Charon's Landing

Valdez, Alaska

Dawn was hours away and the night sky was as black as pitch. Even the stars seemed especially remote and cold in the silence of space. The town, too, was quiet. Only the gentle lapping of waves and the occasional whistle of wind through loosely strung power lines disturbed the night. It was almost four in the morning, the time when humans and all other nonnocturnal creatures were at their lowest ebb. Even with electric lighting and sophisticated technology, man still feared this time of night and hid from it as surely as his primordial ancestors had eons ago. It was the time of witches and devils. It was the time of Ivan Kerikov.

The still of the night was stirred by a persistent buzzing noise approaching the town from the north. The buzz built into a whine and then to the throaty roar of two fuel-injected six-cylinder engines of a Cessna 310 prop aircraft, its landing lights brilliant in the darkness. The pilot keyed on his mike and the automated runway lights of Valdez’s airport sparkled on, outlining the single 6,500-foot asphalt strip. He crabbed the aircraft, mindful of the crosswind coming from the Sound.

With just the right touch of throttle and flap, the executive plane scuffed the runway, then settled on its tricycle landing gear, the pilot giving himself more than enough room for his rollout. A flashlight beckoned him to the hard stands where a small group of people waited at the otherwise deserted airport. Their breaths were like cigarette smoke in the predawn chill.

The pilot cut the engines, and silence once again enveloped the field. A few moments later, the rear passenger door hissed open and Kerikov stepped down to the tarmac, unlimbering his bulky frame from the six-passenger aircraft. His face was drawn and deeply shadowed in the Cessna’s dim cabin lights, but his pale eyes retained their deadly stare.

“Voerhoven?” he called evenly.

Jan Voerhoven stepped away from his men and strode to the aircraft, keeping the beam of his flashlight on the silvery wet asphalt. He’d arrived at the airport just moments before Kerikov’s plane, leaving Aggie curled up and asleep aboard the Hope.

“You are ready.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, everything’s set,” Voerhoven replied. “And I have good news. We found that our intelligence about the road to Pump Station number 5 was incorrect. Permits to travel on the Dalton Highway aren’t necessary unless one wishes to travel beyond Atigun Pass. After that, the road is secured for Alyeska vehicles only. Because we used a helicopter to transport the freezing packs to sites north of Pump Station number 5 last month, I assumed we would need them again. I was mistaken. We can move the last of the liquid nitrogen by trucks, which I have waiting for us in Fairbanks.”

“What’s the distance to the pumping station?”

“Just over two hundred miles from where we’ve stored the nitrogen. However, much of the road is unpaved. We’ll need at least four hours to get there.”

Kerikov snapped back his cuff to look at his watch, a crisp, almost military gesture. “That will put us at the pumping station at around twenty-one-hundred hours. Traffic on the road will be negligible and patrols by Alyeska workmen shouldn’t be a factor. Excellent, Jan. I congratulate you on your thinking.”

“Listen” — Jan hardened his voice — “I need to know what kind of exposure my people can expect.”

“What do you mean, exposure?”

“All of the other freezing packs we’ve attached to the pipeline were done at remote locations, with almost no risk of discovery. This time, we’re going to march right up to a pumping station staffed with workers.”

“Don’t tell me you’re having doubts,” Kerikov mocked, his lazy half smile challenging Jan as surely as an insult.

“No, but I want to know if my people are going to be in any danger.”

“Our diversion in Fairbanks is all set. At most, we’ll be facing only half of Pump Station 5’s crew.” Kerikov then laughed, an unnaturally loud sound in the deserted airfield. “Besides, Alyeska’s crew are all unarmed. It’ll be as simple as killing an unarmed truck driver, Jan. If your people are as eager as you say about freezing the pipeline, I’m sure they’re looking forward to a little action. But if you wish, they can remain by the trucks while my men quell any resistance.”

Voerhoven opened his mouth to protest. Then he remembered the humiliation he’d felt two days earlier when Kerikov had slapped him around, and he remained quiet. Kerikov saw Jan’s reaction and nodded, knowing full well he had the Dutchman under his control.

“Get on the plane. We’ll take off in just a moment.”

Kerikov moved farther away from the Cessna, deeper into the night. He slipped a thin cellular phone from his jacket pocket, punching in one of the many numbers the device kept stored. He had to call twice because an answering machine picked up the extension before waking the person he wanted to reach.

“Hello,” a voice muttered thickly.

“Mossey, this is Kerikov. It’s time.”

“Christ,” Ted Mossey complained. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

“Yes, I know it is,” Kerikov agreed with the young computer expert. “Voerhoven and I are about to head north to place the final shipment. I need you at the terminal facility. I’m about twenty-four hours away from initializing the original computer override virus. You have to begin installing it immediately.”

Mossey came a little more awake at this revelation, his weak voice firming slightly as he realized what was happening. When he spoke, there was a breathless anticipation behind his words. “So soon? Oh, my God, this is fantastic! I’ll have their systems down in just a couple of hours. They’ll call me right away. Oh, man, this is great!”

“Calm down,” Kerikov snapped. “Once you freeze their computer and they call you back to the terminal, you said it would take about ten hours to get our old program up and running, correct?”

“Yes, ten, maybe twelve. Looking over the documentation of your program, I saw that your guy buried it pretty deep in the mainframe. It’s not something I can get to very easily.”

Kerikov cut him off quickly before he started another of his intolerable lectures about computers and their abilities. “And once it’s in, I can activate the program remotely, correct?”

“All you need is a telephone, even that cell phone you carry can do it. Oh, man, this is going to be fucking great. The ultimate hack. And I’m getting paid for it too. No one is ever going to believe this one.”

With those last words, Kerikov knew that the computer expert had to die. Voerhoven and his people willingly took risks because they believed they were right, that their cause came before all other considerations, but Mossey was different. Kerikov knew it wasn’t only his environmental activism that drove him to assist in Charon’s Landing; it was also his ego and the desire to pull off the impossible. The PEAL activists would never reveal their involvement because it would cause just too much damage to their organization. Especially when Kerikov tied the two disparate sides of this operation together. But after a while, Mossey’s ego would force him to talk to someone, some other computer freak, and all too soon, the whole world would know. A swift bullet would ensure his perpetual silence.

“Calm down,” Kerikov admonished the younger man. “We’re not there yet. Remember, no one at the terminal can suspect that anything of consequence is wrong.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be a snap. To them I’m just another digit head. Good old Ted, you know. By the time you make the call to trigger the program, I’ll be halfway to Japan and a much better life. You have any idea what they pay good programmers there?”

Kerikov paused for a second. He could delay Mossey from leaving Valdez long enough to get Abu Alam in position to kill him, maybe when Mossey was driving up to the airport in Anchorage. That was the beauty of Valdez — there was only one road in and out, a dangerous road that had claimed a life only a few days before. Mossey’s death wouldn’t be that suspicious, thanks to Voerhoven’s unauthorized activities.

“Ted, after you initiate the control program, go back to your apartment and wait for a call from me,” Kerikov improvised.

“What in the hell for?”

“Because I order it,” Kerikov bellowed, then lowered his voice when he saw Jan look over. Kerikov had never revealed the hacker’s presence to Voerhoven or the effects of the computer virus he was going to unleash. “I’ll make sure you have enough time to get out of Alaska before I set off the virus.”

“Hey, that wasn’t part of our bargain,” Ted Mossey whined.

“It is now.” Kerikov shut down the phone and fished a cigarette from an inside pocket. The flare of his lighter was blinding for the instant it took to light the Marlboro.

He placed another call, this time using his own memory rather than that of the cellular. Abu Alam answered after only one ring despite the time. He sounded as if he hadn’t slept yet, if he slept at all.

“I didn’t take her tonight,” he said by way of greeting, for he knew only Kerikov had his cell phone number.

“What happened?”

“There was someone with her. We had a good opportunity. I almost had her, but some bastard hit me over the head and escorted her back to the PEAL ship. We couldn’t grab her without taking him out first, and you said you wanted her kidnapped with the least amount of resistance.”

“Jesus Christ! It was only one man and you didn’t move in?” he said disgustedly. “One man isn’t an obstacle. You should have beaten him and snatched her when you had the chance. Listen to me and listen good. I want her taken no later than tomorrow night. After that, I want you to stay with her on the platform. Guard her well, Alam, but do not touch her. Is that clear?”

“Why guard her? There’s no place Aggie Johnston can go.”

“No names, goddamn it! I need you on the Omega to go over the final preparations, including taking out our computer expert after I fire off the nitrogen canisters.”

“What’s going on here, Kerikov? You assured Minister Rufti that you had everything under control, that you trusted your people, that you didn’t need any help. This will be the second time you’ve asked me and my men to bail you out. Are you certain that you know what you’re doing? I believe it is time to inform the Minister that things here are not going as planned, yes?”

“No, they are going as planned. It’s just that you don’t know the full plan,” Kerikov said angrily. “Just grab the woman, get her to the Omega, and await my instructions. You knew when Rufti bought into this operation that you would be much more than an observer.”

“Rufti will hear of this,” Abu Alam threatened. “You can be sure of this. You are not the person you think you are.”

“Oh, yes, I am.” Kerikov folded his phone back on itself and put it in his pocket.

After a lifetime in the intelligence game, Kerikov never ceased to marvel how quickly an asset could turn into a liability. Ally and enemy weren’t antonyms; they were the same thing. Only circumstance and timing made them different. It was as true of superpower relations as it was of personal relationships. And in the spy trade, it was the truest of all.

He pitched the cigarette butt onto the tarmac, grinding it to a shredded pulp under his heel before turning back to the aircraft. The pilot saw him approach and kicked the engines back to life, their knife-edge blades cutting into the cool air so quickly they disappeared into silvered disks.