Blackout

CHAPTER 43

The sound of his own breathing was a comforting counterpoint to the “schuss” of his skis as Warren Pierce settled into a comfortable pace. The snowfall the night before had been minimal, but the snowpack through the fields on either side of the main road was substantial and satisfying. It was crystal days like this, he thought, that made cross-country skiing so invigorating — crisp air in his lungs and the blur of evergreens on each side making the valley his own special world.

Another of the summer cabins passed by to his left, a familiar sight to any Stehekin resident. That one is the Caldwells’ place, he thought, absently letting his eyes wander from the snow-covered roof to the contrail of a distant airliner tracing a feathery exclamation point in the sky above Lake Chelan.

He rounded another bend and crossed the road, trending toward the river. The substantial old log house ahead had been there all his life, and it loomed into view on schedule, the usual wisp of steam curling from the heater vent on the roof.

Warren stopped, unsure why, but something about the cabin was wrong.

Why is the door open?

Warren moved closer, keeping himself within the tree line to the north side as he took in a shuttered window to the left of the open door. There was no sign of life.

A breeze moaned through the evergreens overhead, and the front door swung open even farther with a mournful creaking that startled him. He could see an overturned chair inside, but there were no lights visible within.

A cold feeling of apprehension began to move up his spine, an unreasoned desire to turn and go, but he tried to overrule the feeling and will himself to look more closely. Don Donohue was the caretaker. He checked it every day. How could the front door be swinging open?

Warren forced himself to ski in to the front yard, his eyes taking in shards of broken glass and footprints in the muddy snow by the porch — as well as something by the door that looked red, like blood.

Warren turned and skied toward the road as fast as he could, turning toward the ranger station and the dock, propelled by a mindless fear. Someone needed to investigate, and that someone was not going to be him.

Kat had watched the south side of Portland International Airport flash past and drop away as the DeHavilland Dash 8 lifted into an overcast sky from Runway 10 Right. Like the instinctive act of a blue heron lifting off a lake and pulling its long legs up behind it, the spindly landing gear of the Dash 8 retracted backward and tucked itself into the underside of the wing-mounted turboprop engines, leaving Kat with a spectacular view. High-wing aircraft were well suited to daydreaming passengers, she thought. Especially smaller ones flying at lower altitudes over the lush Pacific Northwest landscape of manicured golf courses and a carpet of forest.

The verdant hills to the east of Portland were moving sedately past as the Dash 8 climbed through the bottom of an overcast, turning the world outside into an endless field of milky white. Her view diminished to the right engine pod and the faithfully churning jet-driven propeller.

In the forward cabin the lone flight attendant was preparing her tiny rolling bar for the drink service, when the sound of a ringing cellular phone reached her ears. Her attention snapped to the flashy blond in a midcabin window seat. She left the galley immediately and moved swiftly to row eight, reaching out just in time to catch the ringing phone before the excessively blond passenger could raise it to her ear.

“You’ll have to turn that off, Miss.” she commanded, happy with the authoritative tone in her voice. The surrounding passengers were turning out of curiosity, but that was fine. The woman deserved some communal condemnation.

But the passenger fairly yanked the phone from the flight attendant’s hand, placing it to her ear as she fished for something in her handbag.

“I said, TURN THAT THING OFF!” the flight attendant commanded.

The blond’s left hand whipped out a leather wallet and flipped open a badge and an ID that the flight attendant recognized as the emblem of the FBI. She nodded and backed up the aisle in confusion, pulled out a key, and entered the cockpit.

Kat replaced the ID and hunched over, straining to hear Jordan James’s voice. “Are you sure, Jordan?”

“I need a rendezvous point, Kat. I need to talk to you in person as soon as possible. I have a plane ready to fly me out to the coast tonight, wherever you are.”

“I’m… not on the coast. I mean, I’m not that far. There’s someone I’m trying to find and interview. I’d rather not say who, or where, just in case.”

“Kat, you’ve got to trust me. This line is clear. Where will you be?”

She glanced at Robert and sighed. There was no time to explain to him, and it was her decision anyway. She was confused now about which lines might be leaking and which were secure, if any were secure. With airports being closed by terrorist threats, the confirmation that stolen laser guns were probably involved, and the growing worry that they were facing a couple of entities trying to find and silence them, speaking the name of the destination city seemed reckless but unavoidable. After all, it was Jordan James asking, and if she couldn’t trust Jordan, she was in a house of mirrors.

“Kat, please. Where do I find you?”

She sighed again, closing her eyes. “I’ll be in Sun Valley. Don’t ask why.” She could feel Robert’s startled reaction, but it was too late.

“Good. I’ll arrange the flight right now and be out there by… tomorrow morning at the latest. Keep your phone on. I’ll call you from the airport.”

“Okay. But what have you found? If this line is secure enough for me to tell you where I’m going to be…” She glanced at Robert with a quick nod to tell him it was all right.

“Then why isn’t it secure enough,” he interjected, “for me to tell you what I’ve discovered? Maybe it is, Katherine. But there’s a lot to explain. This is a very complex, very frightening situation.”

“You know about the weapons, Uncle Jordan?”

“How do you mean?” he asked, trying to mask caution.

“I mean, did you know the ones used in SeaAir and Meridian may be stolen from a U.S. stockpile — weapons specifically prohibited by presidential directive?”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Kat, that’s why we have to talk. There’s a lot you don’t know, although I’m impressed with what you’ve found out. National security is at stake here. See you tonight, or early in the morning. Keep the phone on.”

She disconnected and turned to meet Robert MacCabe’s alarmed expression, trying not to think or admit that she might have just made a dangerous mistake.

A gossamer veil of snow had begun to fall as the Dash 8 pilots made a flawless instrument approach to Friedman Memorial Field in Hailey, Idaho, the commercial gateway to Sun Valley. The world swam into view at 600 feet above ground, and they broke out perfectly aligned with the runway, navigating only by the distant signals of a global positioning satellite system in what was known as a GPS approach.

By the time the Dash 8 had stopped at the gate, a minor blizzard was in progress, with heavy snow predicted all afternoon. The extreme tension they were already feeling didn’t help on the taxi ride to Dr. Thomas Maverick’s address, south of the town of Sun Valley. The scientist’s cabin was in the southern end of the area in a heavily forested community of widely spaced homes and poorly marked roads, and after the third wrong turn, the cab driver’s short temper wasn’t helping matters, either.

Dr. Maverick’s small log cabin finally appeared. Kat paid the cabby quickly and sent him away over Robert’s whispered protests. “What if Maverick isn’t home, Kat? We aren’t clothed for this.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said, zipping up the uninsulated windbreaker she’d carried from Stehekin.

“Fine? We’re already freezing! Not that we have any choice now.”

There was no answer at the door, and no sign of a fire in the fireplace, but there were fresh tire tracks being covered rapidly in the snowy driveway. Kat moved cautiously around the cabin, finding the front and rear doors locked and nothing suspicious visible through the windows, before returning to Robert, who was standing under the eave of the roof and trying to stay out of the wind.

“If he’s here, he’s hiding,” she told Robert.

“So — as Dallas would say, what now, Kemosabe? Your faithful companion is freezing his ass off.”

She ignored the attempt at humor. “We wait.”

“Out here?”

“No, inside. We find the least destructive way to break in.”

Normally, Robert thought, I would protest being asked to aid an essentially criminal act, but the cold was reaching serious proportions and being inside, almost anywhere, was rapidly becoming an imperative.

They returned to the rear door, and Kat fumbled in her handbag before pulling out a Leatherman’s tool.

“You know how to pick locks, too, Kat?” Robert asked through chattering teeth.

“Not a clue,” she said. “You?”

He nodded, then shook his head. “Not really. I’ve fooled around with some, but that’s a pretty stout lock.”

She straightened up. “It is, isn’t it? Okay. Wait.” She left the back steps and selected a piece of firewood from a covered pile adjacent to the cabin. She used the end to shatter one of the windowpanes in the door, then reached inside to unlock it.

“Oh, thank God!” Robert said, his shock at Kat’s action ameliorated as he moved into the comfort of the heated interior.

“The heat’s a good sign,” she said, closing the door behind them. “I doubt he’d keep this place heated all winter. Probably only when he’s here.”

Kat went out the front door to get the bags and immediately fished out the gun, loading it and dropping it into her handbag. Robert’s voice reached her through the partially open door.

“I’ll see if I can find something to tape over the broken pane.” He rummaged around in a closet and came out as she reentered the tiny kitchen. “I’ve checked the whole place, Kat. He’s not here.”

“I’m sure he will be. It’ll be dark by five P.M. and I’ll bet he’ll wait for that.”

“So… we just wait?” Robert asked.

“Yes. Meanwhile, I’m ditching the hooker outfit. It’s served its purpose.”

“You’re still very blond, my lady.” Robert grinned. Kat didn’t respond, and her face looked grim. He caught her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Kat? I know you’re worried, but have you completely lost your sense of humor?”

She looked puzzled. “What?”

“Your sense of humor. Gallows humor, if necessary.”

She shook her head and frowned as she gently pulled away from his hands. “I’m sorry, Robert. I’m a bit preoccupied with keeping us alive.”

“Well, we’ve got to keep laughing. Blonds have to have a sense of humor.”

Her expression was still unyielding, but she studied him for a few seconds, then bumped a hip in his direction. “How’s that? ‘Blond’ is an attitude.”

“Better,” he said, and watched her disappear with her bag into the bathroom.

She returned minutes later in a pair of jeans and a pullover sweater to find Robert at the rear window watching the snowfall, which was becoming heavier.

He turned and smiled at her, inclining his head toward the window. “Kat, if this snow continues, I don’t know if James is going to make it in.”

“He said by morning,” she said, without expression. “We wait, regardless.”

The Lear 35 private jet that Arlin Schoen had waited for all afternoon taxied rapidly up to the Flightcraft private terminal and shut down the engine on the left side long enough to lower the steps and bring Schoen aboard. He scrambled into the plush interior, pleased to find six of his men. The pilots of the chartered jet restarted the left engine and departed immediately, flying a direct course to the Sun Valley airport at just under 500 miles per hour. The passengers in the back huddled in conversation. There had been several heavy wooden boxes loaded back in Seattle, and both pilots were increasingly nervous about their clients and what they were carrying — as well as concerned about the deteriorating Sun Valley weather ahead.

The leader of the group, a cold-eyed older man who had handed them $8,000 in cash for the charter, had made it clear that they were to land regardless of the weather, but after the third try with no runway in sight, even he agreed that a dash to Boise, Idaho, was the only reasonable backup plan.

The passengers were inside the private terminal at Boise when the two charter pilots made their decision. Whatever was going on, they wanted no part of it, and a peek inside one of the boxes confirmed their fears: a massive amount of sophisticated assault weaponry and ammunition.

The captain calculated the price of the charter, counted out the overpayment in an envelope, and taped it to the top of one of the boxes before unloading the men’s belongings on the ramp and firing up the right engine.

“We saw nothing, we heard nothing, we say nothing,” the captain said.

“Amen,” echoed the copilot.

One of the men came racing from the building at the sound of the engine start, but the captain had pushed up the throttle and raced away on just one power plant while the copilot started the other and called for an emergency takeoff clearance.

“So what now?” one of the men asked Arlin Schoen.

“Very simple,” Schoen replied. “The others should be there by now, or very close. They were driving. Get them on the satellite phone and warn them to hold in place until we can charter another aircraft. Preferably one that can handle a snowstorm. We’ll rid ourselves of all three at once.”

“What were their orders?”

“Stake out Maverick’s place and watch for Bronsky and MacCabe as well as our slippery Dr. Maverick. But if Bronsky and MacCabe end up there first, I don’t want them taken until the doctor appears and we arrive.”

Robert finished a shower and dressed before returning to the living room of the cabin to find Kat dozing in the one easy chair. The lights were off in the small room, and without a fire there was a distinct chill in the air. Outside, the porch light was on, illuminating the heavy snowfall and emphasizing the feeling of mountain isolation.

Robert sat quietly on a small chair, but Kat snapped awake with a start.

“It’s okay,” he said, holding out his hand to calm her. “It’s just me.”

She shook her head to chase away the cobwebs, then rubbed her eyes as she sat up and smiled at him. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “The good doctor’s got a well-stocked pantry.”

“So, we eat Maverick’s food and make ourselves at home?”

She nodded. “FBI business. He’ll be compensated.”

“By the way, I, ah…” Robert began, “hate to tell you, but there’s only one bed in this place, and no couch. So, I guess…”

Kat left his implied question unanswered as she stood and turned to walk into the bedroom. She surveyed the pine furniture, aware that Robert had followed and was standing in the door.

“Ever hear of a bundling board?” she said as she turned to him.

He nodded suspiciously, his eyes darting between the bed and her. “Yes. Early American thing. If you had to sleep an unmarried couple in the same bed…” He stopped, discerning her meaning.

“Very good,” she said, walking across the room to park her bag under the window. “The family would put a large board down the middle of the bed, and the two were prohibited from putting arms, legs, or other body parts across the divider.”

“So, instead of either of us sleeping in a chair in the living room…”

She nodded. “That’s right. We can use a bundling board, without the board.”

Robert was smiling. A bit too much, she concluded. “Cut it out,” she said.

“What? What am I doing?”

“You’re thinking wanton thoughts.”

“I am not. I’m… I’m merely grinning.”

She sat on the bed beside him, but not touching. They looked at themselves in a wall-mounted mirror. “Okay, ground rules,” Kat said, turning to him. “We’re still in the middle of this nightmare.”

“I know that.”

“It’s just about dark outside, we don’t know when or if Dr. Maverick is going to show up, nor whether Jordan will make it, and the other side could show up any minute. I slept in the van before we ditched it at the airport, but I’m still exhausted.”

“We should sleep first,” Robert agreed.

“Raid his refrigerator, then sleep,” she said. “I’m having trouble thinking clearly. I have the sick feeling we’re sitting ducks, but I’m convinced Dr. Maverick has answers we need desperately, and this is our best chance to find him.”

“Agreed.”

She was holding up an index finger. “I… just want you to understand…”

“What, Kat?”

“That in a different place and time, this would be a real temptation.”

“Temptation?” he said, feigning puzzlement.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said.

Robert sat back, looking at her, his eyebrows climbing. “You were thinking of… fooling around with me?”

“Oh, stop it, Robert!” There was a small laugh, and he took it as encouragement.

“Why, that prurient thought never crossed my mind,” he said, with no conviction, his eyes and smile betraying him.

“Sure.” She smiled for the first time in hours. “I’ve been running around in a skirt too short for Baywatch, and you’ve only been reminding me all day how sexy I looked.”

She jumped up from the bed and turned to him, offering her hand. “Let’s go raid Dr. Maverick’s pantry, Robert. Then I’m going to see if he has a spare parka.”

“To wear outside?”

“No. To wear to bed.”

“Why? Are you cold?”

She shook her head slowly, biting her lip with no hint of a smile.

“No. Just the opposite.”

“We’re ready for an immediate takeoff, Mr. Secretary.”

Jordan James glanced behind him at the murky, rainy visage of the 89th Airlift Squadron’s presidential ramp at Andrews. The last-minute call for one of the Gulfstreams to fly him to a meeting in Sun Valley had been honored with typical efficiency, but takeoff hadn’t been possible, they said, before 2 A.M. The jet and the crew were ready for the nearly six-hour flight when Jordan reached the base.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Jordan said. “Let’s get moving.”

The acting Secretary of State climbed the stairs and handed his briefcase to the steward before heading for one of the plush swivel seats, his mind consumed with what lay ahead. The mission was indefensibly personal but unavoidable, with Kat’s life hanging in the balance.

An impromptu dinner finished, Kat got up and moved in awkward silence toward the bedroom, aware that Robert was hanging back and pretending to straighten up. There was a tiny gas-log fireplace in the corner, and she turned it up before walking to the window to stand and admire the silent snowfall some more.

“Suppose he might still show up tonight?” Robert asked from across the room.

“No,” she said, shaking her head without looking back. “It’s snowing too heavily and it’s too late. He won’t get here before morning. If then.”

“Good” was the quiet reply.

Robert came up behind her and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. She said nothing for a few seconds, then moved his hands away.

“Out of bounds,” she said softly, still facing the window.

“Sorry.” He chuckled, unprepared for her taking his hands and moving them forward to encircle her waist.

“There,” she said. “That’s where they belong.”

Robert held her lightly, almost in disbelief as Kat turned around in his arms to face him, her hands rising to caress his face, and draw his mouth to hers.