Kodiak Sky

CHAPTER 42

Jack and Skylar sat side by side on the narrow ledge overlooking the Shelikof Strait. It was the same ledge Skylar had been sitting on when she’d gotten the phone call from her superior officer ordering her to Washington.

“It’s beautiful,” Jack said as he pulled the collar of the fur-lined parka up around his neck. Northern lights gleamed across the star-laden sky above as tall waves crashed on the boulders below. “Cold but beautiful.” He leaned forward and glanced down hesitantly, glad he was secured to the cliff by a thick rope that was lashed to a metal spike Skylar had driven into the rock face after they’d climbed down here. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“I wanted you to see it,” she murmured, reaching into her coat pocket. “This is my favorite place in the world.”

“I can understand why.” He took a deep breath of the crystal-clear air. “Thanks for making dinner, too. It was excellent.”

After leaving town this morning, they’d canoed and hiked around and across Kodiak Island to the grove of trees where Skylar had carved her initials long ago. She’d caught several rainbow trout in the creek at the bottom of the ravine with her bare hands and cooked them over an open fire, along with fresh vegetables and potatoes. She’d even brought along a good bottle of wine in her backpack.

After dinner and despite the wine, they’d rappelled down here to watch the aurora borealis. So they wouldn’t be bothered by bears, she’d told him.

Jack glanced up at the yellow and green lights shimmering among more stars than he’d ever seen in one sky. He hoped she was kidding about the bears. But he suspected she wasn’t.

Skylar lighted the joint she’d pulled from her pocket, took a hit, and held it out for him. “Here.”

He chuckled self-consciously. Commander McCoy was always full of surprises. “No thanks.”

She rolled her eyes and took another hit. “It’s one of the ways I deal with who I am and what I’ve done,” she said, after exhaling a plume of pungent smoke straight at him with a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“I kill people for a living, Jack. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a little mentally warped, because I seem to handle the job pretty well.” She shrugged. “Still, sometimes it gets to me.”

“You protect this country.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“That’s what you know, Sky.”

She glanced over at him. “Hey, you know, that’s the first time you’ve ever called me Sky. I like it.”

He nodded but said nothing.

“I’m glad Dorn’s dead,” Skylar confided. “I’m glad the Ebola virus killed him. I hated him for lying to me, for making me think my father was still alive so I’d go after you guys.”

“How did my father convince you Dorn was lying?” Jack had wanted to ask her that for a while. “What did he say that night at the cabin?”

“It wasn’t what he said. It was what he showed me.”

“Which was?”

“Your father showed me a video of my father’s ship on the bottom of the Bering Sea.” She hesitated. “His body was still in the wheelhouse. There was a close-up of his face so the brass would recognize him. He was suffering when he died. I guess drowning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Jack grimaced. “Why did they need to make sure he was—”

“My father ran missions for the ONI. He picked up and dropped off our people from and to U.S. subs out in the Bering Sea. They had to make certain there wasn’t anything classified onboard, so they sent divers down.” She held the joint out for him. “You sure?”

Jack shook his head. “No.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You know, I thought I was dead that night at the cabin,” he admitted. “You saved my life.”

“Well then, we’re even,” she said. “You covered me in Harpers Ferry. I covered you at that cabin. It worked out pretty well.”

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

Skylar let her head fall slowly back against the cliff. “What are you doing here, Jack?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you come to Kodiak Island?”

“Because you asked me to.”

She shook her head. “You had another agenda.”

He grinned. How could she know? “Okay, maybe you’re right. Look, I want to know if—”

“If I’ll join Red Cell Seven,” she interrupted.

So along with all her other talents, she was a mind reader, too. “Well, will you?”

“Are you going to stay involved?”

Espinosa had given Jack both original Orders after the incident at his house with Baxter, and within twelve hours Jack had hidden them well. Only two other people knew where they were.

And despite his issues with the cell, Jack had taken time away from bond trading to help the unit reorganize and to dive deep below anyone’s radar again. It had helped that President Dorn had died and that Baxter was in jail awaiting prosecution for a long list of serious crimes.

“If Maddux was ultimately going after you guys,” Skylar asked when Jack didn’t answer, “why didn’t he just kill your father at the cabin while they were there together?”

“He was trying to suck up as much knowledge about the cell’s money situation as he could. And Maddux knew my father would have told people who to come after if something happened to him.”

“Your father is a smart man.”

“You have no idea.”

“Is that how Baxter knew to call Judge Espinosa? Is that how he knew to warn Espinosa about Operation Anarchy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did Maddux really whisper something to Baxter about the plot? That’s what it said in his notebook.”

Jack nodded. “He contacted Baxter so later he could connect him to Operation Anarchy, so it would look like Baxter knew about it. How else could Baxter have warned Espinosa to stay at home if he didn’t have knowledge?”

“How did he know Baxter would call Espinosa?”

“He and my father figured out that Dorn and Baxter had manipulated Espinosa to the top of the Supreme Court. My father found that wire transfer going from Baxter’s account to the brother of the guy that killed Chief Justice Bolger. Maddux knew that Baxter and Dorn had a great deal invested in Henry Espinosa.”

“Which got Baxter indicted,” Skylar said, “along with the record of the wire transfer.”

“They manipulated Espinosa to the chief justice position so they could wipe out RC7. And they killed that poor woman Espinosa was having an affair with so Espinosa would be their puppet, so Baxter could force him to sign that directive ending RC7’s existence when he presented the forgery of the Order.”

“But it wouldn’t have mattered. The forgery didn’t have the 3-D piece.”

“If we hadn’t shown up when we did, Sky, Espinosa would have signed that directive. I’m sure of it. He got courage because you were there. He saw that you meant what you said. He saw fear in Baxter’s eyes. I certainly did.”

They were quiet for a long time as they watched the northern lights.

“You okay?” Skylar finally asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I know you miss Troy. I know how close you two were.”

Jack exhaled heavily, shook his head, and put his hands to his face. “Yeah, we were.” Troy had died from an infection brought on by the wound and the subsequent surgeries. The call that morning from the hospital had been an absolute shocker. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

She patted him on the back. “You need closure, Jack, and I know exactly how I’m going to get it for you.”