Killer Summer

71

Willie Godfrey, a third-generation trust funder who could trace his lineage back to William Brewster, sported a mane of white hair even though only forty-odd years old. Tall and movie-star handsome, he had a larger-than-life persona that was even bigger than his oversized, overaccessorized pickup truck.

“I can shave a good hour off your route,” he said loudly, drawing Brandon to his side. The two men studied a map under the glare of a mercury light mounted on an outbuilding.

Walt watched things play out between the two through a kitchen window. Cell-phone and radio coverage having died passing Galena Summit ninety minutes earlier and wanting to preserve every watt of the satellite phone’s battery, he was taking advantage of the Godfreys’ landline.

He was brought up to speed on events in the valley: the bridge was open to traffic again; no further attempt had been made on the wine, or the armory, or half a dozen other potential targets. Things were returning to normal. His biggest concern, he was told, was the barrage of phone calls from the FBI and Homeland Security, and a growing anger because of Walt’s silence.

“Sumner?” Walt asked.

“Hanging around, miserable. He cursed you a blue streak when he found out you’d left.”

“Remy?”

“He’s booked and in jail. Since when do we actually lock up a guy like that? Don’t they usually make bail?”

“It’s complicated,” Walt said. “Back to Sumner… His hotel phone…”

“Is forwarded and under surveillance, and his wireless usage is being tracked in real time. We can’t hear conversations, but we know-”

“The caller ID, incoming and outgoing,” Walt said.

Sometimes his own staff treated him like he didn’t understand his own requests.

He considered the delicacy of the Sumner situation.

“Where have you got him?”

“He’s turned the break room into an office.”

“Leave him there. That’s okay.”

“I have Fiona on hold, waiting to speak with you. Do you want to take it?”

Walt said to put her through.

“Hey,” Fiona said.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I answered your phone,” she said apologetically. “Your office phone. I figured that with you gone and me using your office, if they put through a call it was probably you.”

“And who was it?” Walt asked, bracing to hear she’d communicated with the FBI or another federal agency, digging him into an even deeper hole.

“A guy named Bremer.”

“FAA,” Walt said. He’d dealt with Charles Bremer earlier when trying to make sense of Sumner’s missing jet. “Makes sense. I gave him my direct line.”

“A plane, a Frontier jet, spotted a fire from thirty thousand feet.”

Walt caught his breath. “Wreckage?”

“Just what I asked… Too small and organized. More like a bonfire.”

Kevin? The boy was smart enough to start a signal fire.

“They eyeballed the coordinates… It was definitely in the backcountry. Could have been a rafters’ bonfire on the Middle Fork. But it was big… very big… maybe too big for that.”

“A signal fire,” Walt said, thinking aloud.

“Who do I tell this to? What do I do next? My first reaction was to jump up and tell someone, but then… That was something, like, twenty minutes ago, and I’ve been going crazy since trying to figure out who you’d want me to tell. Do we send up a search plane? Does the FAA do that for us? How does any of this work?”

“You didn’t ask me that,” Walt said.

“Excuse me?”

“The reason I took off without telling anybody… My father knows the SAC who will take this one. The guy’s a wannabe Rambo. We don’t want Kevin caught in the middle of that.”

“Ah, okay. So…?”

“You don’t approve of my dodging a potential disaster,” Walt said, hearing it in her voice.

“When it comes to you and your father? It’s not exactly like there aren’t issues there, Walt, you know?”

“I’m not doing this for my father,” Walt said, “I’m doing it for Kevin.”

“And you know for a fact that this SAC is who your father says he is?”

“No, but-”

Walt saw his father out the window. He was on the truck’s tailgate, checking out a rifle and a handgun. Would his father lie in order to hold off the FBI and give himself a chance at some fieldwork? Would he put Kevin in the middle of his own ambitions?

“Christ,” Walt muttered inadvertently into the phone.

“What do you want me to do?” came her voice.

“It has to be reported. You’d better tell Brad. But if it takes you thirty minutes or more to get down the hall… If you told Brad to call back Bremer and determine the veracity of the report…”

“You want us to stall.”

“We’re still several hours from the ranch” Walt said. “I’d like to hold off the helicopters and jump squads until I know the situation out there.”

“I can understand that.”

“You think it’s a mistake. I can hear it in your voice.”

“I’m new to all this,” she said.

“Don’t give me that.”

“It’s your father,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, still watching him through the glass.

“I’ll do this however you want.”

“Okay, then,” he said, not changing his instructions.

The line went silent. Neither said a thing.

Walt didn’t want to be the one to end the call. He felt like he was fourteen.

“It’s Kevin in trouble, not me,” he said softly.

“Doesn’t exactly feel that way from here.”

“About the other night-”

“What’s interesting,” she cut him off, “is that it’s important to me. You’re important to me.”

“I handled that all wrong,” he said.

“Shut up, Walt, I’m not talking about the other night.”

“But I am. If you were in my position, with Gail and Brandon, the need to protect the girls… It gets so you don’t trust anybody or anything.”

“You can trust me,” she said, he thought rather boldly.

“I’m beginning to figure that out.”

“Yeah? Well speed it up a little, would you?”

“I shouldn’t be smiling with all that’s going down,” he said.

“Give it a rest. It won’t kill you.”

Kill you hung on the line between them. He knew what she was thinking and she knew what he was thinking.

“Okay, then,” he said.

To her credit, she didn’t get maudlin or overly dramatic, which he’d half expected.

“Okay, then,” she said, just before hanging up.