“Oh, you are going to be such a delight to conquer, Irene.”
I didn’t answer.
He didn’t say anything, and suddenly I realized he was listening to something. There was, I thought, a faint, rhythmic rumbling in the distance. A helicopter?
We waited, each with a different sense of anticipation. I knew he had other weapons. Would he shoot whoever landed in the meadow? Would they see the destruction, be cautious about approaching? Could I warn them not to land less than a SWAT team here?
But the sound stayed distant, then stopped altogether.
He smiled.
Be angry, I told myself. But it was so hard to find anger, buried so far beneath my fear.
“You suggested a hunt for the dog. You’re something of a bitch yourself, you know. Did you have sex with the dog last night? Is that why you tried to save his life?”
He treated me to a long series of not very inventive questions about Bingle’s sexual prowess. I said nothing to him, but the fear receded a little, replaced by disgust.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. You’re going to be the hunted, and I’m going to track you. No matter how fast you run, or how far you go, I’ll find you. I have a marvelous sense of smell, you know.”
He reached into one of his pockets, smiling as he removed something white from them.
My underwear.
He took a deep breath, and his expression was that of a man intoxicated by a heady perfume.
“Look!” he said, pointing to his crotch. “You’ve given me a hard-on.”
Without dropping my eyes, I said, “Even Bingle can’t find something that small.”
He slapped me. It made my lip bleed. He laughed and pressed the crotch of my underwear to it.
“There!” he said, holding it to his nose again. “Now it will be even easier to find you. Get to your feet.”
I stood up.
“Start running, Irene. I’ll give you a head start. But just remember, no matter how far you go, no matter how safe you feel you are, no matter how well you believe you are hidden or protected — I will find you. I want you to understand what you’ve only begun to learn — I’m your master. You should be pleased — you will learn to be pleased. I will touch you as no one has ever touched you before.”
He tucked the panties back into his pocket and patted it. “I have your scent now. I’m a very quiet hunter, Irene. Do you think you can evade me? I’ll come upon you when you least expect it.”
He stood. “Come along, let’s get started.”
I didn’t move.
“Stand up!”
I stood.
“Let me make something clear,” he said in exasperated tones. “I will either begin with you now, and in a way that will make you think those pictures of Julia Sayre were taken at a picnic, or you will start running on the count of three. Oh — and one other thing — remember this name: Nina Poolman. Someone will want to know it someday. Now . . . one . . .”
If he said three, I didn’t hear it. I was already running through the woods.
26
FRIDAY, NOON, MAY 19
A Private Heliport Near Bakersfield
Frank knew that the helicopter belonged to Jack, and its care and custody were Dalton’s, but he had pictured a small commuter craft, and was shocked to discover that the “company helicopter” was a giant Sikorsky S-58T.
“What does Fremont Enterprises do with a helicopter this size?” he asked Jack.
“It’s a shit hauler,” Stinger said, then laughed at Frank’s dismay.
“We have a contract with the Forest Service to haul waste from remote locations,” Jack said, cuffing Stinger.
“Six tons a year off Mount Whitney alone,” Stinger said with pride.
“We use the helicopter for other purposes, too,” Jack went on. “We plant fish — we have a government contract to deliver live fish from hatcheries to mountain lakes. We transport fire crews. We’ve helped with flood evacuations. We’ve done lifting at construction sites, carried cargo loads. And Stinger gets involved in search and rescue from time to time.”
Travis eagerly began asking questions, and Stinger didn’t have to be coaxed into boasting about the Sikorsky. It was fifteen feet high, he told them, and — not counting its rotor blades — about forty-five feet long. It had been fitted with turbine engines and auxiliary fuel tanks. It could hold eighteen passengers, but Stinger had altered the interior so that now — in addition to a crew of two in the cockpit — the cargo area had seats for ten passengers and carried two stretchers.
Frank tried not to think about needing stretchers.
Stinger assigned seats. Travis and Jack climbed into the cargo area with the two dogs, who were safely strapped in special harnesses.
Stinger asked Frank to ride with him in the cockpit, high above the cargo area. “You’ll be able to recognize these people we’re looking for,” he explained.
Frank crawled up the outside of the tall craft using only handholds and toeholds, then struggled to fit his 6'4" frame in through the cockpit window, feet-first. He supposed this standard way of entering the cockpit might come more easily with practice, but his first try was damned awkward — and Stinger enjoyed ribbing him about it.
With effort, Frank held on to his temper. He told himself that he should have tried to get a full-night’s sleep last night, as the others had. Even as the others had headed off to bed, he’d known he’d need the rest, should have taken the room Stinger offered. But he had stayed up, staring at maps, pacing, and checking weather reports on the Internet using Stinger’s computer.
Sometime near dawn, exhaustion must have finally outrun his worries, because he awoke with a start from a vivid nightmare of hearing Irene shouting for help, while he ran, calling to her, unable to find her. But when Stinger roused him by gently shaking his shoulder, Frank realized that all the shouting had been his own — in his fitful sleep. He had dozed off facedown on the map-covered table. Chagrined, he had waited for one of Stinger’s typical smart-ass comments, but all the other man had said was, “Coffee’s ready.”
Stinger gave him a miked headset, then turned and leaned over to hand two other sets down a ladder, to Jack and Travis. The cargo area could not be seen from Frank’s seat. Stinger went through a series of take-off procedures with Pappy, the elderly man who served as his ground crew, then said, “Everybody hear me okay?”
There was a chorus of replies.
“Okay then, just one question.”
“Yes?” Jack asked.
“Everybody made out a will?”
“Yes,” Travis answered, which allowed Jack a laugh on Stinger.
“That’s the copilot’s seat,” Stinger told Frank. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to touch the sticks or the pedals — or anything else, for that matter.”
“One person can fly this thing?”
“You’d better hope so,” Stinger said.
“Stinger—” Jack’s exasperated voice came over the headphones.
“It’s okay,” Frank said. “He’s right, it was a dumb question.”
“Naw,” Stinger said. He hit some switches and there was a “whump” and then the whine of the turbines began to build. Frank saw a little puff of smoke from the exhaust. “Don’t let that worry you,” Stinger said, working the controls. The blades of the rotors swoop-swoop-swooped, faster and faster — within twenty seconds, both the main and tail rotors were spinning at a steady speed.
Everything around them was a roar.
Travis’s voice came over the headphones. “The dogs are scared.”
“They’re always like that at first,” Frank heard Jack say. “They’ll settle down in a minute.”
“You mean my dogs have ridden in this thing before?” Frank asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Stinger laughed, managing pedals and sticks all at once.
They lifted off, and Frank was caught up for a time in simply taking in the sensation of flight, in the way that only a helicopter could provide it — close enough to the earth to observe it in detail, high enough to feel free of it.