Arctic Fire (4 page)

Bill and Cheryl had adopted Jack when he was only a few months old. He was thirty now, but in all that time he’d never told Bill about the terrible fear of heights he’d lived with ever since he could remember. It had been decades since the old man had served in the Marine Corps, but he’d never lost the semper-fi attitude. Phobias simply weren’t acceptable in the Jensen family, especially with a blood son like Troy around who wasn’t afraid of
anything
.

Jack had been hoping all day that by some miracle of God his fear of heights would evaporate or the crystal-clear weather would turn terrible—even though there wasn’t a low-pressure system within five hundred miles. But neither prayer had been answered.

“Look, Bill, I don’t have enough experience for this. Come on, you know that.”

“You walk to the jump door, throw yourself out of the plane, count to five, and rip the cord. There’s nothing to it. Any idiot could do it.” Bill glared at Jack. “Any idiot with guts, anyway.”

“This is insane.”

Jack could feel his body seizing up like an overheating engine at the thought of taking even one step toward the door. He saw the jump supervisor roll his eyes over Bill’s shoulder, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be shamed into doing this. Not like he’d been shamed into doing that tandem jump last month when he’d almost had a heart attack during the first few seconds in the air. What if he couldn’t find the cord? What if the chute didn’t open? This was life and death, and he wasn’t going to tempt the ultimate degree of fate just for Bill’s entertainment.

“I’m not doing it,” he said firmly.

“You will do it!”

“No I won’t. Don’t think just because—”

Bill grabbed him with both hands and wrestled him toward the door. He was more than twice Jack’s age, but he was still a big, strong man, and he’d caught Jack completely off guard. They were only a few feet from plunging into the night before Jack even realized what was happening.

Just when it seemed they both would tumble into the darkness, Jack threw an arm around Bill’s neck, stepped in front of him with one leg, and flipped him to the floor of the plane. Then he quickly retreated from the door. It was the first time he’d ever fought back, but it wasn’t a conscious decision. The move had been purely instinctive, brought on by his terror of being hurled into the night sky fifteen thousand feet above Connecticut.

Bill struggled awkwardly to make it back to his feet in his jumpsuit. When he was up he shook his head and stared at Jack. “Why can’t you be more like Troy?”

Then he turned, staggered to the open door, and plunged into the darkness.

The
Olympian
was three football fields long, and the four massive domes rising from her main deck were each twelve stories high. She was carrying more than 135,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas in those four holds, which for all intents and purposes made her a huge refrigerator, keeping what in nature desperately wanted to be a gas, a liquid.

In its liquid state, LNG took up less than 1/600 the volume it did as a gas. With an energy content of more than fifty-five Hiroshima bombs, the
Olympian
was one of the deadliest ships on the ocean. If one of those domes were suddenly pierced and the cargo detonated as all of that liquid instantaneously reverted to gas, the resulting fireball would destroy a city if the ship were close enough.

The leader smiled thinly as he stood on the
Olympian
’s bridge and peered past her domes into the darkness. That city was going to be Boston. In a few hours he and his crew would sail this massive cargo of LNG into the harbor—after presenting all necessary credentials to the waiting team of law enforcement officials, and then passing a rigorous onboard inspection. Then a Gulfstream 5 would come screaming from the sky and slam into hold 2 or 3. The horrible impact would instantly ignite that deadly fireball as the ship churned slowly along with a helpless flotilla of small-boat escorts. And millions of people would die.

Detonating an LNG tanker near a coastal city wasn’t a particularly creative idea. Federal, state, and local authorities had been worried about the possibility for years, and they were extraordinarily careful each time one of the huge ships approached the United States. The key to executing this mission was having all of the correct authorizations—which they did, thanks to a series
of bribes the leader had made to a well-placed individual in the United States.

Money was the American’s Achilles’ heel, he believed. You simply had to identify the weakest link in the chain and then offer him enough cash. The American wouldn’t care that so many people had died, only that his bank account had grown much larger. Americans really were capitalist pigs. The one who’d sold him the authorizations certainly was.

It had been a long, exhausting voyage from Malaysia, and he had only a few hours to live. But in death he and his squad would become idolized immediately and revered forever. He couldn’t wait to spot that plane streaking toward the
Olympian
and see the first instant of the explosion just before he was incinerated. He wanted to die. The other side was better. He’d been told that for a very long time, and he was ready to enjoy his harem of beautiful virgins.

“It will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” the leader murmured. “It will be a masterpiece of red and orange.”

A moment later he lay dead on the floor of the bridge with his neck cleanly snapped.

The Navy SEAL who’d just carried out the execution lifted his wrist to his mouth. The rest of the crew had been killed a few moments ago by other members of his team. “All clear,” he called loudly into his watch as he began to familiarize himself with the ship’s control panel. “Let’s get the bodies ready for the chopper.”

T
ROY GRABBED
Speed Trap by the neck of his orange poncho and half dragged, half pushed him across the traps as fast as he could. The air temperature was just twenty-seven degrees, and the spray whipping off the ocean combined with the sleet pouring down from above had made the top of the mountain treacherously slick. It was a situation made even more dangerous by the ship’s steep angle of descent as it dived toward the bottom of the deep trough. Still, Troy and Speed Trap made it up the mountain to the forward masthead.

As the ship flattened out, Troy rushed Speed Trap into a harness. Then he grabbed another one and put it on himself as the ship began to climb.

The
Arctic Fire
wouldn’t go up and over the mammoth wave that was bearing down on them. She was too long and heavy and
the wave was too tall and narrow. She’d go through it, instead. She’d try, anyway.

At least the rogue was hurtling straight at them, Troy thought as he stared in awe at the huge wave. If it had been coming from either side, the ship wouldn’t have a chance. The
Fire
would roll, and that would be that. It would take all of Captain Sage’s skill, but the ship still had a chance with this wave coming straight at her bow.

As hell came hurtling down on them, Troy grabbed Speed Trap, took a deep breath of precious air, and shut his eyes tightly.

For several terrifying seconds he felt like a rag doll inside a tornado, and at the same time, as if he were encased in ice on the dark side of the moon. The ferocity of the wave and the bitter cold of the seawater cost him his grip on Speed Trap and forced a bloodcurdling scream from his lips. It was the first time Troy could ever remember thinking that the candle of his life was actually about to go out.

A second later the rogue blew past and Troy fell for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally crashed onto a trap, he opened his eyes, gasped several times, and took a quick inventory of his body. It didn’t feel like anything was broken, but he was shivering so hard maybe he couldn’t tell.

Then there was a throbbing in his left temple, and he pressed his hand to the spot. Blood covered his fingers when he checked them, but he was relieved by the sight of it because now he could feel the pain in his forehead—but no pain anywhere else. Given the awesome power of what had just slammed the ship, the wound was minor.

Maybe Red Fox One was right, Troy realized as he stared at the blood. Maybe he was untouchable. Maybe there was something otherworldly about it, as crazy as it sounded. He’d never believed in any of that, but what other explanation could there be? He always survived these life-or-death situations.

Troy glanced up from his fingers. The foredeck was a disaster area. More than half the ship’s traps had been hurled overboard in the chaos. And many of those that remained aboard were now nothing but useless hunks of twisted steel.

As Troy staggered to his feet, a flash of adrenaline surged through his body and he caught his breath when the awful realization hit him. Speed Trap was gone.

“Where the hell is he, Troy?” Captain Sage bellowed through the speakers. “Did he go over?”

“Find my boy!” Duke cried, grabbing the microphone. “Please, Troy, find him.”

Troy had already torn his harness off and was sprinting through the destruction. The ship was still pitching in the storm, but eerily, the waves had calmed and the winds had quieted now that the rogue was gone.

Then he spotted the tiniest tinge of yellow on the port side of the bow and raced for it. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

As he reached the edge of the deck, Troy dropped to his knees atop a trap that was still in good shape. He peered over the side, and staring back up at him was the terror-stricken but very much alive face of the first mate’s younger son.

Speed Trap was hanging from the ship literally by a thread, by what little remained of the shredded yellow tether that had connected the harness to the mast. At any moment it could break away from the trap it had somehow snagged onto and the kid would go plunging into the waves. Then the Bering Sea would finish the job and claim another victim.

Troy reached down, grabbed the harness with both hands, and carefully began pulling Speed Trap back aboard. He held his breath, afraid that the ragged strap would snap at any second.

But it didn’t.

As soon as Speed Trap was back on deck, he jumped to his feet and hugged Troy tightly. “Thanks,” he sobbed as tears of relief and joy streamed down his face. “You saved my life, for Christ’s sake,
you saved my damn life
! I’ll never be able to repay you. Thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, pal,” Troy muttered as Duke’s sobs of relief blared through the speakers. “You’re welcome.”