Authors: Matt Cook
Sabotage
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To my mother and father
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Patient souls accompanied me on this writing adventure. I am grateful to all of you for enriching my life.
Victoria Skurnick, my trusted agent, you blend intuition and creative vision with abundant wisdom. I am a better writer for your guidance. Our collaboration has been a joy.
Tim Wojcik, Beth Fisher, and Lindsay Edgecomb, you are the A-Team at Levine Greenberg. Your support along the way has lifted my spirits.
A writer could not hope to work with a more passionate editor and risk-taker than Bob Gleason of Tor/Forge. Thank you, Bob, for betting on
Sabotage
.
Nature's most skilled aerial acrobat is a hummingbird. The publishing world knows her as Kelly Quinn. Thank you, Kelly, for your superb piloting, speed, and agility.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and novelist Jeff Edwards, whose expert counsel in technical matters enhanced the story's plausibility. Jeff, you have a gift for fielding questions through the lens of a storyteller.
Howard Wolf, you believed in
Sabotage
after a short ride home from the airport. Stanford loyalty lives large. When it comes to the Tree, you are not afraid to go out on a limb. Thank you for your introduction to Scott, an early advocate, now my attorney and friend.
The stars were aligned when Dirk Cussler and Jack du Brul graciously took the time to critique my manuscript. Many thanks to both of you for sharing your valuable insights and feedback. I am also grateful to you, Karl Monger and Evan Storms, for your help in polishing an early draft.
Much credit goes to Frank (Tha-An) Lin for his inventive puzzle in the Stanford “Game,” the principle of which now underlies the secret radio transmission in this book. I loved your challenges, Frankâespecially that one. Great fun. Big thanks.
My early writing exercises yielded articles concerning the military as well as a motivational book for youth. Maria Edwards offered to champion those works. Your respect, referrals, and support validated my efforts, Maria. Thank you. I admire your generous spirit.
Victoria Normington, Terry Andrews, George Ramos, and Cotter Donnell, you showed me how language is as much a medium for inventing art as it is a means of transferring thought. I am grateful to you for making English one of my favorite classes.
Travis Cohoon, Fidel Hernandez, Erica Morgan, Nick Niemann, and Jon Zhang, we go back a long way, dear friends. I continue to learn by your example. It is your character, integrity, and appetite for challenge that inspired my good guys.
Some imagine adventure. Others create it. Few live it. Thank you, Louise, for sharing the journey. Your laughter is the best antidote for writer's block. Our story grows richer as time goes by.
Mom and Dad, I forgive you for sometimes shading the truth. In fact, your assurances that
Tovar's Enchantment
was a masterpiece in the making convinced an eight-year-old boy that a published novel was within his reach. I hope you are proud of what you accomplished.
Finally, I am grateful to the critic who first spotted promise in this project, and who has helped me navigate the publishing industry with unwavering support. Thank you, Scott Schwimer, for your guidance as my entertainment attorney. I treasure your friendship. You truly can leap tall buildings.
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CONTENTS
Part IV: The Ace and the Amateur
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PROLOGUE
Arctic winds drove needles of ice into the trespasser's skin. As the prickling sensation faded to numbness, he pulled a black ski mask over his head and fought to bring his pulse below a hundred beats.
He crouched low, donning a pair of leather gloves. Warm fingers meant nimble fingers. Tonight he needed both.
The runway followed a paved line to a small network of taxiways. He spotted hangars at the far end of the tarmac. Zeroing in on one of the buildings, he sprinted toward the compound.
A chain-link fence blocked access. Finding easy footholds, he scaled the barrier and snipped off a section of barbed wire before pocketing his pliers and climbing over the edge.
Losing his grip, he landed with a loud thudâtoo loud, as he could hear his fall over the rhythmic drumming in his ears. Sweat plastered his hair to his scalp. He scanned the area for signs of danger and took several moments to recover.
The compound appeared empty. After five minutes of absolute stillness, he began to crawl, adhering to the shadowy perimeter and following the fence to a cluster of buildings.
He arrived at a recessed portal that pushed open with ease. He softened his stride as he entered the hangar, where a metallic bird nested in the center of the room. A sleek burgundy fuselage, flamed underbelly, hot-red propeller, and matching elevator suggested a free and defiant nature. The biplane's double wings stretched wide, angling skyward. Even in the dark she found a way to glisten.
The man paced beside the taildragger undercarriage and ran a glove along the body. He wasted no time. Checking his watch, he hoisted himself into the cockpit and inspected the helm and controls. Producing a small box of tools from his coat pocket, his delicate fingers inserted a skinny rod near the yoke and loosened four screws. He worked with the skill of a locksmith.
For all his paraphernalia, he was no expert infiltrator. He'd failed to notice any movement behind him. Soon after he'd climbed the fence, an automobile had cut its engine and parked outside the airfield, not two hundred yards from the trespasser's vehicle.
The car's passenger stole into the hangar and concealed himself behind a stack of storage crates, his gaze never leaving the intruder. As the man in the ski mask groped around the cockpit, the newcomer reached into his rucksack, pulled out a camera, and trained its high optical zoom on the prowler's busywork. Two dozen snapshots later, he packed away his device and continued to observe.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Sleet-filled, overcast skies mirrored an icy wasteland. Guards lounged in their seats and stared at screens from four towers around the colony. Their entertainment was the news channel, the sole connection to the outside world. The attraction had grown dull with time. Armed sentries patrolled the surrounding stone ramparts, assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
Only the hardest criminals suffered Siberia, and only the toughest survived. Ragnar leaned against the stone walls of the prison yard, cupping a hand over his mouth to light a cigarette.
Flicking his lighter a few times, he created a flame that quivered in the subzero extreme. He inhaled slowly, then breathed out, his lungful of mingling steam and smoke whisked away in a violent blitz of gales. He turned down the flaps of his fur
shapka-ushanka,
protecting his ears from the onslaught.
Ragnar gazed at his fellow inmates. A hulking mountain of a man with wide, protruding cheekbones and a jutting chin, he dwarfed most of the other prisoners. Jasper hair burned down his shoulder blades. His arms, flecked with scars, had clear definition, though his muscles more resembled knotty burls than pleasing curves. His left bicep bore a simple tattoo, a single word inscribed in plain cursive:
Firecat
. A horned helmet rested beneath it, superimposed over a double-sided ax.
His mind drifted to the territory beyond the walls. Outside were vast stretches of desolate land. With more than a hundred miles to the nearest village, the frozen tundra blocked any escape.
Ragnar took one last drag and tossed his cigarette to the ground, watching the embers die before he could squelch them. From a recess in the wall, he observed other captives hewing wood and stacking timber for shipment. A few clustered around a makeshift chessboard, where two rivals faced off in concentration. Nearby, a pair of bald men locked wrists in an arm wrestle, as betting spectators rooted for their champion. The wrestlers suffered mutely in the numbing cold, their fingers soon to be black as soot and ravaged by frostbite without protection.
Ragnar rarely said a word to the other inmates. An observer of human nature, he kept to himself, content with his estrangement. No one went near him anymore; they'd seen what happened to the hostile few who had tried to bait him into scuffles. His past was a mystery into which no one probed.
But today was different. A man approached. Ragnar recognized the smooth, oil-on-glass voice.
“Hello, Captain.”
The newcomer strode into Ragnar's corner. He spoke with the air of a sophisticate in convict's attire, his clean grooming and lack of stubble suggesting he was a recent transplant from the outside world. His thick brows might have been prominent without scrupulous trimming. Unlike the other inmates, he had no signs of wear and tear; his hands looked manicured, his skin unsullied by grime or perspiration. His nose and chin were defined by acute angles, combining with a head of charcoal hair in an attractive mix of Russian and Romanian gypsy. The combing emphasized a sharp widow's peak.
A few other inmates looked in their direction as if intrigued by the unusual interaction involving Ragnar. He glanced back at them, and they turned away.
“Just finished my shift in the machine shop,” said the man. He was holding a sack. “Look inside.”
Ragnar opened the sack to find a bottle of vodka, a towel, and a can of degreaser. He uncorked the bottle and emptied the vodka onto the ground, then filled it to the brim with degreaser.
“Where'd you get this?” he asked as he took hold of the towel, ripped off a rag-sized portion, and stuffed the fabric into the bottleneck like a plug.
“Guards' locker room. Same as the bottle.”
Ragnar nodded. “And fuel from the machine shop,” he said. He paused a moment. “When does he come?”
“He's already here.”
Ragnar arched a suspicious brow. Then he heard it: a faint thrumming in the distance. Even as the percussive rhythm grew steadily louder, the guards failed to notice anything amiss over the battering hail. To Ragnar and his accomplice, the sound of freedom was crystal.