Free Arctic Fire by Stephen W. Frey Page B

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.
    The authorities in Beijing were onto the stolen fishing boat gig. They figured anytime that report came in now that the perpetrator was a Western spy getting the hell out of Dodge. Three times out of four they were right.
    The handheld GPS device indicated that he’d reached the rendezvous location seven minutes ago. Since then, he’d been drifting along in neutral. The ocean was fairly well illuminated tonight thanks to the full moon and the stars, and he’d come out of the wheelhouse to the foredeck to get a better view.
    As he checked his watch for the third time in the last two minutes, the conning tower of the attack submarine USS
Nevada
broke through the surface of the ocean inside a massive boil of bubbles less than a hundred feet from the fishing boat. This was the fourth time he’d been removed from country this way, but it still startled him when the massive sub rose from the surface just beside him like that.
    Tremendous relief rolled through his system now that the cavalry had arrived. God, it was a wonderful feeling.
    A few minutes later he was aboard the
Nevada
and the fishing boat was headed to the bottom of the ocean after two explosives experts from the sub had detonated enough charges in its engine room to put a gaping hole in the hull.



CHAPTER 10

    J ACK FOLLOWED Bill’s longtime executive assistant into the spacious fortieth-floor office of the First Manhattan Bank headquarters and sat down in the wingback chair she pointed to.
    “Your father should be back in a few.”
    She was Rita Hayes, and her voice still had the faint strains of a Brooklyn accent she’d been trying to erase for years—at Bill’s suggestion. She was fifty-two and still very attractive and vivacious, but she’d never been married.
    Which Jack had always found interesting. He’d caught her gazing at Bill in very affectionate ways before, though after thirty-three years together maybe that was understandable. Rita was good friends with Cheryl too. So there couldn’t be anything going on behind Cheryl’s back.
    “Bill’s downstairs on the equity trading floor with the head of syndications,” she explained. “They’re going over final pricing on a new issue that’s hitting the street tomorrow.”
    Rita was basically part of the Jensen family. She and Cheryl often rode horses together out in Connecticut on weekends, and then she’d join Cheryl and Bill for dinner afterward. So she heard all the family dirt. Every last speck of it, Jack assumed.
    Still, she was a professional and never let on to what she knew. She never gave Jack attitude when they saw each other or spoke on the phone, which he appreciated.
    “Want anything to drink while you wait?” Rita called over her shoulder.
    “No thanks.”
    When she reached the door, she stopped and turned around. “Was Bill expecting you? I didn’t see you on his calendar.”
    Jack shook his head.