On Thin Ice (Special Ops) (8 page)

Chapter Five

I
don’t know,” Nathan assured him. “They all consider themselves brothers I think.”

Jet’s frustration was growing. What exactly were these cops doing all day; sitting around and hoping for a breadcrumb? They needed to work harder. Since they wouldn’t, he would have to do this on his own. The weapons he had access to were pretty much standard. He would have brought something heavier with him. In fact, he would have expected them to have offered him access to the bigger weapons they should have on hand. He wasn’t worried; he knew somebody he could go to in order to get what he wanted. Now all he needed was a car.

“I need to check on some things,” he stood and clipped his phone to his waist. “Is there a car I can borrow?”

“Oh I’ll take you,” Nathan grinned.

“No, that’s okay. I think it’s best if you stay here and lead the search. I shouldn’t be too long.” Jet noticed how happy Nathan seemed to be with the idea that he had just implied he was the leader. Nathan wasn’t leading anything. He had to answer to somebody too, but he was trying to coordinate with authority and that told Jet he was a man more interested in his fifteen minutes than actually finding Akira. With a man like that it was easy to just stroke his ego with words to keep him happy and out of his way.

“Oh sure, good point. Take the green truck out back. It’s the only truck back there so you can’t miss it.” He tossed him a set of keys.

Jet went out back and found the truck instantly. Nathan had been right. There was no way to miss the F150 that looked as if it had a poor man’s date at a paint shop. The army green color paint job was so botched that he could still see hints of white from the underlying paint. Well he wasn’t looking for beauty in the vehicle. He would take the beast so long as it worked better than it looked. One turn of the ignition told him that while the outside was as ugly as molding food, the heart of the beast was in pristine condition.

He drove the back roads, pulling over only once to disconnect the GPS tracking system so he couldn’t be followed. He was working with the cops, but that didn’t mean he wanted to give them all his knowledge. He knew, at the end of the day, he was going to be the man to go get her because anybody else wouldn’t have the same concern for her life that he had for it. He wouldn’t risk her life for their glory.

He hadn’t seen his contact in years, but he knew the location was still the same. With hopes the guns were still on hand too. Guns, hiking gear and everything else he would need to scale that mountain—provided that was the actual spot the bad guys were using to hide out. Plus he needed information on the past and much like Natalia, Henri was the master of finding information.

Jet pulled up the drive and immediately spotted Henri doing target practice. He got out the truck and noticed how Henri lowered the gun she had in her hand. “I’m friend and you know it.”

“Jet Jackson,” Henri laughed. “Now what adventure brings you to my neck of the world? Something good I hope.” She wrapped her arms around him and he hugged her back. The woman was all legs, and breasts, and delicate curves too. Actually, she was a total package of what his friend York had called “hotness.” She was an even six feet, perfectly proportioned and in killer shape. She also had silky raven hair that came down to her waistline and the most gorgeous blue eyes he had seen on a woman in a long time. Henri may look sweet as pie and the damsel in distress type, but there was no way in the world anybody, not even a skilled martial artists, would willingly put themselves on her bad side. She had expert status in three different forms of martial arts. She could shoot like a sniper. She could use knives, swords, whatever she needed, and she could run fast. She could almost keep up with him, and that was saying a lot given the fact that he could actually beat some of the Olympic running records.

People always thought his friends called him Jet because it was the shorter version of his name. That wasn’t it at all. He was a young boy, about seven, when he and the neighbor boy—Timothy Grayson—decided to egg Old Man Woodcock’s house. The man was mean as a rabid dog and nobody liked him. When Woodcock came out to grab them Timothy took off in one direction, but Jet stood there to take the last shot. He got him square in the face. That’s when another man came out; a man Jet later found out was the old man’s grandson. He had on a police uniform. Jet took off so fast he outran the cop for the few blocks it took him to get home. He thought he had lost him when he cut through the Daniel’s yard and hopped their fence, but Old Man Woodcock knew a lot more about people than anybody knew. He knew exactly who lived in which house. When the guy showed up at his house he told his mother that her son had been egging his grandfather’s house and hit him square in the face with an egg. His mother had apologized profusely before calling him up front and asking him what he had to say for himself. Jet had simply shrugged. He didn’t have anything to say at all. In fact he wasn’t sure why he had done it other than Tim had said they should pay the old man back for being so mean. It was dumb and he knew it, but he had done it anyway. “He took off like a jet,” the cop had said. “You, young man, can either be friend or foe. You can abide by the law or you can break it. Ninety-nine percent of the time you’ll probably outrun the cops, but there will be that one percent where you’ll get caught, or one of your acquaintances will get you killed. Which one would you rather be Jet; friend or foe?”

“Friend,” he had admitted. “But he’s just so mean.”

He laughed. “I’m Jeremy Woodcock. That’s my grandfather you’re talking about. He’s really nice once you get to know him. He’s a decorated war hero too. Would you like to meet him? You can apologize for the mess you made.”

“And for hitting him with the egg,” his mother added.

“I’ll clean up the mess,” Jet said. “I shouldn’t have made it in the first place.” He had gone back to Mr. Woodcock’s house with Jeremy. He had apologized. He had cleaned his mess. And then the old man had him sit on the porch and have lunch with him. That’s where he got his first thirst to be one of the good guys. That’s the man that made him want to join the military. Old Man Woodcock had been in the Navy, but Jet liked to go fast so the idea of being in the Air Force appealed to him more than the Navy. From that day on everybody just called him Jet.

He looked over Henri once more. “I need information and weapons. Somebody very special to me has been taken…”

“That figure skater?”

“How did you know?”

“You said somebody special to you, which meant you were trying to avoid telling me it’s a woman. If it were a man you would have just said you were here to rescue the package. So since she’s special to you, you’re in Alaska, and the only publicized abduction was that sweet little number on television I’d say you’re here for her.” She eyed him up and down suspiciously. Henri, Henrietta to her parents, but not to anybody else, was too smart for her own good. “She’s pretty. But I think you better hurry.”

“You know something I don’t.”

“I saw the tat. That’s Russian, and the people who ink themselves with that symbol aren’t in the business of life. Once they get what they want they’ll kill her.”

Jet growled. “I was afraid of that.”

“They aren’t in the business of rape either so trust me when I say no matter how low they are they won’t cross that line. They will do torture, so I can’t promise you that she hasn’t been beaten.”

He nodded. One safety net didn’t afford another, but at least he didn’t have to worry about the bastards taking their pleasure with her body—at least not sexually. “Do you know where they are?”

She smiled. “You know me, Jet. I know where everybody who could be trouble for me is. There’s an old building up there that they use as their compound,” she pointed to the mountain. “It’s about midways up, but you’re going to have to drive part of the way and hike the rest. It’s partially submerged and the part that’s not is covered from above with all the growth that’s happened up there over the years. They also keep it pretty well hidden from any potential off-trail hikers too. I’m thinking some of our not so lucky missing hikers probably stumbled upon it. It’s not too large. I think it was used for an observation type thing, but I don’t have a lot of information on what our trusty government was thinking of observing from that location. You’re looking at about four rooms. The one they’re probably keeping her in would probably be the one that sits below ground. There’s a passage a little off from the facility. I think it was probably meant to be an escape passage from what I can tell on the blueprints I was able to borrow from the government.”

By “borrow” Jet knew she meant hack into the database and steal.

“It leads to an access panel above the lower room. It’ll put you right in there with her if that’s where she’s at. You’ll just have to do a little crawling through tight spaces to get there.”

“I can do that.” He would crawl through anything for her.”

“Jet, these guys are bad—I mean really bad. Don’t get caught.”

“No plans to, but I have to go for her.”

“Do you need help?”

“I just need guns and some supplies to help me get up there. If I don’t make it out you’ll let the guys know the location.”

“Honey if you don’t make it out they’ll kill her at the same time and move on.”

“They want something from her father. One of the guys blames him for the death of his brother.”

“Ambrosii Sokolov.”

“Who?”

“Ambrosii died in the takedown…”

“Yeah, I know about the squad that was set up to shut them down, but the detective on this case didn’t seem to know anything about brothers.”

“Well it was pretty big news. Ambrosii’s little brother…not so little really, the guy is built like a tank.”

“That must be the guy who hit Akira.”

“Probably. Looked like his form from the old shots I saw of him, but nobody has ever got a good picture of the guy so I’m not sure. Anyway Alexei Sokolov got away, but rumor has it he swore revenge. He and a few other guys separated from the remaining party. The others wanted to keep their operation going and went elsewhere to set it up. Alexei wanted revenge. I can’t be sure of the people with him, but my information says Daniil Morozov, Iakov Vasiliev and Kostya Demidov may have joined up with him. They were all loyal to their beloved immortal Ambrosii.”

“Not so immortal,” Jet mumbled.

“Yeah, he didn’t live up to his name, but his brother is living up to his…in a way. He’s defending their family honor. The two boys were all that was left and he wants blood. They were about ten years apart in age. He’s thirty-eight now I think. He’s a really bad guy, Jet. Please be careful.”

He nodded. “I’m going to need gear.”

“I’ll get you the blueprints so you can look them over while I set up your load. You’re going to have to travel light, but loaded. I’ll get you some water and nutrition bars too. It won’t be much, but I can guarantee you she’ll be hungry when you get to her. They won’t feed her.”

“Why can’t they ever be the nicer criminals?” He shook his head.

She laughed. “Yeah, the ones that feed you poison.”

“Or just feed you, not beat you…you get the point.”

“Have you come across any of those types?”

“Once or twice, but that was a long time ago. Well maybe not that long ago. One of the other idiots I went to rescue about ten months ago didn’t seem to be all that shook up about being locked up.” He shivered just thinking about the horse crap he crawled through to get to the package. “But for the most part the bad guys are always hostile to the hostage.”