The Ties That Bind
The momentary distraction was all Jason needed. He slipped around the front tires, sighted and fired. This time, his aim was perfect—the round entered the man’s forehead one inch above his eyebrows and dead center. The force shoved him upright, his features straining with shock, and Jason fired again, aiming center mass and driving him backward into the ground, dead before he landed.
“That’s two for me and none for you,” he called out to the last man. “I advise you to throw down your weapons and come out where I can see you.”
There was a long pause, then, “You won’t shoot?”
Grinning to himself, Jason called, “No, I won’t shoot. Come on out.”
He watched as the man tossed a rifle to the ground, then stepped out from behind the cluster of rocks, his hands raised. His features were unremarkable—fair skin, blue eyes, a mop of sweaty brown hair.
Jason got to his feet and closed the space between them. Behind him, he could hear the sound of Tina’s ATV returning. She must have realized that he hadn’t followed or had been watching and figured out that the situation was under control.
“Who are you?” Jason barked at the man. “And why’d you try to shoot us?”
The man stepped closer. “No one you know,” he said. His hand was a blur as he reached for the handgun behind his back. Jason didn’t even blink, but dropped two rounds into the man’s chest, killing him instantly. He fell over backward, his scream of pain cut short as the last of the air left his lungs.
“Stupid fool,” Jason said to himself. He looked down at the wounded man on the ground and assessed his condition. He’d lost too much blood and was already fading into unconsciousness. They were too far from anywhere to save him. “Sorry,” he said, “but this is the best I can do for you.” He shot him once in the head, ending the man’s misery.
Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see Tina staring at him, her eyes wide with outrage. “You…you just shot those men in cold blood!”
“What?” Jason asked, even as he loaded a fresh clip. “I did not!”
“You did! I saw you. The one man surrendered and the other was wounded and you just…you just killed them like it was nothing.”
Shaking his head, Jason moved to gather up their weapons. He tossed them in a pile between the three bodies. “The man who surrendered was going for a gun behind his back,” he explained. “Roll him over and take a look if you don’t believe me. As for the man on the ground…he was going to die, Tina. A slow and painful death. I killed him because we’re too far away from anywhere to do anything for him.”
“Right,” she said, her voice rising an octave. “So now you’re a doctor, too?” She stumped over to the second man and rolled him over, then gasped. The gun he’d been going for was on the ground beneath him. Then she turned to look at the last man he’d killed. The pool of blood that had spread from beneath his back was testament to how badly he’d been wounded.
Tina turned back to Jason and nodded. “All right,” she said, angry. “Fine, you were telling the truth. But where did you learn to fight like that? You killed three armed men and never even broke a sweat.”
“I grew up in a rough neighborhood,” Jason joked, then he turned serious when he saw that she wouldn’t accept a flip answer. “I’ve been in a lot of tight scrapes over the years—the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia to name a few. You either learn how to fight in places like that or you die. I learned how to shoot pretty well.”
Looking over the bodies once more, she shook her head. “That’s the understatement of the year, if I’ve ever heard one. Now what do we do?”
“Check them out. Look the place over, then move on with our journey,” he said.
“We’re not going to take them back?”
“To Nome?” he asked. “Why would we? We can let the local authorities know what’s happened when we reach a village. Someone must have a phone somewhere.”
She laughed. “No, there aren’t too many phones out here, but the village we’re going to stay in has shortwave radio.”
“That should work,” he said. “In the meantime, let’s see if we can figure out why these guys came out shooting. Even if they were poachers, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to attack us the way they did.” He turned to move toward the buildings and she followed along behind.
“I have a guess,” she said, her voice hesitant. “They were probably smugglers.”
“Drugs?” he asked.
“Guns,” she replied. “They move them from here and down into Canada, where someone else sells them cheap into the United States. I read an article about it in the paper.”
“People are running guns in Alaska?” he asked, surprised. “Seems like a hard way to go about it. There are easier ways to get things into the U.S. than trekking across the Alaskan tundra.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but think of it this way. Out here, what are the chances of running into anyone, let alone law enforcement? Out here, we’re mostly on our own. And there’s a whole lot of big empty between here, Canada and the U.S.”
“True enough,” he said.
They stopped in front of a dilapidated hut. The boot tracks on the ground were fresh and he followed them inside. Sure enough, there were several large crates. He opened the top one to find it filled to the brim with Russian AN-94 assault rifles and clips. They were brand-new.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Why were those guys shooting at me with hunting rifles when they had these?”
Tina’s voice was equally quiet. “I don’t know, but I’ve heard rumors that people who cross the smugglers are usually found during the spring thaw. Maybe they didn’t have ammunition?”
Jason quickly opened the other crates. He found more rifles and clips, along with one set of the older-style LAW rockets used by the U.S. military forces until the late eighties or so. But no ammunition. “You’re right,” he said. “No ammo. Just the weapons and the rockets. I suppose I should be glad they weren’t able to use one of these on me.”
“Yes,” she said, “you should. Can we go now? I want to get out of here in case someone comes looking for them. This could be where they were dropping them.”
He looked around the ancient building once more, then shook his head. “It’s an inconvenient spot for a drop point, but you’re right. We need to keep moving. How far is the coast from here?”
“Not far,” she said. “Maybe three or four miles.”
“Okay,” he said. “Go get one of the ATVs and I’ll get to work.”
“Work?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Trust me,” he said, turning away to begin resealing the crates.
She sighed and stomped out of the room. Not long after, he heard the sound of her pulling up on one of the machines. The engine cut out and he called to her, “Come in and lend me a hand.”
Tina came back into the building. “Now what?”
“Now we load the crates onto the trailers and haul this stuff to the coast.”
“Are you crazy?” she half yelled. “You’re going to steal from the smugglers?”
“No,” he said, “I’m going to return their merchandise. The rifles are Russian. The rocket launchers are probably black market, sold out of Vietnam or somewhere else in Southeast Asia. It’s only fair that I put them back into the sea, where they can make their way home.”
“Let’s just go,” she said. “Let the authorities deal with it.”
“Help me or not,” he said, his voice turning cold. “If this is a drop point, then these weapons will eventually wind up in the United States and that puts a lot of people at risk. I won’t allow that to happen.”
For a long moment, it looked as if she was going to argue, ask questions or put up a fight, but then she sighed and kept whatever was on her mind to herself. Jason suspected he’d be hearing more about it later.
Without another word, she moved to the end of one of the crates and together, they quickly loaded the trailer. Once all the crates had been loaded, he checked the other buildings to make sure there wasn’t anything else left behind.
“All right,” he said. “Now, I want you to drive that machine down to the coast and wait for me there. Just give me a bearing. I’m going to make sure our dead friends here aren’t left out for scavengers.”
She shuddered dramatically. “I’d rather not know. Just head due east for two miles, then bear north. You’ll find the coast without a problem. I’ll look for you.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Now get going. We don’t have much light left and I want to find shelter before dark.”
She nodded once, then left. Jason got to work, dragging the bodies into the abandoned Inuit building and covering them as best he could. The door was long since gone, but with the cold and their winter gear, they might not give off a scent that would attract predators—at least for a little while. Once he was done with that, he returned to his own ATV and headed for the coast.
His mind worked at the situation rapidly. Obviously, Tina knew more about the smuggling going on in the area than she’d read in some newspaper article. Just as obvious was the fact that if these smugglers could get large crates of weapons into this area from Russia, they’d have no problem at all importing other weapons, too. Like bombs.
If a terrorist group decided to infiltrate using this method, there’d be little to no chance of knowing it before it was too late. His mission parameters had suddenly expanded. Now he had to find the sub…and also figure out a way to stop the smuggling operation. He’d have to get word to Denny about what he’d discovered as soon as possible.
Tina had said there were no phones up here, but Jason had a satellite phone and other advanced communications equipment in his gear. At the first opportunity, he’d check in with Denny and Room 59 and find out what they wanted him to do. Surely they would recognize the additional threat and move to put a stop to it.
He clocked the distance and it wasn’t long until he found the tracks from Tina’s vehicle. There was no way to wipe them out…and if the smugglers wanted vengeance, it was only a matter of time until they found out which direction they’d gone. He could be in for the fight of his life.
What was he truly fighting for? he suddenly wondered.
He shook his head, plagued again by questions that he’d never seriously considered before. None of these questions mattered. Not right now. Right now, he had a mission to accomplish. Everything else was secondary to that.
In the far distance, he saw Tina waving her arms at him. They had a long way to go before they’d reach the village she’d shown him on the map, and already the evening darkness was closing in.
5
Jason pulled up alongside Tina at the edge of the village. He could see the shapes of houses and they moved into the village. They had arrived well after dark and the cold was beginning to seep through the layers of clothing and give his skin that vague itching-burning sensation that came with freezing temperatures. Tina hadn’t spoken a single word since they met back up along the trail and argued about her not listening to his instructions. He supposed he should have expected it.
She had gotten rid of most of the weapons, but had kept one crate containing a variety of the arms they had found. She said she wanted to be able to prove to the authorities that what they were saying was real. Jason had been furious, but understood why she hadn’t listened. In truth, he didn’t plan on dealing with the local authorities at all, but now he’d probably have to. Either way, ever since then, there’d been nothing but silence between them. The quiet was more worrisome than the millions of questions that he knew must be rattling around in her head.
Tina pulled her ATV to a stop next to a large cabin, gesturing vaguely for him to follow as she climbed off her machine and headed up the steps of the cabin. Shutting his own machine down, Jason stood and stretched, considering the load of weapons that they were carrying. They had covered them with a tarp, but he felt uneasy about leaving them out in the open. Anyone might happen along, get curious and find themselves armed with a Russian assault rifle.
Tina ran back down the steps.
“Leave them,” she said, her voice almost as cold as the air around them. “No one is going to bother anything out here, and unless you want to freeze I suggest you get inside.”
“Isn’t there anywhere safer we can store them?” he asked as the wind began to pick up speed with surprising force.
“It’s not like we just pulled into New York with a U-Store-It around every damn corner!” she yelled over the howling winds. “If you want to babysit a crate, you’re more than welcome. I’m going inside.”
She climbed the stairs again. Jason didn’t hesitate this time. He was only half a step behind her as she pushed open the cabin door. He turned as the wind ripped the door out of Tina’s hand and slammed it against the wall. Reaching past her, he grabbed it and leaned his weight against it, pushing it shut. The sudden silence was almost as eerie as the sudden onslaught of wind had been.
“I thought the weather didn’t start getting dangerous for another month or so,” he said. “Where did that come from?”
His guide laughed harshly. “Why did you think you were wearing all that gear? In case the weather got bad in another month?” She sighed, then said, “Those winds can come off the ocean any time of the year, especially as the season changes and the jet stream along with it. They’ll freeze an unprotected person to death in very short order, but they are fairly rare this time of year.”
Tina looked thoroughly disgruntled. She pulled the cap from her head and crossed to the fire that was already burning in the fireplace, careful not to stand too close and cause her hands to ache more than they must have been already. She must have arranged for the cabin in advance; the fire had obviously been going for a while, as a nice pile of hardwood coals was already settled into the grate. Jason swept through the rooms doing a security check. The two bedrooms were furnished identically, down to the comforter and remotes for the televisions on the dresser. A clean set of towels and a welcome basket with coffee and hot chocolate sat on the dresser.
Jason returned to the living room. Tina still hadn’t moved, and the tension in her features hadn’t lessened by so much as a single fine line.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She tilted her head, her lips compressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed. She no longer rubbed her hands for warmth, but held them fisted at her sides.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? No one gets shot at, sees other men shot and killed, then tows cartons full of munitions through the Alaskan tundra and is ‘all right.’ Just what the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you?”
“I told you I work for a survey—” he began, but she cut him off immediately.
“Bullshit!” she snapped. “Complete and utter. I’ve seen a lot of surveyors come through here. They carry maps, advanced GPS systems, charts and notepads, and on occasion a flask of whiskey on their hip.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “What they don’t carry is semiautomatic handguns, and they sure as hell don’t fight like you did!”
Jason folded his arms across his chest. He had only been in this position one other time in his career. Back when he was doing black ops for the CIA, his cover was blown in Peru while he was trying to get to a double agent. He got caught in the midst of a drug exchange that went sour, and the whole operation had blown up in his face. He ended that situation with the expediency of simply killing the guy, but that man hadn’t been necessary for his mission. For right now, Tina was. If necessary, he would kill her, but he preferred not to. And his cover wasn’t completely blown; she was suspicious, but it seemed as if that was more of a personality trait than anything else.
He wasn’t sure what he should be more concerned about—the beautiful woman scowling at him across the room or Denny Talbot’s reaction to all this when he had specifically asked for little to no body count. The three dead men back at the ancient village would not, in Denny’s estimation, constitute a minimal body count. One thing he was sure of was that being treated like an errant schoolboy by a woman he’d known for only a day was intolerable. He would worry about Denny tomorrow. Right now, he had to deal with Tina. And he couldn’t let his anger at her treatment of him get the better of him.
“Is there anything I can say that is going to make you feel better about any of this?” he asked. “It’s not like I planned on running into a bunch of gunrunners.”
“You could start by telling me the truth about who you are,” she said.
“I don’t suppose you would be willing to accept that I acted on instinct?” he asked, allowing a half smile to cross his lips.
“Not with shot groupings like that,” she said. “I’ve been on more hunting trips than I can count and have been shooting most of my life. I don’t know anyone up here who shoots with that kind of calm and accuracy.” She shook her head. “Especially not when someone is shooting back.”
He sighed heavily. “Look, Tina, I’m afraid that there isn’t anything much more that I can tell you. I spent some time in the military—Special Forces, actually—though it was a long time ago. Those guys shot at us and I reacted. Call it muscle memory if you want.”
He walked toward her, but she held up her hand and backed away shaking her head.
“I’m not buying,” she said. “I may not be a genius, but I can tell when someone isn’t telling me the truth. What kind of surveyor carries a gun?”
“One who wants to live—” he started to answer, but she held up a hand once more to silence him.
“I’m done for the night. I’m going to bed and tomorrow morning I’m going back to Nome and I’m reporting all this to the authorities. You can finish your so-called surveying without me. I’m not about to get my ass shot off for what I’m getting paid.”
Trying another approach, he said, “That would be a shame, it really is such a nice ass…”
She turned and slapped him. Hard.
“Okay, wrong thing to say,” he admitted, rubbing his cheek. “Tina, hold on a second. Please.”
She arched an eyebrow but kept her silence.
“Look, I need you. You’re the best guide around. And I need the best to do my job right. If you won’t accept that what happened out there was just pure survival instinct, then I don’t know what to tell you. I had no idea that those men were there, but I won’t apologize for choosing our lives over theirs. I didn’t go looking for trouble and I hope you can believe that. But I’m not very big on turning the other cheek when someone tries to shoot me, either.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “You sound sincere enough, but something about your story doesn’t ring true for me.”
“I can respect that,” he replied. “But truth often has a lot to do with perspective. The bottom line is that I need your help.”
“My help for what?”
“To do my job. I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else. I’ve told you that before and I meant it. But I’m not going to stand down and do nothing while someone is shooting at me, either. I’ve been in dangerous situations before, and if those were small-time operators, they would have hidden or tried to scare us off. They’re part of a larger group and if they’re operating around here, it could jeopardize not just me getting my job done, but a lot of your people, too.”
Jason could see the confusion, then defeat roll across her face. He knew he had her, at least for the moment, but he also knew he couldn’t push her too quickly.
He ran a hand through his hair, more tired than he’d realized. “Look, just sleep on it, okay? We can talk more in the morning. We’re both exhausted. I’ll see if I can shed a little more light on the situation for you then. Besides, we’ll have to talk to the local authorities and get these weapons in the hands of the right people.”
Finally, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll sleep on it. Right now, I’m too tired to think anyway.”
Tina stomped to her room and slammed the door. Jason heard the lock click into place. She might be willing to listen to him a little more, but she obviously didn’t trust him. He checked the windows in the living room and kitchen, placing small motion sensors on the rails that would send a signal to his watch. He placed another one by the door.
Convinced that the cabin was as safe as he could make it, Jason stripped off his outer layers and sank down onto the couch. Propping his feet up on the table, he rolled his head back, contemplating what a disaster the mission had been thus far.
JASON AWOKE to the smell of fresh coffee. He propped himself up on his elbow and pressed the light on his watch. Five-thirty. He swung his legs over the side of the couch and ran his hands through his hair, then slipped on a shirt and headed into the kitchen.
Tina was standing at the counter. Her red fleece sweatshirt was unzipped, showing off her black tank top and nicely rounded breasts. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, eyes closed, as she took a long sip of coffee. Jason could feel the room heat up—or at least his own body temperature—but put his libido in check, knowing he would have to play nice if she was going to remain an asset to him. He also knew that if this got too complicated, he might have no choice but to eliminate her and for that reason alone he needed to keep his distance. He allowed himself one more glance and then put the foolish thoughts away.
“You’re awake,” she said, her voice much less tense than the night before.
“I could never resist the smell of fresh coffee.”
“Help yourself,” she said.
Jason pulled a cup out of the cupboard and poured the coffee. He stood silent. Psychology 101. Most people hate silence and will say anything to fill it, even if what they say is a mistake. He had played human-behavior games too many times and he always won. No matter how calculating or bright his adversary.
Tina took a deep breath.
Here it comes, he thought.
She shifted from one foot to the other.
Oh, yeah. She’s mine, he added to himself.
“You know, maybe we should start over,” she said.
He tried not to smile in victory, but he knew he was failing when he saw her wrinkled brow.
“I wasn’t saying that to be funny,” she said.
“I know,” he said.
She set her coffee on the counter, reached out her hand and said, “Tina Kanut, guide, trapper and on occasion not a half-bad dancer. And you are?”
Jason grinned and stared at her hand. He put his coffee down, as well, and put both of his hands on hers. He shook his head and she pulled her hand away.
“I could just leave you here,” she said.
“You could, but you won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“Pretty simple. You know if I was going to hurt you, I would have done so when I was already getting rid of the bodies. You also know that those were not nice men and that I was only protecting my backside. And finally…”
Jason paused, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to go on without hearing the last and he did have so much fun with word games sometimes. In a life like he lived, the little amusements were all one sometimes had.
“Finally, what?” she asked.
“Finally I wasn’t just protecting my backside. I was also protecting yours.”
She pondered for a moment and then looked at him with renewed conviction. “You know, that’s one of the few things you’ve said that I do believe.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you slept out in the living room on the sofa instead of in the bedroom,” she said. “If someone tried to come in during the night, you wanted to be between me and them, didn’t you?”
He nodded, surprised that she had even noticed.
“I don’t trust you,” she said, her tone decisive. “And I don’t think you’ve told me the whole truth. But what I need to know is if you’re here to hurt someone. I’m not just taking you to any village. I’m taking you to my village. If you can’t or won’t tell me the truth about your purpose up here, I guess that’s your problem, but I have to know that you’re not out to hurt the people I care most about.”