“Give me a ring if you see those two come by here again, or anyone else suspicious, for that matter. Here are my private office and cell phone numbers, and e-mail.” He handed each of them a couple of business cards. “I’m taking it to the troopers right away. Don’t hesitate to call at any time with anything you may find out.”
Eugene pushed the dial button and put the phone to his ear as he turned toward the door.
“Marcus,” he called back, “I’m gonna tell Lonnie that you’re back and give her Linus’s number. That’ll put it in her court. I ask you, give her a chance. A lot has changed in the past couple years.”
“Thanks, Mr. Wyatt.”
Marcus turned back to his soup as his father’s best friend walked out the door, got into his truck, and drove out of the parking lot. Eugene turned the big tan F250 west on the Richardson Highway and headed through the darkness back to Fairbanks.
Chapter 4
Sergeant Choi Ho Kil looked at the small digital display in his gloved hand. He studied the numbers that glowed softly on the screen and did some quick calculations in his head. Choi’s excitement grew as he realized the detector worked just the way he had designed it.
“Captain Park!” he whispered hoarsely into the microphone that hung on the front of his white balaclava. “I think we have found it, sir.”
Captain Park came out of the shadows toward the sergeant. The bulk of his hooded white parka made the captain look like a polar bear cub running on its hind legs. Park took several bounding steps across the four-foot-deep blanket of snow that covered the landscape, white nylon-covered snowshoes keeping him on the surface of the powder.
“What do you see, Sergeant?” asked the captain as he flipped up the eyepieces of his night vision goggles and looked at the small electronic device in Choi’s hand.
“The scanner is picking up the chemical signature very heavily around here, sir. It can only be the real thing. Look at the line here, sir. It indicates the fissure is right in front of us.”
“Excellent!” declared the captain, satisfaction evident in his voice. Sergeant Choi had found the location surprisingly fast. The information given by their field operative was extremely accurate. This boded well for the mission’s success.
“The general will be very pleased,” he said, clapping a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “But you, Ho, you will be the most rewarded. Your diligence and clear thinking made it all possible. I am going to recommend you for promotion to officer.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Choi replied, barely able to conceal his pride. An officer, he thought. Joining Z Detachment was the best thing I have done. I can finally live with some measure of comfort. Maybe I can even have private quarters in the barracks. This assignment has truly been worthwhile.
Captain Park spoke swiftly into his radio. A dozen other white-draped forms made their way forward and knelt in the snow before their commander.
“Team one, set up security here. Team two and three, we will begin excavation immediately.”
The four-man groups split up and began their respective tasks. The members of team one spread out into the surrounding foliage of willow, alder, and white paper birch. They formed a security perimeter about thirty meters in diameter. White-clad soldiers armed with sniper rifles concealed themselves among the trees, facing the points of the compass. All approaches to the site were under observation. They checked fields of fire and settled into the cold snow for their shift while the other two teams set to work clearing the snow from the area Sergeant Choi pointed out.
“Work quickly, men. We must get down to the surface fast and find out if we can get in.”
Chapter 4
The phone on the desk of Trooper Commander Robert Stark rang only once and his hand was on the receiver, snatching it up to his ear. Silvery hair, shorn in a flat-top cut that left only a quarter of an inch on top of his scalp, sparkled reflectively in the fluorescent lights of his office on the third floor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Public Safety Building.
“EOC, Commander Stark,” he said in a blunt, authoritative voice. The muscles in his square jaw rippled as he spoke. His cold, gray eyes peered at the digital display on the phone as he read the number on the Caller ID.
“Bob, this is Eugene Wyatt. I figured you’d still be there.”
“Of course I’d still be here. Once the Emergency Operations Center is activated, I can’t leave until the whole thing is closed up and everyone’s out. Do we have the all-clear now that the lights are back on?”
“That’s what I’m calling about, Bob. Are you going to be at your office for a while?” Eugene sounded troubled.
“I’ll wait for you if that’s what you need.”
“Yeah, can’t talk on this line right now. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
“No problem. I’ll keep the coffee hot for you.”
“We may need something stronger than that, buddy. I’ll see you in a few.”
The line clicked and went dead. Bob Stark pressed the button to reset the line. He rang his wife, Caroline, to say he would be a little later than he had originally told her. She did not need to wait up.
Caroline Stark was used to this. After thirty-one years of being married to an Alaska State Trooper, the middle-aged mother of three grown children, whom she had practically raised alone, had at times thought she wouldn’t know what to do if he actually came home at a regular time more than once or twice a month. As often as he was gone, Commander Bob Stark was lucky she had been a faithful wife through the years.
Two months past her fiftieth birthday, she was still fit and quite attractive. She did not look at all like a grandmother of five. Her well cared-for skin and voluptuous figure, large breasts, a narrow waist, and modestly round hips still turned heads when she went out. With a little dye in her salt-and-pepper hair and skillful application of makeup, Caroline Stark could easily erase twenty years from her appearance. She’d be a real hit in the bar scene.
Lord knows the chances for infidelity rose more often than he wanted to think about, especially since their last child had finished college and left home the previous year. But he knew she loved him, and he loved her. Retirement to a very lucrative pension and savings was within sight. He had promised her that once retired he would take her on a long around-the-world tour, just the two of them. Two more years — then he would be all hers.
It was eight-thirty before Eugene Wyatt stepped into the open door of Commander Stark’s spacious corner office. To the left against the wall stood several floor-to-ceiling dark wooden bookcases full of volumes of case law, state regulations, and emergency services training manuals. A large conference table, surrounded by twelve comfortable leather office chairs, stretched most of the length of the room near the shelves.
Directly in front of the door was the large, very expensive-looking mahogany desk at which Commander Stark sat authoritatively. Behind him was a matching credenza. When the building first opened four months earlier, several reporters gawked at the pricey office furniture. They tried to accuse the commander of misuse of government funds for having purchased such lavish personal equipment. Their accusations were suppressed when he produced a receipt showing he had paid for it himself with proceeds from the sale of a house.