Read Arctic Fire for Free Online Page A

surface behind the ship, moving gracefully up and down with the waves. The same flock had been with them since they’d left Dutch Harbor, patiently waiting for any scrap of bait or piece of crab that might come their way.
    It looked so peaceful to be a seagull, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t peaceful or easy to be any wild creature, Troy knew. Every day was a brutal struggle to survive, and there was no help for the sick or wounded. Only the strong made it, and that was nature’s law. It was a cold reality, and it didn’t necessarily work well for the individual. But ultimately it worked for the species, and that was the only thing that mattered to nature.
    It was the same way for the United States. All that mattered was that she got stronger every day, even if brave men and women had to die. But the pain and agony those men and women endured was worth it if their sacrifices ensured the survival of the country and its place as the world’s only superpower.
    Troy touched his forehead. The gash he’d suffered in the chaos of the storm was only an inch long, but it was deep and he’d needed seven stitches to pull it together. He’d done the job himself with a sewing needle and black thread he’d found in an emergency kit on the
Fire
’s galley wall. He grinned as he thought about watching in the mirror as the needle plunged in and out of his skin. He was just glad his mother had no idea what had happened. She might have rented a boat in Dutch Harbor herself to come out here and get him if she had.
    He knew his decision to sail on the Bering Sea had come as no surprise to his family, but that it was a bitter disappointment for her. She had hoped that after making it to the peak of Vinson Massif on a frigid Antarctic afternoon two months ago and completing the Seven Summits, he was finished tempting fate and had finally chased the daredevil demons from his soul.
    She’d told him all of that very directly. She’d also told him that she wanted him to follow his father’s footsteps into New York City’s world of high finance. Bill Jensen was a Wall Street superstar, and she assumed her husband could get Troy any job he wanted at the huge bank he ran.
    But Troy had made it clear to her then that a move to Manhattan still wasn’t in the cards. That he still wasn’t ready to trade in the razor’s edge for a suit and tie, a cramped Upper East Side apartment, and a ride on a crowded six train down to Wall Street every morning. There were too many challenges left on his daredevil list, he’d told her over the phone from a distant corner of the world he wouldn’t identify.
    Maybe his mother was right, Troy thought to himself as he gazed into the darkness shrouding the Bering Sea. Maybe the razor’s edge was finally getting too sharp.
    “Troy?”
    He whipped around, startled by the voice. He’d been a world away. “What?”
    Sage and Duke stood beside each other in front of him. They were big-boned, broad-shouldered men who were each over six feet tall. Looming behind them was Speed Trap’s older brother, Grant. Grant was a man-mountain who stood six-seven, weighed 270 pounds, and had even longer, starker blond hair than his kid brother. Speed Trap was nowhere in sight.
    “We gotta talk, Troy,” Captain Sage said.
    It was strange to see the captain out here on deck. Since they’d left Dutch Harbor, Troy couldn’t remember seeing Sage anywhere but on the bridge. “What about?”
    Sage kicked at a crab leg lying on the deck, and Duke looked away.
    Something in the back of Troy’s mind clicked. He didn’t like those looks in their eyes. “Hey, what the hell’s—”
    “You’re going over,” Sage interrupted in a steely voice. “You can jump, or we can throw you over. It’s up to you.”
    Troy straightened up. His senses were instantly on full alert, and his pulse was racing. Sage and Duke were passing a death sentence. Their expressions were grim, but he could see that they were committed to carrying it