She pressed the talk button on her radio and called for Commander Stark.
“7-4, 7-23.”
“Go ahead, Wyatt.”
“Sir, I think I know where they went.”
“Where?”
“They’re headed to the Anchorage water supply in Eklutna. The whole city is supplied by the Eklutna Reservoir.”
“Get out here. Let’s put a plan together.”
Stark called Johnson and Wasner, along with the FBI and Homeland Security agents at the incident command post.
“All right, folks.” Stark demanded, “How long ago would they have left?”
Agent Hansen from the FBI answered, “It couldn’t have been less than three hours, or more than four hours ago, according to when they left the site in Salt Jacket. I’d say they probably left less than an hour before we got here.”
“Agreed,” Wyatt answered. “That would put them somewhere between here and Cantwell, but definitely no farther than Willow.”
Stark pointed at the trooper manning the main radio and said, “Close off the road to the Eklutna Reservoir completely. Also, get some sobriety checkpoints every fifty miles from Healy to Wasilla. Put an APB out for a dark-colored SUV with two Korean men in their twenties or thirties.”
Agent Hansen spoke up again. “The Army’s mobile hazmat unit is still on standby.”
Stark wheeled toward Marcus. “Johnson, you and Wasner take a couple of your men and get down there in a helicopter. I want you staged at the town of Sunshine. You’ll be on standby until we find out exactly where they are. I will dispatch more SERT to the area, but we’re running out of usable manpower. Most of these guys have been on duty since we picked up Kim last night. Wyatt, I want you down there with Johnson in case we need a translator.”
“Yes, sir,” Wyatt replied.
Within twenty minutes, Wasner, Johnson, Wyatt, and two of the SEALs, PO2 Clark and PO3 Forth, were standing in a heated room next to the helipad at the public safety building waiting for the state’s new Blackhawk helicopter to warm up.
Once airborne, the pilot brought the craft to its maximum speed and shot through the night like a comet on its way to the trooper post at Sunshine.
Chapter 37
George Parks Highway
Nenana, Alaska
20 December
03:20 Hours
Almost every one of the thousand residents in the small town on the south bank of the Tanana River were fast asleep. The town, known by the name of the smaller river just to the west, had originally been one of the primary trading stops on the riverboat route that carried miners, trappers, and homesteaders, as well as their supplies, between their wilderness homes and the local native villages until the highway bridge was built in the 1968.
In more recent times, Nenana had become internationally famous for an event called The Nenana Ice Classic. The event surrounds betting on when a large wooden tripod set on the ice of the frozen river in early spring will topple into the river through the thawing surface. Bets are placed throughout the state. The winner is the person who guesses the time of the collapse to the nearest second, taking a prize of as much as $300,000 home for their trouble.
The red wine-colored Ford Explorer pulled under the awning next to the pumps at the only twenty-four hour business in the city of Nenana—Aurora Gas and Goodies. The men originally intended to bypass the town altogether. Twenty miles back, a tractor-trailer had jackknifed coming down one of the steep highway passes between Nenana and Fairbanks. It blocked the entire road, which was only two lanes wide, until a massive Peterbilt tow truck came and dragged it straight again. The mishap put them an hour and a half behind schedule.
Lieutenant Shin and Sergeant Sun got out of the SUV and walked into the station to use the toilet and purchase energy drinks and snacks for the drive. As they entered, the clerk came out of a back room, suffering from a terrible-sounding hacking cough. “You guys are out late, aren’t you?” said the twenty-something clerk once he caught his breath.
His crooked name tag dangled from its pin on his left breast. Large black letters spelled “Mikey” on its white surface. Mikey’s eyes looked as though he had been slicing onions before they came in. The acrid smell of burned marijuana swirled in the air from the back near the restrooms. “It’s getting pretty cold to be driving around, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, you could say that again,” Shin replied in perfect, unaccented English. “We’re heading south, though; hopefully it’s going to be warmer down there.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got to go through the mountains. And the radio forecast said it might get into the negative sixties tonight.” The clerk stared at Shin with an increasingly glassy expression.
“So, what you been smoking back there, man?” Sun asked with a smile, his English also flawless.
“Dude…” the clerk’s voice sounded vaguely concerned. “You guys cops?”
“Hell, no!” Sun replied with a grin. “We’re looking for a good score too, you know?”
“Dude, you don’t know. I got some of the best weed this morning.” The clerk reached up and groggily rubbed his cheeks with both hands. “I’d give you some, but …you know…it’s all gone.”
“You smoked it all?” Sun said.
“Dude.” Mikey’s speech was becoming slurred. “Like…I can’t even feel my face right now.” He grinned stupidly as the pot took his mind over. His eyes slowly closed to mere slits as they watched. Sun shook his head and walked to the toilet to relieve himself. Shin gathered up several snack items and returned to the counter as Sun came back out.
Mikey’s expression bordered on vegetative.
“Cool,” Shin said. “Then we can just take this stuff, right? No charge?”
“Yeah,” mumbled the dazed clerk. “Whatever.”
“Thanks, Mikey,” Sun said as they walked out the door.
Switching to
