Jack Scarlet
A Cold, Cold Place to Die
A Jack Scarlet Adventure
by
Dan McGirt
Smashwords Edition
Published by Trove Books LLC
© Copyright Dan McGirt 2009
Other Jack Scarlet Adventures at Smashwords.com:
Bullets for Breakfast http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/4465
Also by Dan McGirt at Smashwords.com:
Jason Cosmo Adventures:
Hero Wanted http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2922
***
Beginner’s Luck http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3894
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*****
Jack Scarlet was about to die.
A bullet whizzed by his head like a hornet from hell. One stray round could send this whole plant into the stratosphere. The Black Flags didn’t seem to care. Jack was trapped, outnumbered twenty to one, with no clear line of retreat. Yet even as they closed in on him, the white-clad soldiers fired steadily, heedless of the danger. Jack thought they wanted him alive, but it looked like they’d settle for making him dead.
Jack was cornered on a catwalk above a seething vat of hypertoxic chemical sludge that could reduce an elephant to a puddle of Jell-O in under a minute. While he might manage some acrobatics that would get him to an exit, Nika certainly could not follow. The stunning Russian blonde crouched behind him with her hands over her ears and her face buried against his back. Very brave at first, the young widow had grown increasingly apprehensive over the last few hours. Jack couldn’t blame her. This mission was going downhill fast.
He felt her body tense. Worried she was about to bolt and draw a lethal hail of bullets upon herself, he grasped her arms tightly.
“Nika, be still!” he said, speaking Russian.
“I’m scared!” she said. Her full lips quivered. Her green eyes were moist with tears. “The bullets, the soldiers—I do not want to die!”
“No one ever does,” said Jack.
Restricted City Volochanka-9 was in western Siberia, north of the Arctic Circle. Off-limits to all foreigners and most Russians, its very existence was officially denied. But everyone from the CIA to the United Nations to the global environmental group EcoPax knew the city was a secret chemical and biological warfare center for the Russian military, one in a chain of such sites scattered across the vastness of the Russian Federation. EcoPax believed that Volochanka-9 was among the most polluted sites on the planet. Anecdotal evidence, backed by what little hard data existed, showed high rates of cancer, respiratory ailments and birth defects among Volochanka-9 workers and residents. But all the group’s efforts at better documenting the problem were thwarted by the uncooperative Russian bureaucracy and the actively paranoid security apparatus. Dr.Sergei Omolov, a respected ecologist and the leading EcoPax activist in Russia, was harassed, threatened, placed under house arrest and prosecuted for treason. Despite these Soviet-era tactics, Omolov refused to be silenced.
He was silenced anyway, gunned down in an alley near his St. Petersburg home before his wife’s eyes. Though Nika gave police a detailed description of the killers, the investigation went nowhere. That was when Jack, as a member of the EcoPax board of directors, decided to take a personal interest in the matter. It didn’t take long to determine that there was more being covered up than a toxic waste site. Now it looked like he and Nika might share her husband’s fate.
A pair of Black Flag soldiers came into view at the far end of the platform, their stubby little Skorpio submachine guns trained on Jack and Nika. Though the red dots of targeting lasers danced across Jack’s chest and head, the troopers didn’t fire. Maybe they were willing to take him alive after all. Though Jack had any number of offensive options at this point, virtually all of them would get him killed and probably Nika too. Their best chance of survival lay in surrender, if the Russians would go for it. Jack raised his empty hands.
“Don’t shoot!” he shouted in Russian. “We give up!”
He knelt and placed his hands on top of his head to show that he was sincere. Nika, trembling, followed suit.
“Just stay calm,” Jack whispered. “Let’s see how this plays out.”
The first two soldiers advanced cautiously, waiting for more of their squad to join them on the catwalk before getting close to Jack. Once reinforced, they pushed him roughly to the floor and bound his hands behind his back with thick plastic restraints. They relieved Jack of his utility belt, backpack, camera, and various electronic devices before hauling him to his feet. They seized Nika too, but she was evidently not considered as much of a threat. They did not bother to cuff her.
The Black Flag troopers snapped to attention as General Fedyenka Kirov, commandant of Volochanka-9, strode onto the platform. Kirov was a big, muscular man in his fifties, a former tank commander. He wore a dark green uniform bedecked with numerous commendations and campaign ribbons. This was their first meeting, but Jack recognized Kirov’s large boned face, brush cut silver-grey hair, and deep set dark green eyes from a documentary about Soviet war crimes during the USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan.
Kirov regarded Jack with a cold sneer. More than six feet tall, Jack was muscular, but not bulky. His physique was that of a gymnast—supple and powerful. Gossip columnists called him “rakishly handsome” and his face often adorned the pages of celebrity magazines, usually next to that of some starlet or supermodel. His face was lean, with clean lines and a strong jaw. His blue-grey eyes met Kirov’s without wavering.
The general said, “Jack Scarlet, famous American playboy industrialist and do-good busybody. You do not belong here.”
Jack replied without hesitation. “Fedyenka Popovich Kirov, war criminal, mass killer and old-school Stalinist. You belong in prison.”
Kirov ignored the jibe. “This is a restricted military district for reasons of state security. Violation is punishable by death.”
“Wait, this isn’t Kazakhstan?” said Jack. “I knew I should have turned right at the Volga.”
“As military governor of the Volochanka Restricted District, I have absolute discretion for dealing with spies. You will not leave here alive.”
“The activities you are conducting here,” replied Jack, “violate more treaties than I can count. Your government has renounced chemical and biological weapons of all kinds. Never mind experimenting on human subjects.”
Kirov spat. “Gutless politicians grovel before the West and sign away the security of Mother Russia, but cold winds of change are blowing. Soon new leaders will rise to restore Soviet Union—er, that is to say, Russian Federation, of course—to her rightful place in the world.”
“Are you high on something?”
“What are you saying, insolent American?”
“You can coast on bluster for a while yet, but Russia is a basket case. I’d say you’ve already found your rightful place in the world. Time to get over yourselves.”
“I do not follow your strange American locutions, but if you are insulting Mother Russia, you tread on dangerous ground!”
“There I won’t argue,” said Jack. “I took soil and air samples—this whole area is soaked with toxins. The United Nations will be very interested in what I have observed.”
“The UN will never learn of your soil samples and illegal filming. We have confiscated your instruments and you will never leave here alive.” Kirov snapped his fingers. The Black Flag troopers tossed Jack’s equipment over the rail into the roiling chemical vat below.
Jack shrugged as several hundred thousand dollars of electronics disappeared. “I already transmitted the data via satellite.”
Kirov laughed. “You are mistaken! This facility is shielded by anti-broadcast jamming devices.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “That is why I used an anti-jamming override and signal booster.”
“Nonsense! Our jamming equipment is state of the art.”
“The state of Russian art,” said Jack, arching an eyebrow. “I designed my own equipment. Do you really think yours is better?”
Kirov scowled. “Bah! So your data got through. It does not matter. That will not save you.”
“I never said it would.”
“Sadly, you will soon disappear from the face of the earth.” The soldiers holding Jack shoved him against the catwalk rail. Bent double, he stared down into the viscous green pool of bubbling death.
“This was a trap, wasn’t it?” said Jack, twisting against his captors’ grip until he was facing the general. “You knew I was coming. The Black Flags were mobilized, waiting for me.”
Kirov laughed. “Of course! I have had my own agent close to you since you entered Russia.”
He nodded, and Jack noted that the soldiers were no longer holding Nika. Nor was her face that of the frightened young widow who had appealed to him for help in solving her husband’s murder and carrying on his work. Her expression was cool and contemptuous.
“Nika! You?”
“Of course,” said Kirov. “She reported to me your every move.”
“But why?” asked Jack, searching the young woman’s expressionless face. “Why would you betray the cause for which your own husband gave his life?”
Kirov answered for her. “Because, you fool, she is my daughter.”
Jack got a sick feeling in his gut, and it wasn’t from the fumes. “Nika, can this be true?”
“Da. He is my father.”
“Hmm. Did not see that one coming.” Jack frowned. She had fooled him completely. He hated when that happened. “Well, I hope you didn’t report my every move to daddy, or this could get ugly.”
That got a reaction. Jack saw her pale face flush with color.
“What is your meaning?” asked Kirov.
“Ask her.”
“Well, girl?”
“It is nothing,” said Nika, glaring hatred at Jack.
“Nothing?” echoed Jack mockingly. “So last night meant nothing to you?”
“What!” exploded Kirov.
“You are a liar!” shouted Nika.
“Well if last night was nothing, what about the night before, on the train?” demanded Jack. “And that first night, in St. Petersburg, with the whipped cream and the trained weasel?”
“Liar!” She stamped her foot and stepped forward to strike Jack’s face. Kirov intercepted his daughter, catching her wrist and spinning her around to face him.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I sent you to keep a watch on this American, not to be his harlot! Have you no respect for your father, girl, that you behave like common street trash? I am a Hero of the Soviet Union!”
“Former Soviet Union,” said Jack.
“Enough from you!” said Kirov, unholstering his sidearm with one hand while holding Nika in check with the other.
“Oh, lay off, Fedyenka,” said Jack. “If you wanted her close to me, believe me, she did an excellent job!”
“Stop it! Stop it!” screeched Nika, struggling to break free and get at Jack. “He’s a liar, Papa!”
Jack had hoped an old school ramrod like Kirov would pop his cork at the notion that a smooth talking decadent American capitalist had gotten up close and personal with his daughter—even if Kirov was the one who put her there in the first place. While the family altercation distracted his captors, Jack worked a false filling loose from a lower right molar. Though Jack had flawless teeth and perfect dental hygiene as a result of his disciplined regimen of brushing and flossing after every meal, he often wore a variety of faux dental implants and appliances concealing such items as miniaturized radio transmitters, recording devices, spools of monofilament optic fiber, and other devices useful in his work. The filling he now manipulated with his tongue was none of those things, but it might give him a chance to escape his present predicament.
Kirov pushed Nika away and into the hands of two troopers, who restrained her. The general leaned forward until he was nose to nose with Jack. His breath reeked of sour cabbage. Kirov aimed his automatic pistol at Jack’s crotch. “I should cut off your privates and feed them to you,” he said. “Then crush your legs beneath the treads of a tank and leave you for the wolves to eat.”
“Imaginative,” said Jack. He positioned the loose filling under his tongue.
“But it would be a waste of time. Instead, I will take great pleasure in personally throwing you into the vat and listening to your screams as the flesh dissolves from your bones.”
Jack coughed up a thick gob of mucus, surrounded the filling with it, and spat in Kirov’s face. The capsule adhered to the Russian’s cheek. As Kirov reached up to brush it away, Jack hurled himself to the floor, dragging the two Black Flag troopers with him. He gave a shrill whistle, hitting a particular combination three notes.
The MHE—microencapsulated high explosive—detonated, blasting half of Kirov’s face away. Bits of scalp and skull and grey matter sprayed outward from his head, exposing the frontal lobes of his brain. Stunned, the general staggered backward. His remaining hair was aflame.
“Papa!” screamed Nika.
The Black Flag troopers, caught off guard by the explosion, lost their grip on Jack. He rolled away and sprang to his feet. His hands were still bound, but he lashed out with his feet, kicking high and low to keep the nearest soldiers at bay. He slipped past the stumbling Kirov and lunged for the stairs, only to collide with Nika, who was trying to reach her father.
“Get out of my way!” she said. She slapped Jack hard across the face.
“Get out of mine!” Jack snapped back.
Then he felt Kirov’s thick arms surround him, crushing him in a painful bear hug. Despite his horrible head wound, the general had enough brain function left to recognize and attack his enemy. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh assailed Jack’s nostrils. He struggled to break Kirov’s grip, but with his own arms bound, he had no chance of escaping the Russian’s massive limbs.
Kirov lifted Jack from the floor and squeezed the air from his lungs. Jack saw black spots across his field of vision. Kirov dragged him toward the rail over the chemical vat. The Black Flag troopers trained their weapons, but held fire, fearful of hitting their commander.
Nika had no such concerns. She pummeled Jack with her slender fists and screamed curses that employed all of the Russian language’s extensive vocabulary of profanities. Her words did more damage than her hands, until she abruptly decided to stop beating him about the face and instead jammed her fist hard into his genitals.
That hurt. Jack didn’t have enough breath to yelp in pain, but he would have if he could have. Reflexively, he scissored his legs around Nika’s waist, pinning her, and activated his jump boots.
The heavily insulated soles of Jack’s boots contained a concentrated rocket fuel charge which, exploding in a short burst, could propel the wearer more than fifty feet in a vertical jump or twice that in a broad jump, feats that were often required in Jack’s chosen line of work. Activating the boots now was a desperation move. They were not designed for indoor use due to the danger of slamming oneself into a wall or ceiling at a truly terminal velocity.
Crossing his legs at the shins, while incidentally pinning Nika, put Jack’s feet at such a relative angle that much of the thrust of each boot was cancelled out by that of the other. Nonetheless, the resulting forward thrust was enough to lift Jack, Kirov and Nika from the platform and launch all three of them into the air. Jack hoped their foreshortened trajectory would at least take them clear of the chemical bath.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
Kirov lost his grip on Jack and hit the surface of the green sludge with a splash, plunging beneath the surface. Jack and Nika flew on, passing over the rim of the vat and rebounding off the rail of the nearby service platform before tumbling fifteen feet to the cold concrete floor. Nika hit the ground first, cushioning Jack’s fall, but stunning her. Groaning, Jack rolled off Nika and struggled to stand. His legs were rubbery and unsteady. The best he could do was prop himself against a metal strut.
Green flames flashed upward from the chemical vat, lighting the factory interior with their strange, flickering radiance. Alarm claxons sounded. Red emergency lights flashed.
“This is not good,” Jack moaned.
Seconds later, he was surrounded by half a dozen Black Flag troops, guns at ready.
“Okay,” said Jack wearily. “This time I really do give up.”
A barking barrage of automatic weapons fire echoed off the metal walls. When it ended, the six Russian soldiers lay in a bloody heap at Jack’s feet.
Jack’s rescuer emerged from the shadows. Short and powerfully built, he wore U.S. Army issue winter cammies and held a recoilless .75 caliber Ajax-9 machine pistol in each hand. His narrow face was reddish-brown, his eyes dark, his long hair glossy black.
“You’re late,” said Jack.
Galahad shrugged. “I see you have everything under control, as usual.” He clipped one of the guns to his belt and freed Jack from his plastic bonds with the flick of a carbon-steel combat knife. “What’s cooking in that big soup pot?”
Green fire now roared from the chemical vat, which was vibrating violently. Yellowish smoke boiled over the rim and drifted downward like dry ice vapors—but far more deadly. The caustic fumes ate away at whatever they touched.
“Bad medicine,” said Jack. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You want the girl?” Galahad nodded to Nika, who was coming to.
“Not really,” said Jack.
“Double crossed you?” Galahad grinned.
“You got it.” Jack sighed. “But let’s save her anyway.”
A salvo from the Black Flags on the landing above sent sparks flying. Bullets ricocheted off metal platform struts all around them. Galahad returned fire.
“Go!” he said. “I’ve got your back.”
Jack threw Nika over his shoulder and ran for the exit. Bullets chased them the whole way, but tanks, pipes, and machinery gave adequate cover. With Galahad blazing away, the Black Flags on the upper platform were held at bay.
Jack reached the door. He looked back and saw the huge vat into which Kirov had fallen explode. The blast spewed flaming green goop in every direction. The napalm like gel stuck whatever it hit, including Black Flags. As the burning substance ate through pipes and drums containing other chemicals, it set off secondary explosions. The fire suppression system belatedly activated, spraying CO2 safety foam down from the rafters to little effect.
“Gal! Come on, man!”
“Right behind you, amigo! Go! Go!”
Jack ran what he hoped was a safe distance from the building before lowering Nika gently to the snowy ground. The inner core of Volochanka-9 was laid out on a radial pattern, with five main buildings, including the chemical plant, extending like the points of a star from a central plaza that was really no more than a large expanse of concrete. The five buildings were linked by high walls enclosing the plaza. The south wall was pierced by gates large enough for heavy trucks to pass through. Through that gate now came emergency vehicles and running soldiers. All headed for Building 3, the burning chemical plant. The emergency responders paid no attention to Jack as he knelt beside Nika, no doubt mistaking him for one of their own.
“Nika!” he said, shaking her. “Are you all right?”
Nika came fully awake with a start. She lurched upright. “Papa! He’s in there!”
“He’ll be fine,” Jack lied, restraining her.
“You!” she said. “You have done this! You have killed him!”
“Me?” said Jack. “You’re the one who set your own husband up for murder!”
“No, that is not true! Yes, I spied on Sergei for my father, I am not ashamed to say it. Sergei was a good man, but naive. He hated soldiers and military things. He did not understand that Russia needs men like Papa! That some secrets must be kept! But I never thought they would kill him! I had no idea this would happen, you must believe it!”
“So you loved your husband?”
“Of course, yes!”
“Did he know who your father was?”
“No, never! I told him I had no parents and grew up in state orphanage.”
“You loved him, but you lied to him about who you were and betrayed him and the cause to which he devoted his life, all for the sake of your father?”
“Yes, of course. Now you understand.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You must know your father who had him killed.”
“Of course I know this!” she snapped. “But I am Russian woman, trapped in tragic, dismal circumstances beyond my control.”
“Kind of an Anna Karenina thing?”
“Whatever.”
“But if you knew who ordered your husband’s death, then why did you appeal for my help?”
“Papa told me to. He wanted to lure you here. I don’t know why. Really, you must believe it!”
“At this point, I don’t know what to believe, sweetheart. You’re one badly confused, morally challenged, cold-hearted witch.”
“What will you do now?”
“Me? I’m going home to the States before I get a permanent invitation to the gulag.”
“Take me with you!”
“No chance.”
“I have nothing here now. No husband. No father. No job. No family. Nothing.”
“And whose fault is that?” said Jack.
“Yours!” she raged, assaulting him with her fists. “You! You! You!”
Jack pushed her away. Nika doubled over in the snow, clutching herself and sobbing.
“You,” she moaned. “It was you.”
Jack stood. “Guess again.”
Galahad exited the burning chem plant at a run. He worked a handheld remote as he sped across the open ground. Jet thrusters and turbofans heralded the arrival of a ScarletTech VTOL Trisonic Jumpjet. The plane skimmed over the snow-blanketed trees, crossed the perimeter wall, and hovered overhead. A hatch opened in the belly of the craft. A retractable carbonweave rope ladder dropped down. Jack started climbing. Before he was twenty feet up, Galahad was on the ladder too and the Jumpjet was gaining altitude, leaving Volochanka-9 behind. Jack took a last look back at small figure of a broken woman huddled in the snow beneath the green glow of a strange toxic fire. Madness and sorrow. That was Russia every time. Madness and sorrow and a cold, cold place to die.