A Cold, Cold Place To Die

Jack Scarlet

  A Cold, Cold Place to Die

  A Jack Scarlet Adventure

  by

  Dan McGirt

  Published by Trove Books LLC

  ? Copyright Dan McGirt 2009

  Jason Cosmo Adventures:

  ***

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  *****

  Jack Scarlet was about to die.

  A bullet whizzed by his head like a hornet from hell. One stray round could send this whole plant into the stratosphere. The Black Flags didn't seem to care. Jack was trapped, outnumbered twenty to one, with no clear line of retreat. Yet even as they closed in on him, the white-clad soldiers fired steadily, heedless of the danger. Jack thought they wanted him alive, but it looked like they'd settle for making him dead.

  Jack was cornered on a catwalk above a seething vat of hypertoxic chemical sludge that could reduce an elephant to a puddle of Jell-O in under a minute. While he might manage some acrobatics that would get him to an exit, Nika certainly could not follow. The stunning Russian blonde crouched behind him with her hands over her ears and her face buried against his back. Very brave at first, the young widow had grown increasingly apprehensive over the last few hours. Jack couldn't blame her. This mission was going downhill fast.

  He felt her body tense. Worried she was about to bolt and draw a lethal hail of bullets upon herself, he grasped her arms tightly.

  "Nika, be still!" he said, speaking Russian.

  "I'm scared!" she said. Her full lips quivered. Her green eyes were moist with tears. "The bullets, the soldiers-I do not want to die!"

  "No one ever does," said Jack.

  Restricted City Volochanka-9 was in western Siberia, north of the Arctic Circle. Off-limits to all foreigners and most Russians, its very existence was officially denied. But everyone from the CIA to the United Nations to the global environmental group EcoPax knew the city was a secret chemical and biological warfare center for the Russian military, one in a chain of such sites scattered across the vastness of the Russian Federation. EcoPax believed that Volochanka-9 was among the most polluted sites on the planet. Anecdotal evidence, backed by what little hard data existed, showed high rates of cancer, respiratory ailments and birth defects among Volochanka-9 workers and residents. But all the group's efforts at better documenting the problem were thwarted by the uncooperative Russian bureaucracy and the actively paranoid security apparatus. Dr.Sergei Omolov, a respected ecologist and the leading EcoPax activist in Russia, was harassed, threatened, placed under house arrest and prosecuted for treason. Despite these Soviet-era tactics, Omolov refused to be silenced.

  He was silenced anyway, gunned down in an alley near his St. Petersburg home before his wife's eyes. Though Nika gave police a detailed description of the killers, the investigation went nowhere. That was when Jack, as a member of the EcoPax board of directors, decided to take a personal interest in the matter. It didn't take long to determine that there was more being covered up than a toxic waste site. Now it looked like he and Nika might share her husband's fate.

  A pair of Black Flag soldiers came into view at the far end of the platform, their stubby little Skorpio submachine guns trained on Jack and Nika. Though the red dots of targeting lasers danced across Jack's chest and head, the troopers didn't fire. Maybe they were willing to take him alive after all. Though Jack had any number of offensive options at this point, virtually all of them would get him killed and probably Nika too. Their best chance of survival lay in surrender, if the Russians would go for it. Jack raised his empty hands.

  "Don't shoot!" he shouted in Russian. "We give up!"

  He knelt and placed his hands on top of his head to show that he was sincere. Nika, trembling, followed suit.

  "Just stay calm," Jack whispered. "Let's see how this plays out."

  The first two soldiers advanced cautiously, waiting for more of their squad to join them on the catwalk before getting close to Jack. Once reinforced, they pushed him roughly to the floor and bound his hands behind his back with thick plastic restraints. They relieved Jack of his utility belt, backpack, camera, and various electronic devices before hauling him to his feet. They seized Nika too, but she was evidently not considered as much of a threat. They did not bother to cuff her.

  The Black Flag troopers snapped to attention as General Fedyenka Kirov, commandant of Volochanka-9, strode onto the platform. Kirov was a big, muscular man in his fifties, a former tank commander. He wore a dark green uniform bedecked with numerous commendations and campaign ribbons. This was their first meeting, but Jack recognized Kirov's large-boned face, brush-cut silver-grey hair, and deep-set dark green eyes from a documentary about Soviet war crimes during the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan.

  Kirov regarded Jack with a cold sneer. More than six feet tall, Jack was muscular, but not bulky. His physique was that of a gymnast-supple and powerful. Gossip columnists called him "rakishly handsome" and his face often adorned the pages of celebrity magazines, usually next to that of some starlet or supermodel. His face was lean, with clean lines and a strong jaw. His blue-grey eyes met Kirov's without wavering.

  The general said, "Jack Scarlet, famous American playboy industrialist and do-good busybody. You do not belong here."

  Jack replied without hesitation. "Fedyenka Popovich Kirov, war criminal, mass killer and old-school Stalinist. You belong in prison."

  Kirov ignored the jibe. "This is a restricted military district for reasons of state security. Violation is punishable by death."

  "Wait, this isn't Kazakhstan?" said Jack. "I knew I should have turned right at the Volga."

  "As military governor of the Volochanka Restricted District, I have absolute discretion for dealing with spies. You will not leave here alive."

  "The activities you are conducting here," replied Jack, "violate more treaties than I can count. Your government has renounced chemical and biological weapons of all kinds. Never mind experimenting on human subjects."

  Kirov spat. "Gutless politicians grovel before the West and sign away the security of Mother Russia, but cold winds of change are blowing. Soon new leaders will rise to restore Soviet Union-er, that is to say, Russian Federation, of course-to her rightful place in the world."

  "Are you high on something?"

  "What are you saying, insolent American?"

  "You can coast on bluster for a while yet, but Russia is a basket case. I'd say you've already found your rightful place in the world. Time to get over yourselves."

  "I do not follow your strange American locutions, but if you are insulting Mother Russia, you tread on dangerous ground!"

  "There I won't argue," said Jack. "I took soil and air samples-this whole area is soaked with toxins. The United Nations will be very interested in what I have observed."

  "The UN will never learn of your soil samples and illegal filming. We have confiscated your instruments and you will never leave here alive." Kirov snapped his fingers. The Black Flag troopers tossed Jack's equipment over the rail into the roiling chemical vat below.

  Jack shrugged as several hundred thousand dollars of electronics disappeared. "I already transmitted the data via satellite."

  Kirov laughed. "You are mistaken! This facility is shielded by anti-broadcast jamming devices."

  "Sure," said Jack. "That is why I used an anti-jamming override and signa
l booster."

  "Nonsense! Our jamming equipment is state of the art."

  "The state of Russian art," said Jack, arching an eyebrow. "I designed my own equipment. Do you really think yours is better?"

  Kirov scowled. "Bah! So your data got through. It does not matter. That will not save you."

  "I never said it would."

  "Sadly, you will soon disappear from the face of the earth." The soldiers holding Jack shoved him against the catwalk rail. Bent double, he stared down into the viscous green pool of bubbling death.

  "This was a trap, wasn't it?" said Jack, twisting against his captors' grip until he was facing the general. "You knew I was coming. The Black Flags were mobilized, waiting for me."

  Kirov laughed. "Of course! I have had my own agent close to you since you entered Russia."

  He nodded, and Jack noted that the soldiers were no longer holding Nika. Nor was her face that of the frightened young widow who had appealed to him for help in solving her husband's murder and carrying on his