“Luckier than whoever was flying.”
“For sure,” McCauley said. “Look, we should call Jim Kaplan, the park director.”
“He’s already on the way,” the officer said.
“Is it okay if I stay then?”
“No. Return to your car and wait there.”
“And my ID?” McCauley held his hand out expecting his license to be returned.
“I’ll hold onto them until I speak with Mr. Kaplan. Under the circumstances…” She didn’t need to complete the sentence.
The researcher on the America desk in Room Ten was surfing her Internet news sources in the normal manner when a story popped up on the USA Today website. It was a simple alert, but it had enough key words that she flagged it for further review.
July 28, 5:18 AM MST: Billings, MDT
The Montana State Highway Patrol reports that an aircraft, possibly civilian, crashed into a mountain in eastern Montana early this morning near the city of Glendive. The exact crash site has not been determined, but police indicate it was away from populated areas, within Makoshika State Park, popularly known as Dinosaur Alley. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified. There is no information on the origin or destination of the flight or whether there are survivors.
The seminary graduate who had taken special courses in Italy marked it Category Five and passed it on to Simon Volker.
Jim Kaplan vouched for McCauley. But the officer still insisted on getting a complete statement, which took another thirty minutes.
“I guess it must have seemed a little coincidental to her,” Kaplan said as they prepared to say goodbye. “I wouldn’t worry.”
“Worry? I can tell you a lot about worry. I’m just happy none of us were here when that plane hit.”
“You were. And you sure dodged the bullet, buddy. What were you doing right up there anyway? You guys usually dig in the flats.”
“I decided to get off the beaten path. I thought we were onto something. I was wrong.”
“You made that decision just in time.”
Everyone had checked out as planned and assembled in the coffee shop, with the exception of Rich Tamburro. Jaffe reminded Dr. McCauley who joined them after gathering his things, that Tamburro had driven to the hospital to check on Anna.
The students were discussing the topic that was sweeping through Glendive this morning: the freak plane crash at Makoshika State Park.
McCauley described what he’d seen and how the area of the park was now closed off.
They were more than grateful that they’d left. They were also doubtful that it was an accident.
Lobel murmured to Cohen in a voice not meant to be completely quiet, “Looks like the government closed it down permanently.” No one could disagree. McCauley and Alpert certainly didn’t try. They’d been prepared and left at the right time.
McCauley felt there’d be inevitable follow-up questions from the NTSB. He hadn’t decided what he’d tell the federal investigators.
For his students, it had been a challenging summer. Now it was over, or so he hoped. They were finishing up their breakfasts when Rich Tamburro burst in.
“Anna’s gone!” he exclaimed.
“What?” The reaction came as a chorus rather than a single comment.
“I went to see her at the hospital. She discharged herself at six.”
“Well, maybe they needed to get her out,” Katrina explained.
“Without calling me?”
McCauley signaled for Tamburro to go outside.
“No text?”
“No doc. No text, no email, no call. And she hasn’t answered any either. Now you got me thinking she was in way over her head.”
Fifty-two
“How much do we have left?” Katrina asked softly.
The cab driver had certainly heard that before from airport-returning passengers. He waited for the response.
“We’re doing okay. Even after covering the airfares, we’ve still got almost…,” McCauley caught the driver’s interest in the view mirror, “…enough.” He whispered seventy-five hundred into her ear. “Plus, I might be able to get another ATM card from the bank, too,” he hoped more than believed.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
She instinctively looked over her shoulder to see if they were being followed. Not here. Not yet.
Minutes later they were in McCauley’s office. “Welcome to home away from home,” he said opening the door.
“Fit for a professor,” Katrina observed. She walked in. “Bigger than mine.” A few books caught her eye. Some she had, some she didn’t. There were fossils, all of which she could identify, a few awards and citations, and stacks of magazines.
She took a seat on a worn fabric couch under a window and paged through an old issue of Scientific American while Quinn listened to his phone messages. He largely ignored them, pressing the delete button, swearing every now and then, and writing nothing down.
“Uh-oh,” he said, “I half expected this.”
“What?” Katrina asked.
“An NTSB investigator.”
Alpert looked up from an article on gravitational waves detected in South Pole experiments. It supported the theory that the universe inflated rapidly — very rapidly — at one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang ten billion to twenty billion years ago. In that single moment, space expanded faster than the speed of light, doubling in size ninety times.
Katrina felt that things were moving at the same pace now.
“You going to call?”
“Not if we didn’t stop in my office yet. Which I don’t think we’ve done,” he said slyly. “Do you?”
She got what he was saying. “That’s only going to work for a while.”
“All we need is awhile.”
“This came up. Take a look,” Simon stated.
Kavanaugh bent over and read an itinerary on the computer screen. It chronicled a trail that led McCauley and Alpert from Glendive to New Haven. “How’d you get this?”
“An airline data base.”
“I didn’t think they gave out this sort of information.”
“They don’t,” Simon Volker declared smugly.
“So what are they up to?”
“I’d say they’re doing exactly what we are. Putting pieces together.”
“That’s not good,” Kavanaugh surmised.
“No, sir, it’s not.”
“Use whatever means you need to keep track of them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colin Kavanaugh excused himself for what was becoming his regularly scheduled meetings at tea time, followed by a walk in the park and a conversation with the grimmest of the grim reapers. It was time to really find out how things worked in the field.
Fifty-three
“Dammit! I don’t even know where to go,” McCauley admitted. They were heading west on the Connecticut Turnpike.
Katrina gave the situation some thought. “London. I say we go to London.”
“London?”
“Yes, and don’t tell me you didn’t think of Europe either. I saw you grab your passport.”
“Observant.”
“Just not blind.”
“Why London?”