Man On Fire Page 2

  Mikki shot him, three decisive cracks of gunfire from the Glock, one missed, one to the face, one somewhere else that Rake didn’t see. He kicked himself forward and rolled onto his back in time to see the second swimmer’s knife plunge down against him. Rake caught his wrist and twisted back the knife hand to cut the oxygen connection. The swimmer gasped. His grip weakened. Rake kicked him away. ‘Idti!’ he shouted in Russian. Go.

  Even with his buddy dead, mouthpiece torn away, the Russian didn’t go, predictable for a soldier whose mission was un-accomplished. His concentration was skewed enough for Rake to bound forward, wrap his legs around him and pull him in close. He slashed the hand that held the knife and rammed his elbow hard between the man’s eyes. His enemy floundered. Rake pushed him away and, looming like a phantom, the Russian boat appeared through the fog, its bow bearing straight down on him.

  Mikki fired his rifle in deliberate, steady controlled pairs, winging one crewman on deck and shattering the wheelhouse glass. Rake had seen Mikki hit a polar bear at three hundred yards from a dinghy in winter seas. This target was bigger and closer. The machine gun could have torn through Mikki and the dinghy in moments. But it stayed quiet. Rake pushed himself back out of the turbulence of the wake.

  Why?

  Russia and America were trying to be allies, not shoot at each other on their quiet, shared border. They had attacked, withdrawn, attacked again, as if the crew was following a stream of conflicting orders. They were not returning Mikki’s fire. Clearing water from his eyes, Rake saw the woman, trying to swim, knowing the direction she needed to go. The remnants of the patrol boat’s wake splashed around him. Mikki guided the dinghy toward her.

  Rake held her, keeping her head above the surface, careful not to grasp too hard, not knowing where she had been shot. Mikki lifted her gently under the shoulders, sliding her over and laying her on a blanket. He hauled Rake in, then opened full throttle. The thrust of the engine put the bow in the air and the stern further down in the water. The Russians didn’t fire again. Nor did they cross into American territory. Mikki swung toward Little Diomede island, bringing back the throttle to ease the bumps. Rake checked the woman’s vital signs. There was a pulse. She was shivering. There was a wound in the lower right leg. Judging from rips in the clothing, she had been hit by at least two rounds in the torso. Her breathing was light and erratic.

  ‘Look at me.’ Rake gently pressed his hand against her cheek. ‘Stay with us. You’re going to be fine. We’ll have you dry and warm in a few minutes.’

  Her eyes opened, expressionless, and closed.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Keep her engaged. Keep hope. Keep her alive. ‘Look at me.’

  She was in her mid-thirties, Asiatic features, with short dark hair and a rounded face with a sharp chin. She wore a one-piece green waterproof, its top shredded. Underneath, her clothes were wrong for the environment, as if she had bought them from an expensive city camping store.

  She opened her eyes again, bloodshot with salt water.

  ‘We’ve got you.’ He gently held her hand.

  Her eyes moved jaggedly left to right, until they focused on Rake. Something seemed to ripple through her, something she understood. Her voice was faint, barely audible.

  ‘You are safe,’ said Rake.

  ‘No. Not safe.’ She had enough strength to squeeze his hand. ‘Not safe,’ she repeated.

  THREE

  The island of Little Diomede was covered in a thin haze that swirled around small houses built on stilts up the steep hillside. Islanders stood with a stretcher on the rocky beach encircled with large dark boulders in a tiny bay which kept the water calm. The aluminum hull jolted and scraped on pebbles as Mikki brought the dinghy ashore. Strong hands pulled it in.

  ‘This is America,’ Rake told the injured woman. ‘You made it. We’re going to get you—’

  ‘Not safe,’ she said again, her voice quivering.

  Rake was about to give the signal to transfer from the boat to the stretcher when he heard Carrie’s voice from the hillside. ‘Wait.’ Blonde hair tied in a bun, dressed in a green smock, a large medical rucksack slung over her shoulder, she ran down narrow concrete paths, along rough ground toward the jetty, jumped onto a boulder and then to the beach. ‘Wait,’ she repeated. ‘I need to check her injuries.’

  The islanders stepped aside. The woman lay across the middle seat of the dinghy, her back straight, her feet down, her breathing shallow, her face blotched with pinks and reds, wrinkled from cold salt water. Her eyes stayed fixed upwards at the sky. A black bang of hair tufted across to the left of her forehead, stuck in congealed blood gashed from her ear.

  Carrie barely acknowledged Rake and the others. Her concentration focused on the wounded woman. ‘What happened?’ she asked while checking her pulse.

  ‘Gunshot wounds,’ said Rake. ‘Right leg. And somewhere in the torso.’

  Carrie’s expression was unfazed, face sharp, skin drawn tight across prominent cheek bones. She unzipped her rucksack, pulled out a metallic bandage pack containing a combat gauze impregnated with a clotting agent to stop bleeding. She unraveled the gauze, laid it across the upper right leg and gave it a second to start soaking up blood. Joan Ahkaluk, the island nurse, took over holding it. The woman winced. Her eyes squeezed shut.

  ‘We’re going to lift you,’ Carrie told her. ‘It will hurt.’

  There was no response. Rake gave the count – one, two, three, lift. In a second, she was on the stretcher. Joan laid a pillow under her head, rested her left fingers on the pulse and held down the gauze with her right hand. Treading smoothly over the rocky ground, they carried the woman to the school, a large modern building on the edge of the settlement. Mikki slipped his rifle into the case and asked, ‘Who the hell is she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rake’s phone vibrated through its waterproof case. The caller was Harry Lucas, the government defense contractor running the mission. ‘We have her,’ said Rake. ‘She’s badly hit. There’s been a firefight.’

  ‘We picked up that much.’ Lucas voice was clipped. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They tried to kill her. They backed off. Then they tried again. We got her out.’

  ‘But why?’ Lucas asked testily, as if Rake would know. ‘We’re meant to be working with the Russians on this.’

  ‘You tell me, Harry. It’s your op.’ Rake stayed on the right side of anger. Lucas was responsible, but Rake doubted it was his fault. He was too thorough for that, and security operations could somersault at any time.

  ‘Is she conscious?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘In and out. What do you need?’

  ‘She should have a thumb drive.’

  ‘If it’s there, I’ll get it. What’s on it?’

  ‘A cryptographic code.’

  ‘Code for what?’

  Lucas didn’t answer. Rake pressed, ‘What do I ask her, Harry? She’s conscious now. In five minutes, she might be dead. So, what do we ask her?’

  ‘The drive contains details of a new weapon that’s out there.’ Lucas drew a breath. ‘We don’t know what, except it’s a game-changer.’

  ‘So why are the Russians giving it to us?’

  ‘Best guess is that the Russian military wants it. The Kremlin doesn’t, especially now with its new détente with us, which is why they’re sharing.’

  ‘You need to know what the weapon is?’

  ‘Correct, and get her identity and the drive that she’s carrying.’

  Inside the school, on Carrie’s instructions, they lay the woman on a stainless-steel dining table fixed to the floor with benches each side. Behind was a kitchen. Her wounded right leg sprang out and recoiled, an unconscious reaction to a nerve message. Joan’s husband, Henry, held it and scissored through her pants. Mikki prepared a tourniquet. Joan rested her hand on the patient’s neck, speaking to her softly.

  Carrie saw Rake on the phone and said, ‘We need an air ambulance. Now.’

  Rake repeated to Lucas, who had anticipa
ted it, ‘Thirty minutes out.’

  Joan held the woman’s hand. She and Henry had raised Rake from the age of seven. His mother left when he was five. His father stayed another two years, then vanished too. There was a rumor he had gone to Russia.

  The woman’s eyes opened unsteadily, trying to focus on the ceiling. Her breathing was steady. The way her head tilted emphasized her Asiatic features. She was slight and fit. Her hair was black, her eyes green-blue, her height around five foot eight. Her clothes – warm, tough, designed for travel – would have been all right for a fast, secure crossing, but not for going into near-freezing sea water with no wetsuit, only a protective green one-piece which was torn at the top, a zip pocket sliced through, fabric hanging loose. This was where she would likely have secured the drive, zipped and waterproof. Rake felt inside and found nothing.

  Carrie shone a flashlight into her eyes which were half-open but unresponsive. She raised the woman’s head to examine the back. Blood ran from the ear around the temple to the base of the skull. She moved the flashlight to the ear. ‘Torso,’ she said.

  Joan cut open the shirt and vest. There was a raw blood mark where a single round had penetrated below the ribcage. It looked slight, even harmless. But a single bullet could rip through muscle, bone, organs and blood vessels, and the damage would be near invisible.

  ‘Legs.’

  From the amount of blood on the clothing, Rake thought an artery might be severed. But her life had been saved by Carrie’s clotting agent and Mikki’s tourniquet. The patient shifted, seemed to want to push herself up.

  Carrie put her arm under her shoulders, taking her weight. ‘My name is Dr Carrie Walker. We’re going to get you well. You’re in America. You are safe.’

  Rake was at Carrie’s side and said, ‘Where is the drive—’

  ‘Not now,’ Carrie snapped.

  Rake kept going. He crouched so he was close to her face. ‘What is the weapon?’

  Her eyes opened, trembled, closed again. Carrie lowered her back.

  ‘The drive?’ Rake pressed. ‘Where is the drive?’

  Carrie’s gripped Rake’s shoulder, trying to pull him away. Joan arranged a pillow under the patient’s head.

  ‘The code?’ Rake sensed Carrie’s growing hostility. The survival of her patient was pitted against retrieving the information she carried.

  ‘Not safe.’ Barely a whisper, breath from her lips. She lost her strength.

  ‘The Kremlin?’ tried Rake, hoping one of his questions would prompt a response.

  Carrie stepped away and asked Joan in a low voice: ‘Do you have propofol or pentobarbital?’

  ‘Our barbiturate sedative is thiopental,’ answered Joan.

  Carrie said, ‘If we sedate her and induce a coma, we lessen the demand for oxygenated blood and reduce pressure on the brain, which will cut the risk of long-term damage.’

  ‘We need to keep her conscious.’ Rake would lose any chance of speaking to her if they induced a coma.

  ‘We’re trying to save her life.’ Carrie’s face creased in a way Rake had seen many times before, tense, pushing her tongue against her lower lip, brooking no opposition.

  ‘I need to find out—’ Rake attempted.

  ‘When exactly do you need to find out, Rake?’ It was less a question, more Carrie ramming home her point. ‘An induced coma will buy a couple of hours to get medical treatment. The tourniquet will hold. We may need a thoracotomy, surgery underneath the ribcage to stop internal bleeding. If we do, we can’t save her because we can’t do it here. The head wound shows contusion over her ear and temple to the back of the skull. She could go into shock at any minute because of bleeding on the brain.’

  ‘OK.’ Rake nodded, seeing that Carrie was right. Whatever the patient muttered now would be uncorroborated or downright wrong. Once she was in the coma, they could do a full search for the drive.

  ‘Thiopental will do,’ Carrie said to Joan. ‘In fact, better because it’s faster. We’ll go for seven milligrams.’

  Carrie administered it with a syringe. With the first intake, the patient tried to push herself up again. She arched, trembling, and her head jerked round toward Rake. Her eyes were sharp and open. She lifted a hand enough to beckon him, trying to speak. Rake stepped over, his ear to her mouth. She whispered. He couldn’t make it out. She spluttered, spraying saliva over him, and gripped his arm. Her body shook with huge strength from young muscles. Her eyes darted around. Then her muscles relaxed, and she collapsed back onto the table.

  Carrie shone the flashlight into her eyes, touching two fingers against her carotid artery in the neck, keeping them there. ‘She’s settling.’

  Joan covered her blood-smeared chest with a blanket and wiped vomit from her face. Rake checked the rest of her pockets, running the sodden seams through his fingers in case the driver had been sewn in. He found nothing. She had no papers either, no money, nothing personal. He lifted her fingers. They had been scarred above the upper joints, the skin smooth, rubbed down with alcohol leaving fingerprints unreadable.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Carrie.

  Rake shook his head, rested his hand on Carrie’s arm. ‘Thanks, and well done.’

  ‘Go put some dry clothes on.’ Carrie gave him a short smile. ‘And get my stuff while you’re up there. I’ll be leaving with her.’

  Rake pushed open the door and stepped outside into sunlight and wind. He walked around the veranda to call Harry Lucas. The fog had cleared. The summer sun was rising in the sky it had never left. Across toward Big Diomede, there was no sign of the patrol boat, no trace of the killing, quiet, a border at peace with itself, a normal day.

  ‘Helicopter’s fifteen minutes out.’ Lucas came across the line.

  ‘Carrie’s put her into a coma. If she had a drive, it got ripped out.’

  ‘OK.’ Lucas’s tone was flat, accepting of the worst possible news.

  ‘She scarred her fingers, looks like in the past week. She carried nothing.’

  ‘We need to keep a lid on it,’ said Lucas.

  ‘Understood.’ The islanders were suspicious of all government agencies. They would keep quiet.

  Lucas continued, ‘An air ambulance will be in Wales to take you all to DC.’ Wales was a mainland settlement about thirty miles from Little Diomede.

  ‘Carrie says she may need surgery under the ribcage to stop internal bleeding.’

  ‘Then she’ll go to Nome,’ replied Lucas calmly. ‘I need you and Mikki Wekstatt in DC. Carrie should stay with her.’

  You couldn’t drag her away, thought Rake, ending the call and signaling to Mikki through the window. The small school dining area resembled a makeshift emergency room. A dozen islanders gathered around the table, giving space to Joan, Henry and Carrie. Mikki was on a stool by the door, keeping watch as if they were in enemy territory. Rake told him they were going to DC and the helicopter would be here in ten minutes. They left the school and took the boarded walkway toward their homes, passing an old dirty dark green Alaska National Guard post that had been abandoned in the early nineties. Mikki’s house was bigger and had the skull of a polar bear he had shot on a post outside the door. Seal skins were stretched taut to dry on wires on the other side of the path. Rake’s smaller house, no more than a one-bedroom cabin, was next door. His cold-weather gear hung on hooks inside the door, with an old green Soviet army cap which he had worn as a kid when he lived there with his father. Rake kept the place neat, like in an army camp, when you had to know where everything was in the dark. There were photographs on the wall of people he thought were family, faded color and black and white. Most would be dead now. Some had ended up on the other side when the border closed in the Cold War. His father had gone over there chasing some woman. He kept his photograph in the middle of the wall, standing on a rock with a rifle, gazing across the strait toward Big Diomede. Rake left a gap for his mother, an empty frame with a smiling emoji face in it, in the hope that one day he might know what she looked like.

 
Above the pictures, in a decorative cradle, was the long penis bone from a walrus he had shot as a teenager, and underneath that a seal-skin drum from his school days when they had learned native dances. He moved the drum to unlock a wooden trunk where he kept his weapons, some licensed, some not.

  He brought out his SIG Sauer P226 pistol and shoulder holster and a waterproof bag of six fifteen-round magazines and his SIG 938 with an ankle holster and three ten-round magazines. He had used his Ontario Mark 3 six-inch double-edged stainless-steel combat knife on the Russian frogman. He laid it on a chair and brought out the slimmer seven-inch Fairbairn-Sykes given to him in Syria by a corporal in the British Special Air Services whose life he had saved. Next to that he put a small knife that he had taken from an Islamic State fighter near the Syrian–Turkish border. Its fixed blade had a black ceramic coating to prevent light reflection.

  He stripped off and showered for a minute while stomping salt water out of his wet clothes. He put on loose travel gear and threw a change into a bag. Having given the small bedroom to Carrie, he was sleeping on the floor. Straight after deployment, Rake preferred the floor.

  Carrie was messy. Some of her stuff was strewn over the unmade bed. Some stayed in her rucksack. A bra was hung on a mirror hook which Rake had decorated with a small American flag. She had placed a photo of her mom and dad on the bedside table. Her mother, a nurse, was Russian, and her father a coronary surgeon from Estonia, where Carrie had been born. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Estonia filled with anti-Russian sentiment. Her parents took their two daughters to India where they found work in a hospital. They ended up living in Brooklyn. While Carrie’s little sister, Angie, became an ear, nose and throat specialist, married with children, Carrie had been unable to settle. Once she had told Rake that she envied him because at least he knew where home was. After his Syrian mission, he was summoned to the Pentagon for a debrief. Carrie was working at a big hospital near the State Department. He had called suggesting coffee. She was in a vulnerable mood that Rake recognized and he suggested, half-joking, that she come to Little Diomede and give everyone a medical.