The Double Man (Jack Widow Book 15) Read online

  The Double Man

  A Jack Widow Thriller

  Scott Blade

  Copyright © 2021 Scott Blade.

  Black Lion Media.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Visit the author website:

  ScottBlade.com

  The Jack Widow book series and The Double Man are works of fiction, produced from the author’s imagination. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination and/or are taken with permission from the source and/or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or fictitious characters, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This series is not officially associated or a part of any other book series that exists.

  For more information on copyright and permissions visit ScottBlade.com.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The publisher and/or author do not have any control over and do not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published by Black Lion Media.

  Contents

  Also by Scott Blade

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Nothing Left

  Nothing Left: A Blurb

  A Word from Scott

  Get Jack Widow Book Club Exclusives

  The Nomadvelist

  Also by Scott Blade

  The Jack Widow Series

  Gone Forever

  Winter Territory

  A Reason to Kill

  Without Measure

  Once Quiet

  Name Not Given

  The Midnight Caller

  Fire Watch

  The Last Rainmaker

  The Devil’s Stop

  Black Daylight

  The Standoff

  Foreign & Domestic

  Patriot Lies

  The Double Man

  Coming Soon:

  Nothing Left: A Jack Widow Thriller

  1

  The helicopter was a Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk, a twin engine rescue aircraft capable of reaching speeds of two hundred and seven miles per hour—for maximum short distance missions. The United States Coast Guard depended on it for deepwater rescues. It was the workhorse of the US water and mountain rescue operations. The bird was designed to fly three hundred miles out to sea loaded with a crew of four but was capable of hoisting six people from the ocean and carrying them all back to shore. It could hover over a rescue site for up to forty-five minutes before needing to return home to refuel.

  The man was called Gary Kloss. Although no one would know that because he didn’t have a wallet on him. No identification. Nothing. The only way to know who he was, was to ask him. The only way to know anything about him was to ask him, which was why he was out here in the first place.

  Kloss was strapped into a CMC Rescue Disaster Response Litter, a highly durable stretcher fused together with powder-coated steel, metal wire, and mesh. The US Coast Guard used it to pluck up survivors from disastrous situations, like capsized boats stranded in the ocean or injured climbers on the side of a mountain. It was an essential piece of equipment for any rescue unit. No doubt about it. Without it, hoisting people out of choppy waters after their boat capsized was near impossible, especially for survivors with broken limbs. And Kloss had two broken limbs. Both of his legs were broken at the kneecaps. He felt the pain. It wasn’t numb. No way could he survive treading water for long, not on his own, not without a life vest, which he wasn’t wearing. Under normal circumstances—normal weather and sea conditions—the Coast Guard helicopter would be a welcome sight. But these weren’t normal circumstances—far from it.

  Kloss’s stretcher dangled from a retractable cable rigged outside the helicopter to a winch. Nylon cloth belts strapped him into the stretcher tight. His movement was completely constricted, and he couldn’t move his legs anyway. The straps were so tight that he barely had room to breathe and wriggle, just a bit, but that was about it. Since his legs were broken, he could only squirm from the waist up. Not much good that would do him. He couldn’t swim, not with the broken legs. He wasn’t much of a swimmer anyway. Even if he could swim, even if his legs weren’t broken, he still wasn’t going to escape the litter. The straps were too tight. And his hands were pinned underneath them.

  The only thing he could do that mattered was he could take deep breaths, which was good. He needed them.

  Gales of cold wind howled and bayed and bawled all around him. A lightning bolt flashed and electrified the sky for one long, bright second. Kloss dangled in the stretcher. The wind swayed him from side to side under the helicopter. He stared up and saw the undercarriage of the Jayhawk. He saw the rotor blades whopping fast like the wings of a dragonfly. He stared past the aircraft and the blades and saw the underbelly of enormous storm clouds above. They hung in the sky like massive creatures. In comparison, he felt like a bug.

  A lightning bolt flashed, brightening the sky. Then it vanished and faded, and the skies died back to near darkness, all except for the Jayhawk’s exterior navigation lights, but not for long. More lightning crackled and coruscated above the Jayhawk. It continued like a light show in the sky. There was no pattern to it. The lightning was completely random, as lightning is. He knew that, but it seemed to spark the sky every five seconds or so. Thunder rumbled above. Armaments of rain drenched and decanted and pounded around the helicopter. Wind beat and punched huge wafts at him, making the rain worse. Rainwater gusted everywhere. It slapped across Kloss’s immobile body, across his bruised and battered cheeks.

  Gloss’s legs wear broken, but that wasn’t all. His face was a wreck. He had two black eyes, one of them was mashed shut. His nose was broken. There were bruises on his arms and chest. He was sure he had a fractured rib or two.

  The Gulf of Alaska was thirty feet below the helicopter. The water below swelled and crunched. Huge waves rose and fell and gulped below him. Whitecaps crashed into each other in a chaotic rhythm that only the sea understood. The water was dark and gray. It was just as terrifying
as deep space, but far more alive. Below the surface lay the unknown. Below was everything meant to kill him. There was no escaping it, not for Kloss. He couldn’t swim to shore, not even if the conditions were calm. It was too far. And again, his broken legs wouldn’t allow it. The only thing that waited for Kloss below the water was death.

  Kloss, the gurney, and the basket dangled in the harness from the Jayhawk about fifteen feet above the crashing waves. The waves splashed and wallowed up. The spray slapped across his cheeks and into his eyes. Saltwater stung his face. He tasted it on his lips and in his mouth. He swallowed some of it. He inhaled some of it. It couldn’t be helped.

  The Jayhawk’s rotors spun, whipping wind and rain back out into the rotor wash. The night was cold and wet in every direction. Rainwater ricocheted from the rotor wash and spat back out away from the helicopter. The cargo cabin doors were slid all the way open. Two men leaned out. Their hands held onto grips near the door. They didn’t want to fall out. One guy wore a ball cap. He operated the winch. The other stood over and peered down at Kloss like he was supervising a deep water rescue.

  The man supervising wore a leather jacket in place of a blazer over a crinkled dress shirt and tie and black chinos. His tie whipped in the violent wind gusts, hugging tight to his neck and shoulder. His gray hair was slicked back from the rain.

  Behind him were three other guys, all built like human pit bulls, only taller. All of them wore casual, warm clothes, minus the pilot, who was the only one wearing a flight suit. The pilot was the only guy out of the six who didn’t have broad shoulders underneath his suit. He was more of a desk type than the others. Even though he didn’t sit behind a desk all that much. His life was sedentary. The other five were different. They were built like former football players. They were built like former Special Forces Operators, only bigger, not far from some coastguardsmen.

  If someone could see them from shore, it would appear that the US Coast Guard was rescuing a man from drowning, but they weren’t. That’s not what the guys in the Jayhawk were doing at all. Not that it mattered, because the shore was too far away for anyone to see them anyway. Even in daylight, they would’ve been a speck in the sky, a dot on the horizon at best. But there was no one onshore watching them. No witnesses. No onlookers. Not in this weather. They were closer to a passing cargo ship than anyone standing on the beach. They knew that because the pilot had logged the ship from radar. He told his leader, the guy in the leather jacket, about it. But the cargo ship was far away. They knew of the helicopter presence—probably. They could see it on their own equipment, but they had no idea who was onboard or why it was there. The pilot monitored the radio just in case the ship’s crew tried to be Good Samaritans and offer help. But they didn’t. They never radioed.

  The Jayhawk hovered fifty miles from the south shores of Kodiak Island—Alaska’s biggest island and the second biggest under the umbrella of US territory. Only Hawaii was bigger. No one could see them, not from the ship, not from shore. Maybe the helicopter’s navigation lights would’ve been visible on a clear, dark night. Maybe, they could’ve even be seen with a high-powered scope, like a telescope or a camera lens. Maybe it was possible to see the lights with the naked eye as a faint, distant twinkle. Maybe, from the nearest ship, sailors on deck could catch a faint whisk of the beacon light that blinked from the Jayhawk’s undercarriage. But this was no clear, dark night. And no one was looking at them with a high-powered scope or camera lens. No one was looking with thermals. No one was looking out at them—period. Why would they? Not during a storm like this. Not at the end of an Alaskan September.

  Kloss stared up at the man with the whipping tie leaning out of the helicopter. Lightning crackled again. Even without the instant flash of light, Kloss saw the man with the whipping tie. The Jayhawk’s interior cabin lights illuminated his face. There was one distinguishing feature about the man with the whipping tie. It was his expression, the look in his eyes. It was horrifying. A malicious smile cracked across the man’s face. It resonated like pure evil, the kind seen once in a lifetime.

  Kloss would never forget that look. He would remember it for the rest of his life.

  “Who did you tell?” the man with the whipping tie yelled down to Kloss.

  Another large swell crashed below him, and water sprayed up across his face again. The swells continued like relentless drumbeats, constantly pounding below.

  Kloss shouted, “No one!”

  “You’re lying,” the man with the whipping tie said, and he paused a beat. Then he called out, “Take a deep breath!” He glanced at the guy controlling the winch and said, “Do it.”

  The guy controlling the winch smiled under the ball cap and hit a button on a control panel. Instantly, the cable slacked, and the winch released, and Kloss and the rescue litter went crashing down into the waves below, into the black water. The guy controlling the winch pressed the button again and stopped the slack. The helicopter hovered. The man with the whipping tie stared down. Glee danced in his eyes like dancing candlelight. He watched. In a way, he was impressed because even though Kloss was old and his legs were broken and he was strapped into the litter, he thrashed and flogged and flayed about from the torso as best he could. He tried to free himself, tried to get loose.

  The man with the whipping tie could see the water splash violently from Kloss’s struggling. It was impressive. The man had been impressive all around so far. He’d given up some information, like his name. But the man with the whipping tie knew he was holding something back. There was more to get. And so far, he’d been unable to get it. The man with the whipping tie couldn’t remember the last time a subject held out on him. It had been decades probably.

  Kloss wanted to live, so he squirmed and wriggled under the weight of the water, under the tight straps. But it did no good. His efforts changed nothing. He was fighting against immense undertow while his legs were broken, and his arms were strapped down. He didn’t stand a chance.

  The man with the whipping tie watched. The glee in his eyes continued. The thrashing continued. He had no idea how long Kloss could hold his breath. Not long, he bet. But that didn’t stop the man with the whipping tie from keeping Kloss down there. If the guy died, then he died.

  The man with the whipping tie waited. Thirty seconds. Forty-five seconds. One minute. The thrashing continued.

  The guy controlling the winch asked, “Now?”

  The man with the whipping tie said nothing.

  One minute thirty seconds.

  The guy controlling the winch repeated, “Now?”

  Silence.

  One minute forty-five seconds.

  The thrashing slowed like the drip from a loose faucet until it stopped.

  The man with the whipping tie said, “Okay. Now.”

  The guy controlling the winch hit the button, and the winch cranked, and the cable retracted and reeled back up. The litter surged up out of the water. Seawater dripped off the sides. The litter came back up several feet out of the crashing waves. The man with the whipping tie peered down from the Jayhawk and waited to make sure Kloss was still alive, which he was.

  Kloss coughed and wheezed and spat up seawater violently. His lungs hurt. His throat hurt. His body ached, but he couldn’t tell the difference between pain that came from his broken legs and pain that came from the barbaric waterboarding.

  “Stop,” the man with the whipping tie said.

  The guy controlling the winch hit the button again, and the winch stopped cranking, and the cable and the litter froze in place. Kloss and the litter swayed to one side from the wind.

  The man with the whipping tie called out, “Who did you tell?”

  Kloss coughed and gagged and breathed. Did he already tell them? Didn’t he already break? He couldn’t remember. The last twenty-four hours had been the longest of his life. All the pain and torture made a lifetime of memories run together.

  He shouted, “No one! I swear! No one!”

  Didn’t I tell them already,
he asked himself. The answer was no. He never broke. He told them nothing that they couldn’t find out on their own. But he lied about who hired him. He never gave them a name. At least, he hoped.

  The man with the whipping tie called out, “Who hired you?”

  “I don’t know,” Kloss lied.

  The man with the whipping tie paused. The wind continued to push the litter to one side. The man with the whipping tie looked at his wristwatch. Then he tucked it back under the leather jacket sleeve.

  He spoke under his breath. “I don’t have time for this.” Then he called back down to Kloss. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

  Kloss spat seawater out of his mouth. He lied, “I’m not! I swear! It was anonymous.”

  The man with the whipping tie said, “Dip him again.”

  Kloss didn’t hear the order, but he read the man with the whipping tie’s lips and understood the gesture. He shouted back in protest, shouted up into the noise of the rain and wind and thunder and rotor wash, but it wasn’t heard.

  The button was pressed, and the winch cranked once, and the locking mechanism released the cable, and the litter dropped several feet at once, and it went back into the water. Kloss vanished under the swells.

  The man with the whipping tie stared down and smiled. The same glee danced in his eyes. But the same thrashing in the water wasn’t the same at all. This time, it was barely a struggle. It was more apt to a death rattle than a man fighting for his life. It was like Kloss was defeated. It took all of the joy out of it for him to watch. It was pathetic. Kloss had given up. They always do.