Calvin and his crew cleared the gear off the side carriers. Abby directed the placement, stacking the equipment in order. Food, water and other supplies. Dive gear. Gas generator. Calvin moved the lockers containing his arsenal on his own, placing them in one of the three pop-up tents that had he and Hawkins had erected.
Within an hour, they had established a search and salvage operation at the edge of the lake.
Amir circled the submersible, much as he had the desert vehicle, asking incisive questions about its operation. Hawkins explained how the vehicle would be programmed to conduct a search of the slope in a series of parallel lines. Its television cameras would make a visual record of all prominent features and side-scan sonar would probe under the slope. Once the data were analyzed, the dive could get under way.
Amir watched as the AUV was lowered into the lake. It was attached to its docking station to get its instructions and after a few minutes, backed away on its own and submerged.
“Marvelous! What next?” Amir said.
“We wait for Fido to do its job. It will run into the night. We should have a clear picture of the slope by the morning.”
“I have to get back to my village,” Amir said, “I’ll return at dawn. Dr. Cait?”
“I think I’ll go with you. I need to clean up and change.”
Abby noticed the exhaustion in Cait’s face. She said, “If it’s okay with you, Matt, I’ll go with Cait and lend a hand.”
Amir ordered four of his men to remain with the troop carrier. Then he got into the touring car with his two passengers and drove off into the fading light. Dusk was falling and the surface of the lake had gone from glittering silver to pewter.
Hawkins heard the sound of his name. Calvin was stirring a pot on a camp stove and Hawkins’ nostrils almost quivered like a hound’s as his nose picked up a succulent fragrance.
Calvin’s famous New Orleans gumbo.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sutherland hit the wall in the wee hours of the morning. Her eyes felt as if they were on fire. The words marching across the computer screen were doing jumping jacks. She stretched out on the sofa and pulled a blanket over her body, intending to take a five minute break. The twittering of birds flocking to the window feeder woke her up. When she opened her eyes it was daytime.
She stretched her jaws in a mighty yawn, rose from the sofa and walked stiffly to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. The inn owner breezed in to prepare breakfast. While she stirred eggs for a vegetarian omelet, the inn-keeper said, “Most of the hummingbirds haven’t arrived yet, but there may be a few in the upper reaches of the canyon, if you feel like a climb.”
“Thanks. I might do that,” Sutherland said, only half listening.
She munched on a slice of buttered multi-grain toast and pondered the results of her computer search. She’d found bits of information that bolstered her original findings linking Arrowhead, Trask, Murphy and the Newport Group, through Captain McCormick. She had found no connections between Arrowhead and the other members of the Newport group.
She finished breakfast and helped clean up in the kitchen. The inn-keeper had an appointment in town and said she’d return in a few hours. Sutherland was alone in the inn again, staring at the beautiful sunny morning on the other side of the window. She tried to contact Hawkins on his satellite phone. No answer. Damn you, Matt! Didn’t he know she was numb with worry?
Maybe a walk would help. She gathered up her Canon digital camera, a compact pair of powerful binoculars, a sketch pad, pencils, bottled water and protein bars, and stuffed everything into a day-pack with her computer. She slung the pack onto her shoulders and stepped outside, eyes blinking in the bright sun.
She checked on her Harley, then went over and climbed the low fence into the nature preserve, unaware that unfriendly eyes followed her every move.
Tyler Lee Clayton was a crude, violent man, but he was not stupid.
When Tech had sent the picture of Sutherland on his smart phone, it had triggered memories of the assault on the young army recruit. He remembered planning the attack as if it were military operation. He had watched her leave the barracks every night at the same time for a cigarette. He had enlisted his drunken buddies to help him, knowing it would be her word against theirs that it was consensual. He knew that she would be reluctant to report the attack because she would have to admit going out without her weapon.
And he remembered the hummingbird tattoo on the pale skin of her right shoulder.
He had flashed back on the tattoo as he burned the hummingbird painting, but gave it no further thought until he had come across the promotional brochure in the lobby of the Sierra Vista motel where he and Vinnie had taken rooms for the night.
He plucked the brochure from the case and stared at the photograph of a ruby-throated hummingbird, under the headline, “Hummingbird capital of the world.” The text said that fourteen different species of the “flying jewels” could be found within the three-hundred acre nature preserve on the eastern flank of the Huachuca Mountains.
He handed the brochure to Vinnie. “I know where our little biker girl is hiding.”
Tartaglia looked at the folder with the map showing that the preserve was around five miles from the motel. He wrinkled his brow.
“What makes you think she’s hiding here?” he said.
Clayton put his arm around his friend’s shoulder and brought his mouth to Vinnie’s ear.
“A little bird told me.”
Sutherland hiked along a shaded-trail and crossed a wooden bridge over Ramsey Creek, eventually breaking out of the woods after about a half a mile. She walked along the grassy floor of the canyon at the base of the mountain, past the ruined wooden buildings that harkened back to Ramsey’s days as a mining camp. The mountain was a vertical stone wall, hundreds of feet high that looked as if it had been sheared by a gigantic meat cleaver. The sky was a crystalline, Delft blue.
With every breath of fresh air she pulled into her lungs she seemed to inhale the limitless energy from her wild natural surroundings. Each exhalation purged her mind and body of the memory of her burning house and blew away the dark mists that had been gathering in her brain.
The trail angled up, gradually at first, eventually going back and forth in a series of narrow, hair-pin switchbacks as the slope steepened. Log stairs helped her navigate the steeper parts. She was overweight, not in the best of physical condition, and made good use of the benches built along the trail.
A third of the way up the mountain she was startled by a loud crashing in the woods. She caught a glimpse of brownish gray and realized she had spooked a mule deer. The animal made several bounds down the mountain then stopped and froze in place. Sutherland took a few steps off the trail, raised the camera to her cheek and squinted through the viewfinder. She shot a picture of the doe and was narrowing the focus to its head when her eye caught movement beyond the animal’s ear, through a break in the trees.
A speck was moving along the floor of the valley.
She got out her field-glasses and focused on a man dressed in black. He stopped to remove his cap and wipe his face with a sleeve, which is when she saw the bright red hair. She examined his face through the lenses. She couldn’t see his teeth but she knew they were gapped. There was no doubt. Clayton.
More men were moving single file behind Clayton.
It began to come together. Arrowhead employed former military people. Clayton could not have found a respectable job, especially after she had altered his records, so he went to work for Arrowhead. And now he was after her again.