As Jake had climbed behind the wheel and tore out of town after the Russians, Ned had noticed that the firefight on the riverbank had caught the attention of the whole place. The residents of Eagle had pooled on Front Street and had certainly seen Ned, Darlene, Curtis, and Jake make their escape.
“They all fucking saw us, Ned!” Curtis said.
“I know they saw us, Curtis!”
“We’re so fucked!”
Jake kept the black Chevy in view ahead, Ned knowing full well that Emily Gale was unconscious in the Chevy’s truck bed.
When they were nearly five minutes away from the Jack Wade landing strip, Ned had a disturbing realization. The Russians in the Chevy had no reason to keep them alive. Their plane was too small to take everyone out of the region.
KODIAK was compromised and expendable.
Ned decided that he wouldn’t let Jake stop at Jack Wade—he wouldn’t even ask for an extraction. They would hit the Taylor Highway, turn east, and the four of them would ditch the truck before the border crossing, go into the woods, cross into Canada on foot, then he and Darlene would secure their get-out bags and disappear.
The only problem was Jake and Curtis. They would want to run with them.
Ned glanced at Darlene and could tell she was thinking the same thing. Ned wondered if he had the guts to shoot Jake and Curtis in cold blood.
If it meant he and Darlene could make a safe escape—he wouldn’t have a choice. They needed to close all loose ends. That only left Vance.
But it would be too risky to go after Vance at this point. Their only option would be to shoot Jake and Curtis then get the hell out of Dodge.
Ned saw the slow-motion gold dredge in the distance, then saw the Russians’ brake lights suddenly illuminate. The truck came to a grinding halt and turned broadside, blocking the road.
It was everything Jake could do to stop his own truck in time. He slammed on the brakes and swerved, before coming to a stop.
Two of the Russians jumped out, their weapons raised.
Ned knew what was coming and barely had time to react. He grabbed Darlene and threw her to the floor, covering her body with his own as a barrage of bullets peppered the truck.
Chapter 39
SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF ANCHORAGE
JIM GALE’S TOES tingled awake, followed by his legs, his torso, and his chest and arms. Then his eyelids fluttered. He was on his side, his head bouncing off a cold metal floorboard, something sticky and wet adhering to his face.
Crude voices were talking around him over the sound of an engine.
Then he remembered. The men had gassed him and must have thrown him into the van. He surmised he was still in the back of that van.
He dared not open his eyes, not now. He took a quick mental stock of his body, moving his limbs slowly. His wrists were zip-tied in front of him, and tape was over his mouth, but his ankles and legs were free. That meant they were going to move him and they wanted him to walk.
That was good.
That’s when he would make his move.
He concentrated over the roaring engine.
Four voices, low murmurs, not speaking English, but—
Russian. They were speaking Russian.
He focused his hearing. His kidnappers were talking about another captured subject in Eagle, how two other teams were exfiltrating the subject through the secondary extraction route in Anchorage.
Gale fought the urge to open his eyes, to leap up, disarm, and kill everyone who had taken him captive, but it was better for them to think he was still knocked out.
He went over the attack in his head: The two men in the telephone repair uniforms with the guns, the five men in black, the driver, and Vance. Eight men—professionals, obviously—and Vance. That meant nine men, nine captors. Those were not good odds.
He listened to the low voices, determined they were in front of the van and decided to open his eyes slightly to take in his surroundings.
He opened his left eye and recoiled.
The wetness he was feeling on the side of his face was blood, oozing blood. The blood dripped from a ghastly bullet wound between the eyes of a very dead Trooper Elliot Vance, his mouth open, slack-jawed in muted surprise.
Gale cautiously looked around and saw an open black duffel next to Vance’s body. Black masks and tubing poked out of the bag and Gale instantly recognized the objects as rebreathers, apparatuses—used by divers or special operators—that absorb CO2 and convert it into breathable oxygen.
The van began to slow. He snapped his eyes shut and the van stopped. Doors opened and closed. He heard the back door open. Someone grabbed him by the shirt collar and slapped him across the face. Gale opened his eyes.
A man in a black ski mask knelt over him.
“A ty govorish’ po russki?” the man asked. Do you speak Russian?
Gale didn’t say anything. He was noting the three other men standing at the door. In the distance he could hear the intense whine of a jet engine. The air was salty and humid. They must be near the ocean.
Gale was ripped from the back of the van, and forced to stand, as they tore the tape from his mouth. He looked around, saw they were on a black runway. A sleek-looking jet sat a hundred feet away.
The man repeated his question, then spat, “Konechno, u vas.” Of course you do.
The man wrenched his ski mask from his head. His scalp was shaven, his face blocky, a giant scar running down the length of it.
Scarface took a tablet from his tactical vest, snapped a series of pictures of Gale, then said, “We have your bitch daughters, you will see them soon. It will be family reunion.”
Gale felt terror consume him; he balled his fists and shot his arms up, striking the man in the nose. Blood spurted out, but the man didn’t react. He just wiped the blood on his sleeve and then struck Gale across the face.
“You hit hard for old man,” Scarface said. Then he leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Don’t you, Mr. Gaines?”
Gale couldn’t help himself, his eyes widened in horror. This was impossible, how did they—
“Where the hell are my daughters?!” Gale roared and tried to fight off the men, but they held him tight.
Scarface smiled and took a syringe from his pocket, yellow liquid floating in the vial.
“We have long trip ahead of us. This will help you relax.”
The man thrust the needle into Gale’s neck and depressed the plunger. Gale yelled. Scarface grabbed him by the back of the head. “Viktor Sokolov is looking forward to seeing you at the sharashka.”
Gale clutched at the man and felt his limbs grow heavy. The drug acted fast, making his world tilt.
Three of the men dragged him toward the plane and Scarface poured gasoline in the van and lit a match.
Flames engulfed the black van as Gale struggled for consciousness.
Viktor Sokolov.
The sharashka.
His past had come for him.
Everything he’d feared, everything he had run from had come for him.
They had his daughters.
Now they had him.
Chapter 40
THE DRUG IN his system kept Gale conscious but his body was sluggish, his muscles so heavy he could barely lift a finger, let alone keep his head upright.
He was placed into a white-leather sequined captain’s chair in the back of the ornately styled private jet; with his head lolling over his chest, he was doing everything he could just to stay awake. Scarface barked orders to the other three men and a scared-looking captain who scurried into the cockpit. Gale willed himself to keep his eyes open.
He envisioned Cassie’s face. She needed him. Emily needed him.
He couldn’t let these men take him. His odds were better now, only five, including the pilot, to contend with; the others must have been left behind.
Scarface glanced at his tablet. “Team Three has secured the subject and are rendezvousing with Team Two for secondary extraction. It’s time to go.”
Gale noticed that the men each had a holstered pistol in their tactical vests.
MP-443 Grachs—a classic Russian special forces weapon—a Spetsnaz weapon. Semiautomatic, effective at close range with an eighteen-round magazine.
How the hell did they find me? How do they know who I really am?
The name the man had whispered in his ear, a name he hadn’t heard in nearly three decades.
Viktor Sokolov.
Gale’s eyes flashed on that fateful night thirty years before. The night that changed everything. The night Viktor Sokolov—
The jet engines whined loudly, and the plane lurched forward. The men took their seats in front of Gale, paying him no attention.
Gale knew that this plane could not get to its destination, or he would be a dead man; Cassie and Emily would be dead too.
He knew what Sokolov was capable of. He knew what Sokolov would do to him and his family.
The plane turned on the runway, and Gale fought for control of his head, fought to look out the window. Outside he could see the ocean. He determined he was somewhere southeast of Anchorage, past Alyeska, Portage, or even Whittier. Or maybe he was north of the city, there was really no way to tell. The engines roared. He was pressed into the back of his seat as the plane barreled down the tarmac, into the air, and out over the ocean.
Scarface turned around in his seat and checked on Gale as they ascended. The operator to Gale’s right took off his ski mask and rubbed at his scalp. Gale immediately clocked the pistol hanging from the man’s tactical harness, dangling under his armpit. It was literally two feet away, just across the aisle.
If only Gale could move his body.
He shut his eyes, trying to regain control of his faculties.
Seconds passed. Minutes—yet the drug held him like a vise.
Focus, dammit!
His mind zeroed in on the pistol.
More minutes passed, and Gale felt the jet level out. He strained his eyes to see outside the window—they weren’t that high up. Maybe seventeen thousand feet. He wondered why they were flying so low—was it to stay out of radar? No, radar could pick them up at this altitude. From what little he knew about flying—having gotten his pilot license nearly two decades before—radar had trouble picking up a plane’s transponder under a thousand feet and over fifty thousand feet. Out of the window he saw a small island to his left, its rolling green hills a stark contrast to a sea of blue. A brown landing strip bisected the island, which looked deserted and uninhabited.
It was now or never. Gale had to act.
He’d need adrenaline to counteract the drug.
He focused on the rage he’d felt thirty years ago. What Viktor Sokolov had done to him, what Sokolov had done to his wife, his asset—the family Sokolov murdered like animals—what Sokolov had intended to do to his daughters.
Move, dammit!
Gale felt that rage grow, proliferating from somewhere deep within—he willed the control of his arms, his legs!
Move!
His fists balled, his arms twitched, and his legs jolted.
He already mapped out the next ten seconds—they’d made a huge mistake by zip-tying his wrists in front of him.
His focus narrowed to the task at hand—his rage kicking his adrenals into overdrive—overtaking the effects of the sedative.
Gale’s eyes snapped open and his hands flew in the direction of the Russian’s gun. He snatched the pistol before the man could react, flicked off the safety, racked the slide, and put two in the side of the man’s head.
The noise was deafening, the man’s head snapped sideways. On his feet now, Gale fired two precise shots into the skulls of the other two men.
Scarface jumped to his feet, standing in front of the cockpit door, his AK-15 assault rifle in hand, aiming at Gale.
Gale fired.
Scarface jumped out of the way—Gale’s bullet punched through the cockpit door and the plane immediately jolted to the left—sending Gale back into his seat—he ducked, making himself small on the ground.
Scarface returned fire, a volley of bullets pierced the window above Gale’s head. A great sucking noise erupted in the cabin and a hole the size of a basketball appeared where the window had been. Gale plastered himself on the floor as bullets punched through the floorboard, the walls, and seats.
Alarms blared, as the plane rattled violently and pitched downward.
Face to the ground, Gale peered down the cabin, under the seats, and saw Scarface’s boots. Gale aimed. Fired.
The Russian screamed and hit the ground. Gale fired again, two in the chest, one in the head. Clambering to his feet, fighting the centrifugal forces of the diving plane, Gale made it to Scarface’s dead body. He unsheathed his tactical knife from the Russian’s belt and cut his zip ties, then wrenched open the cockpit door and felt a wave of dread overtake him.
The captain sat in one of two seats, slouched over the control wheel, a gaping bullet wound in his neck—Gale’s rogue bullet. The control console featured four computer screens, all flashing like broken Christmas tree lights.
A paralyzing moment passed as Gale supported himself against the cockpit’s doorframe and dropped the Russian’s pistol. He’d been trained to fly small airplanes—single-engine aircrafts—but this jet looked as complicated as driving a Formula-1 race car.
Gale heard another alarm blare—the fuel gauge—and watched the altimeter drop faster. He yanked the dead pilot out of the seat and dragged him back into the cabin, then flung himself into the captain’s seat and buckled himself in.
Numbers flew across the screens, and the control wheel in front of him shook violently. He pulled on the captain’s headset. Out of the front windows, he could see the ocean coming closer. The altimeter read just above fifteen thousand feet.
Gale tried to remember the universal emergency frequency his instructors had him memorize back in flight school. Was it 121.7 or 121.5?
He spun the red frequency dial in the middle of the console, tuned it to 121.5, and pulled back the control wheel as far back as possible, all the while keying his mike on the headset and screaming, “MAYDAY, MAYDAY.”
Hoping to God someone would answer.
* * *
En Route Air Traffic Controller Andrew Martin of the flight service station in Juneau poked his head above his computer monitor and peered out over his cubicle to make sure his supervisor, Boyd Jenkins, had left the small control room for lunch.
Sure enough, Jenkins was gone.
Andrew sat back down in his chair, reached a hand into his desk drawer, and pulled out a small bag of pretzels. It was strictly forbidden to eat while on shift, and if caught, he would be fired on the spot. But it had been a boring morning, both for radar readings in southeast Alaska and for monitoring the emergency frequency.
Plus, Andrew Martin was starving.
He’d slept through his morning alarm and had missed breakfast and had to drive like a madman to the FSS to make his shift on time.
Jenkins wasn’t thrilled when he showed up ten minutes late, but Andrew made up for it by covering Jenkins’s lunch hour. He knew Jenkins liked taking long lunches. And by long lunches, he meant Jenkins liked to chain-smoke cigarettes behind the building.
Andrew took a handful of pretzels from the bag and stuffed them into his mouth, before his attention turned back to the radar screen.
The monitor showed the radar readout that covered the southern tip of the Chugach National Forest and the eight hundred square miles of 3-D airspace over the Gulf of Alaska. As a civilian en route air traffic controller, it was Andrew’s job to watch and communicate with aircrafts via the push-to-talk radiotelephony unit at his station if the need ever arose.
It rarely did.
Actually, it never did.
This was a boring job in a boring part of the world and Andrew knew it. At thirty-one years old, Andrew had gotten his air traffic control license with subqualifications in the disciplines of en route control (both radar an
d nonradar), and approach radar, and aerodrome with the intention of getting a cushy job at the Anchorage airport. It had always been his dream, but his OJTI, his on-the-job training instructor, had been a hard-ass in Anchorage, and Andrew had failed the training. His dream of one day working in an aerodrome at a major airport crumbled. Hence the reason he was stuck in a dusty control room in the Juneau FSS manning the civilian emergency frequency away from all the real action.
Andrew gazed down at the registered flights that were supposed to cross into his airspace over the course of his shift. A private prop was scheduled to pass through in an hour on its way to Seward and a 737 out of Anchorage would be heading through in two hours on its way to Seattle.
A boring afternoon.
Andrew was about to grab another handful of pretzels when a crackling urgent voice cut over the emergency frequency line.
“MAYDAY! MAYDAY!”
Andrew nearly jumped out of his chair in surprise. He keyed the push-to-talk button on his headset, and in a higher voice than usual said, “This is the Juneau flight service station—”
“MAYDAY!”
The problem with the push-to-talk radiotelephony units was that only one transmission could be made on a frequency at a time. That was why air controllers and pilots adhered to a strict code of communication while talking to each other.
Andrew waited for the emergency frequency line to go quiet, then repeated, “This is the Juneau Flight Service, please state your emergency.”
“My damn plane is going down, I’m losing fuel, and I don’t know how to fly the damn thing!”
Andrew sat there for a paralyzing moment, and then nearly laughed at the absurdity coming over the frequency. Was someone screwing with him? Was this a joke?
“—GODDAMMIT CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
The terror in the voice made Andrew Martin realize that this was no prank. Andrew sat forward, his eyes flying over his blank radar screen.
“I can hear you! Please state your location and tail number. You are not coming up on my radar!”
“I don’t know my damn tail number! Everyone on board is dead and I’m trying to fly a jet that’s dipping into the ocean!”
Sleeping Bear Page 22