Alaska Republik-ARC (37 page)

She sat down and all the other delegates stood and applauded.

Grisha waited for the delegates to quiet before he spoke.

“Next question?”

Slowly the delegates came to know one another.

101

Klahotsa on the Yukon

“We thought we’d find you here, Major,” Private N’go flashed his sharp smile.

Riordan grinned widely at the six men. The guards had brought them in minutes before. All six were armed and seemed to be in good condition.

“You remembered where we were going before getting messed up in the Russian thing. Very good, I’m proud of all of you. Your timing is excellent. Mr. Bachmann and I have come to an agreement and the thing I needed most was trained cadre. And here you are!”

Private Dierks nodded at N’go.

“N’go got us here in one piece, even caught food so we could eat.”

“Thank you, Rudy, I appreciate your input.” Riordan looked at N’go fondly. “Why did I bust you to private the last time?”

N’go scratched his bald head. “Damn if I remember, Riordan. Why?”

“I couldn’t remember either. Well, you’re a lieutenant again. The rest of you are sergeants. We have people to train.”

N’go grinned. “First lieutenant or second lieutenant?”

“First lieutenant, you’ve earned it.”

“How many people do we have to train?” Sergeant Dierks asked.

“So far we only have sixteen. But I want to train them first to be assassins and snipers, so this is going to be intense.”

“And brutal,” First Lieutenant N’go said with a wide smile.

“The lieutenant is correct.” Riordan nodded toward the door. “Let’s go meet the trainees, shall we?”

102

Yukon River between Tanana and Klahotsa

Dená Army Sergeant Sergi Titus used the shaft of the “kicker” motor to steer the twenty-foot aluminum riverboat as it drifted downstream with the current. Four fishing poles angled off the boat, two to a side, and their lines cut tiny wakes on the rolling Yukon River. The main motor, a 40-horsepower Swedish Evenrude, was tilted forward and locked down so the shaft and propeller didn’t touch the surface of the brown river.

Not a single cloud marred the bright sky. A constant warm breeze wafted over them, carrying the scent of fir trees and blossoming flowers as well as pushing away any mosquitoes that might be in the area. Bird song sounded on both sides, barely audible out here in the middle of the nearly mile-wide river.

“This is the life,” Sergeant Bob Frieze, RCAF, said. “We really appreciate you bringing us out here, Sergi.”

“For sure,” Corporal Ken Tilgen said. “Right, Carpenter?”

The other RCAF corporal tilted his bottle of beer toward Sergi and grinned. “I could do this all day, man.”

“I just wanted to show you guys that there’s more to Alaska than you’ve seen at the airfield. Besides, I really feel that the Dená People owe you more than you’ll ever see in your pay packets.”

“This has been an adventure for most of us,” Corporal Tilgen said. “Who would have thought we’d see a constitutional convention in action? That’s something you don’t see down in the Republic. I heard they’ve almost got the thing finished.”

“They had some pretty good models to work from,” Frieze said. “The US, the CSA, the Texans and us all have pretty much the same wording.”

“Preambles are different,” Tilgen said with a shrug, “but essentially, you’re correct.”

“They been at it ten weeks, right?” Carpenter said. “How long would it take to copy the best parts of the others and just sign the thing?”

Sergi Titus laughed. “It ain’t that easy. We’re trying to get
all
the Dená
and
the Tlingits to agree on one document that they’re gonna have to live by.”

“So?” Carpenter said.

“There’s a lot of old animosities and distrust to get past. That kind of thing takes time. Indian time.”

“What’s ‘Indian time’?” Tilgen asked.

“Pretty much the idea if you don’t get it done today, there’s always tomorrow.”

“Oh, sounds a lot like Spanish Mexico time,” Carpenter said with a laugh. “
Mañana
!”

The other two Californians laughed.

“That means the same thing, huh?” Sergi said with a grin.

“Precisely!” Carpenter said.

Abruptly one of the poles jerked down and the reel sang out as something on the other end of the line grabbed the bait and ran with it.

“Holy shit, I got something!” Frieze shouted, bounding to his feet. “You guys get your lines out of the way!”

Titus and Tilgen both jumped up to grab their poles. Carpenter decided there was too much going on at the moment for him to get in the middle of it, so he stayed put and took another swig of beer.

Suddenly Frieze’s head exploded, then Tilgen’s, and Titus screamed as something went through his chest. All three men were knocked into the water. Before Carpenter could sit up, he heard the rifle reports carry across the water.

“What the
hell
?” he shouted.

The boat rocked and a bright hole appeared in the gunwale. Another rifle report echoed across the Yukon.

He lifted his head to look at the east bank from where the shots originated. Something buzzed past his head close enough that he felt the breeze it created.

Another hole punched through the side of the boat. He rolled over to the main motor, grabbed the control arm, pulled it down and let it go. The engine slammed down into operating position.

Carpenter pushed the control arm with his foot so it turned the boat toward the west bank. As soon as the boat turned, he sat up and grabbed the arm, pushed the ignition button and, like a lunatic, laughed aloud as the engine roared into life.

Another hole appeared beside the motor and something hit his left boot, tearing the heel off and throwing it over the front of the boat.

Carpenter gave the control arm a hard twist and the motor bellowed as the front of the boat rose and tore west across the Yukon. A round splanged off the top of the motor and Carpenter turned the boat to the left and back again to the right.

Until the sob burst from his throat, he didn’t realize he was crying. He kept the boat moving upriver toward Tanana, but not in a straight line. He thought the war was over.

103

Tanana, Dená Republik

“You were in the
middle
of the river when this happened?” Colonel Smolst asked again.

“Dammit, Colonel, I’ve told you that twice already!”

“Calm down, Carpenter!” Colonel Buhrman snapped.

“It’s okay, Del,” Smolst said. “He’s had a damn lousy day.”

“Why would anyone want to kill us?” Carpenter said in a pleading tone, looking from one officer to the other. “The frigging war is
over
, isn’t it?”

“We thought it was,” Smolst said. “Okay, just one more question and you’re dismissed. How long do you think it took you to get back to Tanana?”

“It seemed like forever, but…” Carpenter stared at the ground and frowned in thought. “Between forty-five minutes and an hour, Colonel. I think we were about twenty-five miles downriver when it happened.”

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “Those guys were the best buddies I ever had.”

“Go see the doc, Carpenter,” Colonel Buhrman said gently and patted the man’s heaving shoulders. “Tell him I said to give you the good stuff.”

Head down, Carpenter limped away, not bothering to compensate for the damaged left boot.

Smolst looked at Colonel Buhrman. “This isn’t good. We must have a band of rogue Russians out there.”

“But there aren’t any Russian outposts unaccounted for, are there?”

“No. But there had to be more than two people shooting to get that many shots off in such a short amount of time.”

“Colonel!” The shout came from the bank where the shot-up riverboat had grounded at high speed.

Both officers hurried down.

An RCAF first lieutenant was examining a bullet hole with a magnifying glass. He looked up. “Gentlemen, this is a very peculiar situation.”

Buhrman glanced at Smolst. “Lieutenant McVey was a police crime scene investigator in civilian life.”

“Excellent!” Smolst said. “Why peculiar, Lieutenant?”

“We have entry holes, but no exit holes. Theses holes are larger than a regulation rifle round would make, which could be attributed to a lead-point round, perhaps even a dumdum—both of which are illegal by treaty throughout North America.

“But what makes this event even more puzzling is little or no evidence of what had to be a high-power round. There were no other boats on the river, so the shots had to be fired from the bank, approximately a half mile away. If the rounds had been standard military, there would be holes in the other side of this boat, and they would be lower than the entry holes.”

“Which would have sunk the boat, right?” Buhrman said. “So what are we dealing with here?”

“I would say mercury. To prove that, I am going to swab this area with cotton and send it to a real lab to be examined under a microscope to search for trace amounts. But that’s the only thing I can think of that would create a pattern like this.”

“Mercury-tipped bullets?” Smolst said. “Why would anyone do that?”

“For an assassination,” Buhrman said. “But whose?”

“Can we go back to the mercury tips for a moment, Colonel?” Smolst asked. “Why mercury?”

“It was probably between a .30 caliber and a .300 magnum round that made this hole,” the lieutenant said. “But the entry area is twice what it should be and the lack of exit holes is pretty much a giveaway. When a mercury tipped round hits a human head, the head explodes—it just ain’t there anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because mercury is a heavy metal, a liquid heavy metal. When the brass tip of the round fragments, the mercury keeps moving at the same velocity and it spreads. You don’t just get wounded with one of these rounds, you get killed.”

“Oh. That’s why all three of the men who were hit were knocked completely out of the boat.”

“Yup, you got it, Heinrich,” Buhrman said. “And keep in mind all three men were hit from half a mile. These people might be monsters, but they’re damn good shots.”

“What are we going to do about them?”

“Find them and kill them, the sooner the better.”

“We don’t even know how many we’re up against.”

“You bring your five best and I’ll do the same. I think the odds will be on our side.”

“I hope you’re right, Del.”

“Go get your people. We’ll meet up here in one hour, ready to travel cross-country.”

Colonel Heinrich Smolst hurried up the riverbank.

104

Tanana, Dená Republik

“Has every delegate signed the document?” Grisha asked from his desk in front of the ten tables where the delegates had hammered together a constitution.

Eleanor Wright stood. “Mr. Chairman, every delegate has signed our new constitution. It is ready to be presented to the people of Alaska.”

In less than a heartbeat, all of the delegates were standing and applauding, as was Grisha. Emotion filled him and he hoped this effort would bring the benefits every person in the room thought it would. Only time, and history, would tell.

He let them stop of their own accord before speaking. “Each one of you has my heartfelt gratitude for the time you have given to create a framework for our new nation. I’m sure that August 16, 1988 will come to be known as Constitution Day for the rest of the Alaska Republik’s history.

“Now we have to give each of our states about five months to form their governments and ratify what we have done here. This is going to be an interesting winter. I declare this constitutional convention to be adjourned.”

He rapped his gavel for the last time.

105

Village of Klahotsa

Major Timothy Riordan stopped in front of Trooper Smythe and examined the man intently for some reason to gig him. He snatched the rifle out of Smythe’s hands, opened the bolt and spun the weapon so he could peer down the barrel. The bore glistened with a light coat of oil and the rifling looked pristine.

He threw the weapon back and Smythe caught it and returned to “present arms” in a blink. Riordan inspected the worn, but immaculate, uniform. Not even a loose thread.

“What country does that uniform come from?”

“Rhodesia, Major.”

“You’re a long way from home, Trooper Smythe.”

“As the major well knows, home is where the paycheck is, sir.”

Riordan allowed himself to smile and moved to the next trooper. He wished all of his new people were as military as Smythe. His most slovenly soldier was First Lieutenant N’go.

Now he remembered why he had busted the man to private months ago. But N’go had done something none of the others had ever done: he had saved Riordan’s life.
That was worth a silver bar
, Riordan thought.

Although twelve years in the past, the memory of lying on the steel deck of the freighter, bleeding from a severe beating only two days outbound from Boston, sprang unbidden into his mind. On the run from the Boston Police Department, which included his father, he’d taken a berth as apprentice seaman. Immediately he’d made the mistake of thinking that his status in the Feral Cherubs would mean something outside of the slums of Boston.

Bosun Collette had tried to kill him for his insolence. N’go stepped in at the last moment and told the bosun he had done enough. N’go stood nearly two meters in height and his solid, muscular body filled out his frame.

The huge African kept the crew at bay until they made landfall in Banjul, Gambia, where they both jumped ship. N’go wanted to flee before the authorities could be notified. But Riordan had correctly surmised that the bosun would be one of the first granted shore liberty.

Before Bosun Paul Collette could even have a beer, he was ambushed and beaten to death with an iron bar by Timothy Riordan, who never forgot a slight or a debt. Even at a twelve-year remove, Riordan still appreciated the irony of the whole thing. Before he left Boston he was an avowed darky hater. At this point he would die for N’go, the closest friend he had or was ever likely to have. He forced his mind to the present. He stopped inspecting his small band and took a stance in front of them. “You’ve all done well. It’s a pity one of your targets was able to escape last week, but I doubt it will matter in the greater scheme of things. Your marksmanship is excellent and I congratulate you all.”