Ever so subtly, I could feel the Yukon swaying left and right as the front tires danced on patches of black ice.
I heeded the words of Jose Camacho and slowed down.
Three minutes.
The landscape passed by as a blur. Towering pine forests and minimalls punctuated by stand-alone ski shops, banks, burger joints, cafés, and budget motels. Ordinarily, I would’ve mentally catalogued them all, consciously and automatically mapping my exfiltration route — the byproduct of escape and evasion training. But I was so laser-focused on making it to Applebee’s in time, I barely noticed any of it.
Two minutes.
The road faded left and suddenly I was tapping like crazy on the brakes, hook-sliding on the ice to a stop. An eighteen-wheeler had jackknifed 200 meters ahead of me. The road in either direction was blocked with traffic.
I pulled out of line, bouncing over the sidewalk in front of the Highland Inn, jumped out of the Yukon, and sprinted.
Where the hell was Applebee’s? How much farther up the road? I ran like I did back in the day, with lightning bolts on my football helmet. I was never the fastest receiver, but I had good hands and a nose for the end zone. I used that nose now, racing toward my objective as fast as my calcified knees would carry me.
I’d run about 200 meters when Applebee’s came into view on my left with its green shingled roof and stone façade. The expansive, snow-covered parking lot in back was empty save for a weathered, silver Honda Civic with Nevada tags. The car was unoccupied.
I looked around frantically. Not a suitcase in sight.
There was, however, a battered gray Dumpster adjacent to the restaurant’s rear door.
One minute.
I threw open the Dumpster’s hinged steel top. It crashed against the back with a loud clang. Inside, piled high, were plastic trash bags stuffed with fetid table scraps, used paper napkins and the other disposable detritus of dining out. I began heaving bags onto the snow like a homeless man possessed, one after the other.
And there it was: an old suitcase.
I leaned in, hauled it out with both hands, breathing hard, and set it down. It felt like it weighed about fifty pounds. The sides were fabric, scotch plaid, darkened by stains of who-knows-what. A small padlock secured the suitcase’s single zippered opening.
My Casio G-Shock showed 0745. I’d made it just in time. I reached for my cell phone, waiting for it to ring with further instructions from Crocodile Dundee. Then I remembered:
I’d left my phone in the car.
TWELVE
How long it took to haul the suitcase back to the Yukon I couldn’t tell you, only that I was thoroughly spent by the time I got there, and that my phone was ringing. The first words out of my mouth when I answered it were, “I’m sorry.”
“What the hell, mate?” Crocodile Dundee was seething on the other end. “I told you ten minutes. Do you want your lady to die?”
I closed my eyes and tried to slow my heart rate.
“I had a problem. It’s been resolved. I’ve got the suitcase. What do you want me to do with it?”
“How do I know you’ve got it? Maybe you don’t. You’d say anything to save her.”
I described it for him. The pattern of the fabric. The stains.
“Yeah, OK, good, you’ve got it. Not many suitcases look like that piece of shit anymore, do they?” Dundee laughed. “I mean, when you think about it, how long did it take ’em to figure out you could put wheels on goddamn luggage, right?”
His tone was casual, cordial. I fantasized about putting a bullet behind his ear.
“I’m assuming you’re smart enough to know that if you try opening it, or tampering with it in any way, she dies.”
“Understood.”
“You’re going to fly it to Santa Maria,” Crocodile Dundee said. “There’s a hotel right there on the field, a Radisson. You’re going to walk in with the suitcase through the back door, through the lobby and out the front door. There’ll be a red, four-door Hyundai parked in the third row, closest to the entrance. You’re going to slide the suitcase under that car. Then you’re going to walk back into the hotel and you’re going to sit in the lobby for an hour. You’ll be under observation the entire time, so don’t think about trying anything, or—”
“She dies. You’ve made your point.”
“It’s now eight fifteen. You’ll deliver the suitcase by no later than eleven fifteen. That gives you three hours.”
“That’s virtually impossible. Santa Maria is more than 250 miles from Tahoe. I’m flying a Cessna 172, not a Learjet.”
“Not my problem.”
“What if I run into a headwind? Or air traffic control starts vectoring me? I can’t do it in three hours.”
“It’s not subject to negotiation, asshole. Three hours. Not a minute later. Whatever goodwill I was feeling for you was just spent being late for the pickup.”
I struggled to maintain control, to not threaten him.
“Let me talk to her. I need to know she’s still OK.”
“Oh, she’s more than OK, if you know what I mean.”
He laughed, like it was all some big game.
“She’s pregnant,” I said. “Let me talk to her. Please.”
“Hang on a sec,” Crocodile Dundee said. “Here’s the lovely lady right now.”
I could hear Savannah over the phone screaming out in muffled agony, as if her mouth was taped shut, followed by pathetic, heart-wrenching whimpering. Pain seared through the left side of my chest as if I’d been stabbed.
I didn’t ask what torture Dundee had inflicted on her. I didn’t plead with him to not do it again. I knew that no words I could muster would appeal to such a monster because monsters have no humanity. Some human beings are little more than rabid dogs. They can’t be rehabilitated. They need to be put down for the better good. Dundee was one of them.
The palm of my left hand felt wet. I looked down and realized I was bleeding: I’d balled my fist so tightly, my fingernails had broken the skin.
“Three hours, mate,” Dundee said. “You best get moving. You’re burning daylight.”
The line went dead.
I promised myself that Dundee would be dead, too, soon enough.
Marlene was playing solitaire on her computer at Summit Aviation Services when I came rushing in from the parking lot, lugging the suitcase. I tossed the Yukon’s keys on the counter, said my duffel and Savannah’s luggage were still in the back of the SUV, asked her to store them until I returned, that I wasn’t sure when that would be, told her to send me a bill, and raced for the door leading to the flight line.
“Gordon wanted to speak with you before you left,” she said, glancing anxiously toward the closed door of Gordon Priest’s office. I could see Priest through the glass inside, sitting at his desk, on the phone.
“It’ll have to wait.”
A pilot is required by regulations to thoroughly inspect his or her aircraft before takeoff. You check to make sure that nothing looks like it’s about to fall off the plane, that nothing furry or feathered has taken up residence inside the engine compartment or airframe, that the fuel has no water in it. A pilot also is expected to be fully briefed ahead of time on en route weather conditions, as well as those forecast at his intended destination.