Suddenly animated, Lovita’s voice crackled over Quinn’s headset. “Look at all those caribou off my wing.” She slowly shook her head as if it was hard to believe. “Must be thousands of them.”
Quinn lifted out of his seat so he could look. He turned to point them out to Beaudine who slumped in the backseat with her eyes closed. She’d taken off her headset and put in earplugs, which Quinn decided was just as well. She was looking a little green, the bumps likely making her sick to her stomach.
“Thank you for helping me out with my business,” Lovita said, turning down the volume on her music. She used a paper towel to pick up an errant piece of salmon strip from her seat and popped it in her mouth before cleaning up the oily spot. “The way I figure it, I’ll be able to get a loan on a second plane and hire another pilot in about three years.”
“You’re a good investment.” Quinn couldn’t help but smile at the energy that oozed from the tiny Native woman.
“So far as you know.” She grinned back at him, her head almost disappearing into the neck of the well-worn pink fleece. “I joke.” The traditional tattoos on her chin only added to the mischief of her grin. If anyone could grow a charter business in the remote corner of the world, it was Lovita.
“We’ll be coming up on the lodge in two minutes.” She leaned forward to consult the GPS, and then nodded off the nose of the aircraft. “I’ll overfly it so I can make sure what the wind is doing down there and you can have a look before we set down.”
Quinn nodded, turning to wave and get Beaudine’s attention. “We’re nearly there,” he said when she removed one earplug.
“Good,” she said. “Because I need to pee.”
“There’s another plane off the strip,” Lovita said.
Quinn pointed out the window to the Cessna parked at the end of the runway so Beaudine would see it.
“That’s Corey Morgan’s 206,” Lovita said, blushing. “He’s kinda got a crush on me. Keeps tellin’ me we should get together and raise lots of bush-pilot babies.”
“I’ll have to have a talk with the boy,” Quinn said, feeling a rush of paternal jealousy.
“That’s Adam Henderson going inside now,” Lovita said. “He’s the owner. Always feeds me breakfast when I bring clients out here. I like him.”
Quinn was quiet now as he studied the buildings around the lodge and started building a map in his mind. It was fine to eat salmon strips and dream about future business plans while they were flying in, but now he needed to focus on Dr. Volodin and the dangers surrounding him. Odds were that the men who’d come after him were FSB, making certain he didn’t intend to defect. A defection could make for a sticky situation if Quinn got in their way.
Things appeared to be peaceful — but questioning the way things appeared kept Quinn alive when he should have been otherwise.
“Agent Beaudine,” he said. “You carry my aunt’s long gun but keep it out of sight.”
Beaudine canted her head and glared. “Let’s remember one thing, okay. I’ve heard about your tactics. You’re working for me out here, not the other way around. We’re not going in with guns blazing.”
Lovita shot Quinn a protective look, and for a moment, he thought she might climb over her seat and claw out the agent’s eyes.
“Suit yourself,” Quinn said. “My aunt’s rifle is there if you want to use it. But good tactics are good tactics, no matter who’s in charge — and out here, we are our own cavalry. No one is going to show up and rescue us.”
Agent Beaudine snatched up the rifle case and slung in over her shoulder.
Quinn turned back to Lovita. “Would you mind staying with the plane until we check things out. If you hear shooting, take off and try to get a call out on the radio to the troopers.”
Quinn knew the chances of getting a call out over the radio from this far out were slim to none. He also knew Lovita was so devoted that she would never leave him behind unless she had a mission — but telling her to made him feel better.
Two minutes later Lovita brought the Cherokee to a stop at the end of the gravel runway, far enough behind the Cessna that either plane could make an easy getaway without turning around. She watched as Quinn and the whiny FBI agent made their way to the front porch. The agent grudgingly carried the rifle in a flat case over her back, out of sight. Lovita could tell there was something bugging the woman, something heavy. Whatever it was, that was just too bad, because Lovita’s first allegiance was to Quinn. If the grouchy agent popped off again at Quinn when they were in the air, Lovita resolved to fly loops until she puked her guts out.
Standing by her airplane, a good fifty yards away from the porch, Lovita tried to hear what Quinn was saying but the drizzling patter of a steady rain made it impossible. She didn’t really care. She trusted he would do what he had to do and then come back to the plane when he was ready. She thought Corey Morgan might come out to see how she was doing, but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Adam Henderson came back to the door. He smiled at Quinn and waved, so Lovita turned her attention to the weather. She didn’t mind flying in the rain, but the clouds to the north were growing darker by the minute. She intended to be an old pilot, not a bold pilot, and if Quinn didn’t finish with his business before the front rolled in, they were all going to stay the night at the lodge.
With little else to do but wait and watch the clouds, Lovita decided to do what pilots did and try to check the forecast. She’d just reached the door of the airplane when she heard a crunch in the gravel behind her. Smiling at the thought of a chat with her friend and fellow bush pilot, she turned, expecting to find Corey Morgan standing behind her. There was no one there.
A wet wind rustled the dark boughs of the spruce trees along the runway. The few golden leaves that clung to white birch fluttered and hissed, sending a chill up Lovita’s legs. A flash of movement caught her attention, and she peered into the tree line. From the time she was a toddler, her grandmother and aunties had told her stories about the enukin, small, gnome-like beings that dressed in caribou skin and lived in little houses beneath the mountains. Sometimes enukin helped stranded hunters, but they were impish in nature so they could just as easily bring misfortune.
The wind picked up again, shaking the airplane and whipping the treetops. Her back to the Cherokee and peering hard into the darkness of the forest, she caught a flit of movement — but missed the crunch of footsteps in the gravel behind her. She’d never seen one of the little people, but her granny had, and whatever it was out in the woods, it was definitely the right size to be an enukin…
Gravel crunched again, somewhere near. She cocked her head to one side, straining to figure out where the noise came from amid the swirling, moaning wind. She heard it again, coming from directly beneath the airplane. A half breath later something grabbed her by both ankles, jerking her feet out from under her. She slammed face first into the gravel. It was on top of her in an instant, pounding her face with big, hamlike fists — much too large to be an enukin.
Chapter 21
Bowen made a quick call, then asked Thibodaux to drive directly from Petyr Volodin’s apartment to the Brooklyn office of the U.S. Marshals Service. The supervisory deputy happened to be one of his academy mates, and let them in with a promise to reset the alarms before they left.