On the other hand, Farris had just about completed his work on the potassium. The pile of chloride outside was almost gone. And the lab now held eighteen steel buckets filled with pure potassium ingots submerged in mineral oil.
"When do you think we can wrap this up, Farris?" John asked.
"I can finish the rest of it tonight or tomorrow," he said, sounding tired.
"How much more product do you expect to yield?"
Farris, looked at the apparatus and went outside to check the chloride pile. When he returned, he said, "Maybe one more container… maybe."
"Okay. I’d like you to finish up the pile; but we need to be ready to move this stuff by the weekend."
"I will complete it."
CHAPTER 37
It had been three months since the professor’s death. It was a Friday afternoon in early August. Sunny. Eighty degrees Fahrenheit. I had been at the office since noon. I needed a break. I thought everyone else could use a break, too. So I closed the office and sent everyone home at 1:00. An extra half-day of vacation. What a guy!
As I shut off the lights and closed the door, I heard Frank come out of his office into the darkened interior space.
"Karen? Karen?"
Time for an afternoon off, Frank. Life is short. Enjoy the day.
Before Frank could catch me leaving, I was in the Pilot and out of the parking lot. I dialed Beth on her cell.
"My boss gave me the afternoon off sweetums. Care to sip mint juleps on the patio with your best guy?"
"Sounds heavenly. I’ll be home in about an hour. I just need to check out some new jewelry designs at the Art Center."
I wasn’t sure an hour would do it. So when I arrived home, I immediately changed into shorts and T-shirt, grabbed a tall aluminum bottle of Budweiser, and moved to one of the green lounge chairs on the back patio. The icy beer slid smoothly down my throat, quenching more than just thirst. The bottle emptied quickly.
Gunner hadn’t yet been able to identify the information leak in our inner circle. That wasn’t surprising. It was likely that every cop in Red Wing knew about my hair-brained concerns. They had told their spouses about the nut attorney. They, in turn, had told their friends.
Gossip moves quickly around a small town. Both the nuke, and potassium, had probably been widely discussed — mostly in a casual, and likely humorous, context. I was sure Gunner was doing his best. I wouldn’t bug him for a progress report.
I reclined in the chair.
Taking a deep breath, I let my body sink into the lounge — muscles relaxed, jaw loose. I closed my eyes against the near-midday sun, consciously enjoying its warmth on my face.
The next thing I heard was Beth’s voice.
"You’re getting a bit fried, Babe."
I felt my forehead. Yup. Toasty.
Leaning my head forward, I squinted at her as she walked past me toward the house. "Gotta change. Be out in a minute."
"Beth, would you mind bringing the sunscreen and an aluminum Bud for me when you come out."
"No problem," I heard faintly from inside the house.
As I sat in the afternoon sun, awaiting my cabana service, I heard an airplane approaching. It sounded quite low. Leaning forward on the lounge chair, I searched the sky in the direction of the sound. A single engine Cessna barely cleared the hill behind our house, roared over my head and continued on into the valley.
Most planes don’t fly so low over our neighborhood. Jefferson Avenue is several miles from the airport, in a direction perpendicular to its runway(s). But once in a while some punk has to show off by buzzing the bluffs. It’s illegal, but hard to prove.
Beth joined me on the patio. A quick kiss, plus delivery of my sun screen and a second ice cold Bud. Life could not be better! Beth oriented her matching lounge chair for maximum sun, and lay back. She hadn’t fried herself earlier.
I applied the sun screen liberally, even though it was probably too late to do much good, and resumed my lounging position.
"Any good bargains today?" I enquired, my eyes closed once again.
"Didn’t buy anything. Saw some interesting designs at the Art Center though. There are some very inventive artists who live around here and sell their creations at the Center."
Another plane flew over. This one sounded different than the planes we usually hear in Red Wing. Again, I sat forward and searched the sky.
I could hear the plane clearly, but couldn’t seem to pick it out. Finally I spotted it. I had been looking much too low in the sky. It was a large, twin-propeller plane, at least ten thousand feet up.
I lay back into the lounge.
"Beth? Is there something going on around here with the planes? That’s a strange looking bird. And before you came out, some yahoo in a Cessna barely cleared the bluff."
"That air show is this weekend, Babe."
I sat bolt upright.
"What air show?"
"Wings of Thunder or something like that. There have been posters in all the store windows for months." Beth looked at me over the magazine she had been reading. "You don’t get out much, do you?"
"Not in the right places, apparently. Wasn’t it advertised in the paper?"
"Sure. They had a whole special section in last weekend’s edition."
I usually ignored the ‘special sections’ in the local paper. They ordinarily dealt with gardening, crafting, baking, or youth sports, none of which interested me. I wished I had seen this one though.
"Listen Beth. I’ve gotta make a call."
I went into the house and dialed the number for the Law Enforcement Center. "Chief Deputy Gunderson please. Tell him it’s Becker. And please tell him it’s important."
A moment later, he answered.
"Gunderson."
"Gunner, I think I need your help now."
"What can I do?"
CHAPTER 38
Among the aircraft that had flown to Red Wing for the show was a four-seater Cessna, fitted with pontoons instead of wheels. The aircraft had departed Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada Friday morning with a flight plan filed for a fishing trip to Lake Saskatoon. But its passengers weren’t fishermen. They were three of Al Qaeda’s most deadly operatives — members of the elite Special Forces of the Jihad.
The plane disappeared from Canadian radar just as it arrived over the lake. Since Lake Saskatoon was in a remote, heavily forested area, Canadian air control assumed the plane had made the planned water landing. It had no further interest in the craft.
Instead of landing on the lake, however, the Cessna had dropped very low over the trees and turned southeast, toward the American border. Skimming the treetops and hugging the rugged contours of southern Ontario, the plane soon crossed over the Rainy River and into the State of Minnesota, U.S.A.
When the Cessna carrying the Arab terrorists returned to radar height about 100 miles after entering the U.S. from Canadian airspace, there was no requirement of a flight plan or identification, so long as the plane stayed below 3,000 feet. American laws did not even require it to have a radio on board. Canadian/American air security was practically nonexistent — at least concerning small planes.
Only four-and-a-half hours after taking off from Thunder Bay, the small plane cleared the wooded bluffs of the Mississippi river valley, about ten miles southeast of Red Wing. Dropping below the bluff tops, the plane changed course, swinging to the northwest, following the river’s course upstream.
Less than ten minutes later, at about 1:30 Friday afternoon, the Canadian pontoon plane made a water landing on a back channel of the river. It didn’t take long to find an inaccessible and inconspicuous mooring spot on the edge of a mud lake about two miles downstream from Red Wing.