It had been his idea to do the driving, a suggestion that had been intended to leave O’Halloran free to navigate once they reached Canyon City and could start their search for the location of Shriver’s ranch.
So far, instead of reading the map, the American had been busy going through the notes he’d brought with him, only occasionally glancing up to discover how much further they had to go.
Ahead of them, the Winnebago had an indicator flashing and was slowing for the intersection with the main east-west highway. The vehicle turned right, allowing Coburn to make up time until they encountered more traffic on the outskirts of the John Day township where a large, colourfully painted billboard welcomed visitors to The Adventure Capital of Eastern Oregon: Elevation above sea level 3120 feet: Population 1891.
‘Big place,’ Coburn said.
‘It is for around these parts.’ O’Halloran found the map and had a look. ‘Canyon City’s less than a mile from here,’ he said, ‘so we’re nearly there.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we’d better hope we come across Shriver’s Long Creek ranch. According to the information I’ve got here, Canyon City isn’t even a third the size of John Day, so it might not be too smart to start asking for directions in a little place where everyone is going to know everyone else.’
If Coburn had thought John Day was on the small side, Canyon City was so tiny he was surprised it had a name at all.
Nestled between the rock walls of a dry canyon, it was cute rather than pretty, and like John Day, thronged with tourists, most of whom looked as though they were here for the hunting or fishing, or to experience the white-water rafting trips that were advertised on shop-fronts along the main street.
‘Some city,’ Coburn said. ‘Blink and you’d miss it.’
‘You wouldn’t have done once.’ O’Halloran smiled. ‘Back in the 1860s, if you wanted some action, this is where you’d come to get it. At one time, over ten thousand prospectors were living here — all of them panning the river for gold. In fifty years they pulled out nearly a billion dollars worth of the stuff.’
It was hard to imagine that many people in such an unlikely place, Coburn thought, and harder still to believe his hunt for Yegorov had brought him here in a search, not for gold, but for a way to run down an organization that was manipulating the hearts and minds of Americans by killing and maiming men, women and children in countries half a world away.
He remained silent while they drove through the canyon, waiting until he saw a lay-by before he suggested they stop to discuss their strategy and have a fresh look at the satellite photograph that O’Halloran had brought.
Parking the car in the shade of some lodgepole pines, Coburn got out to stretch his legs. He’d first seen the photo last night when O’Halloran had showed it to him at the motel. At the time, without any first-hand knowledge of what the countryside was going to be like, Coburn had decided that the picture was unlikely to help them much. Now though, having driven through the canyon and seen how rugged the surrounding terrain could be, he’d changed his opinion, realizing that without the photo they’d have been at a serious disadvantage.
Until today, they had deliberately made no plan, believing that, since the Long Creek ranch was the headquarters of the Free America League, it would be easier to come up with a course of action once they’d been able to inspect the place.
The decision itself was not unreasonable, Coburn thought, but by the look of things, deciding how to get hold of the evidence they needed was going to call for some thinking on a different level altogether.
O’Halloran had emerged from the car. Placing the satellite photograph on the boot lid he spread out the map beside it. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re about here.’ Using a ballpoint pen he drew a circle on the map just south of Canyon City. ‘Which means that if we carry on for another couple of miles we should be pretty close to the northern boundary of the ranch.’
‘How big a place is it?’ Coburn asked.
‘Six or seven thousand acres. Not a bad spread.’ The American used his pen again, this time to draw a large rectangle, not on the map, but on the photo. ‘Far as I can figure, the property extends east about halfway to where it says Strawberry Mountain on the map. That means the ranch is around five miles long, so it goes back a fair way into the hills.’
During the time Coburn had spent in Iraq, he’d seen military reconnaissance photographs taken by US satellites, some of such high quality that it had been possible to identify individual buildings and even see vehicles on the streets. The photo of the ranch, though, was nothing like as good.
He could pick out what looked like trails or river tributaries winding through areas of thick forest, but the buildings were little more than dirty smudges, so indistinct it was hard to tell how big they were or what they were. A group of smudges was concentrated at the end of a driveway leading from the highway, and a few others were dotted about, including one that Coburn thought might not even be a building, standing by itself near what he guessed was the southernmost edge of the property.
‘I can’t see this helping us a hell of a lot,’ he said. ‘We can’t even be sure where the house is.’
‘How about here?’ O’Halloran pointed to one of the larger smudges. ‘The other buildings are probably dormitories and kitchens for the men who come here on training courses.’
‘Did you find out if Shriver’s running a course right now?’
‘No. But he’ll be stupid if he isn’t. The longer the mess in Iraq goes on, the more money he’ll be making by supplying security guards to US companies that are working in places like Baghdad or out in the oilfields. The guys he’s training here can earn fifteen hundred dollars a day in Iraq, so he’ll be hauling in more money than he’ll know what to do with by hiring them out.’ O’Halloran smiled. ‘Better than getting his feet wet looking for gold in the local river.’
‘And a good way to get income for the FAL.’ Coburn had stopped inspecting the satellite photograph. ‘I suppose we’d better go and see what we can see,’ he said. ‘For a start we can just drive by.’
The idea was good, but five minutes later, having slowed the car to what he hoped was not a suspiciously low speed, his first glimpse of the property provided little information.
At the main entrance, a pair of tall stone pillars supported a twelve foot-long timber plank in which the name Long Creek Ranch had been burned with a blowtorch, and a sign attached to the left hand pillar instructed the drivers of cattle trucks and trailers and all new recruits to use the Stony Bridge entrance 600 yards ahead.
‘Can you see anything?’ Coburn’s view was obstructed by trees, and with a logging truck coming up behind him, he’d gained no more than a fleeting impression of the place.
O’Halloran was still peering out of the rear window of the car. ‘House and garages,’ he said. ‘And what could be a stable block. Matches the sat photo pretty well. If you let this truck by, we might get a better look at the next entrance.’
Pulling on to the shoulder, Coburn waved on the driver, then proceeded at an even lower speed, continuing to slow the car so that by the time they reached the Stony Bridge entrance the Chrysler was travelling at less than twenty miles an hour.
They were rewarded with a view of cattle yards, an open-fronted shed in which stood several tractors, an ATV and what Coburn thought was some kind of harvester that was being worked on by two men in overalls.