“Figures.”
“We’ll have to chat later,” Marcus said. “We’ve got serious business.”
“Yeah? Does it have to do with those Albanians who were sneaking around here? That lady trooper was here asking questions a few hours ago, right when I came on shift.”
“Maybe. We just got into a firefight with a bunch of North Korean commandos back there on Eielson. They were digging into some old bunker and taking out what looked like tubes of biological or chemical agent. We killed eight of them and took one prisoner, but some others got away before we showed up on scene.”
“Crap,” Bannock said, a look of dismay spread over his face. “I thought I was done with all this stuff!”
“Yeah, well,” Wasner replied, “it just showed up in your back yard, son.”
“We need to know if you or your men saw any vehicles coming out of the Eielson area within the past three hours,” Marcus said.
Bannock ran his thick fingers over his short-cropped hair. “I’ve been inside doing paperwork for the whole shift so far. And Bill here just came on twenty minutes ago.” He turned toward the guardhouse and said, “Let’s take a look at the logbook.”
Inside the guardhouse, Charlie opened the evening logbook. On the page under the current date were five entries: one stating a delivery from the Doyon supplies office, one of a single snowmobile with a teenaged boy who was doing “brodies” on the road in front of the gate. The third and fourth entries were Trooper Wyatt coming and leaving, and the fifth entry was a report of a single white Chevy Suburban heading out of the Eielson area at a high rate of speed with no headlights on.
“That’s them!” Marcus exclaimed. “Do you have surveillance video that may have caught the vehicle?”
“Do we have surveillance video?” Charlie replied. “Since the event with those Albanians, I decided to try out some of my new stuff. We just happen to be running several motion-activated cameras along the road and at the TVEC station.”
He led them out the door of the guardhouse and onto the base. “Bill, keep an eye on their machines. We’ll be right back.”
They walked to the main building on the pump station base and entered a brightly lit office through a thick metal door.
Inside, Bannock motioned them to seats in front of a bank of computer screens and video camera monitors. He sat down at the center of the console and pointed to a screen.
“This one is the road to the north. And this one is Johnson Road to the south. It shows us a real-time picture on here all the time, but the computer only records actual movement of anything bigger than about the size of a large dog.”
Bannock put his hand on a computer mouse and clicked an icon on the center screen. “So, let’s see if there are any recorded entries.”
The video viewing software opened, and within seconds, displayed a listing of every recorded movement the cameras captured that day. Date and time stamps were posted next to the filenames of the recording.
Assuming that the last entry would be Marcus’s group of snowmobiles, Bannock clicked on the file just above it in the list and watched it. The software brought up a video that played automatically. It showed a large white Chevy Suburban drive by with no headlights on. The camera’s night recording capability was exceptional. It rendered a very clear picture from a distance of ten yards.
“Can you zoom in on the truck and get us a license plate?” Marcus asked.
“You bet,” Bannock replied. He froze the video playback.
With a few clicks of the mouse, he zoomed in on the image. The details of the faces of two men sitting in the front seat became visible. Both were Asian-looking. Shadowy images of two more men were in the back seat, but no features could be made out.
Bannock panned down to the plate, and once the area of the license filled the screen, he increased the brightness and contrast of the image until the numbers and letters became clear. He clicked the print button on the program’s menu bar. A color laser printer next to the computer whined to life. Within a few seconds, they were holding several clearly legible full-color pictures of the license plate, the vehicle, and its occupants. Marcus took the pictures and headed for the door.
“Charlie, call Trooper Wyatt and let her know what you found. Tell her what I told you and that they must find this suburban. Wazzy, let’s go talk to our prisoner.”
They got up to leave and Bannock said, “Next time you fellas are out here, you’d better let me know. We have quite an arsenal here and almost everyone of us is a combat veteran. We’re a good source of backup.”
“Thanks, Chuck,” Wazzy replied. “Once this thing blows over, I’ll take you out for a beer. Is it still Guinness?”
“Of course. Do they even make anything else?”
Chapter 22
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital
Fairbanks Alaska
19 December
22:55 Hours
Trooper Wyatt pressed the disconnect button on her cell phone and turned to Commander Stark. “Chief, I’ve got news from Marcus.”
“Good or bad?”
“Let’s move into a private room.”
They stepped out of the hallway into a nearby interview room.
“Charlie Bannock with Doyon Security just called me from Pump Station 8. He said Marcus stopped by to see him with a guy named Harley Wasner, chief of the SEALs that I saw at Marcus’s cabin. They told him they just had a gunfight with some North Korean commandos on the back of Eielson. There are eight dead, four that got away. One prisoner. They’re keeping the prisoner at Marcus’s cabin in Salt Jacket.”
“Oh, dear Jesus! They’re killing
