Arctic Fire Page 5

  Cheryl moaned. “Please don’t do this, Bill.”

  “Those people you’re talking about love what they do,” Jack answered. “They love their high-tech weapons and their licenses to kill. They love to murder and mutilate just for murder and mutilation’s sake. Most of them don’t even care if they get paid as long as they get to kill or torture somebody once in a while. They’re sadists.”

  “Those people,” Bill hissed emotionally, “have more guts in their nose hairs than you have in your entire body. Maybe someday, if you and I are both really lucky, you’ll understand that.”

  Troy nailed Sage in the face with a powerful right cross, sending the Fire’s captain crashing to the wet, slippery deck. A split second later he took out Duke with a swift, sharp uppercut to the chin.

  But before he could spin back around to face Grant, the huge young man barreled into him from the side and sent him crashing to the deck too. Troy tried to get up, but Sage slammed him in the back of the head with a metal bucket. The impact didn’t knock him out, but it rendered his arms and legs temporarily useless and he keeled over. He was aware of Grant and Sage picking him up and tossing him over the deck wall, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  As he hit the water and the shock of the freezing temperature revived him, a terrible thought flashed through Troy’s mind. Maybe this was how Charlie Banks had died too. Not on Mount Everest last year as Red Fox One had claimed.

  CHAPTER 8

  TROY’S PHOTOGRAPH was prominently displayed on a large easel in the middle of the mansion’s great room. In the picture he was standing on a dock in front of the Arctic Fire with his arms crossed defiantly over his chest as the ship lay at rest in Dutch Harbor.

  A crewmate had snapped the photo minutes before they’d sailed, and Troy had e-mailed it out to Bill from the computer on the bridge as the ship reached open waters. That was three weeks ago to the day. The day Troy Jensen had finally taken on a challenge he couldn’t conquer. The day his daredevil life had begun to catch up with him and the fuse leading to his death had ignited.

  Jack felt that familiar pang of jealousy knife through him as he gazed at the picture of Troy that Cheryl had turned into a three-by-three-foot monument for the memorial service. Troy was still the headliner, still larger than life—even in death. He looked amazing standing there with his dirty-blond hair, chiseled cheeks, strong chin, perfect dimple, and sparkling steel-blue eyes that dazzled every woman who had the misfortune of glancing his one-night way.

  “You bastard,” Jack whispered. “How am I supposed to compete with you now?”

  “That’s a tough one, I’ll grant you.”

  Jack’s eyes raced from the photograph—to Hunter Smith. This was the first Jack had seen of Hunter today.

  “I’d really started to think Troy was bulletproof,” Hunter said as he gazed at the photograph. “Almost untouchable,” he added in a reverent voice. “It’s a good lesson for all of us.”

  “It’s not a lesson. It’s common sense. You can only give death the finger so many times before it nails you. He got what he was looking for. He got what he—”

  “Don’t say it,” Hunter interrupted sharply.

  “Say what?”

  “You’ll be sorry, Jack.”

  “Ah, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just trying to—”

  “He got what he deserved. That’s what you were going to say.” Hunter shook his head as if he was relieved. “I’m just glad I said it first. See, that’s why I’m good for you, Jack. I say the things you want to say but shouldn’t.”

  Jack grinned faintly despite his irritation. “So that’s why you’re good for me, huh, Hunt? That’s what I get out of us being friends?”

  “Yeah and I’m still trying to figure out the symmetry. I’m still trying to figure out what I get out of being friends with you.”

  “Try this one,” Jack suggested. “I introduced you to your wife and you’re damn lucky I did. Amy’s a hell of a catch.”

  Hunter squinted as if he were thinking hard about what he’d just heard. “Debatable.”

  “You’ve got no business being married to that woman, and we both know it.”

  “Well—”

  “Don’t even start with me on this.”

  A throwin-the-towel shadow slid across Hunter’s face like a cloud sliding in front of the sun. “OK, OK.”

  “Without me,” Jack continued, “you wouldn’t have had a chance with Amy.”

  Hunter put his hands up. “OK already, you’re right.”

  “I was an idiot not to go for her myself.” Jack searched the crowd quickly. “Maybe I should get her a drink and have a talk with her. Where is she anyway?”

  “Stay away,” Hunter warned. “I’ll kill you if you go anywhere near her.”

  Jack’s half grin grew into a broad smile. Hunter Smith was as gentle a man as had ever walked the earth. In the fifteen years they’d been friends, they’d never even come close to blows.

  Jack couldn’t say that about all of his old friends. He’d never been the one to throw the first punch, but he’d never been one to walk away from a fight either. He’d put two guys in the hospital with broken jaws after ducking punches, then firing back. Both of them had apologized later for what they’d said and for firing first, but Jack hadn’t accepted. He didn’t live by the second chance rule when it came to violence, especially when the violence had started after a comment about him being adopted.

  “I’d never go behind your back, Hunt.”

  Jack had known Amy since grade school, and he’d gotten his chance to do that two years ago at a Jensen Labor Day party. She’d had too many cocktails during the course of the afternoon, and she’d tried to persuade him into one of the mansion’s third-floor guest bedrooms. But he’d guided her straight back to Hunter as soon as he’d understood what was happening.

  Amy had called him the next day to thank him for being a gentleman. Despite what had happened, Jack still figured she was a good girl and that Hunter was lucky to have her. She’d sworn it was the only time she’d ever come on to anyone since she’d been married to Hunter. And Jack believed her because he’d always known her to be a straight arrow, almost a prude.

  “Never,” he repeated emphatically.

  Hunter looked down at the floor and nodded. “Yeah, I know you wouldn’t,” he acknowledged quietly. “I definitely know. Amy told me.”

  Jack had wondered if she had. Well, it had been two years and they were still together. It must have taken a lot for her to tell him, and Jack admired her for being so honest. He admired Hunter for sticking around too.

  He glanced again at the picture of Troy standing in front of the Arctic Fire. Being with each other constantly was about the toughest thing two people could do, he figured. Which was why so many marriages failed, he believed, and why he’d always be a bachelor. He wasn’t a loner, but he liked doing things his way. Compromise wasn’t a priority for him. Not nearly enough of one to get married, anyway.

  Women came on to him a lot even though he didn’t consider himself that handsome. Pretty women too, and he found the attention curious. It had to be the money they thought he had. Or maybe they were trying to get to Troy through him. If that was the case, they wouldn’t be coming on to him much anymore.

  “Troy did get what he deserved,” Jack said, still gazing at the photograph, “and I’m not afraid to say it.”

  Hunter checked around the crowded room, trying to see if anyone had heard that. “And I was so sure you’d be in a good mood today.”

  There was something about the picture that had really caught his attention. It was as if the picture were trying to talk to him, as if it were trying to send him a clue or a connection to something vitally important. But he couldn’t figure out what that was, and it was driving him crazy.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Hunt?” he asked, finally looking away, frustrated by his inability to decipher the message. He was almost sure he knew what Hunter h
ad been driving at with the remark, and it was pretty brutal. But he wanted to hear the confession. “Well?”

  “Nothing,” Hunter said, guiding Jack away from the easel as two sad-eyed young women approached. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

  Jack thought about pushing it, but let it go. Hunter was one of the few people he hated to confront. With almost everyone else, it wasn’t a problem.

  It was early December, and Connecticut was enjoying an unseasonably warm and sunny stretch of weather. It was a good thing for the Jensen family too. So many people had come to pay their last respects to Troy that the mansion alone couldn’t have accommodated the crowd. The place was huge, but not huge enough. Fortunately, the beautiful weather allowed Bill and Cheryl to use the sprawling stone porch at the back of the house too.

  “Sahara scotch,” Hunter ordered after they’d moved outside through a set of French doors and made it to the nearest bar. “Johnny Walker, half an ice cube, and an H2O molecule.” He held his hand up. “On second thought, hold that ice cube and the water molecule in the name of conservation.”

  Jack nodded to the bartender. “Same.”

  When they had their drinks, they slipped through the crowd to the stone wall framing three sides of the raised porch. From here they had a panoramic view of the Jensen barns and pastures, which stretched to an unbroken line of oak and pine trees a quarter mile away. From where they stood, they couldn’t see another house. This was pricey real estate even in a pricey town. Wall Street had been good to Bill and Cheryl.

  “Here’s the thing,” Jack said. “Troy took crazy risks all the time, and I don’t care what anybody says about how modest he was and how he didn’t care if people noticed. He cared, Hunt, he cared a lot. He was a show-off in his own way. Look at that damn front-page article he got himself in the Wall Street Journal about the Seven Summit thing. Jesus, what a stick-your-finger-down-your-throat-and-gag-yourself-until-you-puke crock of self-promotional crap that was.”

  “Your father got him that article,” Hunter reminded Jack. “Troy had nothing to do with it. Your father’s the one who’s friends with that editor at the Times.”

  “You mean my adoptive father.”

  Hunter groaned. “You’re thirty years old, Jack. When are you gonna get past this thing?”

  “When Bill and Cheryl start calling me by whatever my real name is.”

  “What’s wrong with Jack?”

  Jack shrugged as he leaned down and rested his forearms on the wall. “Nothing. It’s a great name. It’s just not mine. It’s the one they made up and hung around my neck when they brought me home to Connecticut in the limo from the secondhand baby supermarket in Brooklyn. It’s the name they gave me so they could feel better about me. So they didn’t have to call me Sonny or Vito or Carlo and think about who I really was every time they said it.”

  Hunter took a healthy gulp of scotch. “I love you like a brother, pal, but you are one stubborn son of a bitch, especially when the liquor starts talking.” He made a sweeping gesture at all that lay in front of them. “Look at this place. It’s amazing. And Bill’s gotten us both jobs downtown, even the second one, even after we got canned at the first place. And if you ever did have money problems, you know Bill would take care of you. So if you don’t mind me asking—no, no,” Hunter interrupted himself, “even if you do mind, especially if you mind. What the hell are you bitter about? From what I’ve heard, if they hadn’t adopted you, your ass would be riding the back of a garbage truck in the Bronx or sweeping the floors of some housing project in East New York.”

  Jack could feel the anger and frustration boiling inside him like it always did when he thought about this too much—especially, as Hunter pointed out, when the alcohol caught up with him. “They adopted me because they thought Cheryl couldn’t have kids. When Troy came along out of nowhere two years later it was all over for me because he’s blood and I’m not. Full stop. They would have given me back if they could have.”

  “That’s bullshit, Jack, and you know it. They’ve always loved you. They’ve always treated you and Troy like equals.”

  “Now that’s bullshit. At least as far as Bill goes.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Well, what do you expect? He sends you to Exeter, one of the best prep schools in the country. And the day after you get there you tell the headmaster your name isn’t really Jack Jensen. You tell him it’s really Sonny Carbone or something like that and that you’re a made man in the mob. Then you tell him to fuck off in Italian in front of half the student body. Which would have been fine because he didn’t understand Italian, but you flipped him the bird too.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not ashamed of whatever my real name is,” Jack grumbled. “I don’t appreciate Bill being ashamed.”

  “He isn’t. He’s just—”

  “Look at me.” Jack came up off the wall and rose to his full height of six two. “I look Italian. I look like my name ought to be Sonny Carbone. I’ve got jet-black hair and a Roman nose the size of New Jersey. I’ve even got a little olive to my skin, which means I’m a mutt even in Italy. I mean, could I ever pass for a blue blood? Would anybody ever believe my last name is really Jensen? Of course not,” he answered his own question quickly before Hunter could say anything. “Goddamn it, I’ve been trying to pass this joke of a twig of the family tree off for a long time, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the smirks and the eye rolls I get all the time when Bill introduces me to his society friends as his son. Everybody knows I’m really just an artificial limb.”

  “First of all,” Hunter said, “your nose isn’t the size of New Jersey.” He grinned. “It’s more like the size of Delaware, and what do you care? It’s never affected your ability to get women. The way they throw themselves at you always amazes me. Troy too. He told me that last fall when he was home. I think he was really jealous of you for that.”

  “That’s such a bunch of crap. He had absolutely nothing to ever be jealous of me for because—”

  “Second,” Hunter broke in loudly, “you’re wrong about Troy. He didn’t care about getting ink. I’ve never heard him talk himself up once, and this is coming from a guy whose brother is one of the biggest self-promoters of all time. Muhammad Ali was a modest man compared to my brother.” Hunter paused when he saw that Jack was actually listening. “Third and most important, Troy did care about you. He cared a lot about you. I know that for a fact because we had a long talk about it that last time he was home. He told me how you always took care of him on the playground when you two were kids, and how much he learned from you over the years. How in a way you were still taking care of him. Which I didn’t understand and he wouldn’t be specific about, but I could tell he was being real serious. He said he missed you a lot too.” Hunter paused again, giving Jack time to think about everything he’d just heard. “So I don’t like hearing you say that Troy got what he deserved. You’re a better man than that, Jack. A lot better. And Troy doesn’t deserve to have that said about him, especially not by you. Look, he was a hell of a guy, and I know it wasn’t easy having him as a brother because he was the real deal. Everybody idolized him, and that was tough for you. It would have been tough for anyone to deal with that. But he still ought to get better from you, especially now.”

  “I know,” Jack admitted softly. “I guess sometimes how different I am from everyone else in the family catches up to me.” He shook his head. “How different I am in every way. Even the way I think.”

  Hunter rolled his eyes and groaned. “You have another one of those political arguments with Bill?”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah, I was over here one morning last week after we blasted that town in Afghanistan with cruise missiles, and Bill and I got into it.”

  “You call him Attila the Hun again?”

  Hunter knew him so well. “Nah, this time I called him Adolph. I’m tired of calling him Attila.”

  “Did he tell you how you’re nothing but a bleeding heart liberal, and how you have no idea what it takes to run thi
s country? And how you have no respect for the men and women of honor who keep you safe at night?”

  “Doesn’t he always? And, for the record, I do have respect for those people, a lot of respect.”

  “I know you do. You just wanted to see how hard you could get that vein in his forehead pumping, right?”

  Hunter knew him so damn well. “I just think the United States ought to act with more compassion. Being the bully never makes anyone respect you. It pisses people off and makes them do stupid things. It makes teenagers take guns to school. And it makes terrorists fly planes into buildings.”

  Hunter gazed out at the pastures. “Yeah, but I’m not sure compassion is the way either. Not with the freaks we’re fighting now.”

  “Not you too, pal.”

  “You know which side I come down on, Jack. You always have. Maybe I’m not as far right as Bill, but every once in a while we have to back up our rhetoric with some serious action. That is, if the rhetoric’s ever going to mean anything.”

  “Even if that action means we kill children?”

  Hunter rolled his eyes. “Come on, Jack, that’s not fair.”

  “OK, OK.” Hunter was right. That wasn’t fair. “Do you have a problem with us torturing people we believe might be terrorists?”

  Hunter thought about it for a few moments. “No, I don’t. I mean, as long as we’re pretty positive they are.”

  “Jesus Christ, Hunt. You’re just like Bill. Down deep you think we ought to wipe those people off the face of the earth.”

  “I do not, damn it. But I don’t want to be on top of the new World Trade Tower one day and see a plane hit the building twenty stories below me.” Hunter shut his eyes tightly. “I still think about those poor people who had to choose between being incinerated or jumping from a hundred stories up that morning. And I’m sorry, but I don’t have a problem with some water-boarding if that keeps the skies over our country safe. Or whatever else they use to make those people talk.”