Invasion: Alaska (17 page)

“You’d better explain that a little more clearly.”

“Like you, sir, the President must believe that China would never send a military column across the ice to grab our oil.”

“Go on,” Dr. Blanco said.

“President Clark also doesn’t want to get into an oilrig-destroying match with China, so he’s trying to ignore what China did to Platform Seven.”

“You think our Navy should destroy Chinese offshore oil wells in retaliation?”

“If they’re destroying ours,” Anna said, “we must destroy theirs in order to stop them from destroying more of ours.”

Dr. Blanco thought about that. “I still find it hard to believe the Chinese sent that swimmer. The Chairman runs China’s foreign policy or Deng makes the moves for him. You’ve made that abundantly clear. Other than trying to bring former lands back under Chinese control, neither has shown a willingness for risky international behavior. Maybe the President is suppressing the news to keep people calm.”

“I want to believe you’re right,” Anna said.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve told me all this.”

Anna searched his face. “I had to tell someone. You seemed like the logical person.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Franklin Roosevelt didn’t do anything to alert Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese destroyed our battleships,” Anna said. “You don’t believe the Chinese will attack across the ice, and the President doesn’t believe it. But what if the Chinese are really planning to do just that? Our military needs to know.”

“What if in alerting our military, we escalate the situation?” Dr. Blanco asked.

“How can we do that by preparing our defenses?”

“Hmmm,” he said, glancing at the videoed angelfish. “If you feel that strongly, go to the President or go to your superior. Maybe this is the reason you are in your position. The President needs wise counsel. Now is your chance to give it to him.”

“But if they’re trying to cover all this up….”

“Anna, one of the most interesting things I learned in my study of government and history is that more people have physical courage than moral courage. If war is coming, I think you should attempt to stop it. In other words, be morally courageous and do the right thing.”

She had been afraid Dr. Blanco would say that.

Could the Chairman truly be practicing what he would normally consider
adventurism
? What had prompted such a thing? Could the rice riots over there be larger and more threatening than she realized? China had enjoyed massive growth through the decades. But most of the new wealth had been generated along the Chinese coastal regions. Inland where the bulk of the people lived, it was often like the old days. Five hundred million Chinese lived well. That left over a billion and a half angry people. Did China have enough food?

“You have talked to me,” Dr. Blanco said. “Now what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need more data.”

“Then I suggest you keep working, my dear. Find out what is going on.”

That was good advice, and she planned to do just that.

-6-

Last Moves

PLATFORM P-53, ARCTIC OCEAN

“Get up,” the former master sergeant said, the man Murphy had hurled the shot glass at.

Paul Kavanagh removed the arm slung over his eyes. He lay on a couch in the base rec room, with two Blacksand guards in parkas staring at him from the foot of the couch. He’d heard them come in, but had ignored their presence. Each wore a fur-lined hood and ski mask. Paul could see their eyes and mouth and that each slung a rifle over his left shoulder. They looked like Arctic bank robbers or kidnappers, making him feel even more like a prisoner.

“Did you hear me?” asked the master sergeant.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “I heard you.”

“Then get up! John Red Cloud wants to talk to you.”

Paul swung his legs off the couch, putting his feet on the carpeted floor. The otherwise empty room had a billiards table, some TVs with Xboxes attached and a ping-pong table. Outside, the wind blew against the lone window, a tiny, reinforced thing.

“If you want to stay working at the rig,” said the master sergeant, “you’d better hurry up.”

Paul Kavanagh wanted the job. He needed it and couldn’t afford to screw up yet another time. He’d talked with Cheri once since coming here, and she wasn’t doing as well with her hairstyling as she’d hoped. She and Mikey needed cash for rent. The car had taken more than she’d expected to fix, and—and he needed to send them money if he didn’t want his ex-wife and kid on the streets.

The trouble was Paul had left the shed with Murphy in Dead Horse. John Red Cloud had wanted to leave both him and Murphy there, but he wanted trouble with the law even less.

Red Cloud was the boss of the Blacksand team at the Arctic oilrig and had been waiting at Dead Horse for their arrival. The entire situation had gotten even worse for Paul. Red Cloud wasn’t just any Indian, no, not a chance. It was Paul’s luck that Red Cloud was Algonquian. When he’d first heard that, Paul Kavanagh had known what it meant. Algonquian was a northern Indian tribe. It was also one of the two language groups spoken by northern Indians. The other language group was Athabaskan. The only Native American group north of the Algonquians was Inuit or Eskimo.
Eskimo
was an Algonquian word. It meant
raw meat eater
. The Algonquians had coined the name before the coming of the Europeans. It had been meant as an insult to the Inuit, as the Algonquians cooked their meat.

Paul had known all this because America had once lent Canada some Marine battalions. He’d fought separatist French-Canadians for the Canadian government. And just as they had done in the colonial days when many native people had fought with the French, many Quebec-based tribes had sided with the separatists. That had been particularly important in the Canadian Shield area where Paul had done the majority of his service. Red Cloud was Algonquian. He had fought for the French-Canadian separatists. Worse for Paul, Red Cloud had witnessed Marines shooting several of his fellow warriors in the woods. After the mini-Canadian civil war, Red Cloud had been driven out of Canada because of his war-record. The Canadian government had granted amnesty to the French-Canadian separatists, but not to the Algonquian warriors who had claimed tribal independence from all sides. Fleeing Canada, Red Cloud had found refuge with Blacksand. Given his northern upbringing and training, Red Cloud made an ideal mercenary for the Arctic oilrigs.

Paul had learned some of this from Red Cloud as the Blacksand boss had chewed them out in Dead Horse.

“He used to be in the Marines,” Murphy had said, using his thumb to point at Paul. Murphy’s voice had sounded funny because of the broken nose and the heavy bandages swathing it.

Red Cloud had nodded in a way that told Paul the Indian had already known that. The Algonquian warrior had gone on to inform them that a fine was coming out of their paychecks. Each of them would work at the rig long enough to pay for their plane tickets and the fine Red Cloud was adding for breach of contract.

“Why not just send us home, Chief?” Murphy had asked.

Those black eyes had locked onto Murphy, and slowly, Red Cloud had shaken his head. There was a hidden deadliness to the Algonquian. Paul could easily imagine Red Cloud torturing a bound man. The Indian wasn’t someone Paul would want to get angry, and yet he had already managed to do so.

The plane ride to Platform P-53 had proven uneventful, if long. Outside the plane had been ice, polar ice, thousands of bleak miles of it in grim darkness and in all directions. The sun wouldn’t shine in this part of the world for months.

From a distance, their destination had looked like Santa Claus’s kingdom. There had been lights, towers and ice. They’d landed on an ice runway and ridden a tracked snowcat to the sheds surrounding the rig. That was Platform P-53: sheds, three working derricks, gravel, huge storage tanks and ice, polar ice floating on the Arctic Ocean. The closest place of interest was the North Pole, while Siberia and Greenland were almost as near as Alaska and Canada.

If what Paul had done hadn’t already been enough, in the last few days, Paul had inadvertently broken three rules. One, he’d phoned his ex-wife in order to talk with Mikey. That had broken two rules at once. In the States, he’d signed a contract that said he’d leave all communication devices behind. By actually
using
the cell phone to speak with foreign entities he’d broken the second rule. The third infraction had been a second fight with Murphy. Two days ago, the ex-Army Ranger had ambushed him in the rec room. Murphy had clipped the back of his head with a cue stick and almost finished the fight by ramming the end into his back. The fight had ended with Paul using the cue stick. He’d ripped it out of Murphy’s grasp and cracked him on the side of the head, causing the attacker to thump onto the rec room’s carpet. Since then, Paul had been quarantined in the room, while Murphy recovered in the infirmary.

“Last chance, Kavanagh,” the master sergeant in the rec room said.

If you lose this job now, you’re probably finished for good,
Paul told himself
.  At least you have to try
. With a sigh, he shoved himself to his feet. “Yeah, I’m coming. Let’s go talk with Red Cloud.”

Soon, the two guards and Paul crunched across the snow, a light layer of it over the ice. It didn’t snow here much. In fact, many parts of the Arctic received less precipitation than a hot desert.

The derricks pumped oil, with the giant pistons moving up and down. There was a gas flame burning at the top of a pole, getting rid of excess waste fumes.

Paul shivered. The wind was cold against his face. He’d heard incredibly that there were colder places in Siberia. The saltwater here helped keep the temperature higher than otherwise.

A different shed loomed near. There were twelve of varying sizes. The idea that terrorists could get up here to hurt the oilrig seemed more than ludicrous. Still, it was work, and work brought money, and that money Paul needed now more than ever.

“Go on,” said a guard. “And make sure you stamp your feet on the mat. Red Cloud doesn’t like snow on his rug.”

“Take your boots off inside,” the other guard said, glancing at the former master sergeant.

“If he doesn’t know that,” the master sergeant said, “he’s an idiot.”

“We already know he’s an idiot,” the second guard said. “So what’s your point?”

Paul glanced angrily at the second guard.

“What did I tell you?” the second guard told the first. “This guy can’t hold his temper for nothing. Go on inside, loser. And good riddance to you, I say.”

Paul thought about that as he opened the door. Hot air blasted against his face, it felt good. He shut the door behind him, stamped his feet on the mat and took off his boots. The carpeted area had couches, recliners and several paintings on the wall, store-bought pieces of woodlands. There was also as large-screen TV. Various doors led to different bedrooms. They were all closed. One door was open, and Paul spied a desk.

“In here, Marine.”

Paul recognized the odd accent. It wasn’t French-Canadian, but had a hint of it. It must be an Algonquian accent. Taking a deep breath, Paul headed for the open door, still not used to walking around in his stocking feet.

The small Algonquian sat behind a modest desk. Red Cloud had a computer screen and several wooden figurines: an elk, a grizzly and a wolverine. On the wall were more woodland paintings. A Remington shotgun stood in a corner, while an old Uzi machinegun hung on a wall. Red Cloud wore lumberjack style clothes and a strange buckskin pendant on his throat. He studied Paul with those dark eyes of his and finally indicated that he sit down.

There were two chairs, both wooden. Paul sat in the nearest, sitting back so the dowels creaked.

“I’ve been reading your war-record,” Red Cloud said, pointing at the computer screen. “You made several deep penetration raids.”

“There wasn’t much of a front in the woods of Quebec,” Paul said. “Everything was a deep raid, but you know that.”

Red Cloud nodded. “During the war, I killed five Marines, two with my bare hands. I caught them in their sleeping bags.”

Paul had told himself to remain calm and cool while in here, but he felt his face flush with heat. “Is that right? Well I found more of you snow-fleas sitting on the crapper than you could—” Paul snapped his mouth shut, struggling to remain quiet.

“You are a troubled man.”

Paul shrugged.

“Troubled men are a liability in a land like this.”

“Yeah?” Paul asked. “I could live off the land better than anyone here, including you, Cochise.”

“Boasts do not impress me.”

“I ain’t boasting,” Paul said, trying to control his slipping temper. “I’m stating fact.”

Red Cloud touched the pedant on his throat. “You are a warrior. You are a man who likes to fight.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t start the fight in the bar?”

“I’ve read your record. You had several citations for courage and three chances for a Purple Heart. Yet you never received a medal. Why was that?”

“I’m not good at sucking up,” Paul muttered. “Cheri could tell you that.”