Free Arctic Fire by Stephen Frey Page A

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 thepresident 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?”
    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. Thesudden 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