Skyhook

TWENTY EIGHT FRIDAY AFTERNOON, DAY 5 VALDEZ, ALASKA

April could read the defeat on Jim Dobler’s face before he hung up the phone. He sighed and turned to her, shaking his head.

“April, I’m truly sorry, but the only way I can take you back there on the surface is through a line of Coast Guard pickets, and they won’t be amused.”

“The area’s still restricted, then?”

He nodded, sitting back in the faded cocoon of his time-worn desk chair to the sound of creaking springs and squawking imitation leather. A pleasant aroma of wood smoke hung in the thick air of the office, giving it more the feel of a tiny rural country store than a dockside office, but the trappings of a waterfront operation were all around, including a large aluminum fishnet hanging on the wall.

A burst of static filled the room suddenly, coming from one of the active two-way base station radios he kept on the side of the desk, but Jim ignored it as he continued the explanation he needed to give her.

“I know where we could get a miniature submarine with a couple of grappling devices on the front, but they’d charge a fortune, and it would take weeks to get it here.”

“Frankly, I don’t have either the fortune or the time.”

“Well, the other problem is… whatever they’re doing out there, they don’t want any of us watching, and even if we could get the sub, they’d probably detect it and go nuts.”

“‘They’ meaning…?”

“The Navy. I’ll bet Scott was right about that.”

Another burst of static, irritating in its intensity, filled the overheated room again. Jim reached for the volume control and cranked it down slightly.

“What’s the radio for?” April asked.

“One’s a standard marine band, for anyone inbound who needs fuel or the other services we can provide. The other’s an aviation radio tuned to the common channel out here.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, prompting more.

“Seaplanes land here, too, just like you and Scott did the other day, and they can call me on that to—”

An irritated voice cut through the channel at the same moment. “Dobler, will you please come out here and tie me up!”

Jim smiled as he got to his feet and grabbed his parka.

“I don’t see anyone out there,” April said.

“When it’s low tide, this part of the dock isn’t floating, so the fuel dock sinks out of sight.”

April pulled on her parka and followed Jim out the door and onto the ramp down to the floating dock, where a Grumman Widgeon was floating motionless, the engines already stopped. She watched the nose hatch open and Scott McDermott appear, nodding to April as he focused on Jim and held up his hand to catch the mooring line. The two men secured the Widgeon before Scott stepped onto the dock. She could see he was working hard to make the arrival seem routine, but the way he began fumbling for words as he saw her waiting with folded arms told the tale.

“Hello, again,” Scott said.

“Hello. Forget something?” she said, keeping her expression carefully neutral. There was no point in reigniting the morning’s unhappy exchange.

He snorted and looked skyward, as if checking an inbound storm.

“Naw… well, yes.” Scott turned back to her, glancing at Jim, who was also standing with folded arms and a knowing expression. “I stumbled across something I thought was interesting.”

“You talking about Ms. Rosen, here?” Jim quipped.

Scott began blushing, his entire face shifting toward red as he pretended not to understand. “I… ah, thought she might be interested in this,” he said, turning to meet April’s eyes. “I was on the way back when I checked with Anchorage Radio, which is the… ah, a service they provide…”

April was nodding. “Anchorage Radio is an FAA Flight Service Station. I know. I’m a pilot, too. Remember?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I was getting an inbound briefing—”

“In the air? I thought you were supposed to do that before departure.”

The jibe stopped him cold for a few seconds.

“Ah… usually that’s the way it’s done… before leaving. But… anyway… I happened to hear about a temporary military operations area newly created not far from here, and… I just got curious, because I’ve never heard of one right along there.”

“Where is ‘there’?”

“Well, the eastern end of it is a bit southwest of where we found the Albatross, and the western end runs west of Seward.”

“They’ve got the surface all restricted to boat traffic now, Scott,” Jim said. “I’ve been on the phone all afternoon.”

“Well,” April said, “Mr. McDermott, thank you for coming back to tell us this.”

Scott hesitated, looking sufficiently off-balance to trigger a tiny spark of sympathy in April, especially when he began studying his shoes and tapping some incoherent code on the wooden dock with his sole before looking her in the eye.

“Look, April, I apologize for leaving you in the lurch.”

There was a guttural sound from Jim Dobler. “Don’t think my house was ever called a ‘lurch’ before,” he said. “Is that like a yurt?”

Scott ignored him. “We both agree something strange is going on out there but… hear me out a second. When I got into Anchorage, I went over to the FSS and did a little personal research on what was going on last Monday night when the accident happened, and guess what? The very same military operations area was created for that night, too.”

April uncrossed her arms, remembering the F-15s she’d seen landing at Elmendorf days before. “There’s an awful lot of Air Force fighter activity around here, and I’m sure there’s a lot of training going on. Why would that restricted area be connected with what happened to my father?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t know that it is. But it’s unusual. I know the restricted airspace around Alaska — this part, at least — and this kind of sudden military-operations-area creation is very odd.”

“What are you thinking, Scott?” Jim asked.

“I’m thinking there’s a special operation of some sort going on tonight, and I’m thinking there was one on Monday night, and even if it has nothing to do, April, with what happened to your folks, it’s too coincidental to ignore.”

She was shaking her head. “Dad lost a prop blade. Either it came off by itself, which is possible, or he clipped some metallic structure below, like a ship mast. The zone you’re talking about — this new MOA — has to do with airplanes and airspace.”

“Didn’t you say you asked the Coast Guard to see a tape of their vessel traffic system for that night?” Scott asked.

“Well, sure… to see if the Albatross showed up on-screen and to check on what ships might have been coming through the area, but they haven’t performed. I figure we’ll have to sue them to get that information.”

“April, stop and think about this. The Coast Guard charged in and took those tapes. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen unless there’s a military operation of some sort going on, and it may well be connected with these restricted areas.”

“But, I don’t understand how they could connect.”

“Maybe your dad did hit a ship on the surface that was taking part in some airborne exercise. Hell, I don’t know, but I tell you, my instincts are telling me there’s a connection, and I think we should go take a look.”

“We?” April said.

“Yeah. Unless you, you know, don’t want to. There’s no charge, April. This one’s on me.”

“Either way, yes, I want to. Just sitting here doing nothing is tearing me up,” she said, suddenly realizing the import of her words and glancing at Jim, who was reflecting ever so slightly their impact. “Jim, I’m sorry for how that sounded. That was not a reference to you and all your tremendous efforts on my behalf.”

“I know.”

“It’s just the fact that together we’ve been unable to move things forward.”

He shrugged, a shy smile registering appreciation. “Glad to help, April. So, you want the generator and the camera stuff again?”

“No, Jim,” Scott answered for her. “I’m just low on gas.”

“Well, that I can change.” He started to turn to get the fuel hose.

“Jim, you want to come along?” Scott asked.

Jim shook his head. “No. I’d just be ballast.”

“Well, we’ve got about an hour of daylight left. I’ll have to land back at the airport. Would you mind picking us up in a few hours?”

“Naw, I wouldn’t mind.”

With the waters of the bay a bit more choppy than the previous afternoon, the takeoff was a series of heavy shudders through the wave tops before Scott could yank the Widgeon free of the surface, barely skimming the next swell. They climbed to the west, turning then to the south down the channel toward Bligh Reef.

“We’re going to stay low?” April asked when she finally got the David Clark headset adjusted and the boom microphone in position, barely touching her lips.

He nodded, his head on a swivel for other traffic, before looking at her. “I thought we’d stay at about five hundred feet, which should be below most of the air traffic radars. We could be seen by anything airborne, of course.”

“Like an AWACS?”

“Yeah, or those F-15s you were mentioning. I’ve got the restricted area figured out on my GPS screen. I thought we’d drag the eastern side of it before the light fades and see if there’s any surface traffic.”

“How close can we get to the crash site?”

“Within two miles. It’s strange, April. The surface area the Coast Guard has declared restricted to boat traffic does not correspond with the military operations area for air traffic, except over the crash site. But there’s something else I didn’t tell you. Tonight, that military airspace is from the surface up to thirty thousand feet.”

“Okay.”

“On Monday evening, when your folks were coming through, it was from five thousand to thirty thousand feet, and if I’m calculating correctly, they flew right under it. You know what that suggests to me?”

“I think so,” April answered. “It means that between Monday and now, something has changed and they now want all the airspace.”

“And what may have caused that change is your folks flying legally right underneath their Monday-night block. The change suggests that something happened, and since we know the Albatross crashed in that airspace, it’s a pretty good bet that that’s it.”

“The connection, in other words?”

“Yes. I don’t know how. I mean, did they clip something, or did they have a mechanical failure? Either way it’s coincidental, but provocative.”

They flew in silence for nearly ten minutes as April let herself marvel at the verdant beauty of the forests lining the inlet on either side almost down to the water. The beaches were rocky and narrow here, with occasional sandy patches, but just as often a small slope or cliff marked the point where land and sea met.

“Scott, look out there at eleven o’clock.” She pointed to the looming shape of a large surface vessel on the horizon ahead.

He nodded. “It’s an inbound supertanker. See how high he’s riding? He’s empty, coming in from California.”

The sun was riding low on the southwestern horizon as Scott studied the GPS screen. “The crash coordinates are just ahead, April, about five miles. The MOA starts three miles ahead. I’m going to turn and parallel it by a mile to make sure anyone watching doesn’t misinterpret what we’re doing.”

“So what are we doing?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Beats me. I… let’s just loiter out here and see if we can see anything unusual.”

“Scott, do you have a raft aboard?”

“You mean a survival raft? No.”

“Could you carry one?”

“Yeah, but, April, this is a flying boat, remember?”

“I’m not talking about safety. I’m talking about landing, inflating a radar-invisible rubber raft, maybe with a small motor, and putting over to the site with the camera, recorder, and battery and stuff.”

Scott was silent for a few seconds. “We could do that. I don’t see why not, but it would have to be at night, and I can’t risk landing us out here in open water at night.”

“How about landing at dusk safely out of the restricted area, tying up somewhere, and going in after dark?”

“We’d need exposure suits.”

“Jim has those. He told me.”

“Okay. We might just have time—”

“Not tonight. I’m thinking tomorrow. I want to be completely prepared.”

“Okay.”

She turned and looked at him until he met her gaze. “Everything rides on getting those shots on tape, and I think my friend Gracie, the lawyer, would tell you that I’ll need your testimony to validate what I see, what’s on the tape, and the fact that whatever we get will not have been electronically altered. That okay?”

“You mean, in court?”

“Yeah. Problem?”

He shook his head. “Oh, no.”

She grabbed his arm suddenly, her right hand pointing ahead.

“What’s that, Scott? That ship.”

“More of a boat. Hold on.” He altered course to the north slightly to get a better viewing angle.

“What is it?”

“That’s a Navy ship. I don’t recognize her, but she’s a fleet support or supply vessel of some sort. Don’t often see one like that up here. See the odd angles on the superstructure on the stem? I’m not sure what that’s for.”

“She’s westbound.”

He nodded. “Yes. And on a course that, if I’m reading this right, had to have passed directly over the crash site.”