I only hoped I would be more successful saving Kayla than I’d been when I tried to save Bryan Ellory.
56
On the computer screen in front of her, Solstice monitored the progress of three of her mercenaries.
Forty minutes ago Tempest, Eclipse, and Typhoon had skied toward the east entrance to the national forest, where they were now preparing to take down the telephone lines that led into the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, Cane and his two Eco-Tech hard-liners were reviewing the speech he was going to record after the team had taken over the station. Seated at a table beside them, Gale and Equator were online, keeping tabs on the JWICS chatter through Terry’s back doors. Nothing so far on subs or the ELF station. Cirrus was analyzing the base schematics, calculating the most effective placement for the TATP ordnance.
Solstice had thought the team members might be troubled about Clifton White’s or Tsunami’s demise, but everyone seemed to accept that the mission took precedence over any personal attachments. In fact, Solstice had a feeling that seeing her decisive response to incompetence and insubordination had served a solidifying effect on their loyalty.
Or maybe it was all about the money to them after all. The best and most reliable motivator on earth-a bigger bottom line.
The three operatives in the forest all wore cameras attached to their headsets, and now, through the video signal relayed to her computer, Solstice saw that Tempest was ascending a telephone pole.
A few residential customers would be affected by the downed telephone lines, and she was confident that soon enough the scattered users would contact the phone company on their cell phones, and the disruption in service would be reasonably blamed on the storm.
The staff at the ELF base would no doubt use their satellite uplink to get an update on the disruption in landline service and have no immediate cause for concern.
With the roads as bad as they were, no phone companies would be able to send crews out until tomorrow at the earliest. And by then it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Solstice felt her pocket, fondled the passport she was carrying for Ariose Heaton, another of her identities. Waiting out the storm wouldn’t be difficult. Flying out of the regional airport in Rhinelander, an airport without facial recognition software, would be no trouble. And then, in two days, she would be reunited with Terry in Mali, a country without extradition treaties with the US, and they would have enough money to hide away for the rest of their lives.
Unless, of course, they decided to engage in a little mischief now and then along the way.
That thought brought a smile.
“How long?” she asked into her mic.
“We’ve run into a few issues,” Eclipse replied. “Nothing serious. We should be done by three.”
Perfect.
“All right. We’ll meet you at the maintenance building at 3:30.”
Tessa wasn’t exactly into hanging out with Sean and Amber, but she’d never met her stepaunt before, and even though the circumstances were sort of awkward, she seemed nice enough and Tessa tried to concentrate on being here, talking with her, but she was still upset about her conversation with Patrick, and that was sort of swallowing up her attention.
She wasn’t mad at him, more shaken by hearing he’d almost drowned. More this weird kind of loneliness and longing to connect. She even found herself wanting to tell him about the shrink, about how terrible she still felt about killing the man last summer, about the prescription for the sleeping pills-just lay everything out in the open, let Patrick listen, offer whatever help he could, be the dad he obviously wanted to be.
Later, when he gets back.
Now, she was in Amber’s room-the one she would’ve had if she’d made it to the motel last night. Sean sat somewhat obtrusively in the corner and Amber was trying a little too hard to negotiate a conversation between the three of them, but with Sean being sorta quiet and Tessa being so distracted, it wasn’t going too well, and finally Amber suggested a bit too brightly that they see if there was anything on TV.
“Okay,” Tessa said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
Amber clicked on the remote, and their discussion, which had never really gotten off the ground in the first place, ended. A sports wrap-up show came on, and even though, as far as Tessa could tell, none of them really had any interest in it, they all sat quietly and stared at the screen.
I arrived at the hospital and parked the snowmobile beside the main entrance. Shed the helmet. Set it on the seat.
Seven minutes until my meeting with Alexei Chekov.
The road in front of the hospital had been plowed, and I figured that transportation to the only medical care facility for miles had to be one of the county’s top priorities. Maybe that’s why Alexei wanted to meet here-he knew it’d be the one place in the region that would have clear roads in front of it, guaranteed access.
It seemed like a good reason to me, one he would have thought of.
Before going inside I wanted as much information about Chekov as I could get, and as far as I knew, there was only one person alive in the area besides me who’d actually spoken with him: State Trooper Reggie Wayland, the man whose wrist bones Alexei had shattered yesterday afternoon.
I figured he’d be in the hospital himself, and though I could ask for him at the front desk, a dozen cars were parked in the windswept parking lot, so instead of walking in yet, I phoned the front desk and took the opportunity to walk the lot, memorizing the plates.
Surprisingly, the receptionist told me that Wayland had already checked out. When I called his home, his wife answered, and when I explained who I was, she told me that he still couldn’t grip anything but that, yes, yes of course, she would hold the phone for him.
“Talk me through what happened,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
Quickly and succinctly, Wayland detailed how Alexei had attacked him, even described the weapon he’d used. Wayland had a sharp memory, and I was glad.
We hung up and I tapped at my phone, going online to the Federal Digital Database. I entered the plate numbers for each of the cars in the parking lot, and seconds later found out that none of them were registered to Kayla Tatum.
Chekov might have switched vehicles again.
I returned to the hospital’s entrance.
It seemed obvious that Alexei had abducted Kayla, but as I’ve learned in the past, things are not always what they appear to be. Once again I was reminded of what my mentor, Dr. Calvin Werjonic, used to say: “Truth often hides in the crevices of the evident.” It was possible that Kayla wasn’t Alexei’s captive but his partner. He might not have killed the Pickrons, but I didn’t want to discount-as unlikely as it was-the possibility that she might have.
As the automatic doors whooshed open in front of me, sucking in a double curl of twirling snow, I pulled up Kayla’s DMV photo on Lien-hua’s cell. A middle-aged receptionist sitting at a small booth in the lobby looked over the top of her glasses at me as I entered.
“Some weather we’re havin’ out there,” she said with a strong Wisconsin accent.
“Yes. I’m looking for-”
“D’you drive?”
“Snowmobile.” I held up my credentials. “Listen, I’m looking for the lower level.”
She gave the ID only a cursory look. Her eyes jumped past me to the glass doors. “I hear the roads are gettin’ worse.”
“Please, the lower level?”
Finally, she gestured vaguely to her left. “Elevators are over there. By the bathrooms.”
Elevators announce your arrival, and people can be ready for you when the doors slide open, but if you use the stairs, you retain, at least for a few extra seconds, the element of surprise.
“I’m looking for the stairwell.”