Stone Cold Read online

  Chapter Fifteen

  One week later

  Langley, Virginia

  It was a curious location, but they had used it before. On the shore of the Potomac River, the park bench was in Virginia and the shoreline not fifteen feet away was in Maryland. Tossing litter into the river from here would be a federal offense, crossing state lines and the FBI would be dealing with your case.

  The spring weather had turned the grass lush, the blue sky and sunshine belying the fact that the wind funneling up the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond was bone-chillingly cold. Liz Roper tucked the collar of her coat up and shivered involuntarily.

  “Cold today,” the voice came from behind her, and she glanced around to see a severe-looking man in his early sixties watching the slow waters of the river that flowed through the nation’s capital city. He stepped around her and sat down on the bench. “So, tell me where we are on this.”

  Liz Roper looked at Mike Rogers, deputy director of the CIA and said, “Our asset has talked, we are in the process of organizing a sting.”

  “As I would have expected by now.”

  “He’s tougher than he looks.”

  “Seriously?”

  “He’s a techie nerd, but he has resolve.”

  Rogers nodded. “So, we underestimated him. I hope to God, I didn’t underestimate you.”

  “You haven’t, sir,” Roper replied. She glanced up and could see both members of the deputy director’s security detail. One with his back to the river, the other staring at the slow-moving water. A third was seated in the black Chevrolet Suburban. “I’m confident that I will get what we want from him. Stone and Power are in occasional contact via a Hotmail account. They sign in and leave a message in the draft folder, then edit it and save, that way they can communicate without a single email being sent into the ether.”

  “Clever.” Rogers nodded. “And the money?”

  “Stone got enough from the internet enterprise data to keep twenty-million dollars US. He hasn’t used more than around thirty-thousand dollars being on the run. Most of the money is in offshore accounts, but some of it was drawn in Panama and is hidden around the mainland US in deposit boxes or lockers. Several million dollars at least.”

  “And Power doesn’t know where?”

  “No. But I know we can get to Stone through Max Power.” She paused. “And once we have the information, Power can transfer the funds in those accounts electronically.”

  Rogers stared at the water, his eyes transfixed. He sighed, and even in the early May sunshine, his breath near the icy water was visible. “Don’t underestimate Stone,” he said sagely.

  “He hasn’t been cleared of any charges. And he won’t be for as long as the CIA can still fan the fires and put pressure on the attorney general and justice department. Stone has nowhere to go and with his only link to inside information regarding his status as a wanted fugitive under our control, and the progress the United States Marshal Service and FBI are having in his search, we can force a mistake.” She paused. “Trust me, sir. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

  Rogers nodded. “You’d better had, Liz. When this is finished, I want the bulk of that twenty-million dollars in my hand and that damned computer geek lying six feet under,” he said coldly. “And you’d better make damned sure Stone is lying next to him.”

  “I understand, sir. But I do have a problem with a part of that brief…”

  “You’d best spit it out, then,” he replied somewhat impatiently.

  “Max Power isn’t a problem,” she explained. “The two knuckleheads you’ve given me will have no problem killing him.”

  Rogers smirked. “But Stone troubles you,” he said wryly. “You could do it yourself, Miss Roper.”

  “I’m not a trained killer,” she said irksomely. “And those Virginia farm boys aren’t up to taking out a man like Stone. He’s ex-special forces, and an ex-presidential bodyguard. Seriously, you want this done, you have to help me out here…”

  “You are right not to underestimate the man,” he replied wistfully. “You’ve seen his record, Miss Roper. But do you know how he came to be in the special forces?”

  Liz Roper shook her head. “No, I figured ego. You know, like being the best of the best or something?”

  “Not a bit of it. Not even close.” He paused. “You see, Stone was a master sergeant in an artillery unit. Rear echelon, raining hell on Al Qaeda and the Taliban with explosive shells. Never too close to the action, but always there for support. And then one day, his Humvee rolls right over an IED and his entire unit is cut down by machine gun fire and RPGs. All but two men. Stone and a young private. They were taken prisoner and held for more than a week, in which time, and I’ll leave it to your imagination, but it’s fair to say they endured hell. Then came the ubiquitous beheading video to be filmed for YouTube. They started off with some aid workers, some Afghan regulars and sadly the private that had been taken prisoner alongside Stone. Stone was forced to watch. And then it was his turn. He later reported that he saw the sword raised high above the executioner’s head in the shadow…”

  “Jesus…”

  “Allah and Buddha combined…” Rogers shook his head. “Bang… bang… bang… and special forces are in the compound. Seven seconds from start to finish, and every Taliban son-of-a-bitch is dead. Stone gets evacuated and sent home for some R and R. Only he can’t rest. He applies for Airborne Rangers and a year later he’s out in Afghanistan. He did cross-over operations with Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, ended up heading a Recon unit. That takes some balls. To go through what he did and turn it around. He was recruited by the Secret Service at the end of his final tour.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said quietly. “That’s quite a driven character.”

  “Like I said, you’re right not to underestimate him.” He took out a business card and handed it to her. “So, consider the matter resolved.”

  Roper looked at the card and read the telephone number. That was it. Nothing more. She frowned and said as she put the card in her pocket, “What does that get me?”

  Rogers smiled as he watched the water, turning his eyes towards Snake Island more than halfway across the river. “That gets you a cleaner. He prefers to text. I’ll call him and tell him to expect your call soon. I hope…”

  Liz Roper stood up and nodded. She walked back across the grass to her BMW. Rogers was waiting for her to leave before he made a move. His two bodyguards were still watching each other’s backs, and the cold waters of the Potomac looked deep and unforgiving. She exhaled a deep breath as she drove her car over the loose surface and back onto the road, and she reflected on the feeling inside, like her gut had twisted, and she found herself wishing that she had not become involved in this. And more importantly, praying that she would come through unscathed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One week later

  Alaska, 200 miles North of Lame Horse

  Stone had taken the cabin for a month. It was twenty miles outside of town and close enough to the river to be a convenience, but far enough away and elevated enough to avoid spring floods during the snow melts and summer surges as the glacier thawed. The town of Brown’s Landing had a couple of bars, two motels, and a large grocery store as well as an extensive general store and hardware supplies depot. A gas station, and a hunting and outdoor supply store completed the town’s independence and although Stone had only been through it once and visited twice more for groceries and some fishing tackle, it had seemed a busy place catering for the many homesteaders in the vicinity and the townsfolk living there.

  The cabin was basic, but intentionally so. Catering for city-slickers who wanted a taste of the Alaskan wilderness, if just for a week or so. Downstairs was open plan with a wood burning stove providing heat and cooking facilities, although there was an electric oven and stove for the hotter months. Stone would not be cooking inside much, so it wasn’t any concern for him. He had used the large kettle barbe
cue on the deck to cook some burgers he had made from ground chuck he had bought in the grocery store and to hot smoke the fillets of two large rainbow trout he had caught in the river on a pole and line that had been propped up under the porch. Other than that, he had broiled canned hotdogs on the grill and gotten through a half wheel of Monterey Jack cheese. He had spent his days walking the paths through the forest, up to the foothills of the mountains and along the rocky shores of the coast. He had returned each evening exhausted and despite feeling ready for sleep in the loft sleeper upstairs, had slept fitfully as he thought of Katy McBride and her endeavors at McBride’s Folly. And his thoughts were not only of her endeavors and what she was trying to achieve at the mine, but of the night they had spent together. The scent of her, the taste of her, her soft groaning in his ear as they had made love, the way her tone had changed as she had climaxed, the way she had writhed underneath him, on top of him. The memory was almost constant, distracting him from every task he pursued, every moment he stopped to take stock.

  Katy McBride had gotten to him. He knew he wanted to see more of her, learn more about her, and share himself with her. It was so much more than a physical desire and he knew that he was falling for her hard.

  Stone had traipsed a hunting path to the base of a mountain, where he sat down to eat some of the smoked trout and bread that he had brought with him. He estimated he was six miles from the cabin and pushing at least four thousand feet in elevation. In front of him the Pacific Ocean looked cold and uninviting. He had not expected the water to look black, but it did. He figured the sand and rock beneath the surface was volcanic. The beaches were a curious mix of yellow and black sand, that looked darker at the shoreline or where fresh water had sprung from the rocky shore and flowed across the beach. He had been warned about bears foraging for oysters and clams on the shore and he carried one of the shotguns with him on his hikes through the woods. The weapon was heavy, and he had fashioned a shoulder sling from some rope he had found and kept it strapped to his back. It was a strange notion to be armed while out hiking. Not something he had been used to in Virginia and Maryland. But he doubted he would ever return there willingly again. His life was so uncertain, had been for the nine months he had now been on the run.

  After shutting down a deadly internet game of pay-per-view killing, a gladiatorial style contest hosted on a previously unpopulated Panamanian island, Stone had found himself framed for the killing of the President’s family, as part of a biding scheme made available to international terrorist organizations who could claim responsibility if they won the bid. Stone had given the information he had stolen to the journalist who had helped him to uncover the dark web enterprise, and Max Power had delivered Stone’s findings to both the FBI and the Secret Service. Stone had kept the details of one of the offshore accounts, a sum totaling just over twenty-million dollars, recognizing the need for leverage, as well as funding his hiding until he could clear his name. But neither the Secret Service nor the FBI seemed any closer to recognizing that Stone had been a pawn, unwittingly made the scapegoat to these despicable acts, despite the evidence of his innocence at their disposal.

  Stone sighed as he surveyed the view. He was in purgatory. No vista appealed to him; no act excited him. His food had little taste and alcohol merely numbed the void he had been lulled into. But the only thing that had lifted his spirits for over eight long months had been meeting Katy McBride. She excited him and he was interested in her. She had lifted his spirits, for however short a time, and he could not stop thinking about her, nor the wonderful night they had spent together. Intimate and complete. The weeks since their meeting and him leaving had been tough.

  “Fuck it…” he said quietly. And then he got up and started to trudge back down the mountain.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Virginia

  Max Power worked at the laptop, his fingers skipping across the keys with the dexterity and familiarity of a concert pianist playing at tempo prestissimo. As usual, one of the men stood behind him, but Power no longer feared him. He was the muscle, and he had a job to do. Liz Roper sat to one side, her shapely legs crossed elegantly, the slit of her skirt open just short of impropriety. But he no longer felt attracted to her. She was a cold, cruel bitch and he loathed her.

  “I don’t want to think you were lying to us,” she said. “But Stone hasn’t checked in for your updates since before you… er, came to work for us.”

  “Before I was abducted and tortured. Go on, you can say it,” Power replied tersely. He ducked as the man behind him gave him a rap on the skull with his knuckles. “Hey!” Power turned around and snapped, “Hey, fuck you, Bob…”

  The man shrugged and said, “Eyes on the screen, fingers on the keyboard, geek.”

  Power turned around and got back to work. “You say geek like it’s a bad thing. Notice you’re not doing the skilled work, jock. And a coffee wouldn’t go unappreciated, you know?”

  Liz sighed and looked at the man standing watch behind Max Power. “Make mine a cappuccino,” she said. “See what Ted wants while you’re on the Starbucks run.”

  “A Danish wouldn’t hurt either,” said Power, but he ignored the man’s crude retort. “And some Imodium, my IBS is flaring up again…”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Bob rolled his eyes. “The fucking Amazon rainforest is taking a hit for the amount of paper you’re using…”

  “Well, that’s what you get for abducting a guy and waving your fucking guns around him all the time…”

  Despite being held against his will, Power had become used to his captors and his surroundings. He did not like them, but he no longer feared them constantly. Not like a few weeks ago. He tried to put that unpleasantness to one side. Especially as he had fleetingly found Liz so attractive and now despised her. Power had not needed much softening up. The hot coffee landing in his crotch had done its job, and a beating at the hands of Ted and Bob had shown him what could be expected if he refused to cooperate. And now, all he had to do was contact Stone through their shared email account, where they would edit and save an existing draft message, and no trace of their conversation would be recorded or discovered. Until Power had divulged everything under interrogation. It had been a fool-proof plan, but for human weakness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  McBride’s Folly Claim,

  Alaska

  The truck bounced and juddered over the rutted ground and came to a welcome rest in front of the cabin-come-office. Stone was relieved. It had been a long drive. As he stepped out, he saw Duke Tanner and Marvin wander out of the office. They stood and watched Stone, and as a precaution Stone reached in for the .45 and made a show of tucking it into the front of his pants.

  “No need for guns here, Mister,” the site foreman said bluntly. “No predators come around here with all the machinery.”

  “I see plenty from where I’m standing,” Stone replied, ignoring Marvin, and staring directly at Tanner. He walked forwards, closing the gap considerably. “Where’s Katy?”

  “Mister, you’d better get out of here,” Duke Tanner said, stepping down the steps and standing in front of Stone. “We’re running a mine here.”

  “We?”

  “I’m helping out,” he said. “While young Katy gets well.”

  Stone stared at him. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing some rest won’t cure,” said Marvin, taking the steps and standing beside Tanner. “Now, as site foreman, I’m ordering you off the claim.”

  “Where is she?”

  “The foreman said for you to go…” Tanner said, his hand lowering toward the revolver on his belt. He turned to Marvin and said, “Katy McBride is in Carlsson Sound hospital, isn’t she?” When he turned back to Stone, the revolver was halfway out of its leather rig, but he froze when he realized Stone’s .45 was not only aimed at his gut, but he had taken a step closer to dissuade all doubt he would miss.

  “That’s twice I’ve got the jump on you trying to sneak a gun on me
,” said Stone, smiling as he watched Tanner freeze. “Do it a third time and I’ll empty the magazine into you.” He paused. “Now, take out the gun… slowly… and hand it to me. Butt first.”

  Tanner scowled, but he did as Stone ordered anyway. “I’ve got plenty more guns,” he said.

  “No doubt,” said Stone as he took the revolver carefully between his thumb and forefinger. “But it doesn’t hurt to have a gun with somebody’s prints on it…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stick to gold mining, old timer. You’ve just gotten out of your depth,” Stone backed away and when he reached the truck, he tossed the revolver onto the passenger seat, still keeping the .45 on the two men. “Now, what the hell happened to Katy?”

  “She can tell you,” Tanner said coldly.

  “If you’ve hurt her…” Stone did not finish his sentence. He was done with threats. Now wasn’t the time, and he wanted the story from the horse’s mouth. More than that, he wanted to see if Katy was OK. He climbed up into the truck, ignoring the smirk on Duke Tanner’s face. When he swung the truck around and watched the two men in the rear-view mirror, they watched him go for a moment, then walked back into the office. Stone could only guess at what the two of them were planning, but he had noted that Duke Tanner had not denied a thing when Stone had implied that he had hurt her.