Cliff Ryder - The Ties That Bind

"Why not come in as an official? Why not just come in with navy boats and find it?" she asked.

"If it were that simple, then I wouldn't be here," he said. "They don't send people like me for simple missions. Now, the fact of the matter is that I think that there are people using your village and maybe others as a cover and that those people intend great harm. Whether they are connected to this supposed submarine or not, I don't know yet. What I do know is that if you want to help your village, you'll keep silent and help me. The sooner I have the information I need, the sooner I can leave…and the sooner the people smuggling weapons into this part of the world can be stopped."

She sat and pondered the information that he had given her for a minute. Then a small smile crossed her lips. This was followed by a full-on grin a moment later.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked.

"Are you telling me that I snuck up on a spy? An honest-to-God, professional spy?"

"Damn it!" he yelled. "Tina, this is serious. I need to know if you are going to help or if I'm…going to have to do something I'd probably regret. I don't want to hurt you, but…" His tone turned deadly cold. "If you represent a threat to my mission, I will. So what's it going to be?"

"You would have killed me before now if that's what you wanted to do," she said.

"I already said I didn't want to, though that option is getting more appealing by the second," he gritted out.

"Of course I'll help you," she said. "It beats dying by a long shot anyway." The grin lit up her face again. "But just admit it. I snuck up on a spy."

"Fine," he sighed, waving a hand in surrender. "You snuck up on a spy."

"Grandpa would be so pleased. He used to take me on hunts and taught me how to walk silently. He didn't hold out any hope for me for so long. He would be so proud."

"Tina!" he growled.

"I'm not going to say anything," she said. "Scout's honor."

"Girls can't be Scouts," he said.

"No, but I bet you did have some luck with those Brownies."

He hadn't realized she'd heard his earlier remark and felt the tension in the room ease as they both burst out laughing.

"Okay," she said. "So what do we do now?"

"Now," he said, holstering his Glock, "we wait."

Jason awoke to the enormous blast of a foghorn. He pulled his handheld off the nightstand and accessed the data streaming from the sensors he'd had the Scorpion deploy. They'd detected a large ship, probably a cruise liner of some kind, which had just pulled into the village harbor.

A message in response to the update he'd sent Denny the previous night was also waiting for him.

Original mission priority unchanged. Secondary missions involving recent developments approved. Use of local assets conditionally approved. Standard cleanup measures will apply if risk assessment increases beyond tolerance levels.

In other words, if things got out of hand, he would be ordered to kill Tina and anyone with whom she'd possibly spoken. Perfect.

He dressed quickly in heavy, flannel-lined jeans and a wool sweater, then set out to meet Tina at the one little restaurant in town. Most of the locals looked at him with suspicion, but that was the nature of most small native villages the world over. Newcomers were distrusted until they'd proved themselves. Jason knew the dilemma that they faced with strangers. Always at cross-purposes, few that came were interested in accepting the people here for who they were. They were either profiteers looking to exploit the resources of the environment or the people, or protesters looking to stop the profiteers, but often just as unfamiliar or unaccepting of a way of life that had been passed down from family to family for generations. The old Inuit ways were passing, and holding on to those that remained was a grim, desperate task for many of the elders.

The small restaurant had windows overlooking the water, but nothing that could truly show off the spectacular view offered by the nearby cove. Practicality won out over aesthetics, and keeping the heat in and the cold out was more important than showing off the view.

The setup was very like any coffee shop in the lower forty-eight states, a counter in front of the window and booths that lined the walls. The deep-brown wood textures of the booths contrasted oddly with the yellowish-orange fabric that covered the seats, and Jason suspected that rather than pay to have upholstery sent up from Anchorage, the owner of the place had used the fabrics available locally — which meant fewer choices and no sense of aesthetics at all.

Tina was sitting at a booth at the far end, stirring her coffee absently. She didn't look at him as he approached, but he could tell by the tense set of her shoulders that she was aware of his presence. Obviously, the events from the previous night were still weighing heavily on her mind — maybe as much as they were weighing on his. The thought that he might have to kill her was more disturbing to him than he wanted to admit.

She was a study in contradictions — smart, beautiful, well educated, but living the rough life of a guide in the wilds of Alaska. Was she really as unaware of the criminal activities in the area as she claimed, or was she right in the middle of it, trying to keep him off the scent? Despite it not being his primary mission, he would have to find out the truth about the weapons smugglers, and if she was involved, he would have no choice but to bring her down along with the rest of them.

He strolled to the booth and sat down. She didn't bother to look at him, but unfolded a map on the tabletop and pointed out several frails and areas on the map. "If you want to get to the next village to the north, this is probably the best route…"

Jason placed his hand on the map. She looked up at him and then back down at the map. She pushed his hand away and kept talking.

"I'm not sure exactly what information you need," she said quietly. "But I'll help in any way that I can."

She looked him in the eye as she spoke the last. A spark of determination lit up her face, and Jason was more confused by that than ever. So far this woman had seen him kill three men, get rid of dangerous weapons, and now she knew that he was a spy and she was still willing to help him. If he didn't end up killing her, he just might ask her out to dinner. She had guts and intelligence, and that was worth a lot.

"I appreciate your help," he said. "What I really need are lookout points to different harbors that are deep enough for a large submarine to enter or that a large ship could dock in, but that might not be thought of as typical places for seagoing vessels. I also need to meet anyone in town that you think might be involved or could get involved with the weapons smuggling. That needs to stop now, before they find a way to import something truly dangerous."

"Jason, you have to understand that the people here are loyal to the village and each other. We're not part of any country. Not really. This part of Alaska is more like a forgotten borderland. The only way for us to survive is to stay out of the politics and keep our minds focused on our people's survival."

"So what are you saying?" he asked.

"I'm saying that guns from Russia, or submarines, or lots of things that wouldn't normally be seen in the U.S. or in waters near the continental part of the country are more normal here than you might think. We've got more important things to worry about."

"How is that possible? I know that these waters are patrolled."

"Sure, they are, but there is a lot of water and a lot of space and not very many people to patrol it. The coast guard does a lot, but they spend more time and energy on rescues than they do anything else. A major storm that wiped out every village along the coast would probably be a sidebar in National Geographic about how the Inuit culture had finally died off."