Arctic Fire Read online

  “What if it’s you someday?”

  Hunter gave Jack a WTF look. “What are you talking about?”

  “What if they arrest you and start asking you crazy questions about things you’ve said on the phone or they want to know about people you’ve met with? What if they tie you upside down on a plank and start dumping cold water down your nose? What then, Hunt?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it is. No one’s going to arrest me for being a terrorist.”

  “How do you know? They didn’t even give that guy in Yemen last year a chance to be tortured. He was an American citizen and they murdered him in his convoy.”

  Hunter stared at Jack for several moments, as though he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Are you talking about al-Awlaki? The dude who was a senior al-Qaeda guy?”

  “Right,” Jack agreed. “That guy.”

  “Come on, pal. Buy a ticket on the real world train and come to sanity town where it’s always warm and sunny. We’ve got a nice couch waiting for you on the—”

  “How do you know he was an al-Qaeda leader?”

  Hunter winced as though he were in serious physical pain. “I know what you’re going to say, Jack, but even the New York Fucking Times said he was. That wasn’t a case of our government lying to us, not even close. That was a bad dude we killed.”

  “You never know, Hunter. I think we have to be very careful when we start executing our own citizens without a trial.”

  “And I think we have to protect our good citizens any way we can,” Hunter replied loudly. “We have to trust our leaders to do the right thing.”

  “That’s a big leap of faith in this day and age.”

  “In any day and age,” Hunter agreed, “but we have to. That’s why we elect them.”

  “I don’t know.” Jack finished what was left of his scotch and put the empty glass down on the wall. He closed his eyes as the realization that Troy was gone finally started sinking in. “Troy did deserve what he got, Hunt,” he said quietly. “But I’m not glad he got it, I’m not glad he died.” Why the hell had Troy gone on that damn crab boat? Why hadn’t Bill steered him away from it? Bill had that power over Troy, the only one in the world who ever had. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

  Hunter patted Jack’s shoulder. “You better figure that out, my friend. And you better figure it out soon.”

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed after a few moments. “I guess I better.”

  Hunter finished his scotch and put the glass down on the wall beside Jack’s. “Have you ever wondered what Troy was really doing all this time?”

  They were both facing away from the mansion, but when Jack heard what Hunter had said he turned to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Troy graduated from Dartmouth six and a half years ago, but he never settled down?”

  “Not at all. Look, he was an endless-summer kid who never grew up. He loved how athletic he was and what he could do with all that talent. He loved being a rolling stone too. And he loved having all those different women.” Jack snickered. “And he loved that Bill paid for everything.”

  “He was on the Arctic Fire to make money,” Hunter pointed out. “And he worked in that mine in Argentina two years ago.”

  “He couldn’t possibly have made enough money doing those things to support himself in the way he wanted to live. He was a Jensen, remember? A real Jensen. He needed money, and he needed lots of it.”

  “He wasn’t like that and you know it. He wasn’t materialistic.”

  Jack was getting annoyed. “So what are you saying, Hunt? Spin it out for me.”

  “I wonder if there was more going on with him than we realized. I’ve always wondered that.”

  “Like what?”

  Hunter shrugged again. “I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about ever since I heard he died.”

  Jack grabbed his glass off the wall. “Ah, you’ve always been a conspiracy guy. Accept the situation for what it is. A rich kid taking advantage of what he fell into just by being born.”

  “Maybe,” Hunter said quietly, “but maybe not.”

  Jack waved at Hunter dismissively and shook his head. “I’m getting another drink.”

  As he stalked toward the bar, Hunter’s words echoed in his head. Jack had been wondering the same thing for a while.

  CHAPTER 9

  “GOOD AFTERNOON, Mr. President.”

  Carlson rose stiffly from the leather couch and extended his right hand beneath a practiced smile of indifference that came to his face automatically within the walls of the Oval Office after so many years. This was the eighth administration he’d served, and it no longer impressed him that he had direct access to the person the public and the press called the most powerful man in the world. Now he was more impressed by people who actually risked their lives every day in the shadows. People like Shane Maddux.

  “I trust you’ve been well, sir.”

  “Of course, of course,” President Dorn answered cheerfully. “I’ve got the best job in the world, I’ve got a wonderful family, and I’ve got my health. I have no excuse for feeling anything but absolutely outstanding. It would be a crime for me to complain about anything, Roger.”

  The president’s greedy display of appreciation for his good fortune was a function of being in office less than a year, Carlson believed. The pressure of making decisions that affected billions of people every day—many of them negatively—hadn’t gotten to him yet. As he’d told Maddux, Dorn’s infatuation with the job would wear off around the first anniversary of taking that momentous oath on the Capitol steps on that blustery January day. At that point being president would turn into a grind, just like every desk job ultimately did.

  Carlson always looked forward to that anniversary because dealing with a new president and his administration became infinitely easier. By that one-year mark the president no longer questioned the morality of what was going on in the shadows. By that time he fully appreciated knowing that there were people out there quietly killing the enemies because he’d come to realize how many people wanted to kill him and, bottom line, how vulnerable he was despite all of the Secret Service’s efforts. In fact, after that first anniversary, the president usually started wanting more of what Carlson delivered—much more.

  That was the progression with the liberals. The conservatives were in it up to their eyeballs right out of the gate, even before they took the oath—especially the neocons. They were the easy ones to deal with.

  Unfortunately, President Dorn was as far left on the political spectrum as any commander in chief of the United States could be. He was a tree-hugger from Vermont who thought the ACLU was the most important group ever founded; that the death penalty was a barbaric ritual that only lunatics could support; and that the founding fathers had made a huge error in judgment when they’d decided that everyone had the right to bear arms. David Dorn made Bill Clinton look like Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan look like Joseph Stalin.

  “Well,” Carlson said, “I’m sure we could get you off with a small fine and some community service if you did complain about something.”

  The president laughed heartily. “You’re amazing, Roger.”

  Dorn was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a full head of dark hair who radiated charisma as impressively as the core of a nuclear power plant radiated energy, and couldn’t have looked more presidential if he’d tried. In fact, Carlson thought of Dorn as the floor model. He just wished Dorn’s political views weren’t so severely left of left. He’d never cared about a president’s political affiliation before, but he was starting to with this one. He hadn’t fully dismissed Maddux’s words of caution.

  “You’re in your seventies, right, Roger?”

  “Seventy-three, Mr. President.”

  “But you look fifty-three.”

  That was crap, Carlson knew. His gra
y hair was thinning, he had deep creases at the corners of his mouth, crow’s-feet at the corners of both eyes, and he’d started to get those brown spots on his arms and legs. And though he didn’t really need the cane he used when he met with Maddux, he still hunched over when he walked because of a bad disk in his back that should have been operated on ten years ago—but there’d never been time. He looked like an older man because he was an older man.

  Lately, he was feeling like one too. He was pragmatic, he always had been, and he knew his days of dealing with the constant pressure of running Red Cell Seven were numbered. It was almost time for him to be done with this crazy thing he’d been devoted to for over four decades. It was almost time to yield the awesome responsibility of this job to someone younger, and he knew exactly who that would be. There would be a quiet approval process, but it would be only a formality. He just needed to get President Dorn in line before he could turn over the reins to Shane Maddux and ride off into the sunset.

  “And you act thirty-three,” the president continued, gesturing for Carlson to sit back down. “I hear people half your age can’t keep up with you.”

  Carlson turned his head slightly to the side, as though he was deflecting the remark. How the hell would the president know that people half his age couldn’t keep up with him? How would the president know of anyone at all who was trying to keep up with him? He shouldn’t.

  Maddux’s warning rattled around in Carlson’s brain again, but he shook it off. The president’s comment had to be just an innocent, off-the-cuff remark.

  “How about we settle on me looking sixty-three and acting fifty-three?” Carlson suggested as he sank back onto the sofa. “That work for you?”

  “All right, Roger, all right.” The president chuckled as he sat behind his big desk. “So, how are you this fine, fine autumn morning?”

  “Well, Mr. President, I woke up breathing.”

  The president raised one eyebrow. “As I recall, that’s your favorite response to the question. It’s what you say every time I ask you.”

  “You’re right, it is.” This was a first. The other seven men had never noticed that answer. At least, they’d never said anything about it. “I think it puts everything into perspective simply but elegantly, and I—”

  “You woke up breathing all right,” the president interrupted, his tone turning measurably less friendly. “You woke up without a limp too.”

  Carlson’s eyes raced to the president’s—and instantly he regretted his reaction. He hadn’t been taken off guard like that in years, and his transparent response to the remark was infuriating. He’d confirmed the truth with his shocked look like some peach-fuzz-covered adolescent would have to his father about breaking a window with a baseball. The surprised expression had lasted only a second, but if he’d done that in the field, he’d be maggot-food right now.

  “No cane when you went for your coffee at the Starbucks down the street from your house in Georgetown this morning,” the president continued, “but you were using one the other day when you went out to that place you people have in Reston.”

  Here was more bad news. President Dorn knew about the web of safe houses they operated in Reston, a northern Virginia suburb of Washington. The houses looked like the typical neighborhood homes of normal upper-middle-class suburbanites, but they weren’t typical at all. Dorn probably knew about the underground corridors that connected them too.

  “Excuse me?” Carlson said hesitantly.

  “You heard me,” the president replied as he scanned a memo. “But I’ll say it again. The other day you were limping. Today you aren’t. The other day you had a cane. Today you don’t.”

  There was no way for Carlson to deny any of this. Protesting would only make him look foolish. “So what?”

  “Well, if you’re deceiving people who’ve worked under you for decades and who idolize the ground you walk on, why wouldn’t you deceive me someday? That’s how I look at it.”

  Carlson made certain to stare back at the president with an unwavering gaze. “Is there a point to all of this?”

  “There is, Roger,” Dorn acknowledged, putting the memo down. “I want you to know that I have great respect for what you and your people do and the dangers you and they face every day. Your organization is a valuable weapon in what I’ll call my twilight intelligence arsenal. It has been for many administrations, for many presidents before me. I get all that,” he muttered as though he didn’t get it at all, and didn’t care that he didn’t. He held up a hand when he saw that Carlson was about to speak, and his expression slowly became one of irreversible resolve. “But I’m not going to let anyone around me run free, even if they’ve had that room to run for a long time. It’s too risky in this day and age, when every reporter out there is trying to break a career story every minute of the day and will stop at nothing to do it. So there will be limits to what you can do without my direct approval. Strict limits. I won’t always be watching, but I could be. Make it easy on yourself and assume I am. That’ll make it easier on everyone.” He hesitated. “Another thing, Roger. You’ll no longer have direct access to me. It’s too damn risky to have you traipsing in here as some hush-hush special advisor no one knows. Too many people are asking questions.

  “So I’m going to put a buffer between us,” Dorn continued, “maybe even a couple of them. And that only makes sense because you’ll be meeting with this person a lot more than you’ve been meeting with me, much more than I’d ever have time for. See, I want to know exactly what you’re doing at all times because I’ll be approving all of your major initiatives before you execute any of them in the field. No more running free in the shadows, Roger. No more freedom to handle things any way you choose. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but that’s the way it’s going to be. I am commander in chief of the United States of America and that’s an order.”

  Carlson took a measured breath. He could have allowed that LNG tanker to sail into Boston Harbor and blow the city to hell—but he hadn’t. In fact, he’d lied to Maddux because he hadn’t told Dorn about the potential disaster that had been narrowly averted thanks to Maddux and his crew of Falcons, one of them in particular. About the plot Maddux had disrupted that would have killed so many people and thrown one of the nation’s biggest and most important cities into total chaos.

  Carlson exhaled the breath as deliberately as he’d taken it in. Maybe next time he’d let that tanker explode; maybe next time he wouldn’t call the SEALs and avert the disaster. Maybe then the president would have more respect for his twilight intelligence arsenal.

  He gritted his teeth at the awful thought. He could never do that. He could never let all those people die. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did. Those were the people he’d taken a blood oath so long ago to protect.

  “Don’t be upset with me, Roger,” the president kept going. “It’s all part of a process, all part of us figuring out how best to protect this country in difficult and changing times. Remember, at the end of the day we’re all on the same team. We all wear the same jersey. Don’t take it personally. You’ve made a great contribution to the country. You should be proud of most of what you’ve done.”

  Carlson wanted to puke. He wasn’t proud of most of what he’d done. He was proud of everything. He had no regrets at all, and David Dorn needed to understand what an incredible insult he’d just tossed out there.

  “Was there something else you wanted to see me about?” Carlson asked in a tone intended to make the president understand in no uncertain terms just how personally he’d taken everything. “Was there some other reason I was summoned to the mountain?” Carlson muted a satisfied smile when the president crossed his arms over his chest defensively. Dorn had gotten the damn message, and he’d gotten it good. “When I’m as busy protecting the country and you as I am.”

  The president blinked several times and cleared his throat twice. “There’s been an inquiry about a young man named Troy Jensen. Do you know who he is?�
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  This time Carlson made sure his eyes shifted deliberately to the president’s and that his expression displayed no emotion whatsoever even though that was a very interesting bit of information he’d just gotten. “No,” he lied gruffly. He’d seen that intimidated shadow slide across the president’s face moments ago. The sudden display of weakness and uncertainty that had appeared on the handsome face sitting behind the great desk was indescribably satisfying to Carlson. “No, I do not,” he lied again, just as convincingly.

  The young man—one of Maddux’s Falcons—had stolen the leaky forty-foot fishing boat at ten o’clock last night and managed to sail it out of the small harbor fifty miles north of Shanghai by himself without attracting attention. Now he was a hundred nautical miles out in the Pacific Ocean, just a tiny dot on a vast dark canvas beneath a full moon. There were only two hours of darkness left before the sun would begin brightening the eastern horizon ahead of him. Fortunately, the skies were clear and the winds were calm. He doubted this bucket of rotting wood and rusty bolts could stand up to much in the way of weather. A squall line and a couple of ten-foot waves in a row and the thing would probably sink straight to the bottom.

  He sure as hell didn’t want to be out here long enough to find out, because that fisherman back in town was going to figure out very soon that his boat was gone. It wouldn’t take much time for the local police to contact the Communist authorities in Beijing when the report of a stolen fishing boat came in. A few minutes after that, they’d scramble jets from several of China’s coastal air bases, and a short time later one of those jets would send a missile screaming through the hull of this thing, and then it would definitely go straight to the bottom—in lots of little pieces.