And then I saw the light in the sky.
It was vague at first, more hint than reality, and that became a yellow glow that morphed into a searchlight. It flew low. It flew fast. It flew in from the direction of the coast, Uh-oh.
My first thought was drone, but then I saw the running lights and realized it was a small plane or chopper.
Did Eddie come through? Or is it the Coast Guard?
As the craft closed, I saw that the running lights indicated a fuselage shorter than the borough rescue squad’s Bell. The light didn’t move as it would if it was a chopper searchlight, either. The rescue guys had a King Air prop plane, but no skis on it. Whatever was coming was too big for a drone.
And this plane was not searching. No beams or criss-crossing floodlights. No flying in a grid or circular pattern. The craft made a beeline ahead.
This was not a craft sent by Eddie, the general, or Merlin and the North Slope Rescue Squad.
This thing was sent to pick up Jens Erik Holte.
And that was when this destination for him—rendezvous—finally made sense. And so did the sniper shots back in Barrow, that had started the mass escape from town.
You waited for the right moment, the perfect build-up of rage, fear, and claustrophobia. Then you calmly triggered the break, used that as cover to get away. You’ll load your snowmobile on the plane. You’ll be one more person swallowed up by the tundra, never found, a mystery.
Who the hell are you?
The plane made a quick approach and then it lowered smoothly and touched down on the iced surface of the lake. As it closed on shore I recognized the silhouette of a Canadian-built Twin Otter, hardiest craft in the High North. It could carry fifteen to eighteen passengers, cargo, or both.
Nobody I knew on the North Slope flew a Twin Otter. It had the range to have come from western Canada, across the border. It could have come from Fairbanks or Wainright. Hell, if it flew low, it could have even originated in Russia, across the Bering Strait.
As it reached shore, and powered down, I saw, in its floodlights, the figure of Jens Erik Holte standing and waving. Friends! The outline of a snowmobile sat beside him, like a trusted horse. Beyond that, in the beam flashed the small, rickety cabin, barely any shelter at all in winter, a concave structure the size of a multi-seated outhouse, even less inviting than the cabin where the Harmon bodies had been found, and a structure that, if the eco lodge went through, was scheduled to soon be destroyed.
Then soon became now. Something bright and orange whooshed into life on the side of the cabin. No, not on the side, inside, in a window. It was fire, I realized, from the sinewy tentacles of light, the sense of heat coming off the thing, just from vision, not even feel.
Not just a rendezvous, Jens. Something more.
Destroying the cabin! That’s what you came to do! You waited for the plane to arrive, and set the fire.
I made sure that my M4 was ready to fire. The pain in my head exploded, seemed to expand out and threaten to crack through my skull. I was bleeding in there. I trudged forward on a foot that barely functioned, on a fool’s errand, a fool’s revenge, and I suffered a fool’s punishment, pain so pervasive that was the only thing keeping me moving.
The cabin would burn for twenty minutes and be obliterated and Jens’s mission would be accomplished! I imagined that plane flying away again, disappearing into the void.
And then, months from now, a construction company would land here to wipe away the charred remains and burrow into the permafrost with augurs, massive mechanical screws, and up would spring a fine, new hotel, and probably, in the spring, workers would discover a mummified U.S. Marine colonel under snow, maybe half devoured by wolves. Or maybe no one would find the colonel. He would join the centuries-old parade of explorers, missionaries, and scientists who had, for one reason or another, been swallowed up by the Arctic void.
In the firelight I saw figures jumping down from the open door of the plane, spreading out, military guys, wary figures, one bulky-looking man glided into the light for a moment. He was dressed entirely in black. Black parka. Black furred hat. He carried an automatic weapon with a long banana clip, a bullpup or AK.
Three guys — including Jens — quickly loaded the snowmobile onto the plane via a ramp. No more evidence! The fourth guy stood guard, vigilant as a pro even though, to them, probably, no one else was there.
Well, I had one thing to do before they left. If I couldn’t stop them, maybe I could get them to leave something behind that would let Eddie and Merlin and maybe Homza, if he wasn’t involved, figure out who they were.
I owed it to Karen and Ted, Cathy, Kelley, and Clay Qaqulik and the others who had been murdered. I didn’t much care what happened to me at the moment, but I knew, whatever happened, that I owed something to them.
You’re not just going to fly out of here.
Eco lodge my ass!
TWENTY-TWO
A U.S. Army M4 assault rifle weighs 6.36 pounds and extends out fourteen inches. The thirty round 60x magazines stuffed in my pockets were lead weights. The carbine had a telescoping butt stock and the gas-operated magazine fired 5.56mm ammunition. I was an excellent shot with an M4 when I was healthy. I was not particularly healthy just now.
That my snowmobile had run out of gas had probably saved me. Otherwise the pilot of the incoming Twin Otter would have seen the headlight, and the men up there might have mowed me down. Circled a bit. Just like hunting wolves from the air. Bangbangbang!
I pushed myself forward. No snow falling, but no moon or starlight out. Just a black land and ahead, a slowly collapsing cabin, a jagged circle of orange in which figures moved like Neanderthals silhouetted in the glow of the first fire.
I was in range, three hundred yards, but for accuracy wanted to be closer. I mentally reviewed the invisible part of the layout, outside the light.
The cabin — or what was rapidly becoming a pile of glowing charcoal — sat at the extreme northern end of the pencil-thin lake. The lake extended south in the usual elliptical shape. It was probably a mile and a half from end to end, probably a third of a mile across at its widest. I had no idea of the depth of the water. The rapidly cooling shape of the Twin Otter was parked where it ended, its three small skis atop the layer of white.
Fire. Now. Do it. Kneel down. Shoot.
No, get closer. They’ll move fast when they hear shots, and you’ll need every advantage.
I pushed through a windblown snowpile and kept going. Suddenly there were two blurred cabins, and then the two merged back into one. I tripped but stayed up. I was losing strength fast. The digging pains in my chest came steady and deep, with or without movement. Four guys, I thought, five including the pilot.
Or are there more inside the plane?
At sixty yards, the flames died down, relaxing into a peaceful orange glow. Evidence gone. The tundra dipped and I almost toppled into a small depression, deep as a golf course sand trap. It was what I needed, a natural shield. I was out of strength, breath, and time.
Carbine in hands, I lay belly down in the granular cold, as at the old Quantico rifle range. I could hear them talking from here, not words yet, too far, but a rapid, businesslike snap of orders. From the nasal intonations I realized that they might not be speaking English at all.
The snowmobile had been loaded into the Twin Otter. It was gone. Anyone arriving here would assume that the cabin had been hit by lightning and burned, or that a passing traveler had started the fire; drunk maybe, a firebug, or hunter cooking when suddenly something exploded… a mystery not worth thinking about. One more collapsed wreck outside the border of human thought.