Paige looked at him, startled, giddy with relief. She had to work hard to keep herself from laughing.
Ursov continued, “I filed repeated formal complaints, but he always loved his drink. I never took it seriously enough. Now Nevsky is dead.” Ursov gripped her arm, leaning closer. “Tell me — was he drunk? Is that why you are so embarrassed to give me your coroner’s report?”
She shook her head emphatically. “No, General. He wasn’t drunk. I can tell you that much for certain.”
Ursov seemed relieved for a moment, then glanced up, wearing a suspicious look. “Then what else are you hiding from us?”
CHAPTER 26
Craig rushed back to his hotel room, intending to stop for only a few minutes before heading out to the Test Site. After picking up some papers in preparation for a long day, he would get to NTS in an hour or so, and stay there all night if he had to. He could get all the sleep he wanted after he had solved the murder.
Already his temples pounded and his skull ached because he had crammed it so full of numbers and forms, reports, and minor memos from the previous day. And with the discovery of Jorgenson’s body last night, he felt the tension tightening around him like a vice.
Tomorrow was October 24.
Craig popped in the plastic key and pushed his door open. His room smelled strongly of months-deep layers of cigarette smoke that no amount of air freshener would obliterate.
On the red carpeting he saw a scrap of paper, a white note shoved through the crack under the door. He snatched it up, wondering who wanted him now. Maybe June Atwood had left a message pulling him from the Russian murder investigation after all and sending him off chasing casino fraud or some other equally exciting case.
The note was torn from one of the message pads found throughout the casino, written in thin lines either from a mechanical pencil or an extremely sharp point, in careful block letters.
AMTRAK MESA ZEPHYR
∑ CROSSES COLORADO RIVER BRIDGE NEAR LAUGHLIN NV
AT 9:56 A.M.
∑ EAGLE’S CLAW WILL BLOW UP BRIDGE.
∑ SAVE THOSE PEOPLE!
Craig stared at the paper to convince himself the words said exactly what he thought they did. He wasn’t even on the militia case any more — yet someone had known to give him the note, known how to find his hotel room.
Heart pounding, Craig carefully set the scrap of paper on the courtesy table, hoping against hope that it might retain residual fingerprints. Then he looked at his watch, seeing how little time remained before 9:56. He raced for the phone in his room.
Ducking down, holding his sunglasses in place, Craig leaped out of the government car and ran across the airport tarmac. His tie flopped back over his shoulder, his chestnut hair ruffled in the wind. Overhead, a 747 took off from McCarran Field, thundering as it lumbered up from the runway.
Not far away, the FBI helicopter’s rotors spun faster as the pilot completed his pre-flight checklist. Jackson sat in the cockpit, already in position. Over the chattering drone of the helicopter blades, he gestured for Craig to hurry.
“Come on, Ben,” Craig shouted to Goldfarb, and the smaller dark-haired man sprinted beside him, his dress shoes slapping the pavement. Craig scrambled in the back of the helicopter and extended a hand to help Goldfarb up. “Let’s move it!” Craig said.
The pilot adjusted his headphones, then requested clearance over the radio. Within seconds, he pulled back on the stick and raised the chopper, fighting thermal updrafts as he headed low and to the south.
“Thanks for getting out here so fast,” Craig said, raising his voice so the pilot could hear him. “We couldn’t possibly make it in time by car.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” the pilot said. “What’s the emergency?”
“Militia threatening to blow up the railroad bridge near Laughlin.”
The pilot shook his head. “Again? What is it with these bozos? What are they trying to prove?”
Craig turned to Jackson, who had finished buckling himself in. “Guess you’ll have to follow up that lead at Dennisons later. Did you contact Amtrak HQ?” he said. “Pass along the warning?”
“I got bounced up the telephone chain pretty fast,” Jackson said. “I spoke to a manager senior enough to halt the train, and he said they’d radio the train operator.”
“But did they get through to the engineer?”
“Not while I was on the phone. They thought the train had just left Silverpan, the last stop before crossing the Colorado river, but they were going to keep trying. Sounded like they were having some problem with the radio.”
“Terrific,” Craig said.
Goldfarb spoke up. “The Mesa Zephyr is perennially late, so we might have some leeway.”
Craig fidgeted as he looked out the curved Plexiglas window of the helicopter. Beyond the city limits the marks of civilization vanished quickly, leaving only arrow-straight roads across the desert like ancient Inca tracks. “I don’t care if the train is an hour late, we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t cross that bridge.” He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to go.
“It’s going to be tight,” the pilot said. “But we’ve got a tailwind and smooth flying. I won’t slow down for any stoplights.”
Bleak desert scenery streaked below them, banded with color, wrinkled and furrowed into petrified rivulets like the refuse from some insane potter’s kiln. But Craig looked at his watch more than the scenery.
Jackson touched his headset, frowning grimly. He sent an acknowledgment into the microphone, then turned to Craig. “Still no word from the train. The engineer’s radio is out of order somehow, though it was working just fine before their last stop.”
“More sabotage?” Goldfarb asked. “These guys are pretty thorough.”
“How much farther?” Craig said, staring at his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes if that thing is set to blow at 9:56.”
“We’re making good time and following the river,” the pilot said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find a railroad track across this desert.”
Laughlin, a gambling town by the river, was situated at the bottom-most knifepoint of the state of Nevada, nestled against the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Amtrak’s Mesa Zephyr was an express train that traveled from Albuquerque to Los Angeles, departing twice daily, carrying a load of passengers and crossing a bridge in a remote desert area north of Laughlin.
As Craig scanned the landscape, he realized that the Colorado River bridge made an excellent target, isolated enough that the Eagle’s Claw could set up their explosives in private, and the regular schedule of the train would allow them to stage a disaster that would make the world news.
Jackson squinted ahead out the front. “There it is — see the silver line?” he announced, pointing.
Craig saw only the glare from the sun on his sensitive eyes. He snugged the sunglasses up closer, blinking, trying to focus. As the sun glinted across the desert, he did make out gleaming parallel tracks. The river flowed below, blue, green, with muddy brown edges against the rocky canyons.
He glanced at his watch again. Fifteen minutes. “Come on, come on,” he said.
Goldfarb peered out the side window using his pair of pocket binoculars. His face looked ruddy and raw from his exposure to the previous day’s roaring fire. “Let’s hope the train isn’t on time,” he said.
“Just our luck that they’ll be right on the money today.” Craig wiped sweat from his forehead and drummed his fingertips on the seat beside him. The second hand on his watch swept around with astonishing speed, minute after minute. “Even if it isn’t, the bridge might be blown right before the train comes in. The engineer might not be able to stop in time.”