On Thin Ice (Special Ops) Read online

  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.”

  “Sucks to be a hostage,” she said.

  “Yeah. Suck
s to rescue one who doesn’t realize they’re on the fast track to being murdered too.”

  “I couldn’t do your job. I would have just shot him and left him.” She handed him her files. “Spread them out on the bench if you need to.”

  He looked over the files, spreading them out on her workbench while she gathered the weapons he would use, and the hiking gear he would need. He also noticed the protein bars and the couple big bottles of water she added. If they weren’t going to feed Akira then they probably wouldn’t give her water either. He had to get to her soon because if he didn’t she just might die from dehydration and starvation. These guys definitely didn’t care. They were planning to kill her anyway. All they needed her for was to get whatever they wanted from Aaron and then they wouldn’t need her. Alexei would no doubt swiftly kill her when that time came. Or maybe he would torture her to hurt Aaron. Either way, Jet was sure Alexei would kill her and was equally as sure that he wouldn’t let him do it. He was going to rescue her. He had to.

  Jet had told Alex to alert him as soon as they got the second call, but neither of them expected it to come in before the next day. He would have to call Alex and let him know not to call because he might be in a spot where a ringing phone could give his position away. Or he might not have any coverage at all. He would have to turn the phone off before he went out on foot. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t ever been out of contact while on a mission, but this time he needed access to updates, and he needed to let Aaron and Sakura know there was hope. This was the first time he wanted to keep the people who hired him updated on every step. He knew he couldn’t do that, and that he shouldn’t do that, but he still felt compelled to do it. Feeling compelled to do it didn’t mean he was going to risk screwing up. After he set out on foot the phone would simply have to go silent until he could make his next call to Alex.

  He looked at one black and white picture in particular and he recognized the subject in the photo. Then he saw another photograph and then another series of them one right behind the other. “Why do you have pictures of him?”

  “Who?”

  He held up the picture.

  “Oh, the supposed cop,” she laughed. “Actually I can’t find anything to say that he’s not on the level, other than the fact that he’s going by a different name. I got that picture out of a file from about seven years ago. I don’t know who took it, or when they took it, but I found it while searching some government files.” She winked at him and he knew her search had been anything but legal. “I couldn’t find anything on him really. I was just curious as to why the photo was there. The only name that I found with the picture was Nikifor Chuchin. There was no other information attached to it…nothing at all. And you know me; I can’t resist a good mystery. From what I can tell he changed his name somewhere along the way. My research on this guy faded fast. He just vanished off the map. Basically I lost track of him until I saw him on the tube today giving a statement about catching the guys. I don’t know if he’s friend or foe, Jet. I can’t find anything on him. It’s like he just vanished as Nikifor and showed up as Nathan.”

  “He doesn’t have an accent.”

  “From what I could find on Nikifor it would seem that he was born in America to parents who were second generation Americans. He was born in Michigan and then his family moved to New York, New Jersey and then dropped off the grid when he was probably fourteen or fifteen, but I can’t be sure on his age at the time, just that they all vanished. In that photo he looks older so I would say the government was keeping tabs on him for some reason. I wouldn’t trust him. I’m not even sure how he obtained the credentials he has…but he could have fabricated enough information to get on the force. I was planning to investigate later. This really isn’t my war, but I like to know who’s in my backyard if you know what I mean. I just wanted to get some target practice in first.”

  He nodded. “What you’ve given me is enough to get me going.”

  “Jet,” Henri waited to get his full attention and when he finally looked up at her she spoke again. “She seems like a nice woman—genuine.”

  “She is.”

  “Then don’t muck it up. When you get her out of there and get her home don’t let her get away. Put a ring on her finger and make it forever.”

  He laughed nervously. “Who says she would want to marry me.”

  “She would have to be a fool not to. And she doesn’t strike me as a fool. Besides, you and I both know having a woman want to marry you was never the problem.”

  He knew she was right. The problem was he never wanted to marry them. Even Charlie…they had been together so long that he was comfortable with the way things were. He didn’t want a wedding. He didn’t want to live together. And for a long time she didn’t either. Then she suddenly decided to change her mind just because her mother gave her the tick-tock speech—that and the fact that she was getting tired of him leaving to go on missions. She thought if they were married that would change and he would spend more time with her at home. “Either your job or me, Jet. Which one of us would you rather be married to?”

  “Why do I have to choose one over the other? I love my job and you know that. Why can’t we just stay the way we are? You were the one who said you didn’t want a wedding, a husband or a live-in boyfriend.” Apparently that answer hadn’t been the one she was looking for and she ended things right there. She knew he was going off on a mission and instead of at least waiting until he got back to drop the move in with me, marry me, make babies with me, bomb on him she had done it barely an hour before he had to leave.

  He didn’t want to move in with her. He didn’t want to marry her. He didn’t want to make babies with her and he didn’t know why. She was beautiful. She was fun, but she wasn’t the one. He wasn’t even sure he was looking for the one woman that he would want forever with. He had gone through life unmarried all this time; he didn’t see a need to change that, not even with Charlie.

  Maybe what had him more baffled was that when Henri mentioned marrying Akira he hadn’t had that gut churning reaction that he usually got when anybody mentioned the word marriage in the same sentence as his name.

  “I should get moving.” He checked over the equipment she gave him. Henri was the only contact he had who didn’t expect him to pay her for the use of her weapons. Saving her brother’s life once probably endeared him to her good graces. Amazingly he was friendlier with her than her brother. He didn’t know why, but he and Henri just clicked, while he and Paul hadn’t really taken to friendship with each other. Maybe it was because Henri was laid back and easy going, but she was also kick-butt like an Amazonian warrior. They meshed, and the friendship was one that neither party would ever betray.

  “Seriously, Jet; marry her.”

  “Henri,” he warned in a low tone.

  “It’s clear you love her. Maybe you’re not dating. Maybe you’re not even close, but I know you, Jet. The anger I see in your eyes right now you might be able to pass off as some noble “man who hates man who hits woman” type of thing, but the fear,” she pointed to his face. “The fear is for her and it’s real. It’s from your heart and that, my good man, is a sure sign that you love her. I don’t know the whole story, but I think you should marry her.”

  “Why don’t you worry about getting yourself married, Henri?”

  She laughed. “No thank you. Not now. Not ever.” She shook her head and held up her hands in surrender. “I’ll let it drop, Jet, but you know I’m right. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

  She just had to get the last word in—as always. It was going to take a strong man to live with her…maybe a man as obsessed with guns as she was. Now that would make an interesting pairing.

  “Be careful, Jet. I’d hate to lose my friend and then have to go to war with the Russians.”

  “Careful is my middle name, Henri.”

  “No it’s not,” she shook her head and gave him a devious grin. “Jethro Jamison Jackson.”

  “Why do you
have to be so gosh darn good at finding information?” He mumbled and she laughed. He had dropped his middle name from use before he hit junior high school. He didn’t like it. He didn’t use it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still the name on his birth certificate. Legally he was Jethro Jamison Jackson. He preferred to just go by Jet; Jet Jackson if they wanted to be more formal. He didn’t really like for people to call him Jethro and he definitely didn’t like for them to call him by his full name. When anybody called him by his full name it reminded him of all the times his mother had used it when he had done something stupid that landed him in her not so good graces.