Sammie studied my face, caught by something in my voice. “Except you, maybe?”
I shook my head sadly. “I wish I did. I think he’s dirty, along with his CFO pal. I called Willy five minutes ago and told him to give Gorenstein the grilling of a lifetime to see if I’m right.”
A deep furrow of confusion appeared between her brows.
“I had Gorenstein brought in,” I explained. “I’m betting the condo rip-off was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“You send somebody out to McNally’s house?”
“I had Snuffy send somebody-Christ knows who. Right now, we’re so stretched for personnel, McNally could probably hitchhike naked on the interstate and not get busted. He’ll just have to wait his turn.”
“Unless he’s already out of the country,” she muttered.
A clearly stunned and faltering voice over the radio loud speaker suddenly brought all conversation in the room to a stop. “Base, this is Dick Russell. The deputy and me’ve been shot.”
In the silence that followed, Linda calmly asked, “How bad, Dick? You okay?”
I left Sammie’s side and crossed over to Linda, standing before the map. Soundlessly, she pointed at a red number high on the mountain’s left flank, at the upper reaches of where the condos were located. Dick Russell was the same man who’d thrown me the crowbar during the ski lift rescue days before.
“I’m bleedin’ pretty bad. I think the deputy’s dead. The guy came out of nowhere with a gun. He got the sled.”
Linda turned to me. “Cat’s out of the bag. You nail this bastard or I’ll make you sorry you didn’t.”
Feeling my face flush, I said, “Get me some outdoor gear.” I motioned to Sammie to join us. “I’m catching a ride up there with the medical crew. Sam, you take over here and coordinate with Linda. Keep me informed on our own Tac frequency and have some kind of transportation hook up with me there. Got it?”
She knew better than to argue. “Right.”
I began wrestling into the winter overalls and boots Linda handed me from a peg on the wall. “Get as many cops as you can to close in on that spot, and tell them to ditch their employee escorts. Even a snowmobile can’t get everywhere on this mountain-shut down the major routes. And remember, he may be mounted now, but that also means he’s making noise. Tell everybody to keep their ears open!” I paused and said to Linda. “We’ll get Dick down in one piece.”
She didn’t answer, but her expression told me how much credibility I had left.
Outside the building, waiting with his engine idling, Bucky Arsenault sat at the controls of his Bombardier, one of several designated runners for an emergency such as this. On the back of the machine, with two state police officers carrying shotguns, the medical team was already piling their equipment.
“I jumped into the cabin’s passenger seat and told Arsenault, “Ready when you are.”
He punched the accelerator almost immediately, sending the people on the slippery rear deck scrambling for secure handholds.
The trip up was far different from the last time we’d shared a ride. Bucky kept to his business, expertly cutting through the clotting veil of falling snow with an instinctive feel for the terrain beneath his caterpillar tracks. I paid attention to what was happening ahead of us, talking on the radio to Sammie and consulting the map I’d grabbed on the way out.
“Joe? Dick Russell just told us he saw the sled heading west when it left them, cutting across the face of the mountain.”
“You got people there?”
“They’re fanning out in a semicircle from peak to bowl.”
“How ’bout above where Dick was?” I asked staring at the map. “It looks like a straight shot up and over. Busco might’ve started west and then hung a left.”
Linda Bettina’s voice cut in. “He knows the territory better than you. There’re rocks and ledge too steep to climb that way. He’s got to go right or left before he can head for the summit.”
Sammie’s voice came back on. “Hang on, Joe. We’re getting reports of a sled approaching one of our teams.”
In the intervening silence, I saw Bucky staring straight ahead, having heard every word, his mouth clamped shut with anger under the flowing mustache.
“We near, yet?” I asked quietly.
The Bombardier took a hard lurch into a depression and ground up the far side. “Just a few hundred yards.”
He reached for his own radio mike and asked, “Dick? This is Bucky. You hear us yet?”
“Gottcha, Bucky,” came the weak reply. “Straight ahead.”
“Sammie?” I asked. “You find anyone to pick me up here?”
“Yeah, a deputy named Doug Fleury. He’ll be there in a few minutes. Wait… Hang on… listen to this.” She must have held out her radio to the nearest speaker in the dispatch room, because I suddenly heard, “Base, this is Wilcox. The sled’s coming right at us. I’m leaving the mike open.”
Over my portable, Bucky and I heard the sound of an approaching engine, closing in like a furious insect, followed by a shouted challenge, several gunshots, and then a loud crash, abruptly cut off as by the snap of a switch-no doubt the open microphone being dislodged from where Wilcox had jammed it to transmit.
“Base, this is Wilcox.” The voice was panting a moment later, almost breathless with excitement, and thankfully vibrantly alive. “We’re out of it. He hit us broadside and broke my handlebar.”
“Are you okay?”
“We’re fine. He missed. We fired at him. May have hit him. Not sure.”
“Which direction did he go?”
“He’s angling up at a forty-five from us.”
“You hear all that, Joe?” Sammie asked, her voice much clearer than what we’d been listening to.
The Bombardier came to a sudden stop, almost on top of a snow-covered couple of men, huddled together in a ball.
“Yes, I did,” I answered, jumping out into the cold, slowly fading gray light. The snow came up to my knees. “Where’s my transportation?”
I staggered behind the red-clad rescue squad, which had vaulted off the back deck of the machine and was already surrounding Dick Russell and the inert deputy. I knelt beside them, watching them rapidly and expertly assess their patients.
“How’s the cop?” I asked one of them.
“Still alive,” was the terse reply, almost immediately overshadowed by the sound of a snowmobile drawing near.
A large, black Yamaha slid into view, bearing a helmeted police officer in a dark blue, padded jump suit labeled “Sheriff.” “Which one’s Gunther?”
I half ran, half fell over to him, clawing onto the rear of the machine. “I am.”
“Doug Fleury. Hang on.”
The difference between the Bombardier and the Yamaha was like that between an aircraft carrier and a jet. Doug Fleury had obviously spent a lot of time riding snowmobiles, like thousands of other Vermonters, and handled it with the ease and self-confidence of a cowboy born to the saddle. We tore into the featureless white wash ahead of us, the snow whipping our faces and forcing me-without goggles-to bury my face into my driver’s back for protection, racing at such speed that we sometimes left the ground, the engine howling with released energy.
“Sam?” I yelled into my radio, holding on to the strap at my groin for dear life with one hand. “I’m on the sled. What’ve you got?”
I had to hold the speaker flat against my ear to hear her say, “We’re closing in on him. We got several hits on his engine noise. Looks like he’s heading between the tops of lifts three and four.”
Linda’s voice came on. “That means you have him cornered. He’s heading toward the windmill farm, and it’s got a ten-foot chain-link fence around it, stretching across his path.”
Sammie anticipated my next request. “I’ve got units closing in from both sides. You and two others are coming up the middle. Watch your butt.”
I pocketed the radio and leaned forward to shout into Doug’s ear. “We’re coming up to the windmill farm’s fence. That’s where he’s supposed to be.”
Fleury quickly cut back on the throttle. “How’re we going to know if he’s to the right or the left of us?”