She stood there, wavering between following Walsh’s orders and her recently expressed opinion to him that the world had changed.
Finally, she said, “I’ll go with you to the Custer Hill Club. Then, we go to the state police headquarters.”
We exited the terminal, walked to the car-rental lot, and found the blue Taurus. I drove to the side of the terminal building where the general aviation operations were and parked the car. “I want to see if GOCO has a corporate jet and if they use this airport.” I handed her the road map and said, “Call the county police and see if you can get directions to the Custer Hill Club.”
I went into the building, where a guy sat at a desk behind the counter playing with his computer.
I asked him, “Can I get a ticket to Paris here?”
He looked up from his computer and replied, “You can go anywhere you want if you own, lease, or charter a plane big enough. And you don’t even need a ticket.”
“I think I’m in the right place.” I held up my credentials and said, “John Corey, Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force. I need to ask you a few questions.”
He stood, came to the counter, and checked out the creds. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Who am I talking to?”
“I’m Chad Rickman, operations officer.”
“Okay, Chad, I need to know if there’s a private jet that uses this airport, registered to the Global Oil Corporation. GOCO.”
“Yeah, two Cessna Citations, new models. Any problem?”
“Are either of the jets here?”
“No… in fact they both came in yesterday morning, about an hour apart, fueled up, then a few hours later they took off.”
“How many passengers got off?”
“I don’t think there were any. We usually send a car out to the aircraft, and I’m pretty sure it was just the flight crew.”
“Did any passengers get on after they refueled?”
“I don’t think so. They came in, topped off, and a few hours later they flew out.”
“All right… where did they go?”
“They don’t have to tell me where they’re going-they have to tell the FAA.”
“Okay… how do they tell the FAA? Radio?”
“No, phone. From here. Actually, I overheard both pilots filing a flight plan to Kansas City, departing thirty minutes apart.”
I thought about that, then asked, “Why would they be going to Kansas City with no one on board?”
“Maybe they only had cargo,” Chad replied. “I remember two Jeeps met them here and put some stuff on board.”
“What did they put on board?”
“I didn’t see.”
“These are passenger planes, right? Not cargo?”
“Right. But they’ll hold a little cargo in the cabin.”
“I still don’t understand why two jets flew in empty and flew out with a few pieces of cargo, both of them going to the same place.”
“Hey, this guy who owns the planes-Bain Madox-owns the fucking oil wells. He can burn all the jet fuel he wants.”
“This is true.” I asked, “Was Kansas City their final destination?”
“I don’t know. That’s the flight plan I heard them file on the telephone. That’s probably about their cruising range, so maybe they’re going on from there. Or maybe they’re coming back here.”
“I see… so I can call the FAA to get their flight plans?”
“Yeah, if you’re authorized, and if you have their tail registration numbers.”
“Well, I’m authorized, Chad.” I pulled out the sheet of paper that Randy had fetched from this office and put it on the desk. “Which are the GOCO aircraft?”
He studied the sheet and checked off two numbers: N2730G and N2731G. Chad informed me, “Sequential registration numbers. A lot of companies that fly their own airplanes do that.”
“I know that.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Typical tax crap. The rich are different from you and me.”
“No kidding?”
“Okay, thanks, Chad. Think more about this. Ask around for me and see if anyone else remembers anything. You got a cell-phone number?”
“Sure.” He wrote it on his business card and asked me, “What exactly are you looking for?”
“I told you-tax evasion. Bags of money.” I said to him, “Don’t mention anything to anyone about a Federal investigation.”
“Mum’s the word.”
I left the operations office and got back in the car. I said to Kate, “There are two GOCO corporate jets that use this airport.” I filled her in as I drove toward the airport exit and told her that we’d have to call the FAA office in Washington to find out what continuing flight plans had been filed for those two jets.
Kate asked me, “Why do we want to know that?”
“I don’t know yet. This guy Madox interests me, and you never know what’s important until you piece it together with something else. In detective work, there’s no such thing as TMI-too much information.”
“Should I be taking notes?”
“No, I’ll give you one of my taped lectures that I gave at John Jay.”
“Thank you.”
At the airport exit, I asked Kate, “Did you get directions?”
“Sort of. The desk sergeant said take Route 3 west, to 56 north, then ask around.”
“Real men don’t ask directions.” I asked, “Which way is Route 3?”
“Well, if you’re asking, turn left.”
Within a few minutes, we were on Route 3, designated a scenic highway, heading west into the wilderness. I said to Kate, “Keep an eye out for bears. Hey, do you think a 9mm Glock will stop a bear?”
“I don’t think so, but I hope to God you get to find out.”
“That’s not very loving.”
She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Every minute that goes by without word about Harry makes me think he’s not alive.”
I didn’t reply.
She stayed silent awhile, then said, “It could have been you.”
It could have been, but if it were me out in the woods around the Custer Hill Club, things may have turned out differently. Then again, maybe not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We continued west on Route 3, a road that seemed to have no reason to exist, except to look at trees while you went from nowhere to nowhere.
Kate had picked up a few brochures from the airport and was perusing them. She does this wherever we go so she can enhance her experience; then, she regurgitates this stuff back to me, like a tour guide.
She informed me that Saranac Lake, the town and the airport and this road, was actually within the boundaries of Adirondack State Park.
She also informed me that this area was known as the North Country, a name she found romantic.
I commented, “You could freeze to death here in April.”
She went on, “Large parts of the park have been designated as forever wild.”
“That’s pretty depressing.”
“The area designated as parkland is as big as the state of New Hampshire.”
“What’s New Hampshire?”
“Much of it is uninhabited.”
“That’s fairly obvious.”
And so forth. Actually, I could see now how someone could be lost in here for days or weeks, or the rest of their lives, but I also realized that someone could survive if they had some experience in the woods.
Route 3 was actually a decent two-lane road that occasionally passed through a small town, but there were stretches of wilderness that aroused my agoraphobia and zoophobia. I could see why this guy Bain Madox would have a lodge up here if he were up to no good.
Kate said, “This is so beautiful.”
“It is.” It sucked.
There were yellow signs with black silhouettes of jumping deer, which I guess were to warn the deer to jump out of the way of cars on the road.
Around a turn was a big sign that had a black painting of a bear and the word CAUTION. I said, “Did you see that? Did you see that bear sign?”
“Yes. That means there are bears in the area.”
“Holy shit. Are the doors locked?”