‘That’s the in-use recorder,’ Moore said, pointing. ‘We run them in sequence, and the next one will start recording automatically as soon as the tape on the first one runs out.’
He walked to a table in the centre of the room and sat down. Hunter and Kaufmann followed him. The table was dominated by a computer screen and had both a conventional computer keyboard and what looked like a mixing console built in to its surface.
Moore punched letters on the keyboard, and the computer screen lit up. He gestured to Hunter and Kaufmann to draw up chairs and sit beside him. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘when did this incident take place, and what am I looking for?’
‘We’re not sure,’ Hunter replied.
‘About which?’
‘Both.’
Moore grinned at him. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Kinda vague on the details, I guess. Well, I have to have a date, because that’s how the tape data is stored.’
‘OK,’ Hunter replied, and took out his notebook. He looked over the dates and times he’d written down.
‘My guess is not earlier than last Saturday,’ Christy-Lee said, looking over Hunter’s shoulder, ‘bearing in mind what the pathologist told us.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, that’s as good a starting point as anywhere.’
Moore input the date into the keyboard, and looked at the result on the screen. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘The in-use recorder started operating on Tuesday – yesterday – and the tape covering Saturday is still in number three. I’ll just wind it forward.’
He pointed at the third recorder, then pressed buttons on the console. The recorder’s tape drums began to rotate, slowly at first, then increasing speed to a blur.
Seven minutes later the three of them were looking intently at the computer screen, which was displaying the picture the airfield radar had seen immediately after midnight the previous Saturday. In the bottom right of the screen a small counter showed the date and time.
Kaufmann had expected to see a rotating time-base, just like in the movies, but the picture was clear and steady, more like a computer game, with symbols moving slowly around on it.
‘It’s a fully processed radar picture,’ Moore explained. ‘No time-base, no crap. Much easier to work with. Now, what should I be looking for?’
‘We don’t know,’ Hunter said, ‘but probably a fast-moving aircraft travelling east to west or vice versa.’
‘OK,’ Moore muttered, and moved a small lever on the console. Immediately the symbols on the picture began moving much faster, and Hunter noticed that the numbers on the counter were spinning rapidly.
‘What was that?’ Hunter asked, pointing at the screen. Moore reversed the direction of the lever, and the picture began playing backwards. ‘There,’ Hunter said.
At the top right hand side of the screen was a single unmarked radar return. Moore ran the tape forwards and backwards, but the return appeared only for a few seconds.
‘Probably just an angel,’ Moore said.
‘A what?’ Christy-Lee asked, smiling.
‘Anomalous propagation, a spurious return. You get things like that caused by temperature inversions and other atmospheric phenomena. Usually the processing takes them out, but occasionally they slip through.’
Ten minutes later, Moore sat back. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see anything, did you?’
Christy-Lee shook her head. Hunter didn’t. ‘Can I look at that angel again?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ Moore said, and rewound the tape.
The three of them studied the screen.
‘There,’ Moore said, pointing. He ran the tape forwards, but nothing else appeared anywhere near the return.
‘There’s another one,’ Christy-Lee said, ‘near the middle of the screen. And another.’
Where she was pointing, five unlabelled returns appeared, one after the other, apparently tracking due west. The first was about forty miles east of Helena, and the fifth and last about ten miles east.
‘Forget them,’ Moore said. ‘They’re just more angels.’
‘Are you sure?’ Hunter asked.
‘Positive. First, it can’t be an aircraft, simply because of the speed it’s travelling.’
Moore paused and did some rapid calculations on a piece of paper.
‘Better than two thousand five hundred miles an hour – that’s close to Mach four, and we’ve got nothing that travels that fast. Second, it’s not radiating a secondary radar return, which is against the law. Third, where does it go after we see the fifth return? It vanishes into our radar overhead, where we can’t see anything, but unless it’s still up there it has to come back into cover sometime. Finally, it’s in the wrong place. You’re investigating an incident to the north of Helena – even if that return is an aircraft, which it isn’t, it’s much too far south.’
Hunter nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘What’s the coverage of this radar?’
‘The radius is fifty miles. At the edge of cover the bottom of the lobe is five thousand feet and the top’s at about forty five thousand feet. Why?’
‘Just thinking aloud,’ Hunter said, and stood up. ‘Thank you, Morry, you’ve been very helpful. It’s just a shame we didn’t find what we were looking for.’
On the way out, Hunter asked Moore if there was a meteorologist on duty. Moore directed him up a flight of stairs, then escorted Kaufmann to the door.
Five minutes later, Hunter reappeared. The two of them shook hands with Moore and walked back to their car.
‘The meteorologist?’ Kaufmann said, inquiring.
Hunter turned the key in the ignition and looked at her. ‘He’s wrong about a few things,’ he said.
‘Who – Morry?’
‘Yes,’ Hunter nodded. ‘I’m sure that was an aircraft, going very high and very fast. I’m quite familiar with radar pictures, raw and processed, thanks to my previous employment with Her Majesty The Queen, and those returns looked good and solid to me. Angels usually stay in more or less the same place for a while, then vanish or dissipate slowly.
‘And, according to the meteorological officer, the wind on Saturday afternoon when those five radar returns were detected was strong and from almost due south. Anything dropped from the track those returns were following would have been blown well to the north.’
‘But Morry said it vanished in the radar overhead – whatever that is.’
Hunter nodded. ‘It’s the piece of sky directly above the radar antenna, where the radar signal isn’t transmitted. I don’t think he was exactly right. I don’t think it vanished in the radar overhead; I think it climbed above it. We were looking at an unidentified aircraft that passed through the lobe of the airfield radar, and then climbed above forty-five thousand feet and out of cover.’
‘But the speed,’ Christy-Lee said. ‘What the hell kind of an aircraft can travel at that speed and go that high?’
‘Morry was almost right about that,’ Hunter said, ‘but he’s a civilian controller. There aren’t any civil aircraft that can travel that quickly, not even Concorde could do that, but there are plenty of high-performance military aircraft around. The SR-71A Blackbird – that was a surveillance aircraft that first became operational in the nineteen sixties – had a cruising speed of Mach three and routinely operated at about ninety thousand feet, and most of the US Air Force’s air superiority fighters can climb to seventy or eighty thousand feet and exceed Mach three.’
‘Morry worked it out at Mach four,’ Christy-Lee pointed out.
Hunter shrugged. ‘He was working it out on a piece of paper. Maybe he got it wrong. The point is, there are military aircraft here in America that routinely operate above fifty thousand feet and which can travel at over Mach three, which is close enough to what the radar recorded.’
Christy-Lee looked at him. ‘Are you serious? You really think the military are dumping human bodies from jet fighters? What the hell for?’
‘That’s another question I don’t have the answer
to, Christy,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’m sure as hell going to find out.’
Beaver Creek, Western Montana
The two black Buicks were parked side-by-side in the far corner of the mall parking lot. The four members of the Alert Team stood in a loose circle beside them. Harris glanced round to ensure nobody else was within earshot before he spoke.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘SITREP. The pathologist was no problem. I checked with his office in Helena and found out from them what time he expected to leave Beaver Creek. Then Rogers and I parked at a rest area on the Interstate a few miles north of Helena and waited for him to drive past. We were going to follow him back to Helena and take him out there, but there was an opportunity on the Interstate, so we drove him off the road. Just a freak accident.
‘We pulled the femur and the skull out of the trunk of his car, and took his luggage as well. We got rid of the bones in a lake just off the road near Beaver Creek, and I’ll have his notes and other stuff incinerated.’
Harris stopped and nodded to Morgan.
‘Wilson and I went to the mortuary as soon as we arrived here,’ Morgan said. ‘The staff accepted the authorization for disposal of the body without question, and it should be in the oven right about now.’
‘That’s good,’ Harris said. ‘Right, next one on the list is Sheriff Reilly. He should have the notes the FBI agents left. I’ll go see him with Wilson, collect the stuff, and then the two of you –’ he pointed at Rogers and Wilson ‘– can take him later tonight. I’m thinking maybe a burglary that went wrong?’
The two men nodded at him.
‘As soon as that’s over, you head back to Helena. Morgan and I will leave for Helena as soon as we’re through here. First, we’re going to go through the notes and photos we’ll get from Reilly and make sure there’s nobody else that we need to take care of. Any questions?’
‘Yeah,’ Rogers said. ‘Don’t forget about the doctor, the mortician and the deputies here.’
‘They shouldn’t be a problem,’ Harris replied. ‘As far as I know, the only people who saw Dole’s body, and the skull, and who knew all the circumstances, are the pathologist, Sheriff Reilly and the two FBI agents, so those are the only ones we’ve been instructed to take care of. Unless the Fibbies’ notes tell a different story, once they’re eliminated, that’s it.’
Helena, Western Montana
Hunter drove the Ford to Christy-Lee’s apartment building along the side roads, and stopped on the street behind.
‘Why park here, Steve?’ Christy-Lee asked. ‘What’s wrong with the underground garage?’
Hunter looked across at her and smiled wryly. ‘Just a feeling. I don’t want anyone watching the front of the building to know we’re here.’
‘You really think somebody’s out there watching?’
‘Probably not, but until I’m sure nothing’s going on, I’m taking precautions, OK?’
‘Sure. Whatever you want.’
They both got out.
‘We’ll leave the bags for the moment, Christy,’ Hunter said, and led the way to the rear entrance of the building.
At the door to Kaufmann’s apartment Hunter stopped. He looked closely at the lock, but could see no evidence of picking or forced entry. Then he listened carefully, his ear pressed hard against the door. Finally, he stood back and nodded to Kaufmann.
Hunter drew his Glock automatic from his belt holster, worked the slide to chamber a round, and inserted Christy-Lee’s key in the door lock. Kaufmann stood on the other side of the doorway, drew her Colt revolver and cocked it, then signalled she was ready.
Carefully, Hunter turned the key and the handle, then eased the door open and slid inside, flattening himself against the wall to the right of the door.
Beaver Creek, Western Montana
Sheriff Richard Reilly looked up from his desk at his visitors, and didn’t particularly like what he saw. There were two of them, both big and solid men dressed in almost identical dark blue suits. They were smiling at him, but they were the kind of smiles that never reached their eyes.
‘Yes, gentlemen?’ Reilly said, with an affability he didn’t feel. ‘And what can I do for you?’
‘Good evening, sheriff,’ Harris said. ‘We’re members of the special investigation team that’s replaced the two regular FBI agents, Kaufmann and Hunter.’
Harris and Wilson flipped open perfectly genuine FBI identity cards and showed them to Reilly.
‘We understand that you’re holding the notes made by the Helena agents while they were investigating this case. We’d like those, please, and also any photographs that they, or your team here, took of the crime scene.’
Reilly got up and walked across to a filing cabinet. He opened the third drawer and took out a large brown envelope. ‘Here’s the notes,’ he said, passing it over. ‘The pictures they took are in there as well.’
‘And the photographs you had taken, sheriff?’ Harris prompted. ‘And the data card from the camera the photographer used.’
‘Got ’em right here,’ Reilly said, reaching into his desk drawer. ‘I’d like these back when you’re done with ’em,’ he added.
Harris took the second envelope and nodded briskly. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged, sheriff. Thank you for your time.’
‘How do I reach you?’ Reilly asked. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘We haven’t decided yet, sheriff,’ Harris said. ‘But we’ll be in touch with you, real soon.’
Reilly stared for a few seconds at the door Harris had closed behind him. Then he took a card out of his desk drawer, looked at it, reached for his desk phone and dialled a number.
Helena, Western Montana
Christy-Lee Kaufmann’s apartment looked just it had when she had left it the previous morning, but she and Hunter went through it room by room, pistols drawn, until they was certain it was safe.
‘Good thing the neighbours weren’t watching,’ Kaufmann said as she holstered her Colt. ‘We must have looked like a couple of real dipsy doodles.’
‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed with a grin. ‘It’s better to be safe, though. OK, I’ll go and get your bag.’
He was almost at the door when his mobile phone rang.
‘Hunter,’ he said.
‘Mr. Hunter,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Just thought you’d like to know your special investigation buddies have arrived and picked up your notes and stuff.’
‘Hullo, sheriff,’ Hunter replied. ‘Glad to hear that. Were they FBI agents or what?’
‘Accordin’ to their cards they was from the Bureau,’ Reilly said. ‘Names was Harris and Wilson, as I recall. Mean-lookin’ sons of bitches, I thought.’
Hunter covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and called out the names to Kaufmann. She shook her head.
‘Christy-Lee doesn’t think she knows them,’ Hunter said.
‘I tried callin’ your apartment a while ago,’ Reilly said, ‘but I got no reply. You get held up on the way back?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ Hunter said. ‘There was a road accident. Doctor Parker’s dead.’
There was a long silence on the line.
‘Dead?’ Reilly said, finally. ‘How?’
‘The state troopers think he fell asleep at the wheel,’ Hunter said, ‘but I’m not so sure.’
‘Are you tryin’ to tell me somethin’ here, Mr. Hunter?’ Reilly asked.
‘I don’t know, sheriff,’ Hunter said, and sat down in the chair next to the desk. ‘Look, there’s just something about this whole thing that smells bad to me. The impossible murder of Billy Dole; us getting pulled off the case for no reason; Doctor Parker dying in a car crash, and now this special investigation unit turning up. I mean, I know I’m a new boy, but Christy-Lee’s been in the Bureau for seven years, and she’s never even heard of a unit like that.’
‘So what are you sayin’ to me?’
‘I’m not saying anything – yet. Just be really careful in dealing with those men, sheriff. OK?’
‘Christy,’ the slightly tinny female voice said, ‘It’s Wednesday afternoon and I guessed you’d be at work. Now don’t try to call me for the next couple of days, because I’ll be in the hospital. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. In fact, it’s rather good news. There’s a new health insurance company operating here and they’re offering very low rates for people who join this year. All I have to do is go along and have some routine tests done, and as long as those are OK, I’ll be able to join the scheme. Great, eh? Anyway, if you do need to talk to me, or just send me chocolates and flowers and stuff, I’ll be at the Cedar City General Hospital, OK? Bye.’
Christy-Lee switched off the machine and stood up.
‘Who was that?’ Hunter asked, walking back into the room.
‘My sister, Maria,’ Kaufmann said. ‘She’s in the hospital having tests for some new medical insurance company thing. I think I’ll just give her a call.’
She picked up the phone and dialled the operator.
‘That’s strange,’ Kaufmann said twenty minutes later.
‘What is?’ Hunter asked. He was sitting on the couch drinking coffee and flicking through a copy of a gun magazine.
‘I’ve just had the run-around at Cedar City General Hospital,’ Kaufmann said. ‘Maria was supposed to be admitted this afternoon, and she was, but not to the hospital itself. Seems they’ve got a special testing unit of some sort attached, and she went there.’
‘So?’
‘So first they didn’t have a number for it, then when they found it and I rang, the number didn’t answer, and when somebody finally picked up the phone, they said Maria had already been discharged.’
Hunter put the magazine down. ‘And?’
‘Maria said on the phone that she was going to be there for a couple of days. I’m going to ring her at home.’
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