“You’re a cold-hearted man, Denny.”

“No, Kate,” he said, “I’m a realist. I can’t afford to be anything else. If I start thinking like an optimist, a lot of people are going to die. Our agents need to be human, too. So do we for that matter.”

“There’s a difference between being a hopeless optimist and having hope,” Kate said, her voice soft. “I’d like to believe that a big part of what Room 59 does is finding that difference.”

“Maybe it is,” Denny said. “But in the meantime we have a job to do, and sometimes that means that we have to use people in some not-so-nice ways, even our own agents. Especially when it means they’re better agents for it in the long run.”

“We all get used,” Kate said. “That comes with the territory. But that doesn’t mean we always have to do the same to our own people.”

“Kate,” Denny said, “unless I miss my guess, by the time he lands in Anchorage, Jason will have already figured out that he may have to die in order to achieve some level of success on this mission.”

The Ties That Bind

Cliff Ryder

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Garrett Dylan for his contribution to this work.

The Ties That Bind

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

PROLOGUE

Most days, Denny Talbot, the head of Room 59 for the United States, enjoyed his job.

Throughout his careers in naval intelligence and the SEALs, the corporate world, politics and espionage, he’d learned the skills necessary to manipulate events and people with a calm precision that many others found disconcerting. And he’d learned to enjoy the games required by his position in an international espionage organization: the push and pull of compromise that got things done, the cloak-and-dagger efforts required to kill those who needed killing or remove a threat to the world. In this job, Denny knew he made a difference, helped make the world a better place. Each mission was both professional and personal, because it often meant the difference between a safe world and a world gone mad. And so most days, he enjoyed it.

Today, however, was not one of those days.

Part of his frustration was that he was supposed to be taking a few days off—and instead of being outside, riding his Tennessee walkers and enjoying the fresh air, he was inside. Working. And the work was on the far, distant side of the universe from enjoyable or fun.

An amplified scream of pain brought Denny’s thoughts back to what had interrupted his time off. Most of the time, he lived and worked in New York, but he liked to escape to his small ranch outside of Nashville for his downtime. Most of his life had been filled with the noises of cities or combat or meetings in small offices filled with intense people. His ranch was quiet, secluded and—barring an emergency situation—private. But when you worked for Room 59, downtime didn’t always equate to time off. The organization was too large and too involved in the shadowy underside of the world for any of its leaders to truly take time off. What they did was too important to ever let the events shaping the post-9/11 world stray too far from their minds.

Created after the horrific events of that fateful day, Room 59 represented an effort by most of the major countries of the world to stop threats before they happened, and to do so in a way that couldn’t be traced back to any one specific nation. The countries involved poured millions into the project through shadow corporations that no longer existed, and the organization itself reported to the independent International Intelligence Agency. Yet, as large a joint venture as Room 59 was, its members were invisible to the outside world. Very few people in even the highest levels of government knew who they were. Everything they did—from daily operations to assassination missions to intelligence gathering—was done behind walls of encryption and secrecy. Meetings were held in virtual-reality conference rooms, where people were represented by electronic avatars that might, or might not, represent their true appearance.

Room 59 had important work to do, and discovery by the media or an opposing interest might mean the end of the organization itself.

Denny was seated in a secure office, hidden inside his ranch house. His eyes were covered with a pair of highly advanced glasses that connected to his computer and launched his avatar into the virtual world of Room 59. In that world, his avatar was seated at his desk, too. He tried to make his virtual office very similar to the one he used in the real world. It was comforting to him and seemed to put visitors at ease, as well. People who were comfortable, Denny knew, were more likely to let their guard down.

Floating directly in front of him was a video recording. In the virtual world, no monitor was needed—images, videos, recordings and other data could simply be pulled from icon files and launched into view. The video was poor quality, but clear enough to be seen. The audio track was a little too good for Denny’s taste.

The man’s screams, the slap of a heavy fist against flesh, the slow pit-pat of blood hitting the concrete floor…these were sounds that Denny knew all too well. He knew torture was a necessary part of espionage, but that didn’t make it pleasant. If a man came to enjoy it, he needed to find a new line of work.

In the video, a Russian man was manacled to a chair. His brown hair was wet with sweat and blood, and his deep-set eyes seethed with pain and rage. His lips were swollen, his nose was crooked and thin rivulets of blood ran from both nostrils. Naked from the waist up—his captors obviously hadn’t gotten to the more drastic forms of information extraction yet—his chest was crisscrossed with the marks of his interrogation. From the look, Denny guessed they’d been using some kind of heated metal to sear the man’s skin.

Denny suspected that the people who were questioning him were CIA, probably black ops, but they weren’t on camera and even their voices had been changed on the audio track. With time, they could probably be found, but the interrogators didn’t really matter. What mattered was what the Russian was telling them.

Between sobbing breaths, he hissed, “You…fucking barbarians. I’ve told you. That’s all I know.”

“Yeah, right,” an off-camera voice said. “But here’s the problem, Yusiv. I think you’re lying. We think you’re lying. We think your story is bullshit. Mother Russia hasn’t had the money or the technology to develop anything like that.”

“I do not lie!” the Russian screamed, then his body sagged in exhaustion. The scream had taken the last of his strength. “They have it and they will use it,” he whispered.

“When?” the other voice snapped. “Where?”

The Russian shook his head. “I have told you all I know. They are testing it in the Bering Sea. I don’t know how it will be used, but you can be sure that they will. There are powers in Russia who are not happy with the changes in our country. They want to go back to the old ways.”

“The old ways?”

“They want to be a world power again,” the beaten man said. “Bring back the arms race, the Cold War, all of it. Then, we were feared. Now, we are a joke to the rest of the world.”

The interrogators laughed. “That’s true,” one of them finally said. “So, your story is that someone over there has developed an Oscar-class nuclear submarine capable of supercavitation…and they’re testing it in the Bering Sea.”

“It is not a story,” the Russian said, his eyes blazing once again. “You make it sound like a children’s fable.”

“We think it is,” one of the men said. “We think you didn’t like serving in the Russian navy and now you want to defect. Isn’t that closer to the truth, Yusiv?”

The Russian spit blood on the floor and shook his head. “I have nothing else to say.”

The video cut out at that point, and Denny saw that the communication icon was flashing. He tapped it with an outstretched virtual hand and a small window opened in front of him, revealing the face of Kate Cochran—his boss and the woman who ran Room 59.

Despite her platinum-blond hair and her ability to be lighthearted from time to time, when it came to work, she was all business. “What do you think?” she asked. In Denny’s experience, Kate tended to be direct, to the point and have high expectations. When she wanted answers, she wanted them immediately.

Denny leaned back in his chair. He assumed she knew more than she was saying and was looking to him for additional input before reaching any conclusions. “What do you think?” he countered. She was used to his asking questions in response to hers. It was how they worked.

“You know those new biometrics tools our research folks put together?” she asked, then continued without waiting for his reply. “I had the video and audio tracks scanned using those. They’re more reliable than any polygraph machine. At the very least, the Russian believes he’s telling the truth.”

“Then,” Denny replied, “we’ve got a serious problem. A nuclear sub capable of supercavitation is no joke.”

Kate sighed heavily. “When don’t we?” she quipped. “So, you’re the ex-navy man. What does that mean in layman’s terms?”

“This is an oversimplification in a lot of ways, but put simply, imagine a nuclear-armed submarine that can travel at twice the speed of anything we’ve got in the water right now. That means twice the distance. It also means that we’d have virtually no warning at all if they decided to park one off the West Coast and launch. They could be there, launch and be on their way home before we’d have a chance to do anything about it except tell the president to get in his bunker and push the button.”

Kate was silent for a moment, then said, “Shit.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Denny said. “We need an operative up there and fast. If it’s true, it means that the U.S. is going to have to move back toward Cold War footing. Everything changes if the Russians are rebuilding their arsenals.”

“They’ve started doing long-range patrol flights again,” Kate said. “Where the hell are they getting the money for all this?”

Denny shook his head. “I don’t know. A lot of money has been pouring into Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s hard to trace it all. Right now, all we really need to know is if they’ve actually got a sub with this kind of capability. And if they do, we need to have it, too.”

The very idea of resuming the arms race made him grit his teeth. There was no win for anyone in that scenario. “Or we need to make sure that it’s destroyed,” he added.

“I agree,” Kate said. “I’ll take it before the IIA representatives today, and they’ll green-light the mission, even if I have to break arms to get the votes.”

“Understood,” he said. “Do you want to assign the agent or do you want me to do it?”

“Do you have someone specific in mind?” she asked.

Denny tapped a glowing icon in front of him and a folder appeared. He tapped it again and it opened. “One of our newest recruits,” he said. “Jason Siku.”

Kate scanned the folder’s contents. “Why him?” she asked. “This would be his first official op. Pretty intense work for a newbie.”

“Normally, I’d agree with you,” he said. “But this guy isn’t our usual recruit. He’s had a ton of espionage experience, speaks fluent Russian, and with his ancestry, he’ll be able to fit right in up there. This isn’t a kill assignment—though his final training mission was. This is recon only. If we need to step up to a search-and-destroy, we can reassess the situation then.”

Kate nodded. “Do you expect any other complications? We can’t afford any mistakes here.”

“None,” Denny said. “Siku is a straight arrow. He worked for the CIA before he came to us. He has no family and no real ties to anyone. His mission success rate with the Feds was perfect, and he doesn’t wander off track. He’ll get the job done.”

Denny paused, thinking for a moment. “Besides that, we’ve got an off-radar employee already in the field up there,” he said.

“Who’s that?” Kate asked.

“A local who translates intercepted Russian communications, that sort of thing. There’s some minor weapons smuggling going on up there, and the agent keeps us apprised of that situation, too. It’s not a full-on field agent, but we’ll know the score and be able to keep an eye on Siku.”

“All right,” Kate said. “I’ll get the ball rolling and get back to you later today. You can expect a mission assignment within four hours.”

“I’ll be standing by,” Denny said.

Kate laughed quietly. “No, you won’t. You’ll be back out riding your horses and playing cowboy. I’ll call you direct and give you the thumbs-up. Go back to your rest and relaxation. Though what you call relaxing, I call being bounced around and risking a broken neck.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling. “You just haven’t ridden the right kind of horse.”

“And I’ll be keeping it that way, thank you very much,” Kate said. “Gotta go.”

She signed off and Denny studied the video again. He didn’t need to see the biometrics results. The Russian was telling the truth, but the submarine was only part of what made the story disturbing. The very idea of the Cold War starting up again—a war that he’d already survived once—chilled him to his core.

The first Cold War had been a quiet one of buildup, cat-and-mouse games and political posturing. The players in the game now would be far different than those faced before. Sooner or later, the players would include extremists who wouldn’t hesitate to use any of the weapons in their arsenals to start a truly global conflict.

And in that kind of war, Denny knew, there were no winners at all.

There was only a world filled with death and ash.

1

Jason Siku slipped the modified shooting glasses over his eyes. From his perspective, the yellow-tinted lenses were more than just a coloration that brought out contrasts in the landscape. The lenses used a tiny microprocessor built into the frames to work in tandem with the high-tech rounds he was testing tonight.

The indoor firing range was almost empty, and Jason was enjoying the relative peace of practicing without the interruption of other people talking and shooting at the same time that he practiced. He dropped an empty clip from his porcelain-framed Glock 17 and slid in a new one. Setting the weapon down, he attached a new human-shaped target sheet to the clips, then moved it out to a distance of fifteen feet. Picking up the gun once more, he set his feet and turned on the laser sight with a tap of his thumb.

A red dot appeared on the target’s chest region. He took one steadying breath, then began shooting. A few seconds later, the last round was fired and the slide sprang open. During these sessions, Jason didn’t think or reminisce, and he rarely spoke to anyone when he was here. An excellent shooter, he knew, thought of nothing during the moments of pulling the trigger but his weapon and the target. Everything else was a distraction that could prove deadly or cause a miss.

He removed the empty clip and was reaching for the next one when a hand on his shoulder startled him enough to almost cause him to jump. He felt his muscles tense momentarily, then he relaxed them. He turned to see the owner of the range, Jim Miller, staring at the target. Jason pulled off his ear protection and offered a slight smile. “Hi, Jim,” he said. “Everything okay?”

Miller continued to gaze at the target. “Fine,” he said, then shook his head. “That’s…that’s some good shooting. Even taking the short range into account, I don’t know too many people who can shoot like that.”

Jason nodded. “Thanks. I practice at ten, fifteen and twenty feet,” he said. “Every once in a while, I’ll go out farther, twenty-two or twenty-five feet, but it’s really kind of pointless beyond those ranges.”

“How’s that?” Miller asked.

“Most shootings with a handgun occur inside twenty feet,” Jason said. “Being a crack shot at fifty won’t help you much if the other guy is ten feet away and shooting back.”

“I suppose not,” Miller admitted. “Those are some nice patterns, too. Two to the chest, one to the head. You didn’t miss once. We’ve got a couple of shooting-club champions that come here that don’t get groupings like that.”

Jason smiled. “I practice a lot.”

“I’ve noticed,” Miller said. “You’ve been in here often.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just wanted to let you know that we’re closing in about fifteen minutes.”

Jason glanced at his watch. “Thanks for the reminder. I was kind of in a zone.”

Miller grinned. “I noticed that, too.” He headed back down the firing lane and said, “Have a good night.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “You, too.”

He considered running a few more rounds through the weapon—it was also new—but he’d already done over five hundred this week. The gun felt comfortable in his hands and his accuracy with it was solid. The fact that the rounds he was using were specially made for Room 59 agents wasn’t something anyone needed to know.

Working with information processed by the shooting glasses, the modified rounds were autocorrecting. A tiny microchip tracked the previous round and the shooter’s visual response and made adjustments on the fly. If you were off by a half inch with the first shot, the second shot would be dead-on. It was a marvelous modification, but Jason didn’t like to count on it, so he’d practiced with the weapon until he felt that he wouldn’t need the rounds to adjust for him more than a quarter inch at twenty feet or less.

He reloaded and placed the weapon in the ballistic holster under his left arm, then pulled on his jacket. He took his extra clip and slid it into the spare magazine slot on the holster, reeled in his target and policed his area clean. He knew no one would bother to look at the casings too closely. There were thousands of them in the area, and it would take more than a cursory examination to notice anything different about them anyway.

Jason crumpled up the target and tossed it into the trash can, then started walking toward the front of the building, where Miller sold guns and other sporting goods. Just as he reached the door leading into the shopping area, he brought himself up short. Even through the heavy sheet metal, he could hear the sound of raised voices.

Cautiously, he eased open the door wide enough to slip through. The voices were clearer now.

“Just give us the money, man, and we’re outta here. No muss, no fuss.” It was a young man’s voice.

“Do it now!” another voice yelled. “Stop fucking around, old man!”

“I’m doing it,” Jason heard Miller say. “I have to turn on the computer first. I already shut it down for the night. The cash drawer won’t open unless the computer is on.”

“Oh, freakin’ bullshit, man,” the first voice said.

Jason eased his way up one aisle, cut sideways, then began working his way forward. What kind of idiot would choose to rob a gun shop? he wondered. Miller had to be armed or have a weapon behind the counter. Why wasn’t he fighting back?

“Look, you owe us, man, and now you’re gonna pay up. Stop with the excuses.”

Jason was finally close enough to peer over a large stack of shotgun shells that were on display. The two men talking to Miller both looked to be in their twenties. The one with the calmer voice held a revolver in his hands, while the screamer was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Both of them wore gang colors, which meant that they were at least used to the idea of violence, if not used to doing it themselves. Both of them had various tattoos and piercings—anonymity was not a part of their world.

It didn’t matter to Jason what Miller supposedly owed them; what they were doing was robbery.

He decided to play it straight and see what happened. Room 59 agents weren’t supposed to get involved in this kind of thing—they were supposed to be invisible—but he wouldn’t let a good man die or be robbed for no reason. Stepping out from behind the display, he pulled out his wallet and kept his head down. “Hey, Jim,” he called. “What do I owe you for tonight?”

“What the fuck is this?” the screamer said. “Don’t move a freakin’ muscle!”

Jason stopped in his tracks. “Whoa,” he said. “Easy, kid. I don’t…hey, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Too late for that, man,” the first guy said. “It found you.”

Jason risked a glance at Jim, saw his hand easing toward the underside of the counter and gave a slight shake of his head. “It usually does,” he said, putting his wallet back into his jeans. “Are you boys giving my friend Jim here a hard time?”

“Ain’t none of your damn business. Don’t move, don’t get hurt. We’ll finish up what we gotta do and be on our merry,” the calm one said.

Jason went still. He turned his gaze on the calm one first, then the screamer. “In exactly thirty seconds,” he said, his voice low and deadly, “I’m going to kill both of you. And not in a nice way, but in a slow, painful way.” He kept his hands out, palms open and visible. “Or you can leave and never come back. It’s up to you.”

“What the fuck you talkin’ about?” the screamer said. “I’ll shoot you down, man, and sleep like a baby.”

“Twenty seconds,” Jason said.

“Man’s crazy,” the first guy said. “Got a death wish or something.”

“Fifteen seconds,” he said. “Your time is running out, boys.”

“Just give us the damn money, Miller!” the second guy yelled. “Your boy done took out a loan to pay for his habit, and since he’s not around no more, you get to pay up.”

Miller’s eyes met with Jason’s. “Fuck you,” the shop owner said. “My boy died because you got him hooked. If anyone owes, it’s you.”

“Guess they both want to die,” the calmer man said.

“Wrong again,” Jason whispered. In the blink of an eye, he had the Glock free from the holster and he fired a single round into the forehead of the kid carrying the revolver.

He fell over dead, the back of his head a gaping, gory hole.

“Grinch!” the screamer said, then turned his rage toward Jason. “You fuckin’ said thirty seconds!”

Jason shrugged. “I lied,” he said, bringing the Glock around. “Drop the gun, kid, or you’ll be just as dead as your buddy Grinch.”

Jason watched as the boy considered his options, saw him make his sad decision and begin to raise his shotgun. Before he could squeeze the trigger, the Glock spoke twice more, and the boy dropped the gun and began to scream in earnest. His knees were gone and he writhed on the floor, crying and bleeding.

“Jesus,” Miller said.

“He doesn’t have much to do with this kind of thing,” Jason replied. “Lend me your belt.”

“What?”

“Your belt,” he snapped. “Unless you want that boy to bleed to death.”

Miller whipped his belt off and handed it over.

Jason kicked the shotgun away and knelt down by the wounded boy, using Miller’s belt and his own to make tourniquets on each leg. “Shut up,” he snapped as the boy continued to scream and moan. “You could be dead.”

“You fucker,” the kid said. “You shot us both. You killed Grinch and my legs are all messed up. I’ll never walk again. You said you’d kill me.”

“I lied about that, too,” Jason said. “Besides, walking is a privilege, you know. By the time you get out of prison, who knows what kind of shape you’ll be in.”

“Prison?” the kid said.

Jason stood up quickly, then turned to Miller. “You carry the Glock 17 model?” he asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Why?”

“Get me one,” Jason said. “With a loaded clip. Be quick.”

Miller was moving on automatic pilot, but he did as Jason told him. Jason took the weapon and jogged back to the range door, firing the weapon three times. Then he brought it back to the shop owner.

“Take this,” he said, handing it to him. He glanced around. “Do you have video surveillance of any kind here?”

The man shook his head, still stunned. “No,” he said. “Never figured on anyone trying to rob me.”

“I don’t suppose,” Jason said. “Listen, Jim, I’ve got to get out of here and fast. As soon as I’m out the door, you call the cops and tell them what happened…but leave me out of it. Don’t mention my name or my involvement.” He leaned forward, his eyes boring into the other man. “I was never here. They came in, tried to rob you and you defended yourself, got it?”

“I…I got it,” he whispered, looking at the carnage. “Who…who are you?”

“I’m nobody,” Jason said. “I’m a ghost.”

“A ghost,” Miller said. “You’re pretty good in a fight for a ghost.”

Jason laughed quietly. “That wasn’t a fight,” he said. “That was just practice.”

“Jesus,” Miller said again. Then he added, “The boy will talk.”

“Probably,” Jason said. “But he’s loaded on drugs—crack or meth probably—and they’ll never believe him. Just stick to your story and give them the Glock, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

Jason turned and moved for the door.

“Hey!” Miller called.

Jason stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thanks for saving my life.” He sighed. “They got my son hooked on meth and it killed him. I couldn’t get him to stop, couldn’t save him no matter how hard I tried.”

“That happens sometimes,” Jason said. “You can’t save everyone.”

“Well, you saved me, so thank you. My son is dead, but I still…I want to live.”

“You’re welcome,” Jason said as he stepped out into the night.

The parking lot had only a few vehicles left in it and was poorly lit, but Jason found his own brown Volvo without any problems. He moved quickly, knowing the police could arrive any moment. He hit the remote unlock button on his key tab before he got to the car, skipping his usual quick walk around to ensure that no one had managed to get inside. It was always unlikely, but he never took chances with his safety. Now was the time to get moving.

He lived an orderly kind of life. His car was the safest one on the market—even safer after he’d added some additional aftermarket accessories. His apartment was sparsely furnished, meticulously neat and held no real clues as to who he was or what he did for a living.

He climbed into the Volvo, started the engine and headed for his apartment. In the distance, he could hear the telltale sound of police sirens. Clean action had felt good, despite breaking an operative rule. Of late, he’d felt strangely conflicted. When he’d worked for the CIA, he had very little downtime. Room 59 operatives had mandated time off between missions. He’d been surprised by the intensity of the training period, including his first posttraining assignment—a final exam, of sorts—that involved him assassinating a target. It had been a simple assignment, really. More the kind of thing assigned to a rookie than an old hand like himself.

In the darkness of the car, Jason laughed to himself. Home was just a place to sleep between jobs. He wondered if any agents had a wife and kids in this line of work. He shook his head. It didn’t make sense to have a family. Not for people like him.

And yet…family was on his mind more and more lately. Despite his son’s death, Jim Miller had wanted to live. He probably had a wife, maybe other kids—people he counted on and who counted on him. When he’d left the orphanage, Jason had no idea who his real family was or even if they were alive. All he had was his last name, which was on his birth certificate. He’d tried to find out more a couple of times, but other than learning that his mother had been an Inuit from somewhere in Alaska and his father was unknown, there’d been precious little information. After a time, he’d given up on the idea and, considering his profession, it was probably the wisest course of action. Being responsible for his own life, taking his own risks was one thing, but adding a wife or a child or some other family member to the mix, putting them at risk, seemed the very height of irresponsibility.

Still, he was alone and, he admitted to himself, lonely. It would be good to have someone he could count on. Someone to come home to.

He turned the corner close to his apartment complex and pulled into the parking lot. He shut down the Volvo, locked it and headed inside. He’d grab a quick bite to eat and then rack out for the night. His mandatory downtime was over, and he expected that an assignment would be heading his way soon enough.

Once he was inside, his thoughts turned again to the idea of trying to find his mother, his family. Why had she left him at the orphanage in Seattle? Why didn’t she want him? Did he have other family members—a brother, a sister, someone? The questions plagued him even as he heated a bowl of soup and cut a few slices of bread.

He knew he couldn’t live the life he did forever. Sooner or later, he’d get older, slip up and get killed or have to find something he could do that didn’t involve fieldwork. Would he be able to have a family then, or would it just be more of the same? What kind of woman would ask about his day and accept the only answer he could give—“I can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you.”

Sitting at the kitchen table, Jason pondered the questions and wondered why they were coming up again now, so soon after starting a new job, but his mind didn’t have very long to linger on them. Halfway through his soup, the pager on his belt began to vibrate.

He pulled it free and looked at the display.

His first assignment, Jason realized, was right on time to distract him from these notions.

2

The next morning found Jason up before his alarm clock sounded. It was a few minutes before six. He went through his usual routine—a five-mile run, a quick shower, a breakfast of oatmeal and eggs, with grapefruit juice and a cup of coffee.

He took the time to scan the morning paper and found a short note in the local section on page six about the robbery. Miller had stuck to the story Jason had given him, and the police were calling him a “tough citizen” and a “hero.” The man he’d killed was wanted for two other robberies and a suspected homicide. Good riddance, Jason thought.

When it was about time for him to go to work, he sat at the small computer console in his apartment and booted up the system. In all his years as a CIA operative, he had worked with a lot of gadgets and toys, but when compared to the Room 59 equipment, it was apples and oranges. They were years, perhaps decades ahead of what other agencies were utilizing in the often silent war to keep America safe. The virtual conference room used by field agents was just one of the more unique tools in the Room 59 arsenal.

Once the computer was booted up, Jason slipped on a pair of glasses that projected the virtual world onto the lenses. He clicked on the launch icon. This was the first of several layers of security he would have to pass through in order to report in. The icon opened a window that appeared on the lenses rather than the screen itself. All that was visible was a large text block requesting his password.

Jason typed it in, and the launch console flickered once, then vanished and was replaced by what appeared to be a long hallway. The walls glowed a faint green color and reminded him slightly of the look of the old Tron video game. This, of course, was much better. He was now simultaneously sitting at his desk and walking down the hallway. His avatar, which he’d designed himself, appeared much like he himself did. A six-foot-two-inch-tall man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His black hair was cut short and neat, and his eyes were a cold, faded blue. He preferred to dress in a sport coat and dress shirt, with pressed slacks and polished shoes. Jason believed that looking professional was the first step to being professional, so he dressed the part every working day. He knew he was considered handsome by most of society’s standards, and had no problem finding female companionship when it suited him. He enjoyed the sex, but that was all it ever was.

Love, he knew, was out of the question. Just like family.

He knew that some people created fanciful avatars or added personal touches like wings, but for himself, he saw no reason to change who he was or how he looked. The people who ran Room 59 knew what he looked like, and it was highly unlikely that anyone he might encounter in the virtual world would care how he appeared, let alone actually see him in real life. Part of the job was not interacting with other operatives unless a mission specifically called for it.

At the end of the hallway he came to a simple door and next to it, a hand and retinal scanner. As he approached the door, he stopped.

A female voice said, “Place your right palm and eye in front of the scanner for identity confirmation.”

Jason raised his glasses and held his hand up to the scanner that appeared on his computer screen.

The voice said, “Please hold still while the scan is in progress.” A brief light flashed over both his palm and his eye. The voice said, “Scanning.” Then it continued, “Identity confirmed. One-hundred-percent match to existing record for Siku, Jason, field agent. Voice confirm?”

“Siku, Jason,” he dutifully said as he adjusted his glasses. “Reporting for virtual conference scheduled for 0800 hours.”

“Voice confirmed,” it said. “Have a nice day.”

In front of him, the door unlocked and Jason opened it, stepping into an office building that extended as far as the eye could see. He’d been told that some of the security protocols were new, but he had to admit that any system that could scan his palm, voice and retinal prints from a distance was pretty impressive. He’d also been told that anything less than a one-hundred-percent match would result in bad things. What those bad things might be, no one seemed to know.

The conference room was down a row of cubicles and to his left, and he moved there, not bothering to greet the other avatars working around him. He stepped into the conference room, and saw that his boss, Denny Talbot, was already seated at one end of the table, talking to someone on the floating screen in front of him. Denny waved him in, and Jason stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

“He’s here now,” his boss was saying. “I’ll get back in touch right after we’re done here.” Denny looked up from the monitor, then stood and offered his hand. “Good to see you again, Jason. How was the downtime?”

Jason shook the offered hand. “Boring,” he said. “I really don’t need that much of a break between jobs.”

“You’re not the first agent to tell us that,” Denny admitted. “But everything we’ve learned so far suggests that a successful agent is one who does take a break once in a while.” He gestured toward the chairs. “Have a seat.”

Jason sat down, marveling again at how real this virtual world seemed. It was computer programming on a level the rest of the world only imagined in science-fiction books and movies. “Do you have an assignment for me?” he asked, stretching his legs beneath the table. “I’m ready to get to work.”

Denny picked up a file from a small table behind him. “Indeed,” he said, sliding it over. “Straight recon, nothing fancy. Get in, confirm the information, get out and bring it back.”

Jason opened the file folder and quickly reviewed the contents, committing them to memory as he read. “Supercavitation?” he asked. “No one has that kind of technology yet.”

“Not that we know of,” Denny said. “But we’ve reviewed the source carefully, and at the least, he believes it’s the truth.”

“So, you want me to find this sub—if it exists—and bring back as much data on it as possible?” Jason asked.

Denny nodded. “The plans, if at all possible. Our source believes that there are forces in Russia who want to bring the Cold War, the arms race, the whole shebang, back into full swing.”

Jason considered it, then nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “In fact, it wouldn’t even be the first time I’ve heard the sentiment. A lot of people miss Mother Russia, despite her less-than-charitable ways.”

“I suppose so,” Denny said. “But we can’t afford another war—cold, hot or anything in between. If the Russians have developed this sub, we need to find it, get the plans and immediately make it known that we can build them, too. Hopefully, they’ll realize how closely we’re watching them and focus their efforts elsewhere like food for their people.”

“Why me?” Jason asked. “I’m not usually a straight reconnaissance man.”

“According to our intel, they’re testing the sub in the Bering Sea. We want you to use the local Inuit villages along the coast up there for cover. You also speak fluent Russian, which makes sending you an even better fit.”

Jason glanced through the folder one more time, memorizing the information and calculating what he’d need to accomplish it. “Mission support?” he asked.

“We’ll put together an offshore support team by the time you’re in place, situate them on an oil barge. Just set up a coordinates beacon somewhere out of the way and within twelve hours, you’ll be good to go.” Denny tapped an icon and the image of a very attractive woman appeared. “This is Tina Kanut. She’s native, knows the area and works for a guide agency up there. We’ve already arranged for her services.”

“Sounds fine,” Jason said. “Any other parameters I should know of?”

Denny shook his head. “Nothing critical. Just remember that this is a recon mission, so I’d rather not have a trail of bodies. Get in, get the data and get out. Clean and simple.”

“Understood,” Jason said. “And if something goes wrong?”

“If you can and there’s time, check in with me and we’ll decide how to proceed. If not, destroy the sub. That will send a message, too,” Denny said.

“Got it,” Jason said. “When do I leave?”

“We’ve got you scheduled on a flight from Minneapolis to Seattle, connecting to Anchorage, tonight,” he said. “Your cover documents are being delivered this morning. You’ll be going in as an advance man for a geographic-survey team. That should give you a solid reason to be in the villages and along the coast, too.”

“That works for me,” Jason said. He slid the folder back to Denny and got to his feet. “I’ll report in as soon as I’ve got something solid.”

“Just remember that that part of the world is a strange place,” his boss replied. “The Russians watch the Bering Sea very carefully and they’re always listening, and the Inuit are a people trapped between the need to adapt to the modern world and the desire to cling to their traditions. That’s another good reason to send you, Jason. You have a better chance of understanding them, I think, than any of our other agents, and if they can be a help to you, that’s a good thing, too.”

Jason chuckled dryly. “My mother was Inuit, so I have the blood,” he said, “but I’m hardly one of them. I don’t believe in family.”

“I know,” Denny said. “It’s one of the reasons we recruited you. Family men get tangled up in personal issues. That doesn’t seem to be a problem you have. Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t use the native people up there if it comes to that.”

“I don’t imagine it will,” Jason replied. “But I’m not above using them to get the job done.”

Denny thought about it for a minute, then said, “I know that, too, Jason. I’ve read your file several times over. You’re smart, educated, cold and decisive. It’s why you’ve been so successful and why I think you’ll be successful here. That said, beneath the exterior, I imagine that you’re as human as the next man. Try not to let the machine take over completely, okay? The best field agents tend to blend your strengths with the ability to be compassionate.”

“I’m not a machine,” Jason objected, stung a little. “I just don’t have much use for other people. They’re a burden I don’t care to deal with.”

“You mean like what happened at the firing range last night?” Denny asked. “You killed one man and injured another.”

Jason paused, stunned that his boss knew what happened. “How did you—”

“It’s my job to know,” Denny said. “And for what it’s worth, you did the right thing. We ask our operatives to be ghosts, but there’s also a time for doing what’s right. That was the choice you faced last night, and you made the right call.”

“It won’t happen again,” Jason said, still trying to wrap his mind around an organization that could know so much about one person so quickly. “I mean…you hired me to be a ghost, so that’s what I’ll be.”

Denny chuckled. “Sooner or later, you’ll do the human thing again. I understand why you feel the way you do, why you operate the way you do. Just remember that relaxing once in a while won’t hurt you, okay? You are human, after all.” He smiled.

“Got it,” Jason said. He turned to the door. “I better get a move on if I’m going to be ready to catch that flight.”

“Stay safe,” Denny said. “And think about what I said, Jason. No man can stand alone forever.”

Without looking back, Jason said, “I’ll give it some thought, boss.” Then he opened the door and slipped out of the room.

All the way back to the log-out screen, he thought about Denny’s words. What did they want from him? One minute, he’s supposed to be a cold-blooded killer, the next he’s supposed to…what? Be a kinder, gentler assassin?

He logged out and put the glasses on the desk, rubbing his eyes to ease the strain. It was ridiculous, he thought. He didn’t have time for friends and family. And he didn’t have time to deal with any of the feelings associated with those issues today. He had saved Miller because it was the right thing to do, not because of some human bond. Most of the time, there was right and wrong, good and evil. Shades of gray entered into it, but usually that was confined to situations where feelings were involved, where the moralities of a given situation were debatable. He didn’t deal too often in those gray areas. His life tended to be black and white and he preferred it that way.

He got up from the desk just as a brown envelope slid beneath his front door. He knew it would contain his travel documents. “I’ve got work to do,” he muttered to himself as he crossed the room. “I’ll deal with learning how to be a more compassionate assassin tomorrow.”

“YOU’RE CERTAIN of this, Denny?” Kate asked, running a hand through her short-cropped hair. “He’s brand-new and this is delicate. We can’t afford any mistakes at all.”

“I’m sure, Kate,” Denny replied. “You’ve read his file.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard, with a genius-level IQ. Borderline photographic memory. Well above average blending skills and he excelled in our training program. His final test was a masterwork. That dignitary was about as covered as anyone I’ve ever seen and Siku got him. My concern is that this could get personal for him. His family is out there…somewhere. We don’t need personal right now.”

“Sure, it is,” Denny said. “But the man obviously does not care. He’s ice, Kate, and his record is spotless. My contact at the CIA said that they called him the thinking man’s assassin. Do you know why?”

She shook her head, and he continued. “Because he was like a computer. Precise, calculating, no feelings at all. He plans and plans and then does the job. No mistakes. And he’s not above using people to meet his mission goals—even if it gets them killed.”

“I understand all that, but this isn’t an assassination,” Kate said. “With any luck at all, no one important will even know he was there.”

Denny sighed heavily and wished he could go back to his horse ranch. “Kate, with all due respect, I think you’ve missed something here.”

One eyebrow arched and her lips pursed tightly before she said, “Go on.”

“The odds of him finding the sub—if it exists at all—then getting to it, getting on board and getting out again with no one the wiser are about a million to one against. Submarines are very confined spaces, and a stranger is going to be recognized instantly. It’s far more likely that he’ll be captured.”

“So why send him?” Kate asked. “If he’s just going to be captured and die, what’s the point?”

“I didn’t say he’d die, Kate,” Denny said. “I said it was far more likely that he’d be captured.”

“What’s the difference?”

“If he does get captured, Kate, it won’t be for long. Certainly not long enough for them to get him back to Russia. The most likely scenario at that point is that he would find a way to destroy the sub and kill the crew, even if it meant his own death.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?” she asked. “His psych profile doesn’t indicate anything like suicidal tendencies.”

Denny shrugged. “He’s not suicidal. What he is, Kate, is a man without anything in his life but the mission. That can be a good thing for us, of course, because if he’s successful, we win, and if he fails, it’s likely that we at least gain some time. Not as big a win, but a win of sorts. It’s not a very good thing for him to be that way, but he hasn’t figured that out yet. He may live long enough to do so, but I can’t really say for sure at this point.”

“You’re a coldhearted man, Denny,” Kate said. “Very cold.”

“No, Kate,” he said, “I’m a realist. I can’t afford to be anything else. If I start thinking like an optimist, a lot of people are going to die. Our agents need to be human, too. So do we, for that matter.”

“There’s a difference between being a hopeless optimist and having hope,” she said, her voice soft. “I’d like to believe that a big part of what Room 59 does is finding that difference.”

“Maybe it is,” Denny said. “But in the meantime, we have a job to do, and sometimes that means that we have to use people in some not so nice ways, even our own agents. Especially when it means, they’re better agents for it in the long run.”

“We all get used,” Kate said. “That comes with the territory. But that doesn’t mean we always have to do the same to our own people.”

“Kate,” Denny said, “unless I miss my guess, by the time he lands in Anchorage, Jason will have already figured out that he may have to die in order to achieve some level of success on this mission. As you said, he’s not stupid.”

“And when he realizes that you’ve sent him on what could be nothing more than a quick trip to die?” she asked.

“He’ll be cranky,” Denny said, smiling. “But he’ll also have to decide if there’s anything more important in his life than the mission—even something as petty as getting even with me. He’ll either die or come back a better agent for the experience. He might even come back with some actual feelings.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out,” she said. “But it still feels crappy.”

He nodded. “Yes, it does,” he said. “But with another Cold War brewing and more international terrorism going on than we can even begin to keep track of, we need better agents than we’ve ever had—men and women who can find the balance between hopeless optimism and hope, who can think on their feet and decide what is more important to them—their lives or the world. We need agents who can make that choice confidently, Kate.”

She thought for several long moments, then nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “The game is changing, I think, faster than many of us believed it would.”

“It always does,” Denny said. “And if we don’t change with it, we won’t be anything more than dinosaurs waiting for a meteor strike.”

“I’m not ready to be a fossil quite yet,” Kate said, laughing.

“Nor am I,” Denny said, “despite how I look. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

“Do that,” Kate said. Then she added, “And you look fine.” She cut the connection, her virtual avatar winking out of existence.

Denny leaned back, then returned to the file folders on his desk. He’d already spoken to Tina Kanut and explained the situation. She was to play the native guide and nothing else. Her only job was to keep an eye on Jason and if things began to go wrong, she could step in, identify herself and lend a hand.

Sadly, there was more going on in Room 59 than this one mission, and his attention was needed elsewhere. Win or lose, succeed or fail, there were always threats to be addressed. The threats, Denny thought, never stop. He hoped he was doing the right thing where Siku was concerned, but his agents needed to be human, as much as they needed to be effective. Too much of what Room 59 did involved making human decisions. It wasn’t all about killing. Sometimes, it was about choosing the lives of others over your own.

And sometimes, it was just the opposite.

3

The flights from Minneapolis to Seattle and on to Anchorage were uneventful, and Jason spent his time mentally reviewing the specifics of the mission, memorizing his cover story and trying to determine the best way to address the challenges of trying to find a submarine in the icy waters of the Bering Strait. Of course, finding it wasn’t the only problem, though that one was a significant challenge in and of itself.

But the biggest problem would be getting to the sub, getting on board and getting out again without being seen or captured. Even the largest submarines in the world had very limited amounts of space, and the entire crew would know one another on sight. The likelihood of capture or death was quite a bit higher than usual, and being sent on what could be either a wild-goose chase or a death sentence didn’t improve his mood very much. Denny had to have known this was not a simple mission, possibly even a suicide mission, and Jason intended to have some serious words with him when he returned—assuming, of course, that he survived at all.

As the plane began its descent into Anchorage, Jason thought about the fact that this wasn’t going to be his usual kind of operation. He enjoyed missions where planning was almost as important as execution. The proper plans almost always led to the successful completion of an op, and in his experience, failure was usually the result of poor planning. The problem here was that no plan could possibly address all—or even most—of the likely challenges. In other words, he was going to have to wing it. It was an uncomfortable sensation for him at best.

Still, he suspected that these kinds of missions were among the reasons that Room 59 existed in the first place. During his training period, his final test—what they called a mission assessment—was the elimination of a well-protected foreign dignitary who’d been selling state secrets on the black market. It had been an unfortunate situation all the way around. The man had a history of excellent public service to his own country and had built a network of friends within the U.S. government, as well. But he also had a gambling problem that led to a massive debt load. He turned to the only resource he had—selling secrets to both sides and funneling the profits to pay off his debts. Still, the man had a wife, two kids, a family…and he had to die. It wasn’t a situation where a slap on the wrist would do the job. His removal had to be quick and quiet.

After reviewing the mission parameters, Jason had flown to Washington, D.C., and attended a party where the man was a guest. He’d slipped through the crowd in a waiter’s uniform and removed him with a poisoned appetizer. By all appearances, the man had had a massive heart attack and was dead long before the paramedics could arrive. It was an unfortunate end to what had been a successful career, and his family would suffer grief. Still, Jason didn’t ask any questions and he didn’t hesitate. His trainers were very pleased, and even Denny had congratulated him on doing a difficult mission without letting it get personal.

“Why would it have gotten personal?” Jason had asked.

“Targets are still people,” Denny had said. “The man had a family and was well respected.”

“It wasn’t personal to me,” Jason had said. “He needed to be killed. That simple.”

Denny had stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “You’ll find, I think, that many of our missions aren’t so simple, as you put it. Sooner or later, you’ll run into something that makes it personal.”

Jason smiled grimly. “Nothing in our line of work, not even death, is personal. What we do is simple because it’s necessary. There’s no need to muck things up with feelings.”

For some reason, remembering that briefing now, Jason thought that perhaps Denny had been right. Sometimes the work could get personal. Even being this close to where his family had come from, where they might still be, made him edgy. He turned his mind back to his work.

Other than his cover story as part of a geological-survey team, Jason didn’t see a need to be overly creative with this mission. His real name would work fine and might even be helpful with some of the native people. After the plane touched down, Jason grabbed his laptop case from beneath the seat in front of him and made his way through the terminal to claim his baggage.

Denny had arranged a guide who was familiar with the coastline and knew the native population well. Jason grabbed his bags from the carousel and took a cab to his hotel. He’d chosen the Anchorage Grand Hotel for its central downtown location since he wasn’t sure how his guide would suggest they travel up to the strait.

He arrived at the hotel, and was pleased to find a message waiting for him from the local guide. His briefing materials indicated that she worked with a travel agency and came highly recommended. Jason checked in and used his cell phone to call her. He suggested they meet for dinner to discuss his needs and her ideas. She sounded bright and ready to work, and if nothing else, having someone along who knew the area well would be a good thing.

He took a brief nap, then headed down to the dining room to wait for Tina Kanut. When she stepped into the restaurant, Jason did a quick double take. For some reason, he’d expected her to look more like the native guides he’d used for missions in the Middle East or in Africa—weathered, worn and hardened by the conditions of their lifestyle.

In person, Tina looked younger than her picture, probably in her late twenties or early thirties, with the dark hair and eyes of her native Inuit people. She was breathtakingly beautiful. The photo Denny had shown him didn’t do her justice. She moved with the kind of grace usually reserved for dancers, and her frame was tall and lean. He caught her eye and waved her over. She waved back and headed his way.

Jason knew that a woman like this could be a distraction on a mission—he was a man, after all—but if she proved competent, then it would be up to him to control his urges and stay focused. It wouldn’t be fair to deny her the job simply because she happened to be knockout gorgeous.

He stood as she reached the table and offered his hand. “Jason Siku,” he said, keeping his handshake firm and businesslike. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Mr. Siku,” she said. “Tina Kanut. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

A sexy voice, too, Jason thought, then forced himself to business. “Please, sit down.” He resisted the urge to pull out her chair.

They both sat, and he signaled the waitress, who came over and took their drink orders. Scotch on the rocks for him, and a soft drink for her. They made meaningless small talk until the drinks arrived, then turned to business.

“So,” Tina said. “The agency told me that you were looking for a native guide, all the way up to the Bering Strait. That’s a long haul from here.”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “My thought is to fly to Nome, then head up along the coast.”

She considered this for a moment, then said, “That makes the most sense, but it’s not an easy trek, Mr. Siku. There are only a few roads leading out of Nome, and even those only go a short distance. After that, it’s ATVs and hard work.”

“I can handle it,” he said. “I’ve traveled all over the world in some of the roughest country this planet has to offer.”

Tina laughed quietly. “I’ve heard that before, too,” she said, then changed tack. “What are you looking for specifically?” she asked. “I might be able to save you a lot of time if I know what you’re after.”

“Nothing in particular,” he said. “The company I work for does detailed, computer-based mapping, combining physical inspections, satellite imagery and aerial photography. They send me out in advance of the regular team so I can get the lay of the land, let them know of any problems the ground team might encounter before they arrive.”

“You don’t work for an oil company, do you?” Her tone was one of pure suspicion.

“An oil company?” Jason asked, honestly perplexed. “No. Pretty much I’m a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. Why would you think I work for an oil company?”

“No reason,” she said, her voice filled with doubts.

“Look, Tina,” he said. “I need a guide and you’re who my company arranged for. The agency says you’re the best. I’m not sure where all your suspicions are coming from, but I can assure you that I only want to tour the region and head back home.”

“My suspicions are pretty well founded,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first native or half native who’s come up here, working for one of the oil companies and looking to exploit my people.”

Jason chuckled in sudden understanding. “Well, you’re right about part of that, anyway,” he said. “Yes, I’m half-Inuit. But I grew up in an orphanage and I don’t know much at all about my biological parents, where they live or anything else. To be honest, I don’t really care. I’m just here to do a job and go home.” He let his tone turn more serious. “I don’t have any interest in doing anything other than my scout survey job, and then I’m gone.”

“Siku is a common enough name, but there is something vaguely familiar about you,” she said. “I just…” She sighed deeply, then straightened. “Never mind. And please excuse me. I’m sorry, Mr. Siku. I don’t mean to come across so defensive. There are a lot of unscrupulous people in the world and a few of them have turned their eyes to this part of the world, hoping to cash in on the natives. I don’t take jobs that will put them in danger or leave them exposed to more problems than they already have.”

“Call me Jason,” he said. “And don’t worry about it. I’d rather you be up-front about any concerns you might have now than have to get a new guide along the way. Good ones are hard to replace and the agency said they were sending me the best. I’m not here to search out my family or take advantage of your people in any way.”

She nodded, and then said, “They are your people, too, even if you don’t know them.”

Her words struck a chord with his own thoughts of the previous weeks, but he knew that family would only be another distraction during a difficult assignment. “Maybe,” he said, “but I’m afraid that I’ve never really seen it that way. And while this trip might present an opportunity to search out my family, I am here for business.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “I’ll be your guide. When do you want to leave?”

It was Jason’s turn to smile. “Not so fast,” he said. “Now it’s my turn to ask some questions of you.”

“Of course,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“How long have you been a guide?” he asked.

“I started doing wilderness guide work with my grandfather when I was sixteen,” she said. “So…almost twenty years now. Usually, I work with groups wanting to see native villages or the national parks and wildlife, but I’ve done other types of tours, too.”

Jason nodded. “Such as?”

“A lot of corporate folks think that they can make a lot of money if they find the right angle,” she said. “For a while, they were willing to pay me really well to tour them around and prove how wrong they were.” She laughed. “I stopped when I realized that they were never going to go away. The hunger for land and cheap, exploitable labor never ends. That’s why there’s so many mining operations up here—but at least they tend to pay well, even if the work is backbreaking and dangerous.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “What kind of challenges can we expect on our journey?”

“That depends,” she replied. “You’ve picked a good time to come up here. In early fall, the temperatures are decent and the wildlife hasn’t gotten really hungry yet. We’ll stay in the villages whenever we can. Aside from panic, do you know what kills most people wandering around in the wilderness?”

He shook his head.

“Lack of awareness,” she continued. “People don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them—the way the ice might be cracked or weak in certain areas, signs of dangerous animals, that kind of thing. Up here, it pays to be observant.”

“You might be surprised how many parts of the world that rule applies to,” he said. “Still, I’ll make a point of remembering.” He laughed. “Of course, I make a living by being observant, so perhaps we’ll do just fine.”

“I haven’t lost anyone yet,” she said. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

Signaling the waitress, Jason said, “Just two things. What do you want for dinner and when do we leave?”

“We can catch a flight to Nome tomorrow,” she said. “Alaska Airlines has several flights a day.”

“And dinner?” he asked.

She smiled and once again he was struck by her attractive appearance, which didn’t seem to match her job. “I’m going to have dinner with some friends tonight, Jason. Then I’m going to get some rest. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning and we’ll go to the airport.”

“You’re not going to let me buy you dinner?” he asked, disappointed. The company of a beautiful woman made almost every mission more bearable. No strings, just temporary pleasure.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to think it was my tip. Usually those come after the work.”

“I was just being friendly,” he protested. “Nothing wrong with having a bite of dinner together, is there?”

“Actually,” she said, “there is. I don’t socialize with my clients. I don’t get personal with my clients. I take them where they want to go, show them what they want to see, keep them safe and send them on their way.” She finished off the last of her soda, then added, “Just business, okay? I’ll see you in the morning. Eight o’clock sharp.” Tina nodded to him, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.

While admitting to himself that she looked just as good leaving as she had coming in, Jason found himself a bit flabbergasted. He hadn’t made a pass or suggested they go upstairs for a slow tango between the sheets. But it was rare that he got the rough brush-off just like that.

“I just asked what she wanted to eat,” he muttered to himself.

“I’m sorry, sir?” the waitress asked.

He looked up, realized that she’d been standing there waiting.

“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.”

“The lady won’t be staying for dinner?”

“Apparently not,” he said. He glanced at the menu again, then said, “I’ll have the burger, please.”

“Struck out, huh?” the waitress asked, a grin forming on her features. “Don’t worry. It happens to the best of them.”

“Not to me,” he muttered again, then forestalled her asking what he’d said by adding, “I’d also like a salad, but after the main course.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thank you,” he replied.

“Save room for dessert,” she suggested. “Our espresso torte is heavenly.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said. The waitress walked away and Jason turned his thoughts inward once more.

He had a guide, but she was also more than a little uptight. And automatically suspicious. He’d have to be careful to keep her focused on what she believed he was here for. That she was protective of her people was understandable, but the woman herself seemed contradictory. One second she was nice, straightforward and engaged. The next, she was practically telling him off for asking her what she wanted to eat. There was something about her that struck him as familiar, too, but he couldn’t place what it was.

Still, so long as he moved carefully, she would be easy to keep distracted. At least until he disappeared while looking for the sub. He would have to try to think of something to keep her from sending out search parties for him.

He sighed. Another complication—and a female one at that—was not what this mission needed. Resigned to making the best of it, he settled in to wait for his meal.

4

The road out of Nome was little better than a rutted concrete path, but Tina quickly proved herself competent. Using a large SUV and a trailer with two ATVs, she guided their vehicle around the worst of the potholes and hazards, while simultaneously pointing out sites of interest along the way. She was a good guide, Jason realized, knowledgeable about the area, its history, people and animals. She didn’t talk too much, but kept the conversation light and interesting. And completely impersonal.

The landscape itself was one of harsh beauty. Dark-brown-and-green tundra grasses dominated the view, with distant snowcapped mountains. Birds and rabbits were plentiful, and when he rolled down the window, the wind from the ocean was crisp and cold and hinted of the coming winter. This was not a place for the weak, and those who survived here—in the city or in the surrounding areas—had a good reason to be proud.

Several hours after leaving the small town, the road wasn’t even a pretense anymore, but simply a wide gravel trail. Not long after, Tina pulled the SUV off to the side and said, “This is where the going gets rough. We’ll leave the truck here and take the ATVs the rest of the way.”

“You just leave your truck?” he asked, surprised.

She shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like anyone is likely to steal it. Where would they go?” She gestured at the empty scene around them. “Even if they went into Nome, someone would recognize it. Theft isn’t very common up here. Everyone knows everyone else.”

“Makes sense,” he said. He opened his door and climbed out of the truck, stretching his legs. “Can I help you unload everything?”

“Sure,” she said. “Do you know how to drive an ATV?”

He nodded. “I’ve used them many times.”

“Good,” she said. “Then we can skip the lesson. I’ve already loaded all our gear onto the cargo racks, so all we have to do is back them down and we’re good to go.”

Jason climbed up on the trailer, while Tina lowered the gate. “One word of caution,” she said. “If you haven’t driven one of these with a trailer attached, they don’t corner as tightly. Also, there’s plenty of icy patches, even some snow in places, so keep your speed down. If you hit an ice patch going too fast, we’ll have to bring in bulldozers to find your body.”

He grinned and started the ATV’s engine. “Got it,” he said, putting the machine in gear and guiding it down the ramp. He noticed how she watched him, making sure that he wasn’t all talk and actually knew what he was doing. He pulled his ATV over to one side, and watched as she drove the second ATV off the trailer. When it was clear, he lifted the gate and shut it firmly, latching it into place.

He crossed back over to his own machine. “Are we ready?” he asked.

“As ready as we can be,” she said. “I’ll take the lead. Just follow my trail and we should hit the coast in about an hour. From there, we’ll go north. If you want to stop for anything, just honk the horn.”

“You’re the boss,” he said. He slipped a pair of goggles over his eyes and pulled up his hood, fastening it with Velcro. There was no point in starting out cold.

She set off toward the coast, keeping a steady pace, but not going too fast. Even if he’d lost sight of her, the tracks made by her ATV in the heavy tundra grass would be easy enough to follow. Aside from startling the occasional bird or rabbit, there was little to see. Once, in the far distance, he thought he saw a moose, but with the cloud cover and shadowy light, he wasn’t certain.

According to the compass, Tina had begun bearing slightly to the north. If she was following a trail, he certainly couldn’t see it, but it was entirely possible she didn’t need one. Some people had a compass in their head, and were never truly lost. Off to his left and at quite a distance, Jason spotted what looked like some old, ruined buildings. He slowed to a stop and honked the horn.

Ahead of him, Tina slowly circled back, then pulled alongside him. “What’s up?” she asked.

He pointed at the ruins. “I’d like to take a look at those,” he said. “I find such places interesting.”

“There’s not much to see there,” she said. “It’s an abandoned Inuit summer village from a long time ago. They left when the waters near here were fished out by nonnatives.”

“Still,” he said. “I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind stopping.”

She shrugged. “You’re the client.” Turning her ATV in that direction, she set a somewhat slower pace toward the abandoned village. Jason followed in her wake, thinking about what it must be like for people to have to move their homes because others had destroyed their way of life.

Just as they reached the copse of trees that sheltered the buildings, Tina jammed on her brakes and abruptly turned around. Her eyes were wide. “No questions,” she snapped. “We’ve got to get out of here right now!”

Startled, Jason stopped his ATV completely. “Wha—” he began to ask, even as she motored by him, going as fast as she could, the trailer bouncing wildly behind her.

He turned to look at the buildings, wondering what could have possibly set her off like that, when he realized that there were several men coming out of the trees. Dressed in winter camouflage, they were heavily armed and already moving into position to open fire. “Not the friendliest natives,” he said, diving off the ATV to use it for cover as the first shots rang out.

Bullets dug up the turf near his ATV. Jason slipped off his goggles and put on the shooting glasses. Now was as good a time as any for a field test. He drew his Glock from beneath his coat, checked the load, then popped up over the seat of his vehicle, sighting on the closest man, who was running toward him.

Jason exhaled and fired. The lenses of his glasses simultaneously tracked the round and his visual response. The bullet took the man just below the collarbone and punched through the other side, shattering his shoulder blade. He screamed and fell to the ground, his blood staining the grass and the patchy snow a bright crimson.

“Four and a half inches high at twenty-nine feet,” he estimated, gauging the feedback that ran in a tiny font along the bottom of his lenses. “And slightly to the right.”

The other two men dived for cover of their own, one behind a log and another behind a small cluster of stones. Neither one seemed too interested in retrieving their bleeding friend, whose moans could be heard between the shots they were firing for cover.

They weren’t using military-grade weapons, he realized, but heavy-duty bolt-action hunting rifles. When they paused to reload, he risked another glance over the top of the ATV. One man had moved closer, crawling through the scrub grass. He’d drawn a revolver. He popped his head up every few feet to take another look. There wasn’t anything special about him that Jason could see. He looked quite a bit like a hunter who’d been caught poaching, but either way, he and his friends seemed serious about doing harm.

As the man low-crawled past his wounded comrade, he muttered, “Shut up, will you?”

The momentary distraction was all Jason needed. He slipped around the front tires, sighted and fired. This time, his aim was perfect—the round entered the man’s forehead one inch above his eyebrows and dead center. The force shoved him upright, his features straining with shock, and Jason fired again, aiming center mass and driving him backward into the ground, dead before he landed.

“That’s two for me and none for you,” he called out to the last man. “I advise you to throw down your weapons and come out where I can see you.”

There was a long pause, then, “You won’t shoot?”

Grinning to himself, Jason called, “No, I won’t shoot. Come on out.”

He watched as the man tossed a rifle to the ground, then stepped out from behind the cluster of rocks, his hands raised. His features were unremarkable—fair skin, blue eyes, a mop of sweaty brown hair.

Jason got to his feet and closed the space between them. Behind him, he could hear the sound of Tina’s ATV returning. She must have realized that he hadn’t followed or had been watching and figured out that the situation was under control.

“Who are you?” Jason barked at the man. “And why’d you try to shoot us?”

The man stepped closer. “No one you know,” he said. His hand was a blur as he reached for the handgun behind his back. Jason didn’t even blink, but dropped two rounds into the man’s chest, killing him instantly. He fell over backward, his scream of pain cut short as the last of the air left his lungs.

“Stupid fool,” Jason said to himself. He looked down at the wounded man on the ground and assessed his condition. He’d lost too much blood and was already fading into unconsciousness. They were too far from anywhere to save him. “Sorry,” he said, “but this is the best I can do for you.” He shot him once in the head, ending the man’s misery.

Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see Tina staring at him, her eyes wide with outrage. “You…you just shot those men in cold blood!”

“What?” Jason asked, even as he loaded a fresh clip. “I did not!”

“You did! I saw you. The one man surrendered and the other was wounded and you just…you just killed them like it was nothing.”

Shaking his head, Jason moved to gather up their weapons. He tossed them in a pile between the three bodies. “The man who surrendered was going for a gun behind his back,” he explained. “Roll him over and take a look if you don’t believe me. As for the man on the ground…he was going to die, Tina. A slow and painful death. I killed him because we’re too far away from anywhere to do anything for him.”

“Right,” she said, her voice rising an octave. “So now you’re a doctor, too?” She stumped over to the second man and rolled him over, then gasped. The gun he’d been going for was on the ground beneath him. Then she turned to look at the last man he’d killed. The pool of blood that had spread from beneath his back was testament to how badly he’d been wounded.

Tina turned back to Jason and nodded. “All right,” she said, angry. “Fine, you were telling the truth. But where did you learn to fight like that? You killed three armed men and never even broke a sweat.”

“I grew up in a rough neighborhood,” Jason joked, then he turned serious when he saw that she wouldn’t accept a flip answer. “I’ve been in a lot of tight scrapes over the years—the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia to name a few. You either learn how to fight in places like that or you die. I learned how to shoot pretty well.”

Looking over the bodies once more, she shook her head. “That’s the understatement of the year, if I’ve ever heard one. Now what do we do?”

“Check them out. Look the place over, then move on with our journey,” he said.

“We’re not going to take them back?”

“To Nome?” he asked. “Why would we? We can let the local authorities know what’s happened when we reach a village. Someone must have a phone somewhere.”

She laughed. “No, there aren’t too many phones out here, but the village we’re going to stay in has shortwave radio.”

“That should work,” he said. “In the meantime, let’s see if we can figure out why these guys came out shooting. Even if they were poachers, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to attack us the way they did.” He turned to move toward the buildings and she followed along behind.

“I have a guess,” she said, her voice hesitant. “They were probably smugglers.”

“Drugs?” he asked.

“Guns,” she replied. “They move them from here and down into Canada, where someone else sells them cheap into the United States. I read an article about it in the paper.”

“People are running guns in Alaska?” he asked, surprised. “Seems like a hard way to go about it. There are easier ways to get things into the U.S. than trekking across the Alaskan tundra.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but think of it this way. Out here, what are the chances of running into anyone, let alone law enforcement? Out here, we’re mostly on our own. And there’s a whole lot of big empty between here, Canada and the U.S.”

“True enough,” he said.

They stopped in front of a dilapidated hut. The boot tracks on the ground were fresh and he followed them inside. Sure enough, there were several large crates. He opened the top one to find it filled to the brim with Russian AN-94 assault rifles and clips. They were brand-new.

“Jesus,” he whispered. “Why were those guys shooting at me with hunting rifles when they had these?”

Tina’s voice was equally quiet. “I don’t know, but I’ve heard rumors that people who cross the smugglers are usually found during the spring thaw. Maybe they didn’t have ammunition?”

Jason quickly opened the other crates. He found more rifles and clips, along with one set of the older-style LAW rockets used by the U.S. military forces until the late eighties or so. But no ammunition. “You’re right,” he said. “No ammo. Just the weapons and the rockets. I suppose I should be glad they weren’t able to use one of these on me.”

“Yes,” she said, “you should. Can we go now? I want to get out of here in case someone comes looking for them. This could be where they were dropping them.”

He looked around the ancient building once more, then shook his head. “It’s an inconvenient spot for a drop point, but you’re right. We need to keep moving. How far is the coast from here?”

“Not far,” she said. “Maybe three or four miles.”

“Okay,” he said. “Go get one of the ATVs and I’ll get to work.”

“Work?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”

“Trust me,” he said, turning away to begin resealing the crates.

She sighed and stomped out of the room. Not long after, he heard the sound of her pulling up on one of the machines. The engine cut out and he called to her, “Come in and lend me a hand.”

Tina came back into the building. “Now what?”

“Now we load the crates onto the trailers and haul this stuff to the coast.”

“Are you crazy?” she half yelled. “You’re going to steal from the smugglers?”

“No,” he said, “I’m going to return their merchandise. The rifles are Russian. The rocket launchers are probably black market, sold out of Vietnam or somewhere else in Southeast Asia. It’s only fair that I put them back into the sea, where they can make their way home.”

“Let’s just go,” she said. “Let the authorities deal with it.”

“Help me or not,” he said, his voice turning cold. “If this is a drop point, then these weapons will eventually wind up in the United States and that puts a lot of people at risk. I won’t allow that to happen.”

For a long moment, it looked as if she was going to argue, ask questions or put up a fight, but then she sighed and kept whatever was on her mind to herself. Jason suspected he’d be hearing more about it later.

Without another word, she moved to the end of one of the crates and together, they quickly loaded the trailer. Once all the crates had been loaded, he checked the other buildings to make sure there wasn’t anything else left behind.

“All right,” he said. “Now, I want you to drive that machine down to the coast and wait for me there. Just give me a bearing. I’m going to make sure our dead friends here aren’t left out for scavengers.”

She shuddered dramatically. “I’d rather not know. Just head due east for two miles, then bear north. You’ll find the coast without a problem. I’ll look for you.”

“Good enough,” he said. “Now get going. We don’t have much light left and I want to find shelter before dark.”

She nodded once, then left. Jason got to work, dragging the bodies into the abandoned Inuit building and covering them as best he could. The door was long since gone, but with the cold and their winter gear, they might not give off a scent that would attract predators—at least for a little while. Once he was done with that, he returned to his own ATV and headed for the coast.

His mind worked at the situation rapidly. Obviously, Tina knew more about the smuggling going on in the area than she’d read in some newspaper article. Just as obvious was the fact that if these smugglers could get large crates of weapons into this area from Russia, they’d have no problem at all importing other weapons, too. Like bombs.

If a terrorist group decided to infiltrate using this method, there’d be little to no chance of knowing it before it was too late. His mission parameters had suddenly expanded. Now he had to find the sub…and also figure out a way to stop the smuggling operation. He’d have to get word to Denny about what he’d discovered as soon as possible.

Tina had said there were no phones up here, but Jason had a satellite phone and other advanced communications equipment in his gear. At the first opportunity, he’d check in with Denny and Room 59 and find out what they wanted him to do. Surely they would recognize the additional threat and move to put a stop to it.

He clocked the distance and it wasn’t long until he found the tracks from Tina’s vehicle. There was no way to wipe them out…and if the smugglers wanted vengeance, it was only a matter of time until they found out which direction they’d gone. He could be in for the fight of his life.

What was he truly fighting for? he suddenly wondered.

He shook his head, plagued again by questions that he’d never seriously considered before. None of these questions mattered. Not right now. Right now, he had a mission to accomplish. Everything else was secondary to that.

In the far distance, he saw Tina waving her arms at him. They had a long way to go before they’d reach the village she’d shown him on the map, and already the evening darkness was closing in.

5

Jason pulled up alongside Tina at the edge of the village. He could see the shapes of houses and they moved into the village. They had arrived well after dark and the cold was beginning to seep through the layers of clothing and give his skin that vague itching-burning sensation that came with freezing temperatures. Tina hadn’t spoken a single word since they met back up along the trail and argued about her not listening to his instructions. He supposed he should have expected it.

She had gotten rid of most of the weapons, but had kept one crate containing a variety of the arms they had found. She said she wanted to be able to prove to the authorities that what they were saying was real. Jason had been furious, but understood why she hadn’t listened. In truth, he didn’t plan on dealing with the local authorities at all, but now he’d probably have to. Either way, ever since then, there’d been nothing but silence between them. The quiet was more worrisome than the millions of questions that he knew must be rattling around in her head.

Tina pulled her ATV to a stop next to a large cabin, gesturing vaguely for him to follow as she climbed off her machine and headed up the steps of the cabin. Shutting his own machine down, Jason stood and stretched, considering the load of weapons that they were carrying. They had covered them with a tarp, but he felt uneasy about leaving them out in the open. Anyone might happen along, get curious and find themselves armed with a Russian assault rifle.

Tina ran back down the steps.

“Leave them,” she said, her voice almost as cold as the air around them. “No one is going to bother anything out here, and unless you want to freeze I suggest you get inside.”

“Isn’t there anywhere safer we can store them?” he asked as the wind began to pick up speed with surprising force.

“It’s not like we just pulled into New York with a U-Store-It around every damn corner!” she yelled over the howling winds. “If you want to babysit a crate, you’re more than welcome. I’m going inside.”

She climbed the stairs again. Jason didn’t hesitate this time. He was only half a step behind her as she pushed open the cabin door. He turned as the wind ripped the door out of Tina’s hand and slammed it against the wall. Reaching past her, he grabbed it and leaned his weight against it, pushing it shut. The sudden silence was almost as eerie as the sudden onslaught of wind had been.

“I thought the weather didn’t start getting dangerous for another month or so,” he said. “Where did that come from?”

His guide laughed harshly. “Why did you think you were wearing all that gear? In case the weather got bad in another month?” She sighed, then said, “Those winds can come off the ocean any time of the year, especially as the season changes and the jet stream along with it. They’ll freeze an unprotected person to death in very short order, but they are fairly rare this time of year.”

Tina looked thoroughly disgruntled. She pulled the cap from her head and crossed to the fire that was already burning in the fireplace, careful not to stand too close and cause her hands to ache more than they must have been already. She must have arranged for the cabin in advance; the fire had obviously been going for a while, as a nice pile of hardwood coals was already settled into the grate. Jason swept through the rooms doing a security check. The two bedrooms were furnished identically, down to the comforter and remotes for the televisions on the dresser. A clean set of towels and a welcome basket with coffee and hot chocolate sat on the dresser.

Jason returned to the living room. Tina still hadn’t moved, and the tension in her features hadn’t lessened by so much as a single fine line.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She tilted her head, her lips compressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed. She no longer rubbed her hands for warmth, but held them fisted at her sides.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? No one gets shot at, sees other men shot and killed, then tows cartons full of munitions through the Alaskan tundra and is ‘all right.’ Just what the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?”

“I told you I work for a survey—” he began, but she cut him off immediately.

“Bullshit!” she snapped. “Complete and utter. I’ve seen a lot of surveyors come through here. They carry maps, advanced GPS systems, charts and notepads, and on occasion a flask of whiskey on their hip.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “What they don’t carry is semiautomatic handguns, and they sure as hell don’t fight like you did!”

Jason folded his arms across his chest. He had only been in this position one other time in his career. Back when he was doing black ops for the CIA, his cover was blown in Peru while he was trying to get to a double agent. He got caught in the midst of a drug exchange that went sour, and the whole operation had blown up in his face. He ended that situation with the expediency of simply killing the guy, but that man hadn’t been necessary for his mission. For right now, Tina was. If necessary, he would kill her, but he preferred not to. And his cover wasn’t completely blown; she was suspicious, but it seemed as if that was more of a personality trait than anything else.

He wasn’t sure what he should be more concerned about—the beautiful woman scowling at him across the room or Denny Talbot’s reaction to all this when he had specifically asked for little to no body count. The three dead men back at the ancient village would not, in Denny’s estimation, constitute a minimal body count. One thing he was sure of was that being treated like an errant schoolboy by a woman he’d known for only a day was intolerable. He would worry about Denny tomorrow. Right now, he had to deal with Tina. And he couldn’t let his anger at her treatment of him get the better of him.

“Is there anything I can say that is going to make you feel better about any of this?” he asked. “It’s not like I planned on running into a bunch of gunrunners.”

“You could start by telling me the truth about who you are,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to accept that I acted on instinct?” he asked, allowing a half smile to cross his lips.

“Not with shot groupings like that,” she said. “I’ve been on more hunting trips than I can count and have been shooting most of my life. I don’t know anyone up here who shoots with that kind of calm and accuracy.” She shook her head. “Especially not when someone is shooting back.”

He sighed heavily. “Look, Tina, I’m afraid that there isn’t anything much more that I can tell you. I spent some time in the military—Special Forces, actually—though it was a long time ago. Those guys shot at us and I reacted. Call it muscle memory if you want.”

He walked toward her, but she held up her hand and backed away shaking her head.

“I’m not buying,” she said. “I may not be a genius, but I can tell when someone isn’t telling me the truth. What kind of surveyor carries a gun?”

“One who wants to live—” he started to answer, but she held up a hand once more to silence him.

“I’m done for the night. I’m going to bed and tomorrow morning I’m going back to Nome and I’m reporting all this to the authorities. You can finish your so-called surveying without me. I’m not about to get my ass shot off for what I’m getting paid.”

Trying another approach, he said, “That would be a shame, it really is such a nice ass…”

She turned and slapped him. Hard.

“Okay, wrong thing to say,” he admitted, rubbing his cheek. “Tina, hold on a second. Please.”

She arched an eyebrow but kept her silence.

“Look, I need you. You’re the best guide around. And I need the best to do my job right. If you won’t accept that what happened out there was just pure survival instinct, then I don’t know what to tell you. I had no idea that those men were there, but I won’t apologize for choosing our lives over theirs. I didn’t go looking for trouble and I hope you can believe that. But I’m not very big on turning the other cheek when someone tries to shoot me, either.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “You sound sincere enough, but something about your story doesn’t ring true for me.”

“I can respect that,” he replied. “But truth often has a lot to do with perspective. The bottom line is that I need your help.”

“My help for what?”

“To do my job. I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else. I’ve told you that before and I meant it. But I’m not going to stand down and do nothing while someone is shooting at me, either. I’ve been in dangerous situations before, and if those were small-time operators, they would have hidden or tried to scare us off. They’re part of a larger group and if they’re operating around here, it could jeopardize not just me getting my job done, but a lot of your people, too.”

Jason could see the confusion, then defeat roll across her face. He knew he had her, at least for the moment, but he also knew he couldn’t push her too quickly.

He ran a hand through his hair, more tired than he’d realized. “Look, just sleep on it, okay? We can talk more in the morning. We’re both exhausted. I’ll see if I can shed a little more light on the situation for you then. Besides, we’ll have to talk to the local authorities and get these weapons in the hands of the right people.”

Finally, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll sleep on it. Right now, I’m too tired to think anyway.”

Tina stomped to her room and slammed the door. Jason heard the lock click into place. She might be willing to listen to him a little more, but she obviously didn’t trust him. He checked the windows in the living room and kitchen, placing small motion sensors on the rails that would send a signal to his watch. He placed another one by the door.

Convinced that the cabin was as safe as he could make it, Jason stripped off his outer layers and sank down onto the couch. Propping his feet up on the table, he rolled his head back, contemplating what a disaster the mission had been thus far.

JASON AWOKE to the smell of fresh coffee. He propped himself up on his elbow and pressed the light on his watch. Five-thirty. He swung his legs over the side of the couch and ran his hands through his hair, then slipped on a shirt and headed into the kitchen.

Tina was standing at the counter. Her red fleece sweatshirt was unzipped, showing off her black tank top and nicely rounded breasts. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, eyes closed, as she took a long sip of coffee. Jason could feel the room heat up—or at least his own body temperature—but put his libido in check, knowing he would have to play nice if she was going to remain an asset to him. He also knew that if this got too complicated, he might have no choice but to eliminate her and for that reason alone he needed to keep his distance. He allowed himself one more glance and then put the foolish thoughts away.

“You’re awake,” she said, her voice much less tense than the night before.

“I could never resist the smell of fresh coffee.”

“Help yourself,” she said.

Jason pulled a cup out of the cupboard and poured the coffee. He stood silent. Psychology 101. Most people hate silence and will say anything to fill it, even if what they say is a mistake. He had played human-behavior games too many times and he always won. No matter how calculating or bright his adversary.

Tina took a deep breath.

Here it comes, he thought.

She shifted from one foot to the other.

Oh, yeah. She’s mine, he added to himself.

“You know, maybe we should start over,” she said.

He tried not to smile in victory, but he knew he was failing when he saw her wrinkled brow.

“I wasn’t saying that to be funny,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

She set her coffee on the counter, reached out her hand and said, “Tina Kanut, guide, trapper and on occasion not a half-bad dancer. And you are?”

Jason grinned and stared at her hand. He put his coffee down, as well, and put both of his hands on hers. He shook his head and she pulled her hand away.

“I could just leave you here,” she said.

“You could, but you won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Pretty simple. You know if I was going to hurt you, I would have done so when I was already getting rid of the bodies. You also know that those were not nice men and that I was only protecting my backside. And finally…”

Jason paused, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to go on without hearing the last and he did have so much fun with word games sometimes. In a life like he lived, the little amusements were all one sometimes had.

“Finally, what?” she asked.

“Finally I wasn’t just protecting my backside. I was also protecting yours.”

She pondered for a moment and then looked at him with renewed conviction. “You know, that’s one of the few things you’ve said that I do believe.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you slept out in the living room on the sofa instead of in the bedroom,” she said. “If someone tried to come in during the night, you wanted to be between me and them, didn’t you?”

He nodded, surprised that she had even noticed.

“I don’t trust you,” she said, her tone decisive. “And I don’t think you’ve told me the whole truth. But what I need to know is if you’re here to hurt someone. I’m not just taking you to any village. I’m taking you to my village. If you can’t or won’t tell me the truth about your purpose up here, I guess that’s your problem, but I have to know that you’re not out to hurt the people I care most about.”

“Scout’s honor,” he said without hesitation. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

She pushed away from the counter and started walking to her room, but stopped in front of him. Her hip brushed his as she said, “I bet you weren’t ever really a Boy Scout.”

Jason watched the way she walked, her flannel pants perfectly outlining her behind. “No,” he whispered to himself, completing the old joke, “but I got kicked out for eating a Brownie or two.”

JASON WAITED for Tina in the living room. She came out of her room with a bag in tow.

“How soon can we make it to your village?” he asked.

“It won’t take too long—about a half day—but we need to talk to whatever local authorities are here first and turn over those weapons. I imagine that could see us here for an extra day.”

“Why don’t we take them along with us?” Jason suggested. “Then we can report them to the authorities in your village. You probably know them, and my timetable doesn’t get held up. I’m on a bit of a schedule.”

“You don’t have any intention of giving those weapons over to the police, do you?” she asked.

“If you’ll recall,” he said, striving to keep his voice calm, “I didn’t want you to bring them along in the first place. But the answer to your question is no. I don’t have time to deal with local officials right now. You can believe me when I say that those weapons will get turned over to the proper authorities, more so even than the local cops, who would probably just sell them at the next police auction or keep them for themselves.”

Tina didn’t say anything, but Jason could tell she was considering what he said carefully.

“Not to mention,” he continued, “that it’s hard to run an operation like that without it drawing notice, especially in small towns or communities where everyone knows everyone else. The odds are good that someone pretty high up on the law-enforcement side of things around here is on the take, maybe even actively participating, and they are not going to take kindly to our taking away a large chunk of their bread and butter.”

She tossed up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine,” she said. “But at the least, I want to talk to the local cops in my village. I know them, and I can’t imagine any of them are involved. Fair enough?”

Jason nodded his head in agreement, while thinking about how he could stall her again on the issue once they arrived at her village.

“Can we go, then?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get there. I’d hate for your timetable to be off by more than a minute or two.” The sarcasm in her voice was cutting, but he ignored it.

Instead, he headed outside, gently pulling her along behind him. “Good deal,” he said. He’d picked up his little motion sensors while she was getting ready to leave and had gathered his own things together. The ATVs were right where they had left them. The town was just beginning to wake up and Jason didn’t want to get stuck answering questions about missing members of the local population. Before he moved the bodies, Jason had done quick scans of their fingerprints and took digital pictures of their faces. When they settled at the cabin he sent them to Room 59 via a satellite uplink from his PDA. The response had been fairly quick. All three had rap sheets that weren’t far from what they had been caught at yesterday and two were from the village that they were currently situated in. Denny had sent a message asking for a mission update as soon as possible.

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