Arctic Fire (15 page)

She put her soft palms on his cheeks and stared up at him. “Don’t let Bill talk you out of it,” she whispered. “Don’t let him scare you. Go to Alaska,” she urged. “Do you hear me? Go.”

Jack nodded hesitantly, not sure he really had heard her—at least, not right. He’d heard the words, but the message seemed full of static. “I heard you. I mean, I guess I—”

“But be careful, Jack. Be
very
careful.”

“I will. Of course I will.”

Her eyes widened, as if she’d just thought about something very frightening. “Don’t ever tell Bill I was here tonight. All right?”

“All right.”

“You
have
to remember that, Jack.”

She suddenly seemed more terrified than he’d ever seen her before. “OK, OK, I’ll remember.”

She reached into her purse and handed him a thick envelope. Then she kissed him on the cheek and headed for the door.

But he caught her by the wrist and turned her gently back around. “Mom.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she wouldn’t look up at him. “Mom?”

“What?” she answered, sobbing softly.

Jack swallowed hard. “Who’s my real father?”

H
UNTER SAT
in a comfortable chair, hands clasped together tightly in his lap, waiting patiently. He’d been sitting in the chair for hours, but they wouldn’t tell him who he was waiting for or why they’d brought him here.

He’d been watching television the whole time, sitting with the two men who’d stopped him as he was heading down into the subway to go to Grand Central Station after meeting Jack. They’d flashed a couple of big, official-looking gold badges at him and then hustled him into a dark blue Town Car waiting at the curb. They hadn’t forced him to get in, but he hadn’t put up a fight either. He’d always heard it was best to do whatever you were told to do in those situations. To make sure you didn’t piss anybody off and make things even worse for yourself later.

At first, Hunter was petrified that they were arresting him for a stock tip he’d gotten from an I-banker friend one night last
month in a bar. The next morning he’d bought a ton of cheap call options on the target company’s stock, knowing full well that a takeover announcement from a European conglomerate was imminent. The announcement had come two days later, and he’d instantly pocketed thirty grand. It was thirty grand he needed like hell because he was basically broke. It was also a clear-cut case of insider trading.

For the first hour of this ordeal he’d been panic-stricken, wondering how in the world he was going to survive in prison. Wondering if all those stories he’d heard about what happened in there to thin blond guys were really true.

Eventually he’d convinced himself that they weren’t the kind of government people who cared about insider trading, so his initial wave of terror had ebbed.

Now his fears were growing again, though for a different reason. All they’d said the entire time he’d been here was that someone needed to talk to him. They wouldn’t tell him who the person was or what branch of the government they were with. Worse, they wouldn’t even confirm that they were actually with the government. And that was why he was getting nervous again. Maybe they weren’t with the government.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. “Hey guys, I’ve gotta go,” he said firmly, starting to stand up. “My wife will be—”

“Sit down,” the guy in the chair closest to him ordered sharply just as there was a hard rap on the door. “Now!”

A few moments later the man who’d knocked on the door was sitting in a chair in front of Hunter and the other two men had disappeared into another room.

“Hello, Hunter.”

The man wore an expensive suit, a sharp button-down shirt, and a Hermes tie. He looked more like a Wall Streeter than a government guy. He was small—short and narrow—but Hunter still
sensed danger about him. He seemed to naturally emit it with his eyes.

“Sorry to keep you waiting so long,” he said with a thin smile.

Hunter sensed that the smile and the friendly demeanor were forced. Maybe they were going to grill him on who’d given him the stock tip after all. Maybe they were after bigger fish and it was a plea-bargain situation. Well, he was going to get a lawyer before he said anything.

“That’s OK.” Hunter tapped his watch, trying to seem a little irritated. “But it’s getting late.”

“Cigarette?” the man asked, reaching into his suit coat and pulling out a pack.

“Nah.”

“Well, look, I know you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“To tell you the truth, that had crossed my—”

“Why did Jack Jensen quit his job at Tri-State this afternoon?” the man demanded. His friendly demeanor soured as he leaned forward.

“What?” Hunter asked, taken completely by surprise. “I, I have no idea,” he stammered. “How the hell do I know why he—”

“Tell me!”

“All I know is that Jack quit. He didn’t even tell me he was going to quit before he did. It was a shock.”

“Bullshit, Hunter. You’re his best friend. You know more than that.”

“No, I don’t.” Hunter felt himself
really
starting to panic. There was something so terrifying about this man’s eyes. “
I swear.
”

“Is he going somewhere?”

Hunter just hoped to God the man wasn’t a mind reader and hadn’t seen the word Florida flash through his brain. It probably didn’t matter if he had, Hunter realized, because the word was probably tattooed on his forehead by now. “I…I don’t know.
I’m serious
.”

The man glanced at something over Hunter’s shoulder, but before Hunter could turn around, a clear plastic bag slid roughly down over his head, a rope cinched tightly around his neck, and his hands were clamped together behind his back. Through the bag shrouding his face, Hunter saw the man puffing on his cigarette, calmly watching.

Hunter struggled violently, but it was useless. There were too many of them and they were too strong. He couldn’t move—or breathe. The bag was going halfway down his throat every time he tried to suck in air, and he could feel himself quickly losing consciousness.

As his eyes closed all he could think about was that conversation he’d had with Jack about being interrogated as a terrorist.

After grudgingly agreeing to pay twice the advertised rate up front in cash, along with a forty-dollar tip, the old man doing the graveyard shift behind the cheap motel’s front desk hadn’t required a credit card imprint or a name. However, the anonymity was providing Jack little peace of mind.

With one final heave, the heavy chest of drawers stood directly in front of the door to his room. Jack backed off slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed beside the envelope full of cash Cheryl had given him earlier. Maybe all of this was overkill and he didn’t need to be so worried. Maybe that warning voice whispering to him from the back of his brain was wrong.

He shook his head as he reached for the loaded pistol lying on the mattress beside him. No way. Better safe than sorry, especially if being sorry meant being dead. Better to go the extra mile—an extra thousand miles if that was necessary—than get run over by a van.

Better safe than sorry. That was going to be his mantra until this thing was finished—one way or the other.

B
ALTIMORE
, M
ARYLAND
, was more than four thousand miles from Dutch Harbor, but that was where Jack had come to pick up the trail of truth about Troy.

A man named Ross Turner had pointed him there. Turner had been Jack’s fraternity brother at Denison, and he was one of those few friends from way back Jack still had.

After graduation, Turner had gone to Alaska to hunt and fish for a year before going to Harvard Law School. Harvard had given Turner a deferral to get the Alaska bug out of his system. But one year had turned into eight, and any lingering thoughts of the law had been erased by images of the grizzly bears he’d shot and the king salmon he’d landed. Now Turner made his living hunting and fishing—as a guide.

Jack’s second call to Turner in a week—a call Jack had made only minutes after almost being killed by the white van
on Broadway—had prompted Turner to dig even deeper into Captain Sage Mitchell’s sketchy reputation. During his years in Alaska, Turner had made contacts everywhere, including police barracks and Coast Guard stations up and down the seaboard. And it didn’t take him long to uncover a fascinating piece of information that had somehow steered clear of the press.