushed headlong toward the stairs and raced up two at a time, heart pounding so loudly in his ears he barely heard another pop-pop behind him.
But no whump or sounds of rending metal and breaking glass split the night, just the squeal of brakes and irate bleat of horns. Through his earpiece, D’Amato heard a scream of obscenities in a language he wished he’d never known. The truck wouldn’t stop them for long, only slow them down. And they’d be on him again. Now he had no choice. His life here was over. He had only one option.
Run!
Chapter 2
July 4—Greenland, three weeks earlier.
The wind whistled in Macready’s ears, cold biting into the small amount of bare skin on his face not covered by goggles or the arctic survival suit’s balaclava under his helmet. Behind him, the monotonous rumble of turboprop engines faded as the C-130J flew off into the watery permanent daylight in this part of the world. Doubtful anyone was awake at this hour despite the light sky, and the drop zone was several miles from the target, but the Super Hercules looked enough like an Antonov An-12 in profile that he had a plausible story ready if anyone happened to spot it.
Without knowing it, Russia had supplied all his gear, in fact, from the pack full of supplies dangling on a strap twenty feet beneath his feet to the MP-443 Grach Yarygin PYa semiautomatic pistol tucked into a waterproof pouch zipped inside his suit. Even the Russian passport tucked in the same pouch, though forged, was real. The only gear not sourced from Russia was the tactical parachute arching over his head. Made by an American company, the wing-like chute was the military version of the ram-air parachute used by the world champion Russian Army competition jump team. The Russian Army had adopted the new, square D-12 parachute for its ground troops, but if the American-made tactical chute was good enough for the Spetsnaz, he trusted it more than one from a Russian firm like Polyot. Hell, the Russians had even spec’d the new Strike One 9x19mm semiautomatic from Italy for its ground forces, replacing the old homegrown GSh-18. Then again, he’d seen Russian Special Forces commandos using Glock and Sig Sauer models, too, rather than Russian-made pistols. Whatever worked.
He glanced up at the wing as he glided toward the drop zone, his forward speed nearly 15 meters per second—a little more than 30 mph. The specially made chute blended in with the sky. The non-porous material used for the bottom of the wing was blue and gray. The fabric forming the top of the wing was white, making him nearly invisible from above against the snow-covered tundra still far beneath his feet. In full flight, he descended vertically at a rate of about four meters per second, giving him another five minutes to endure the arctic summer air before he touched down.
He relaxed in the harness, alert to winds shifts, but keeping his muscles loose. These few moments likely would be his last chance to empty his mind and enjoy the nearly weightless feeling of flight. The wind rush was the only sound. Cloud cover dimmed the weak sunlight angling in from a few degrees above the northern horizon. The soft light bathed the vista below, making craggy mountains rising up from the sea stand out in relief, the ice sheet on top resembling the fissured, wrinkled surface of some ancient giant marble sculpture eroded by time. A wide, dark channel of water cut between rocky cliffs and formed a “V” as it outlined a large, rocky island stretching 20 miles in length.
Landing on a glacier was dangerous at best, deadly at worst. But the river of ice would give him a relatively straight, if challenging, shot to the target. He wouldn’t have much time after landing to find a spot and make camp before people stirred, increasing the chance he might be seen. He glanced up at the watch and altimeter strapped to the inside of his right arm, not wanting to lose his grip on the toggle that controlled his flight path and speed. Not much time. He scanned the icy terrain below in earnest now, looking for a relatively smooth place to come down where he wouldn’t slide into a crevasse.
On terra firma, the ground always appeared darker the closer he got until it looked like a black hole about to swallow him whole. The glacier was the same in reverse, a white mass with no features, no depth. The night vision goggles helped, lending definition to peaks and valleys, cracks and plains. Making a wide turn, he surveyed the inhospitable topography in a fast grid pattern until he found a spot he liked. Sixty seconds later he released the pack dangling below his feet and then he was down, boots digging into the ice and hard snowpack.
Before he could pull the canopy release mechanism, sudden wind shear gusted a canopy of snow across his vision, twisting the chute and blowing it sideways, yanking him off his feet. Pain shot up from his shoulder, and his arm went limp, fingers losing their grasp on the toggle. Cursing himself for attempting a stand-up landing, he twisted his torso sharply and fell the way he’d been trained in basic jump school then tugged the canopy release with his good hand. As soon as the mechanism released he stopped sliding across the ice and the chute billowed to the ground. He lay there for a minute and took stock.
His left shoulder was dislocated, the arm useless for the moment. He could fix that. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he rolled over, got his good hand under him and pushed himself up onto his feet. When he
stood, pain stabbed him from a new location. One of his ankles nearly gave way, threatening to topple him onto the snow-packed ice. A boot must have caught in a crack when the wind shift pulled him off balance. Feeling the strain, he cursed himself again for not wearing ankle braces. But he’d only been able to pack so much, and the braces would have meant more things to carry. He gingerly put weight on the sore ankle. Definitely strained, but not broken or sprained, thank god.
Looking around, he spotted an ice boulder the size of an economy car that had been thrust up out of the glacier, and slowly made his way to it. Bracing himself, he slammed his shoulder into the ice. Despite the pain, he felt immediate relief as the shoulder joint popped back into place. It would feel stiff and sore for several days, but unless he’d torn tendons or ligaments, it would heal fairly quickly with no lasting damage.
The breeze still felt cold but balmy compared to what he’d descended through. He guessed the temperature hovered around freezing. Once the sun rose higher, it might warm to the low 40s, perfect for a day at the beach—an arctic one. He sighed as he gathered in the chute. He was getting too old for this shit.
He retrieved the rucksack and scanned his surroundings. The snowpack was hard, so he likely wouldn’t need the compact snowshoes strapped to his backpack. Removing some of the snowshoe straps, he used them to fashion a makeshift ankle brace. In what should have taken less than thirty minutes but took twice that, he erected a tent using the parachute fabric and a lightweight frame strapped to his rucksack. He worked steadily but not feverishly, stripped down to the dry suit under his survival suit. If he overheated in the dry suit he might chill too rapidly as the sweat evaporated when he stopped moving. Both shoulder and ankle were tender, but mobile, and the constant movement kept the muscles warm and loose.
Night Strike Page 1