What the hell is this guy talking about? Cassie thought. “What’s a sharashka?”
“It is hell, GI Jane. And we are in the seventh circle, right next to Brutus,” Marko said, with a sick, almost proud smile on his face.
Cassie suddenly noticed movement in the dark cell next to Brady’s. A lump of blankets on the bed that she hadn’t noticed before. A figure stirred and lifted its head.
“Aw, sleeping beauty wakes!” Marko said.
Cassie stared at the figure that stood from the bed and limped to the runnel. Matted hair showed in the dim light as the person bent down and drank from the flowing water.
“How are you feeling, pussycat?” Marko teased. “Cat still got your tongue?”
“Marko, stop it,” Brady said.
The figure at the runnel continued to drink, acting like he hadn’t heard the sneering Ukrainian.
“What?” Marko said to Brady. “He don’t talk, all he do is sleep.”
“Let him be, Marko.”
Cassie got off her bed and made her way to the front of her cell, peering at the man. The mop of hair looked oddly familiar, the scraggly beard—
The figure raised his head and wiped the falling water from a bruised mouth, and a pair of familiar eyes grew wide in recognition.
“Cassie!” the figure croaked.
Cassie felt the breath leave her lungs.
“Billy!”
Chapter 20
EAGLE, ALASKA
Saturday, June 29th
GALE TOOK A deep breath and prepared himself for what he was about to hear from Plant’s computer. The audio was grainy, then he heard his late son-in-law’s familiar voice.
Hey, this is Derrick. You know what to do. In the meantime, remember: Only dead fish swim with the current.
The voice mail then beeped and there was a moment of silence, followed by Cassie’s choking sob.
Derrick, my secret is… deep down I know it was my fault. I ignored the signs. I… the truth is, I’m not doing better. It’s all a sham, I’m not doing better at—
The phone beeped three times and an animatronic voice alerted that the voice mail box was now full.
Plant stopped the recording and Gale felt numb. That was the last thing Cassie had said. She had been lying to them, lying to her family, her therapists, to everyone.
She was still blaming herself.
Tremors of guilt racked Gale. Tears welled in his eyes. His baby girl was suffering.
Plant remained quiet, then said, “Can you verify that was Cassandra on the recording?”
“That was her,” Gale said, trying to keep it together. “I know what you’re thinking, Ross asked the same question. You think Cassie could have staged this whole thing downriver. That she wanted to make it look like something else, that she ended it elsewhere. But that’s impossible, she would never hurt Maverick. That dog was the only thing linking her back to Derrick. She would never—”
“I’m not thinking that, Mr. Gale,” Plant said. “I think Cassie was going through something terrible, but I don’t think this is something she set up. The evidence leads to a possible abduction that was hastily covered up, but not suicide.”
Gale dabbed at his eyes, the sound of Cassie’s pained voice still ringing in his ears.
Plant said, “You gave me a brief history last week over the phone of what Cassie was going through—about her husband. I thought we could expand on that a little bit. Help me to understand your daughter a bit more.” She turned her laptop around so it faced her. “From what I read online, your daughter is an exceptional young woman. The third woman to graduate from Ranger School. That whole political scandal she was embroiled in. Cassie sounds tough.”
“Tough doesn’t even cut it,” Gale said. “She’s like no one I’ve ever met before. She’s loving, passionate, disciplined—highly intelligent and determined.”
“A woman who can handle herself in any situation.”
“For the first ten years of Cassie’s life,” Gale said, swallowing hard, “I was emotionally absent. Withdrawn. I couldn’t come to grips with my wife’s death. The ranch hands and Emily took the reins raising Cassie, and I’ve never forgiven myself for doing that to them. After a while, I pulled myself out of my funk. I realized that I needed to be present in my daughters’ lives—I needed to be available. I needed to be a role model.”
“From where I’m standing, it looks like you did an amazing job, Mr. Gale. From what I read about that senator in Montana, she used Cassie as a pawn to further an agenda.”
“It didn’t bother Cassie; she’s always had thick skin, just like her mother.”
“And what about this year? Tell me what happened with her husband.”
Gale shifted in his seat. “My daughter married her childhood sweetheart, Derrick Halpern. He was like a son to me. They married when they were eighteen. He entered the marines right after. Went into Recon. Seven tours overseas over the course of thirteen years. We never saw the signs. He was home on leave last Christmas, deploying again in February. His last tour, so he said. Cassie was already out of the military by then. They spoke of moving up to Alaska. They seemed so happy—Cassie announced she was—”
Gale couldn’t get the words out; he just flicked his eyes to Plant’s stomach and saw her eyes widen in shock.
“Pregnant?”
“They announced it over Christmas dinner.”
Gale felt the tears running down his unshaven face and cleared them with his sleeve.
“A week later, New Year’s morning, I was sleeping in when I heard the worst scream I’ve ever heard in my life. It came from outside. I ran out of the house, through the snow, and found Cassie sitting in front of the barn, screaming at the top of her lungs. The barn door was open. Derrick’s body was hanging from the rafters. Cassie miscarried later that day.”
Gale saw Plant’s features flush.
“A week later, we had Cassie committed to a facility in Missoula. She was on suicide watch for the first month. Doctors let her out in late May. Her therapists said she was doing much better. Ready to start the next chapter of her life. Cassie looked great, she seemed okay—but I guess it was all a lie.”
Plant looked like she didn’t know what to say, so she stood instead, rounded the desk, leaned on it, and said softly, “I’m going to do whatever I can to find your daughter, Mr. Gale.”
“Those people from the Northern Breeze—”
“I can’t have you talking with them. Not until we hear back from Condon and Ross. I will question each of them again, multiple times if I have to. But I am going to have to ask you to keep your distance from them. They’ve checked in at the Eagle Motel down the street. Vance is going to keep an eye on them until Ross gets back so Vance can get his plane in the air.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I’d suggest you get some more sleep, but let me do my job.”
“You’ve only got three days here, then what?”
“Then I go back to Fairbanks and work it from afar. Work it from different angles if we have to.”
Gale didn’t like the sound of that, but he was too tired to argue. Petit and Cronin were due to arrive any minute.
Gale thanked Sergeant Plant and headed outside.
* * *
The high evening sun warmed the top of Gale’s head as he wandered up the Yukon’s shoreline, parallel to Front Street. His mind kept replaying the hoarse, pained voice of Cassie’s voice mail.
How had I not seen how bad she was still hurting?
His cowboy boots punched through the soft sand and crunched over the round pebbles until he realized that he had meandered to the northern perimeter of town. He gazed back at the little forgotten settlement of Eagle and realized that tucked against the tree line, across a wide parking lot, was the Eagle Motel where the crew from the Northern Breeze were staying. Gale walked up to the guardrail separating Front Street from the Yukon’s shore, and rested his leg on it to relieve some of the pain from his hip.
/> He’d seen multiple specialists and they’d all said the same thing: Gale would need a hip replacement within a couple of years. The damage to his pelvis was too severe, the remnants of the bullet had lodged itself deep into the ball and socket joint.
Gale flashed back to the night that the bullet had entered his hip. He remembered how cold it had been in that forest, how far the fall into the river had been, and how damn frigid the water was.
Gale shifted his weight and realized that Trooper Vance was sitting under the Eagle Motel’s portico between two of the rooms. Gale squinted—the motel wasn’t more than two hundred yards away—and Vance seemed to be too preoccupied with his phone to notice Gale.
Ten seconds later, almost in unison, both of the doors on either side of the trooper opened. Ned and Darlene came out of one door, Curtis and Jake the other. Vance pocketed his phone and stood as the group casually gathered around the trooper. From what Gale could see, Ned was doing all the talking. Gale decided to take his leg off the guardrail and squat down so he wouldn’t be caught snooping.
The way Ned spoke to Vance, whether it was his body language or the way Vance seemed to respond to Ned, made Gale believe the Northern Breeze crew knew Vance well.
They talked for a couple more minutes, then Vance hurried to his vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot. But instead of heading south to the VPSO’s office on Front Street, the trooper turned west and disappeared into town.
Gale didn’t have time to consider the oddity of this behavior, because he was running the logistics in his head on how he could sneak around the motel and talk to Jake and Curtis alone. He knew that this group was lying to the investigators—that thin-lipped smile on Jake’s face told Gale everything he needed to know.
Darlene went back to her room and shut the door, Ned said one last thing to Jake and Curtis before they returned to their room and just as Gale was about to jump over the guardrail and circle the motel via the woods, Ned turned abruptly and caught sight of him.
Both stood stock-still for a long moment, two gunslingers about to face off, then Ned turned his attention south, in the direction of the VPSO’s office, then north, up Front Street to the access road heading to Cassie’s campsite.
Coast clear. Ned made a beeline straight for Gale.
“Shit,” Gale muttered, as he straightened himself up. In the old days, he never would have allowed himself to be spotted in such a compromising position. In the old days, he would have cased out his target for hours, found primary, secondary, and tertiary escape routes as well, then done countersurveillance until he put himself in a viable position to carry out the mission at hand.
Ned Voigt stopped at the edge of Front Street, took a cigarette out, and lit it.
“You know we ain’t supposed to be talkin’ to each other, Mr. Gale.”
“Then why are you?”
“What Plant don’t know won’t hurt her,” Ned said, taking a drag. “And I guess I’d like to take the time to personally apologize, both for what happened at the Northern Breeze and what happened earlier in the office. Once we’re cleared, I want your permission to help search for Cassie and Billy.”
Gale studied the man, his blue eyes, his silver-streaked hair. He carried himself like someone who was used to being in charge.
When Gale didn’t reply, Ned shifted his weight. “Darlene’s blaming herself. We were the ones who told Cassie and Billy about those camping spots up north.” He pointed a finger to the access road. “It’s one of our favorite places, has been for years.”
“You told them to come up here?”
“We did. We liked Cassie. That girl of yours has a good head on her shoulders. Not everyone would stand up to someone of Jake’s size. Anyway, if we can help, just let us know.”
As Ned turned to leave, Gale stopped him, suddenly remembering something from earlier. “Back at the VPSO’s office. You seemed to be staring daggers at Max Tobeluk and he seemed to be afraid of you and your group. Why?”
Ned stopped walking and turned with a small scoff. “That boy is nothing but trouble. A drunk. Couple years back he was harassing me and Darlene about camping up here. Eventually, it got so bad we had to get the troopers involved. Vance had to fly up one time to have a talk with him. Everything stopped after that.”
Gale recounted the casual interaction he’d just witnessed between the group and Vance.
“You know most of the troopers around here?”
“There’s only two of them in this part of eastern Alaska. You spend as much time here as we do, you get to know everyone. Actually, Vance just got word that Sergeant Plant can’t find Max Tobeluk.”
Gale remembered seeing the VPSO hurrying to his Expedition in the parking lot not an hour before. He told Ned what he’d seen.
“Huh,” Ned said, lost in thought.
Belching sounds of diesel engines made Gale turn and look down Front Street where a caravan of familiar black pickup trucks towed horse trailers into town and parked in the Eagle Trading Post parking lot.
Alvin Petit and Bill Cronin had finally arrived.
Gale leaned off the guardrail.
“Your men?” Ned asked.
“My cavalry.”
Gale walked away from Ned without another word and headed down Front Street. Petit climbed out of the lead truck with Bill Cronin. At least a dozen of Cronin’s men got out of their respective trucks. Gale could even see the Davis brothers.
As Gale got to the parking lot, he turned around and saw that Ned Voigt hadn’t moved. The Northern Breeze owner stood implacable, staring at Gale and the new arrivals with his hands on his hips.
In his mind, Gale was forming a plan. Something wasn’t ringing true with the Voigts and the boys from the Northern Breeze. They were trying too hard to paint themselves in a positive light. Overextending themselves—being too friendly.
No matter what Condon and Ross found in Clinton Creek, no matter if Sergeant Plant cleared the Northern Breeze crew, Gale decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.
He needed to speak with Curtis and Jake. Alone.
So far, they were the only ones with a motive. Losing a fight to Cassie was enough to seek out revenge. Jake looked like a guy who wouldn’t take it lightly getting his ass kicked by a girl.
There was more going on. Jake’s thin-lipped smile had proved that.
Cassie had been missing for nearly a week.
It was time to take drastic measures.
Gale greeted the Montanans as best he could under the circumstances, then they all circled around him, soldiers awaiting orders.
“Before we get started,” Gale said, “I need something done. A favor. And I need it done quietly.”
Chapter 21
“CASSIE! WHAT ARE you doing here?!”
“You two know each other?” Brady asked.
“Oh, now the pussycat talks,” Marko said.
“I heard the noises downriver,” Billy said, his voice cracking. “I heard the explosions. The gunshots. I didn’t know what to do, so I went to the river. I heard screaming. Then… then I heard someone coming up behind me. There was a flash of light… then I woke up here, in this—”
“Sharashka!” Marko half yelled.
“I’m sorry, Cassie—I tried to do something.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Cassie said, relieved to see a familiar face.
For the next five minutes she told Billy what had happened to her at the campsite right up to the point she was knocked out.
Then Brady piped up. “I had a similar experience.”
He detailed how he had left San Diego after a bitter divorce and had driven up to Alaska. “I wanted to get away from it all. I wanted to find the most desolate place I could find and just live.” He explained that he found a place to camp on the Fortymile River just south of Chicken. On his second night at the campsite he had woken up to a sound, grabbed his rifle thinking it was a grizzly bear, and was met with a vibrant orange light and that terrible-smelli
ng gas. “I woke up at some point later in a box or a bag, it was like a coffin. I couldn’t move, my body was paralyzed, then I fell back asleep and woke up in the woods with three men trying to kill me. They were crazed, malnourished—lunatics.”
“You were able to escape them?” Cassie asked.
“I killed them,” Brady said, solemnly.
Marko laughed.
“That wasn’t my experience at all,” Billy said. “I woke up in a white room. They injected me with stuff.” He showed a series of track marks on the insides of his arms. “They hooked my head up to these machines; the drugs they gave me caused terrible hallucinations, physical pain, my brain felt like it was on fire—”
“That why you no talk?” Marko said. “Because they poke needles in you? Put Devil’s Breath in your body?”
“Marko.”
“None of you get it,” Marko said. “None of you understand.”
“Understand what?” Cassie said.
“History. This place.” He opened his arms to the sky.
“Enlighten us then.”
“You know of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, no?”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “The Russian writer.”
“Good job, pussycat. Yes, famous writer. He write about hypocrisy of Soviet state. He lived in gulag. He lived in sharashka. Solzhenitsyn write great books, one called In the First Circle. Fictional account of his time in Soviet sharashka. Sharashka is like gulag but nicer. Where scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and chemists were all sentenced to work for the state. It was where Soviet surveillance technology was created, in a famous sharashka called Marfino, north of Moscow.”
“The scientists were prisoners?” Billy asked.
“Yes, but they had it nice. They got food, a bed, their own cell. But they were prisoners, make no mistake.”
“Why were they sent there?”
“For their specialties.”
Cassie asked, “Then why are we here? I’m not a scientist—”
“We are the lab rats, GI Jane! Solzhenitsyn write that being sentenced to sharashka as scientist was like ascending to the highest and best circle of hell.” He pointed to himself. “Us. We are in the seventh circle. Those doctors, Artur—they are in the first circle.”
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