They landed
at Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage and rolled to a private strip set aside for restricted access. The sky opened above, and Hatch stared up toward the heavens. Distant flood lights washed out the sky. Beyond their reach, heavy storm clouds threatened.
Two blacked-out Land Rover Defenders were waiting on the tarmac. Less than a minute from when their boots hit the ground, Cruise and team, plus Hatch, were in motion.
Tracy drove the lead vehicle. After a quick three round match of rock, paper, scissors, Hertzog won the coveted passenger seat, giving the big man an extra hour plus of rest time before the show began. Cruise and Hatch sat in the back. Ginger kept his nose tight on Tracy's heels as they raced at breakneck speeds toward Lawson's glacier prison, Camp Hope.
"I've got everybody patched," Tracy announced. "I'm taking you off my earpiece. The others should be able to hear you now. Guys, this is Gerry Cantrell over at intel. He's been filling me in on the situation on the ground, and I want you to hear it directly from him. Gerry, they're all yours."
"Thanks Jordan. How am I coming in? Can everybody here me on your end?" Cantrell spoke quickly like he'd just downed three cups of coffee. Maybe he had. They'd landed in Anchorage later than anticipated, hitting the ground just after 10 PM. It was close to midnight as they closed in on the last few miles of the drive.
"Good here," Ginger said.
"Loud and clear. Go ahead, Gerry." Tracy kept his eyes on the road as he pushed the pace of the SUV, reaching speeds over ninety as he navigated the slick two-lane mountain roadway like a NASCAR driver pushing the final stretch.
"All right, everybody. I was just telling Commander Tracy about the volatile shitstorm you guys are walking into. And I'm not talking about the bad guys. I'm talking about the environment. I don’t know how much you know about Anchorage, but it’s a hotbed of seismic activity.
“1964, Anchorage saw an earthquake hit a magnitude of nine-point-two on the Richter scale. It was a megathrust earthquake. That means you've got a massive plate shift and there was massive movement. And in four and a half minutes, it became one of the deadliest and most devastating earthquakes in history, second most powerful in the whole world. In that four and a half minutes, over one-hundred-thirty-one lives were lost. The damage, quakes, and seismic activity were felt as far away as Texas.”
"We already know about the quake earlier today," Cruise said.
"That wasn't a quake. Well, it was. But not a big one. Four-point-one in magnitude. No major damage. You might’ve felt like you were having a flashback, made you wobbly for a second, or something."
"Then what are we missing?" Cruise rolled his eyes at Hatch and made a “move it along” gesture with his hand.
"I've been checking the charts and I think we're looking at something else. I think what we witnessed in the quake earlier was a foreshock. Like a foreshadowing of a much bigger event to come."
"A warning shot," Hatch said under her breath.
"Exactly. And like a warning shot, we need to take heed." Cantrell's voice became even more animated as he continued. Hatch imagined his hands doing most of the talking. "Sometimes before a big quake, you get a ripple of thirty or forty smaller quakes. Some of which are so insignificant people don’t even feel them. It can create a ripple effect in which these smaller quakes trigger larger ones. The town of Breakneck is just south of the Aleutian Trench. The Border Ranges Fault Line and Neogene faults that divide the Kenai Peninsula are directly beneath the camp."
"Layman's terms?" Cruise asked.
"Long and short of it, your team is heading into some seriously dangerous ground."
"No way we're letting that marshal die on that glacier." Cruise made no gestures, didn’t roll his eyes. There was no swaying the man. "My team's going to bring him down that mountain. Alive."
Cantrell started to speak, paused, and exhaled. "And I wouldn't expect any less. All I'm saying is do it quickly. Anchorage got hit bad in '64. This could be worse. Much worse if the data is to be believed."
"How long do we have?" Cruise looked down at his watch.
"No way to tell. Could be minutes, hours, or years."
"A lot of what we do on the ops side of the house has to do with trusting your gut,” Tracy said. “What's yours telling you?"
"You know I can’t say with any real accuracy, but my gut is telling me soon. I think we could see some major ground shifts over the next twenty-four hours. If I’m right, then all I can say is make every second on that mountain count."
"We always do. If anything changes on this, I want to know immediately. You’ve got a direct line to me. Understood?"
"Will do." Cantrell disconnected.
Tracy slowed the Land Rover. The storm had rolled in. Between swipes of the wipers, Hatch saw the wooden sign alongside the road. Breakneck 5 miles. Somebody had spray painted over the words beneath it by crossing out the word ‘camp’ and replacing it with a ‘no’. It read, ‘No Hope 7 miles.'
Slick roads were a sign of the loosening grip of winter was giving way to a spring. Long months of cold had left the mountains capped in ice and snow, but the lower foothills were starting to feel the Alaskan warmth of spring. The frozen blanket had begun to melt away, leaving a trail of muddy sludge across the town's main road.
They pulled to a stop by a log cabin with a hand carved wooden sign that hung outside the porch, marking it as Gentry's Pantry.
"Our contact from Parole should be here in a minute." Tracy said to Hatch before turning his attention to Cruise. "Do what you do best."
Cruise exited the vehicle. Hatch met him outside. The heavy rain slapped at her coat as they stood facing each other. She angled her face down to keep the frigid drops away.
"Back before you know it." Cruise leaned in and said in a whisper, "Don't disappear on me."
She inhaled his familiar scent. The scent of the ocean mixing with the rain and wind. Hatch felt like there was something she was supposed to say. She felt like there was more implied in what he was saying. But all she could come up with was, "You'd just end up finding me if I did."
"You're right about that." Cruise leaned closer and kissed Hatch on the lips.
She didn’t pull away. Even though it only lasted a second, she could still feel it as the others exited the vehicle. A moment later, Cruise won the next round of rock, paper, scissors, banishing Hertzog to the backseat.
Hatch looked to Tracy to see if he caught the lightening-quick surprise kiss delivered with Navy SEAL-like precision. Nothing about his face indicated he had noticed, but Hatch couldn't have been more grateful to the gray GMC Denali marked with the Board of Parole seal that had pulled to a stop in front of them.
"Looks like our friend from Parole has arrived," Tracy said.
Hatch pulled up her jacket's hood and stood next to Tracy. The rain banged loudly on the waterproof material. Wind found its way through small openings and cooled the back of her neck.
The parole officer approached using a manila file folder as an umbrella. He then extended a wet palm to both Tracy and Hatch.
"Brandon Case, I’m MacIntosh’s parole officer. You must be Officer, or is it Agent Hatch?" Case was shorter than Hatch by six inches. He was squat and looked thicker than he was due to the puffy hooded coat he wore.
"Just Hatch is fine by me."
"Your office or mine?" Case laughed at his own joke and took his glasses from the end of his nose. He began wiping the lenses with a cloth only to return them to his face just to watch them fog again.
Tracy would be monitoring Cruise and his team from the Land Cruiser. "Yours is fine."
"Then let's not spend any more time in the rain." Case stepped off in the direction of his truck.
She remembered her task. Find out why a former Marine would end up with a group of Aryan drug dealers capable of killing one officer and kidnapping another. Hatch trailed behind Case, hoping he held the answer.