The Cold Edge

by Trevor Scott

  “What’s going on here?” asked Kjersti.

  “You suppose the polar bears did this?” Anna asked, glancing around toward the horizon and to closer snowy outcroppings.

  “When’s our drop-dead time to leave?” Jake asked Kjersti.

  “I don’t like the way you phrased that.” She thought, calculating the time against distance. “We’ve got a few more hours. The weather is supposed to turn bad later this evening, with heavy winds, snow, and more fog.”

  “Could we stay the night?”

  “Only if we’re complete idiots.”

  Anna laughed. “You don’t know Jake very well.”

  “Hey.” Jake gave her a mock cold look.

  “I’m just saying. They don’t call you the crazy American for nothing.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I promised not to tell.”

  “You aren’t really serious about staying the night,” Kjersti said.

  “Only if we have to,” Jake said. “You two keep looking for more bodies. I’m going to scan the area.”

  “You better take one of the rifles,” Kjersti said. “They’re fully loaded, there’s extra rounds also, and the scopes are zeroed to one hundred meters.”

  “Great.” Jake took off, picked up the 30.06 and another box of 20 rounds, and then headed off to the west, toward a slight rise. Now he was up above the crash site, about two hundred yards away, with a view in all directions.

  He took out the SAT phone. Once it acquired a signal, he punched in the number and waited. Nothing. The signal was suddenly lost. That’s strange. He turned off the power and gazed around. What the hell had gone on here? It looked like there had been a shoot-out. Fighting over what had been in the aircraft? Must have been. Then it was only a short time before they would find all six of the bodies. Unless someone had made it out alive. Four against two. It was more likely that if anyone had survived it would have been one of the Soviets. He tried the SAT phone again, but got the same result. Damn it.

  Putting the rifle to his shoulder, he scanned the horizon in all directions through the nine power scope. Something bad had happened in this pristine place, and Jake had a feeling he’d uncover what that was soon enough.

  5

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Having flown from Oslo earlier that morning, Colonel Reed had wasted some time at two museums, waiting for his hotel in Central Stockholm to allow him to check in, and also waiting for his 1800 meeting with another contact. Now he sat somewhat subdued in the back of the taxi as the driver negotiated late rush hour traffic, bringing him from his hotel to Gamla Stan, the Old Town.

  The clouds were so thick it looked like midnight, with the rain starting now to beat down on the taxi’s windshield. He hated Stockholm. It was like a clean, cold Venice. Yet, whereas the Venetians were welcoming and boisterous, the people of Stockholm were as cold as the outside air. And the damn women were self-absorbed flaxen giants. Italian women were nicer, that was for sure, but they were too hairy. At least the Swedish women were fairly hairless. One consolation.

  Finally the taxi pulled over to the curb near the stock exchange. Reed paid the guy and got out.

  The little café was a block away and he was ten minutes late. Screw it. This was his meeting. He could wait.

  The rain started to pick up and Reed wondered if it was snowing right now way up north on Svalbard. Had Jake Adams actually found what he had been sent to find? Or did he find more? That was the hope.

  As he got to the front of the café, he didn’t hesitate—just rushed in out of the rain as if he had done it a hundred times. Now he stood, taking off his coat and giving it a slight shake to release the rain, which brought stares from one of those blonde giants, the waitress with hair to her strong shoulders.

  His contact would be wearing a red cap. That’s all Reed knew. Glancing around the crowded room, he saw the only red in the place, and it sat atop a huge head in the corner. A perfect spot for a view of the entire joint, but not close enough to the front windows or the door to concern him. But that’s about all Reed saw was the head and the red cap. His contact was a little person. A dwarf? Midget? Crap.

  Reed approached the man in the corner and stopped before sitting down. “You Oberon?”

  “King of the Fairies,” the guy replied, his voice a mixture of Swedish and effeminate Slavic. He gestured with his stubby fingers for Reed to sit across from him.

  Reed sat and studied the little man. His skin was dark, his eyes green and narrowly set in his large skull. The crow’s feet gave away his age to be around mid-fifties, but Reed already knew that, since he had read a briefing on the man earlier in the day. Oberon was really Victor Petrova, a former KGB officer who had retired nearly five years ago, and, according to intel briefs, started his own underground syndicate. He was into nearly anything he could get his stumpy little fingers on.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, Victor.”

  The man looked annoyed. “Please. . .my name is Oberon.”

  “Sorry, I thought that was just your code name,” Reed said.

  The leggy waitress came around and Reed asked for a cup of coffee. She left without acknowledging.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Oberon said. “What the hell does the CIA want with me?”

  “As I’m sure you know, the CIA is no longer the CIA,” Reed said. “Besides. I’m an independent contractor now. Just like you?”

  The little man laughed, his thick chest bouncing up against the edge of the table. “Right. That’s a good one, Colonel Reed. And I plan on trying out for Russian National Basketball Team.”

  “Believe me or not.” Reed had heard that Petrova was a genius, a chess master, and had worked at the highest levels in the KGB’s First Chief Directorate in the Disinformation Department. But why had his briefing not mentioned the man’s physical description?

  “So why did you hire Jake Adams to fly to Svalbard?”

  Reed tried not to flinch, but he guessed he might have failed, he was so put off by this revelation.

  “I’ll take your silence as an affirmation,” Oberon said. “I hope you don’t play chess or poker.”

  “Never found the time for either,” Reed said.

  The waitress finally brought his coffee and set it down on the table with a tinkling of China. The coffee had a film of foam on top and Reed hoped that wasn’t spittle.

  “She doesn’t like you much, Colonel. Let’s get down to business. You sent Jake Adams to Svalbard to find something. You think I know something about why he’s there. This is a chicken and egg conundrum, Colonel. You think I know something about the MiG, so you should have asked me before you sent Jake Adams there. Does he even know what he’s looking for there?”

  The colonel took a sip of the coffee. It wasn’t that hot, but the caffeine would help. He was having a helluva time staying awake recently.

  Finally, Reed said, “I want you to buy what he finds.”

  The little guy shook his enormous head, a smile on his face, revealing teeth that looked as if they had been ground to points but were just crooked and oddly spaced.

  “Why would I buy something that should already be mine?” Oberon asked.

  “You mean the Russian government.”

  “Technically that was before the Russian government,” Oberon reminded the colonel. “Old Soviet.”

  “Set a price.”

  “For what?”

  Silence as they stared at each other. Colonel Reed finished his coffee and gently set the coffee cup on the saucer, his eyes never leaving those green orbs.

  Oberon broke first. “I need to know what I’m buying.”

  “I understand you sent that MiG on the mission in the first place,” the colonel said. “So if anyone knows what was onboard, it’s you.”

  Silence again.

  “Assuming you’re correct,” the little man said, “why wouldn’t I just send some of my own men to take what should be mine in the first place? Or maybe we already got what was ther
e years ago.”

  Now the colonel smiled. He had him. The colonel did play chess. Had been the Air Force Academy champion for three years. “But you haven’t. Your men failed to retrieve. . .the item, back in eighty-six. The location was only known by your men back then, who failed to relay it back to you.” He was bluffing now. “And your superiors called off the mission, deciding to let it go.”

  “Superiors? I had a bunch of dolts who ran the First Chief Directorate back then. Glasnost. Perestroika. What the hell was that all about?”

  Colonel Reed hunched his shoulders.

  Oberon continued, “What makes you think Jake Adams will find anything in that Arctic wasteland? I understand he’s a drunk now.”

  The colonel tightened his jaw. “He has personal reasons.”

  The little man laughed. “You mean Captain Olson?”

  Damn it. Did this man know everything?

  “Your men killed him.” Another guess.

  “Maybe he’s alive,” Oberon said. “Took what was ours.”

  What the hell was he talking about? Remember, he had been in charge of the disinformation department. He was playing him. If the captain had lived, he would have turned over whatever the Soviets had been up to at the time. There would have been no other reason not to do so.

  “Will you buy what we find?” the colonel asked again.

  The little man shifted his head to the side and said, “You find something, you give me a call. Then we’ll talk. You can’t sell what you don’t have.” His eyes shifted toward the outside window. “Get down.”

  As he said it, the colonel looked at the window as he dove toward the floor.

  Bullets crashed through the glass and sprayed the wall where they had both been sitting. People screamed and scattered.

  The colonel looked up over a table, but the shooter was gone. As fast as he had shown he was gone. On his knees now, Colonel Reed scanned the recovering patrons. But Oberon, Victor Petrova, was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished.

  Glasgow, Scotland

  After Jimmy McLean got a call from his little friend, Gary Dixon, around noon, telling him he was going to Aberdeen to meet with his contact in person, McLean had told the guy to call him as soon as he had more information. McLean had gotten a call shortly after from his people, saying Dixon was on the move—not to the north in the direction of Aberdeen, but to the west toward Glasgow.

  Now, just after the supper hour, McLean pulled his Rover to the curb in a nasty little neighborhood a dozen blocks southeast of the city center. Litter was strewn about the street. Graffiti plastered upon brick walls. Among all the chaos of this rundown enclave, written in large red letters on a white background on a poster on a beat up bus stop shelter, was the phrase ‘Love Something.’ Government do-gooder, McLean guessed. Hopeful thinking in this neighborhood.

  He checked the address one more time to make sure it was correct. Then called his contact to verify Dixon was still there. He was. He hadn’t moved.

  McLean got out and walked toward the apartment building. This dwarf was starting to piss him off. They had gotten a vague confirmation of chatter similar to what Dixon was trying to sell him. Something was going down in Norway. But nobody was sure of the details.

  Inside, McLean checked the mail boxes. There were only six apartments. Three down and three on the second level. Which one? Looking at the first door down the hall, he smiled. He pulled a device from his pocket and put it up to the peep hole. The reverse peep-hole viewer allowed him to look inside the apartment, which contained an older couple watching the news. The next two were empty.

  He quietly went upstairs. About to use the viewer again, he realized he didn’t need to do so. The peep hole was around crotch level. What were the odds of. . .

  Getting to his knees and placing the viewer over the hole, he saw his little friend scurry across from one side of the room to the next. The lock was a piece of crap. In less than thirty seconds he had it unlocked, and with a quick shove he was inside.

  Dixon’s eyes got big when he saw McLean enter. The little guy’s legs shuffled toward the kitchen, but McLean caught him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him back into the living room.

  “What the hell,” Dixon yelled.

  McLean threw him onto a battered and torn sofa and loomed over the man. “This doesn’t look like Aberdeen.”

  “I had to stop by here and knock one off with the old lady. I’m a little guy but I got big needs.”

  McLean glanced about the room and saw that everything there was feminine. Flower pillows, dainty doilies, a knock off tiffany lamp. “I thought you might be a little light in the loafers.”

  “This coming from a guy who frequently wears a dress?”

  “It’s my clan kilt you fugly troll.”

  “Jesus. Back to the short jokes.”

  He felt like pummeling this little dwarf. But he needed him.

  “How’d you find me anyway?” Dixon asked, genuinely confused.

  “We have our ways, Gary. But I’m guessing your contact, if there is a contact, is not in Aberdeen. You’re gonna take me to him now. Let’s go.” He waved his hand toward the door.

  Dixon hesitated and then shoved his short legs over the side of the couch and hit the floor. “All right. All right. You got me, big guy. I was gonna call ya.”

  “Sure.”

  They left and went down to McLean’s Rover.

  Settled into the passenger seat, Dixon said, “Nice ride. Leather seats for MI-5? You must be a big shot there.”

  “This is my private auto,” McLean said, cranking it over and pulling out onto the deserted street. “Nice neighborhood.”

  “Hey, my people have been repressed since the beginning of time. Can’t get a decent job. Can’t get a nice place without that. Everyone tries their best to keep the little guy down.”

  “But you’re not a tiny bit bitter.”

  “Screw you.”

  McLean drove nowhere slow.

  “You gonna tell me where to go?” McLean asked.

  Dixon smiled.

  “Better yet. Give me directions to your friend’s place.”

  “He’s got a kiosk down in The Barras.”

  Great. The Barras was a market in Glasgow where one could get just about anything, including mugged. Kiosks and booths lined the streets, which had been closed off. Many of the items were of questionable legality. It took them a half hour to get there.

  McLean got out, made sure his wallet was securely buttoned into his back pocket, and checked his gun under his left arm. A comfort. For every step he took, Dixon took four.

  They found the kiosk, which sold everything from Scottish trinkets to Troll dolls. McLean noticed he even had his clan crest on key rings and coffee mugs. The man behind the counter was much older than Dixon, but around the same height. Only this guy’s gut was bigger than his head. He had built a ledge that ran the length of the booth, putting him close to McLean’s level.

  “This is the guy,” the kiosk man said. His voice came out like it traveled across broken glass.

  “Yeah,” Dixon said. “Tell him what you told me.”

  “What about a little consideration?”

  “So, you want me to pay you by the inch? Or the quality of the information?”

  “You were right, Gary. He’s pretty funny for a big guy.”

  McLean glanced around and finally pulled out a combo cell phone slash PDA, caught a signal, touched in a figure, and closed the browser. “There. I just transferred some money to Dixon’s bank account.”

  “You’re shittin’ me, right?” the kiosk man said.

  “Dead serious.”

  “You can check the balance at the ATM at the end of the street,” the man said to Dixon.

  Dixon started off but McLean grabbed him by the collar. “You’ll have to trust me. Now quit yanking me around and tell me what you know. Or I can take the both of you in and we can talk in a little room.”

  The kiosk man leaned onto the counter toward
McLean and said, “All right. I heard there was a Soviet MiG that went down back in the eighties on some Norwegian island up in the Arctic. Some kind of spy mission. Real secret type stuff. The Americans, the CIA, were on it like a Highlander on Haggis. So were the KGB. But none of them got off the island. I heard that for some reason both side gave up on it, but I don’t know why.”

  “What was on the plane?” McLean asked.

  “My contact said it was some kind of weapon. Something the old Soviets had developed. Word was sent out to start the bidding.”

  “Without even knowing what it was?” McLean asked. That was almost impossible to believe.

  “Well, the Russians know what it is,” the kiosk man explained.”

  McLean had him. “So your contact is Russian.”

  “I didn’t say that,” the man said emphatically.

  Not wanting to argue, knowing he already knew the answer, McLean leaned in a little closer and said, “Where is this going down?”

  “I don’t know. Some island in the Arctic. Spits or Swallows.”

  “Spitsbergen?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  McLean considered that. He had never been to the Svalbard Archipelago, but he had seen a BBC documentary on the islands a few years back. “Why is something going down now? How do you know?”

  “How much money did you put in Gary’s account?”

  “Enough. There’ll be more once I verify the information. Now answer the question.”

  “He has a temper,” the man said to Dixon. To McLean he said, “Some American hired a guy named Jake Adams to find the MiG. He’s there right now.”

  Jake Adams? McLean had never met the man, but another friend of his at MI6, Sinclair Tucker, had mentioned the man often. Adams was former Air Force Intel and former CIA. He was now a security consultant of some kind. Private. But he had been called back by the Agency a few times in the recent past. If Adams had been hired, something big was about to go down. Trouble seemed to follow him around like a mist on the glen.

  6

  Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  Kurt Jenkins slammed down the SAT phone for the tenth time in the past hour. He had tried to call Jake Adams for hours from his private office, but had not been able to get through. A communications specialist now stood at his side, a former Navy nuclear submariner who had retired from that service directly into the Agency a year ago.