Cork clutched a fistful of Parmer’s shirt in one hand and used his other to grasp at the branches of the fallen pine. His hand found a hold, but the rage of water continued to pull on him. The branch served as a pivot, however, and the force of the current swung him around. He entered an eddy behind the breakwater formed by both the pine and the body of the Navigator, where the power of the river was significantly weakened. Cork’s feet found bottom. He steadied himself and hoisted Parmer onto the trunk of the fallen pine. He climbed up beside his companion and looked back at the bridge. A vehicle stood parked at the shattered guardrail. The beam of a flashlight shot along the course of the river and found Cork and Parmer. It held on them a long moment.
“Hey, you all right down there?”
“Yeah.”
“Hold tight, buddy. I got the state patrol on my cell. They’re on their way.”
Cork called Liz Burns from the emergency room of St. Mary’s Hospital in Superior, Wisconsin, where the EMTs had brought him and Parmer.
“Hugh insisted he was fine,” Cork said into the pay phone. “The EMTs and the officers were just as insistent that we both get checked out.”
“You’re okay?” Burns said. “Both of you?”
“Not even any broken bones. We were lucky. But we could use a lift.”
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Uh, Liz, we could also use some dry clothes. Do you have anything?”
“I’ll find something.”
She brought Becca Bodine with her, and she brought sweat suits. One set was turquoise, the other pink. Cork and Parmer did rock, paper, scissors. Cork won. Parmer wore pink. The sweat suits, though roomy for Burns, didn’t fit either man well, and Cork was glad when they left the hospital and the odd stares behind.
They drove back to Burns’s place on Park Point, and when they were all inside, Burns said, “Let me throw those wet clothes in the dryer.”
Becca said, “And I could make coffee.”
“Great, I’d take a cup,” Parmer said.
“Then we need to talk,” Burns said.
Cork ached all over. They’d given him Tylenol 3 at the ER, but that only dulled the pain. Parmer was moving gingerly, too.
“No business for old men, Hugh,” Cork said and offered a thin smile.
A few minutes later, they sat in the living room, sipping coffee from mugs. The rain had subsided, but Cork could still hear the angry crash of waves beyond the dunes. It was a sound much more pleasant to his ears than the mad rush of water he’d encountered in the swollen Amnicon River.
Burns said, “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“It was certainly supposed to look that way,” Cork replied.
“What did you tell the police?”
“A tire blew and I lost control. When they haul the Navigator out of the river, we’ll see if we can tell what really happened. My guess is an explosive charge detonated by a signal sent from the car that passed us.”
“You told me and Becca yesterday that something like this might happen,” Burns said.
“Do we want to talk about this here?” Becca asked. She swept her hand across the room, reminding them that the place could be bugged.
“Hell, I don’t care if they’re listening,” Cork said. “My guess is that they already know what we found in Rice Lake. That’s why they tried to take us out.”
Burns bent forward. “What did you find at Rice Lake?”
Cork explained about the record of the Geotech West flight and the thread they’d followed to Longmont Venture Partners, Fortrell, Inc., Realm-McCrae, and the casino development in Wyoming.
Parmer said, “Before I lost my cell phone in the river, I managed to make some calls to people I know who are tracking down the principal players in Fortrell, Inc.”
“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with why they killed my husband,” Becca said.
Cork put his mug on the coffee table and leaned toward her. “Becca, I’m almost certain it was about something else and Sandy was just one of the people who had to be eliminated for these bastards to get whatever it was they wanted.”
“Christ,” Burns said. “Collateral damage.”
Becca cupped her hands around her mug as if she was cold. “What happened to the plane?”
“I suppose it could still have simply crashed in the storm,” Burns said.
Cork shook his head. “I don’t think so. They went to a lot of trouble to get their man at the controls. I think they never had any intention of that plane arriving in Seattle. I think they went somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
The sound of the waves outside came through the windows with a shush, like a mother quieting a child.
“Does that mean,” Becca said, so softly it was barely audible and so near to hope it was heartbreaking, “that they might not be dead?”
Cork glanced at Parmer, who looked tired beyond measure. “Becca,” he began carefully, “we found something at the hangar today. It was a bunch of soiled rags stuffed in a barrel. I believe they’d been used to clean up a lot of blood. I’m telling you this so that you know everything we know. What exactly those rags mean, I can’t say. But if I had to guess, it would be that Sandy was taken out of the picture in his hangar before his King Air ever left the ground. I think there was a videotape of the attack and Stilwell found it. That’s why he was killed. This is all speculation, but it’s what I think.”
Becca’s face was hard and her dark eyes sharp. “Once I knew it wasn’t him on the tape, I knew in my heart he was dead.”
Burns asked, “What about the others on the plane?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t imagine why the people we’re dealing with would have kept them alive.”
“We still come back to the question of what happened to them and to the plane,” Parmer pointed out.
Cork said, “After the plane went missing, an old Arapaho named Will Pope claimed he’d had a vision. He said he saw an eagle glide to earth and land in a box, where it was covered by a white blanket. It’s possible the vision was about the plane. We checked what seemed to be the most logical location based on the information he gave us, and we found nothing. I’m wondering if we interpreted his vision correctly.”
“What do you mean?” Burns said.
“I’m not sure. But maybe if I talk to the right people, I might have a better idea.”
“Where do you find these people?”
Cork picked up his mug and blew away the steam before he sipped. “Mostly in Wyoming.”
Becca was staying in one of the guest rooms. Cork insisted that Hugh Parmer take the other. Burns brought out a set of sheets, a blanket, and a pillow, and made up a bed for Cork on the sofa. After the others had gone to their rooms, she spent some time in the bathroom, then came out to where Cork stood at one of the big windows that faced the lake. He’d turned out the lamp. The storm had long ago passed, and the moon had risen out of Superior, a gibbous moon bright enough to turn the sand dunes white as snow. The moonlight filled the living room with a luminous glow. Burns came and stood beside him. He could smell the good, clean fragrance of the soap she’d used to wash her face for the night. Her hair was long and brushed full and fell elegantly over her white robe. She reached into the pocket of her robe and brought out her final offering of the night.
Cork looked at the Guardian in her hand. It wasn’t at all a large weapon, and it was attractive in a way, with a beautiful wood-grain grip and a barrel that reflected a ghostly silver light. He shook his head. “No thanks.”
“If they’ve been listening, they might come for us all,” she said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Because when I was at the ER, I called a bunch of people and told them my suspicions, and if anything were to happen here, there would be at least a dozen good folks keeping the fire of this investigation alive. Whoever’s behind this, the one thing they don’t want is to bring a lot of attention and heat down on themselves. They blew one opportunity tonight. I think the next one will be carefully thought out and far from here.”