‘That,’ Kaufmann said, ‘was Michaelson.’
‘And what does your beloved Senior Resident Agent want with us?’
Kaufmann grunted. ‘We’re off the case as of now, and we’re to return to Helena immediately. Apparently some hot-shot investigation team has been assigned to take over, and we’re to surrender all our notes to them this afternoon. In fact, we don’t even get to do a hand-over. We just give everything we have to Sheriff Reilly and they’ll pick it up from him.’
Hunter just looked at her. ‘But this is our case,’ he said. ‘It’s the first interesting investigation that’s come our way since I arrived on this side of the ocean. I want to find out what’s the hell’s happening here.’
‘So do I,’ Kaufmann said, ‘but orders are orders. We’d best go and pack.’
Cedar City, Utah
Maria Slade checked her bag carefully, one last time, to make sure she had everything she could possibly need. She knew the examination should be simply routine, but you never knew how long a hospital stay might last. Her boyfriend was working down in Florida for another three weeks, and there was nobody else who could bring her anything from her home if she found she needed it later.
She had only lived in Cedar City for a couple of months, and she really hadn’t had much of a chance to make friends. She had acquaintances at work, of course, but there was nobody in the office that she liked enough to want to see outside her job.
She checked all her windows were closed, and locked and bolted the door to the yard. She put her small suitcase down by the front door, then picked up the telephone and rang a number in Montana. As she expected, the answering machine cut in, so she left a brief message and replaced the receiver.
As an after-thought, she selected two more paperback novels from the bookcase in the hall. Then she picked up her suitcase, walked out of the house and locked the door behind her. She put the suitcase in the trunk of her car, started the engine, engaged the automatic transmission and turned left out of her driveway.
Beaver Creek, Western Montana
Back at the motel, Hunter asked Christy-Lee to pack for him, and spent a little over an hour transcribing their hand-written notes into Kaufmann’s laptop computer. He could have produced a copy on their portable ink-jet printer for the new team, but decided not to. He was annoyed they were being replaced and didn’t really see why they should be that co-operative.
They were ready to leave by three. Hunter put their cases in the Ford and turned east towards Beaver Creek and Dick Reilly’s office.
‘What kind of a new team?’ Reilly wanted to know.
‘No idea, sheriff,’ Hunter said. ‘Some sort of a special investigation unit.’
‘But from the FBI, right?’
‘To be honest, we don’t know,’ Kaufmann replied. ‘I assume so, but the Helena Resident Agency didn’t tell me.’
Reilly grunted. ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘I was kinda gettin’ to like havin’ the two o’ you around.’
Christy-Lee smiled at him, but said nothing.
‘Anyway,’ Hunter said, ‘you have all our notes for these people, and we’re going to drive back to Helena now. If anything comes up and you want to talk to us, you can reach me on these numbers.’ He handed over a card. ‘The top one’s the office, the second is my apartment, and the third is my mobile. Try them in that order, and you’ll always reach me on one of them.’
‘Thanks,’ Reilly said. ‘You’ve got my numbers here, right?’ Hunter nodded. ‘OK, Mr. Hunter, Agent Kaufmann. I’ll let you know what these new guys come up with. If they come up with anything at all, that is.’
Helena, Western Montana
The Helena Regional Airport is in the north-east section of the city, around two and a half miles from the city centre. The unmarked black Learjet touched down a little after one thirty local time, and taxied off the runway to a hardstanding well away from the main passenger terminal building. Four men got out of the aircraft and climbed down the steps, carrying bulky bags.
As soon as the four men had moved clear of the aircraft, the passenger door on the Learjet closed, and it began to taxi back towards the active runway.
Two black Buicks were parked at the edge of the hardstanding, and three men stood waiting beside one of them. The four men walked across and had a brief conversation, after which the three drivers walked over to a third Buick, this one grey, and immediately drove away.
The four men put their bags in the trunks of the two Buicks, then all got into one of the cars.
‘Everybody clear on what we have to do?’ the Alert Team leader asked. The name on his passport was Harris, but that wasn’t what his birth certificate said. The three men nodded, but the leader pointed a finger anyway.
‘OK,’ a bulky man called Morgan said. ‘Me and Wilson drive straight to Beaver Creek and grab the evidence the FBI guys collected.’
‘The body?’
‘We instruct the mortuary staff to cremate it as soon as possible.’
‘You have the authorization?’ Harris asked.
Morgan nodded and tapped the breast pocket of his jacket.
Harris pointed at the fourth man.
‘You and I take care of the pathologist,’ Rogers said.
‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘We’ll meet at the mall parking lot at Beaver Creek at eight fifteen this evening. Any problems, call me on the mobile. The talk-code for this operation is Delta Five, and the overall classification is Omega Seven. Any questions? No? Right, let’s get on with it.’
Morgan and Wilson climbed out and got into the second car, and both vehicles drove off the hardstanding two minutes later.
Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana
‘I still don’t see why we were taken off this case,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann said. It was a theme she had returned to several times during the journey, but without reaching any positive conclusion.
‘We certainly didn’t request any help,’ Hunter said, ‘and nor did Sheriff Reilly or Doctor Parker. What about the reports you sent to Helena? What was in those?’
‘Only what we’d found,’ Kaufmann replied. ‘Just the facts as we saw them. No suggestion that we couldn’t handle the case or that we needed any help.’
Traffic was light, and Hunter was able to relax at the wheel as they drove south. ‘I’ve been thinking about the femur and the skull,’ he said after a few minutes, almost tentatively. He had been silent for much of the journey, which Kaufmann guessed meant his mind was elsewhere.
‘And?’ she prompted him.
‘Look,’ Hunter said. ‘This is real off-the-wall stuff, but as far as I can see there’s only one way that the femur could have hit Billy Dole hard enough to do what it did.’ He glanced across at Christy-Lee.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘It’s kind of logical,’ Hunter said. ‘There were no footprints anywhere near the body, so no-one could have stood next to him and driven it into his head. Doctor Parker said that the other end of the femur was undamaged, so it couldn’t have been hammered through his skull and, even then, there’s still the problem of the footprints, not to mention Billy Dole’s two guns.’
‘So what are we left with?’ Christy-Lee demanded.
‘We’re left,’ Hunter said, with a brief, almost apologetic, laugh, ‘with the femur falling out of the sky.’
FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
George Donahue sat at his desk and opened the Omega Procedures file again. He ran the tip of his pencil down the list labelled ‘Phase One – Immediate Actions,’ and nodded. Everything listed had either been completed, or was in the process of being done. He turned the page and looked at ‘Phase Two – Follow-up Actions.’ Again, almost everything necessary had been, or was being, done. All except the last item, which he had to complete in person.
Donahue opened his desk address book and noted a number. Then he picked up the phone and dialled.
‘White House. How may I help you?�
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‘This is Director Donahue of the FBI. I need an appointment to see the President as soon as possible.’
‘One moment, please.’
There was a short pause as Donahue’s call was transferred to one of the President’s staffers.
‘Director Donahue,’ a male voice said. ‘This is Mark Rogerson. We met at a White House reception a few weeks ago.’ Donahue remembered the voice, but not the name. ‘The switchboard operator told me you want an appointment to meet with the President. May I ask what it’s about?’
‘No,’ Donahue said firmly. ‘You may not ask. Just advise the President that it concerns an Omega Incident and it is Priority One.’
‘Never heard of Omega,’ Rogerson said cheerfully, ‘but I’ll pass that on. Hold the line, please.’
Four minutes later he was back. ‘That certainly got the President’s attention, Director. This afternoon at five thirty, if that’s convenient.’
Donahue agreed and rang off. Then he called for a fresh pot of coffee and started working on the briefing he was going to have to give the President, and his answers to the questions he knew he was going to be asked.
Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana
Hunter had pulled off the Interstate and he and Kaufmann were sitting at a table in the corner of a restaurant drinking coffee.
‘You’re right,’ Christy-Lee Kaufmann said. ‘It is an off-the-wall suggestion. On the other hand, if we ignore where the hell the femur fell from, it does make some kind of sense.’
‘I know,’ Hunter said. ‘You’ve read Conan Doyle?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Kaufmann was puzzled.
‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You know, Sherlock Holmes. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and all that?’
Kaufmann’s face cleared and she nodded. ‘Some,’ she said. ‘He’s a little old-fashioned for my liking. I’m more into Barrington and Clancy.’
Hunter nodded and smiled. ‘He’s bound to be old-fashioned. He was writing over a hundred years ago, but what Sherlock Holmes said – or rather what Conan Doyle wrote – often makes very good sense, even today. Conan Doyle was stressing the importance of fingerprints and proper crime scene investigation at a time when almost every police force in the world relied on either catching criminals red-handed – which meant with blood on them – or using informers. He was way, way ahead of his time.’
‘OK,’ Kaufmann said. ‘Maybe I’ll read some of them again. What’s your point?’
‘In one book Holmes says something like “when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Apply that to this situation. We have a dead body in a muddy field. The only footprints are those of the victim, and he’s been killed by impact with a human femur from directly above. Nobody else approached him, because they would have left traces on the ground. Therefore, the femur had to have been dropped or thrown at him from above – from the sky. QED.’
‘QED? What the hell’s that? Some kind of British police shorthand?’
Hunter laughed and shook his head. ‘Sorry. It’s a Latin tag – Quod erat demonstrandum. It means “that which has been shown or demonstrated.” A proof, if you like.’
Hunter leaned forward. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘gravity accelerates an object towards the earth at thirty-two feet per second, every second, and the terminal velocity for something as smooth as that femur would be pretty high. I reckon it would impact with quite enough force to kill anyone. Billy Dole was just a guy standing in exactly the wrong place at precisely the wrong time. And Doctor Parker said that the heavier end of the bone was the knee joint, so that would be the end which would strike the ground, or whatever, first, which is exactly what it did.’
Kaufmann thought for a few moments, then took a drink of her coffee and waved for the waitress to refill their cups.
‘And if I’m right,’ Hunter said, ‘this might also explain how a human skull, probably from the same body, came to be found miles away and twenty feet up a tree. Nobody climbed the tree to put it there. It fell from above, and the only reason it wasn’t smashed to pieces is because the branches of the tree broke its fall.’
‘We don’t know it’s from the same body,’ Kaufmann said, nodding her agreement, ‘but I think it probably is.’ She paused as the waitress poured more coffee. ‘If you’re right,’ she went on when the waitress had moved away, ‘that leaves two questions that need answering. The first is the easy one. Where’s the rest of the girl’s body?’
‘Scattered over a biggish area of western Montana is my guess,’ Hunter replied. ‘Don’t forget, if you look at them individually, a lot of the bones in a human body aren’t that different to animal bones. People walking the woods or out hunting may have seen them but not realized what they were. And some of the bigger bones might have fallen into rivers or driven themselves deep into soft ground, or just fallen where nobody’s been recently.’
‘The second question’s the biggie,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘Where did the bones fall from?’
‘Obviously from an aircraft,’ Hunter replied, ‘but I know that answer’s a bit of a cop-out. I have no idea why anyone’s jettisoning the dismembered corpse of a young woman from an aircraft, or what aircraft it was. But I do know one thing – if I’m right the aircraft had to be flying fast or high, or both.’
‘Because,’ Christy-Lee finished it for him, ‘of the distance between the places where the femur and the skull were found.’
‘Exactly,’ Hunter agreed, ‘and I intend to find what that aircraft was, special investigating team or not.’
‘How?’
‘That should be easy. An aircraft flying fast or high would show up on radar. Air traffic control units are required to keep tapes of the radar picture in their area for some time – at least a month, I think. I’m going to see a playback of those tapes for the time when Billy Dole got himself killed.’
Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
‘Director Donahue, Mr. President,’ Mark Rogerson said, as he opened the door to the Oval Office.
The short grey-haired man behind the large desk in front of the window was familiar to Donahue. They had met on several previous occasions, though rarely at the White House, during the two years that Charles Gainey had been in office, and more often since Donahue’s appointment as FBI Director.
‘Hullo, George,’ the President said, and gestured Donahue to a comfortable chair on the opposite side of the room. Then he turned back to Rogerson, who was waiting by the door.
‘Mark, go see if the Secretary of Defense is free, and ask him to step in here, would you? Then organize us some refreshments, please.’
Rogerson nodded and left the room. Gainey walked across and sat down beside Donahue.
‘I’ve asked James to sit in on this, George. I’m sure you know why.’
Donahue nodded. ‘Anything involving Roland Oliver is serious enough that we should keep each other informed,’ he replied.
There was a brief knock on the door, then it opened and James Dickson walked in. Donahue stood up to greet him.
‘Take a seat, James. Mark,’ the President called out, ‘no interruptions unless it’s vital.’
Donahue and Dickson shook hands and both men sat down. The door opened again and two stewards brought in trays of coffee and tea, which they placed on the low table in front of the three men.
‘Now, George,’ Gainey said, when the stewards had left. ‘What’s happened that’s caused you to initiate a Priority One Omega Procedure?’
Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana
It was a long straight stretch of road, and they saw the flashing red lights ahead of them even before the brake-lights of the cars in front started coming on. Kaufmann was driving, and she switched on her headlights and hazard flashers, moved over to the inside lane, and then onto the hard shoulder. She checked carefully that there were no emergency vehicles coming up behind them, and drove slowly past the sta
tionary traffic.
There were three police traffic cars, an ambulance and a fire rescue vehicle at the scene, and a state trooper walked briskly over to them as Kaufmann stopped. Before the trooper could say a word, Kaufmann had produced her FBI identity card.
‘FBI,’ she said. ‘Need any help?’
The trooper shook his head. ‘Naw,’ he replied. ‘Just an auto accident. Guy drove off the side of the freeway straight into the trees. They’re cutting what’s left of him out of the car now.’
‘He’s dead?’ Hunter asked, getting out of the passenger side of the Ford and looking over at the wreck. Something about the car seemed familiar to him.
‘Yup,’ the trooper said. ‘I guess he just fell asleep at the wheel.’
‘Have you identified him yet?’
The trooper pulled a notebook out of his pocket. ‘Guy’s name was Parker, according to the license.’
‘Oh, shit,’ Hunter said.
Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
George Donahue sat back in his chair and waited for the questions. The President and the Secretary of Defense had listened carefully and without interruption to his explanation of the Beaver Creek incident and the measures he had implemented.
‘Well,’ James Dickson said slowly, ‘I guess we always knew something like this could happen, Mr. President.’
Charles Gainey turned to look at him. ‘Have there been any problems with Roland Oliver?’ he asked.
Dickson shook his head. ‘None that I’m aware of,’ he replied. ‘As far as I know the quotas are being met. They have the concession, and we’re getting what we want.’
Charles Gainey shook his head. ‘I never liked this,’ he said. ‘I never liked it from the start. How it was ever agreed to in the first place I’ll never know.’
Dickson shrugged. ‘It’s been with us a long, long time, Mr. President. You have to remember the international political climate after the end of the Second World War. We had the bomb, sure, but the Russians were starting to build a massive military machine, and the Communist philosophy was, and always has been, world domination. Any technological advantage we could get, we went for. And Roland Oliver offered us technology that we simply couldn’t develop ourselves.’
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