Skyfire by Mack Maloney Read Free Book Online Page B

Yastrewski-"Yaz" to his friends-finally eased the tracked vehicle out of the woods and onto the deserted highway, triumphantly shifting into second gear for the first time in hours.
    "Never thought I'd be so damn glad to see asphalt," he whispered to himself as he brought the ancient two-ton halftrack up to thirty-five miles per hour on the otherwise empty two-lane turnpike.
    He checked the time-it was just 11 PM. With luck he'd be back in the coastal town of Yarmouth within the hour. But that would be about fifty-nine minutes too long a trip for him-he was cold, unwashed, unshaven, and his stomach was growling like a polar bear. The muscles in the lowei part of his back were in open revolt, spasmatically stinging him as punishment for the seven hours of bumping and jostling he'd just put them through.
    Yaz had been plowing through the dense Nova Scotia wilderness since four that afternoon. The word "grueling' didn't even come close to describing the trip.
    "Pure torture' would have been closer to the mark. Yet, beneath his grumbling and discomfort, Yaz knew it had all been necessary The location of the place he had visited was one of th( most closely guarded secrets in the world. Being built sever hours from the nearest road was essential in keeping it tha way.
    Its official name was Kejimkujik Station. It was littl* more than two small structures built into the side of '< mountain in such a way as to be invisible from the air. Th<
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    mountain itself was on the edge of the Tobeatic Game Sanctuary, a place as far away from anything as one could get on Nova Scotia.
    Kejimkujik was not a military installation per se. Rather it was a prison-one which held only one man. Yet this prisoner was so notorious that the isolated jail had been built just for him. It was a place where he would serve out a life sentence for the most damaging crime of all, that of betraying his country.
    It may have struck some as ironic that the ex-vice president of the United States would be imprisoned in a foreign country. But to the leaders of the United American government, the arrangements made perfect sense. After his conviction on numerous counts of treason-the most damaging being his aiding and abetting the anti-glasnost Soviet clique known as Red Star in their nuclear sneak attack that had obliterated the center of the United States at the end of World War III-the ex-VP was sentenced to life in solitary confinement. Although the government quietly announced that the "most likely site" of the prisoner's incarceration would be a military prison in Point Barrow, Alaska, the real plans called for him to be shipped to the Kejimkujik facility, which had been built by the Free Canadians for just such a purpose.
    The assassination attempt on the ex-VP by the deranged Elizabeth Sandlake only postponed the prisoner's eventual transfer to Kejimkujik; once he had recovered from his wounds in a Canadian hospital, the quisling was transported via halftrack to the secret jail in the middle of the Nova Scotia wilderness.
    Within minutes of his arrival, he was locked inside a bare, windowless room that held a large American flag as its only wall decoration.
    It was here that the man would contemplate his crimes until he died.
    Because operating the secret jail was a joint effort between the Free Canadian and United American governments, providing for its security was also a shared affair,
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    and this was the reason for Yaz's trip. As part of the inner circle of General Dave Jones and the United American Armed Forces Command Yaz had been asked by Jones to make the required monthly trip to the Kejimkujik to meet with the prison's Free Canadian security officer.
    During the two-day visit, Yaz had been briefed on several new security procedures instituted at the jail. He also spoke with the contingent of Football City Special Forces Rangers who served as half the guard force, and was now carrying back a sack of mail for them to be first screened and then delivered