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“Dad! Mom!” she shouted with a voice that seemed inhumanly loud for such a small body. “There’s a trooper lady out here to see you!”

Tia walked back to the counter and
took
her place on the stool. From her seat, the girl
resumed
staring at Lonnie.

“You are very pretty for a trooper,” Tia said. “I didn’t know they had pretty troopers.”

“Why, thank you, Tia.”

The girl’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m am an old friend of your parents. I knew you when you were a little baby.”

“Wow,” Tia replied, staring into the trooper’s face. “You must be old.”

Lonnie smiled at the girl’s blunt remark. “Yes. I am. Old beyond my years.”

The girl made a quizzical face, but before she could say anything else, Linus and Cara both entered the store.

“Lonnie!” Cara cried out as she ran forward and gave her old friend a big hug. “It’s been so long! How are you?”

“I’m fine, Cara,” Lonnie said. “It has been a long time.”

“So, what brings you here?” Cara asked.

Linus stepped forward. “Is it about those guys?”

“Yes, it is, Linus,” Trooper Wyatt answered. “We obtained some pictures we think may be them. Can you verify if these two men are the ones you saw last night?”

She handed him the color printouts Commander Stark had given her.

Linus looked at them, and right away said, “Yep, these are them.” He pointed to Nousiri’s picture.

“This one was called Nikola by the other guy. They didn’t mention the blond one’s name, but these are definitely their pictures.”

“Anything else you can remember about them? Things they said, maybe. Or where they may have been headed?” asked the trooper.

“No,” Linus said. “Marcus, though, he speaks fluent Albanian. He heard everything they said, something about a mission and cutting Marcus’s balls off.”

Cara smacked her husband on the shoulder. “Linus! Tia’s listening!”

“Sorry, baby.” He turned to the girl and said, “Don’t listen when Daddy says that.”

“Dad!” Tia said in whiny thirteen year old exaggeration, “I know what balls are.”

Cara’s eyes got huge. “Young lady, get in the back, now!”

“But Mom!” she protested, “I want to listen to Trooper Wyatt. I bet she knows what balls are, too!”

“Move it!” Cara shouted in a strong Norwegian accent. Her arm jutted out and she pointed her finger toward the door, her face red with embarrassment. Turning to her husband, Cara said. “How could you talk like that in front of your daughter?”

“Sorry, I forgot she was here.”

“Bye, Trooper Wyatt,” Tia said as her mother took her by the arm to the back of the house.

“Mom, can I be a trooper when I grow up?” The girl’s voice trailed off as the door closed.

Lonnie shook her head and grinned. “You have quite a girl there, don’t you? She’s going to be a handful when she gets a little older.”

“She already is more than I can handle,” Linus said.

Trooper Wyatt turned back to the topic of the two men. “So, you said they threatened Marcus?”

“Look, Lonnie. You really need to talk to him. Marcus heard everything those guys said, but didn’t translate it all to me. I know you don’t want to talk to him, but he’s the one who can answer your questions.”

Her expression grew stoic and business-like again. “You said he was out on a trap line. When is he getting back?”

“He wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow, but he unexpectedly popped in a couple of hours ago to get some gas, and then drove to Eielson. Said he couldn’t talk. He was in a hurry to get to the base and would fill me in later. He may be back at the cabin now.”

She took a deep breath and said, “Man, what a reunion this is going to be.”

Linus offered no response other than a nod and sympathetic expression. Lonnie attempted a friendly smile, but her nervousness showed through. “Thanks for the information, Linus. Tell Cara and the kids I said goodbye. I’ll stop in to visit more sometime later.”

She walked out to her waiting cruiser. Once in the car, she radioed dispatch to report that she was en route to Marcus Johnson’s cabin at six-mile Johnson Road.

A few minutes later, Trooper Wyatt arrived at the little cabin Marcus called home. Her heart pounded within her chest as she pulled up the long driveway. In the dark, a thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney, pale in the illumination of the three-quarter moon that hung in the sky.

She approached the cabin and climbed the step onto the landing that led to the front door. There were no lights on inside, and no vehicle parked outside. She banged on the door with the handle of her Maglite.

No answer.

She knocked again. Still no answer.

It was 18:00. She decided to return to the pipeline pump station to talk with Bannock again, then try back in half an hour.

Trooper Wyatt drove up to the pump station. Bannock was just coming on shift and readily verified that the men in the picture were beyond a doubt the two men he had seen. He went back over the details he had given her the previous night, adding nothing new to the story.

“So I guess they really are terrorists, eh?” Bannock said.

“Just a possibility,” Lonnie replied.

“Uh, Trooper Wyatt?” he said. “Those are CIA identity sheets. I’ve tracked down men all around the world with one of those in my hand.”

“Oh,” she replied. “I guess you would recognize one of these.”

He changed his tone, raising one of his eyebrows. “I was thinking all last night about what Islamic Terrorists would be doing at a power substation way out here in the middle of nowhere. And then I had a couple of ideas.”

Bannock paused, an eyebrow cocked up as if dramatically trying to draw her into his thought process. It looked like a poorly done impression of a Sherlock Holmes character.

Lonnie waited for him to continue. He stayed quiet until she grew irritated with his melodramatic attempt.“And your idea is?”

Charlie smiled and leaned forward, cocking his head as if he were about to tell a secret. “Well, two things come to mind.” His voice was just above a whisper.

“First, the power was knocked out through the whole electrical intertie system simultaneously. This substation does not control the whole intertie, which runs from Anchorage, through the Mat-Su valley up to here, then across to Delta and down to Valdez. That means these guys were not working alone, but with others in at least two or three other cities along the intertie.”

“Okay, that makes sense.” She recalled what Commander Stark had said about the findings at the other outermost substations.

“Second,” Bannock continued, “what would be the reason to black out Alaska? I mean, we have a lot of strategic military sites and oil production facilities, but most of those have their own backup power sources. The population in the cities up here, except maybe for Anchorage, isn’t big enough to be a prime target for a terrorist strike. Most Americans don’t relate emotionally to Alaska, so there would not be the psychological effect that there would be if they struck New York or L.A.”

“Okay, so what’s your point, Bannock?”

Bannock sat up straight, his face serious. “I think it was either a test of some new technical weapon, or simply a diversion.”

“Diversion?” she asked. “From what?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, “but it seems like a diversionary tactic to me. I mean, in twelve hours of darkness, nothing was destroyed, and other than your officer this morning, no one was hurt or killed. The outage only served to draw the eyes of the authorities away from anything else that may have been going on.”

“How did you know about the connection with the officer being killed?” Trooper Wyatt asked.

Charlie let out a sly grin. “Heard about the shooting on the radio this morning, that it was related to the theft of a truck, and assumed it was Adem and Nikola. Your reaction has confirmed my thoughts.”

“All right, Sherlock Holmes. How do you think they did it, and where would you look next?”

“I’m not an electrical or computer engineer. But I have heard of computer networks that are run over raw copper wires in the electrical outlets in homes. Maybe it was something like that. I know Al Qaeda has a lot of western-educated geeks in their ranks who could figure it out.”

“Hmmm.” Wyatt looked down at the floor pensively. “I am not a computer nerd either, but I know someone who is. Maybe I’ll run it past him.”

“Well, that’s my two and half cents.”

“Thanks, Charlie. I’ve got to go check some other leads. Keep me apprised of anything else that comes to mind.” She handed him her card. “Here’s my cell phone number, in case something happens to come to mind.”

He took the card from her.” Trooper Wyatt, can I give you a piece of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Watch yourself. These are not mere criminal types—they’re killers. They make the Mafia or Hells Angels look like pussycats. They will kill any perceived threat with no hesitation. You’ve gotten yourself mixed up in some very serious business.”

“Thanks again, Charlie.”

She turned and walked out the door. It was time to try Marcus’s cabin again.

1. Chapter 14
   

Marcus Johnson’s Cabin

Salt Jacket Alaska

18 December

19:00 Hours

Chief Wasner and his SEAL team were to meet Marcus at his cabin. From there, they were going to stage for the trip into the woods to find the North Korean agents. He gave them directions, then left while the SEALs gathered their gear.

At 19:00, he pulled back into the parking area in front of his small homestead cabin. As Marcus’s Jeep rolled up the tree-lined driveway, he noticed another vehicle parked in front of his home. The long, white car had the word TROOPER emblazoned across the trunk. Marcus’s headlights illuminated the side as he pulled up parallel and saw the Alaska State Trooper emblem set in a blue diagonal stripe across the driver’s side door. A shadowy figure sat inside.

Marcus parked his Jeep and stepped down from the boxy vehicle onto the hard packed snow. His boots crunched noisily against the silence of the night.

“What? Is that trooper back to give me a speeding ticket now?” Marcus muttered as he stepped around the front of the vehicle.

The trooper got out of the cruiser and slowly started toward him.
This guy’s kind of short for a trooper, and thin

He stood in the darkness as the officer approached. Watching the way the body moved, it gradually dawned on him that this was not a male trooper.

“May I help you?” he asked aloud.

“I hope so,” said a voice.

Marcus’s stomach suddenly fluttered like a million butterflies had just hatched from cocoons deep in his gut. He hadn’t heard that voice in years, but it was unmistakable. “Lonnie?” he asked.

“Hi, Marcus,” she replied. “I was sent out to ask you some questions regarding the two men you met yesterday at the Salt Jacket Store. And I ….”

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I was sent out to ask you some questions…”

“I heard that, but why you? Did your dad set this up?”

“Possibly, but I don’t think so. I was on regularly scheduled duty in the area this week.”

“Look, Lonnie, I don’t have time to talk to you right now.”

“This isn’t a personal visit,” she said. Her voice was cold and professional. “I need to verify that these are the two men you saw yesterday, and ask you some questions about what you heard them say.”

“Let’s step inside, then,” he said, “It’s too dark here to see the pictures.”

“You need to get an electric light out here,” she answered.

“No,” he blurted. “I don’t need anything.”

Lonnie was taken aback by his curtness.

They entered the cabin and were immediately greeted by the warmth of a fire glowing in the stove at the corner of the room. Despite the comfortable heat, an icy chill hung on Marcus’s demeanor. He reached up to the gas lamp suspended from a log support beam in the center of the room. He turned the small knob that jutted from the side of the lamp’s
metal
base. The light became as bright as a hundred-watt electric bulb.

Marcus held the papers in the light. He stood with his back to Lonnie.

“Yes, those are the two men. This one is Nikola. The others name I didn’t catch, but Bannock told your dad it was Adem.”

He turned to hand the pictures back to her. As his gaze moved from the pages to the blue-uniformed trooper, Lonnie took off her blue smoky hat. Her face came out of the shadow of its wide brim and glowed in the light of the Coleman lamp. She was beautiful. Just as she had been the last time he had seen her so many years earlier. Just like she was in his dreams.

Marcus stopped mid-motion and stood there staring at her, unable to move.

“What?” she asked.

Marcus’s expression softened, but only for a moment, then the iciness crackled back across his face. He snapped out of his temporary paralysis and handed her the papers.“Nothing.” Marcus turned aside, then continued, “They said something vague about how when they complete their mission, they want to get into the slave trade business. Then Nikola smiled and told me he was going to cut my balls off and sell me as a eunuch on the slave market in Yemen. He obviously didn’t know I understood him, and I didn’t let on.”

“What was your impression of them?” she asked. “Your military impression?”

“They are terrorists,” he said flatly. “They’re up to no good, and I expect you are going to find out what.”

“That’s what we are working on.”

“Well, if that answers your questions, I have some work to do. So you need to leave.” He walked to the door, grasped the handle, and pulled it open.

“Look, Marcus.” She let out a sigh. “This was not my idea, me coming out here, that is. I know there are a lot of issues we need to work out, and ….I … uh…”

Several vehicles crunched across the snow of Marcus’s front yard, interrupting Lonnie mid-sentence.

“Now is not the time,” Marcus said as he motioned her out the door.

They stepped outside to see three large, white Ford F350 crew cab pickup trucks, each hauling a trailer with two snowmobiles. A dozen men got out of the trucks, all wearing white smocks over their clothing. Chief Wasner and Staff Sergeant Beckwith approached Marcus and Lonnie.