Lorelei Timms glared at him. Nantz grabbed another glass of champagne and pulled him away.
Service said. “I think I screwed up. Let’s split.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
They got into the Yukon and he saw that the white limo was still there. Service punched a number into his cell phone. “Sterling?”
“You got ’im.”
“Where are you?”
“Entry road, only way in and out. What’s going down?”
“White Mercedes stretch limo, driver and two passengers.” Service gave the man the license plate number. “You stay with the driver, no matter what.”
“Give you a bump when he lights?”
“Yeah, good luck,” Service said.
“Don’t need it,” Sterling said.
39
Nantz got out of the vehicle and walked unsteadily up the walk into the B&B, waving at him to let him know she was okay. Service turned on the 800 MHz, clicked to Channel 3, called, “Thirty-One Eighteen, Twenty-Five Fourteen,” repeating the call twice, then waiting.
He tried again five minutes later and still no response.
Five minutes after that Jake Mecosta radioed, “Thirty-One Eighteen is up.”
“What’s your status?”
“We may have something. We found that place our guide told us about. It looks like somebody’s been there.”
The “guide” was Santinaw. “Any critters?”
“No sign of that, but somebody’s done some sprucing up.”
“Kids?”
“Possible, but our guide picked up a trail at the north end of that body of water we discussed. We followed it up to a tote road, about half a click. Somebody ran a four-wheeler down to the river. Old tracks, in and out. Just one trip.”
“How far from that trail to the hole we talked about?” Service asked. The body of water was Laughing Whitefish Lake. The river flowed into the top of it and out the bottom. The hole was the grotto Santinaw had told them about.
“Two clicks maybe.”
“Isn’t much.”
“Wasn’t, but last night somebody left a voice mail for me and urged me to take a look at a cabin on a small lake east of the chute, above that body of water. We’re there now. Lots of activity, five males, three four-wheelers, and a canoe with a motor. Lots of crates and gear, but we haven’t gone in close to find out what. I sent Dort to the county clerk, see if we can find out who owns the place now. She’ll TX me soon as she knows one way or the other. These people here are most definitely not from Kansas—all from way east of our Far West, copy?”
Dort was Mecosta’s wife. “Copy.” Service understood.
“Anonymous caller, male or female?”
“Female, no name, and I didn’t recognize the voice. You know how it goes.”
He did. Most Yoopers didn’t abide law-breaking, but also didn’t want to get involved because they feared testifying or getting crossways with neighbors. It had always been so above the bridge.
Mecosta was being extremely circumspect in telling him what was going on, but it boiled down to the fact that an anonymous tip had pointed him at a cabin where they had seen five men and a lot of gear, five men east of west, meaning across the Pacific—Asians. An anonymous call could mean somebody had a beef with them, or was worked up over what appeared to be so many foreigners in one place, one of the legacies of September 11.
“How’s your guide holding up?”
Mecosta said. “Ought better ask how I’m doing. I’ve never seen a walker like him, uphill, downhill, same pace, hours on end.”
“I’m going to alert backup in case we need them. See any weapons in the group?”
“Long guns in cases.”
“Got a meet-site in mind?” Service asked.
“You know the next little burg west of where our guide has his lady friend?”
“I remember.” Mecosta meant a place called Rumely.
“There’s a road runs north out of there, same name as the place. It T’s three miles north.”
Rumely Road, Service thought. “Hides?”
“Some fields with some hardwoods right before the T. Right or left is fine, rocky ground.”
“Okay, I’ll make calls. Let me know what you find out about ownership.”
“TX or 800?”
“800 is best, but either will work.”
“You coming back?”
“Let’s see what we have in the morning.”
“Thirty-One Eighteen clear.”
Maybe this was something, Service thought, then decided it rated a probably. Five Asian men in the same area. A definite probably.
He called Captain Grant at home. “Service.” He laid out the situation and what he needed.
“The T north of Rumely on Rumely Road?”
“Right.” The captain sounded wide awake.
“Four more people do it?”
“Should.”
“Count me in. I’ll be there. Any feel for what’s in the offing?”
“Nossir, just something.”
“Soong’s copilot?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“This would be Pung?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He had seen the man, but had no photo.
“But you don’t know.”
“It’s gut and circumstance at this point, Cap’n.”
“Keep me informed.”
He locked the truck and went up to the room. Nantz had dumped her gown on the carpet and was asleep, breathing steadily.
He put his handheld and cell phone on the nightstand, undressed and eased in beside her, not wanting to wake her, but suddenly he heard a buzz and groped for his cell phone.
“Service?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at his watch: 4:30 a.m.
“The driver dropped the couple at a house near White Lake, spent fifteen minutes inside, brought out some boxes and drove the limo over to Oakland County International where he met four Asian males at the Horizon Lounge. They had several drinks, he dropped them at a Holiday Inn Express, and drove out to the airfield to the transient parking area. He moved the boxes from the limo into an aircraft, a Cessna Citation Ten. Got something to write with?”
Service reached down to the floor, fumbled for a pen from his pants.
“Okay.”
Sterling gave him the tail number.
“Where’s the guy now?”
“He went to operations, was in there twenty minutes. I watched him back to the bird, went into ops and flashed my shield. He filed a flight plan for Sawyer International, open departure for tomorrow morning.”
Sawyer was the old air force base twenty miles south of Marquette and about the same distance west of Mecosta and Santinaw. This couldn’t be coincidence. “How big is this bird?”
“Twin-engine jet, looks to me like it can handle six to eight pax, and crew.”
“Where’s your man now?”
“On the bird, lights out, either napping or choking the chicken,” Sterling said. “You want me to stick here?”
“Call me as soon as he moves.”
“You got it.”
Nantz was awake when he closed the cell phone. “What’s going on?” she asked sleepily.
“Jake got an anonymous tip. He and Santinaw are sitting on a camp right now.”
“Will this happen today?” Nantz asked as she got out of bed and went into the bathroom.
“Maybe,” he said.
Service called Grant, gave him the report and the aircraft tail number so he could alert the authorities at Sawyer and try to run down the bird’s owner.
The captain said, “Our people are set: McCants, Moody, Ebony, and Mecosta. I haven’t talked to the Troops or Alger County yet.”
�
��Let’s hold on them,” Service said. “We don’t want a false alarm. This thing is iffy enough.”
Nantz came out of the bathroom holding a glass of water, picked up her purse, sat on the edge of the bed, dug around for a bottle of ibuprofen tablets, took three, and washed them down with the water.
“Did we overtrain?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I was counting on having all day to recover.”
“Change in plans. I need for you to fly me to Munising.”
“Today?”
“Now,” he said.
“What about your truck?”
“Leave it. We’ll handle details when we’re done.”
She put her head back and said, “God,” stood up, got her clothes, and started dressing.
“What’s the flight time to Munising?” he asked her.
“Depends on weather. It’s not like driving a car, babe.” She pulled on a sock, added, “Two and a half hours if I firewall it and the wind and weather cooperate. That’s from gear-up here to over Hanley,” she said.
Service called Treebone at home while Nantz finished dressing.
“Raincheck on tonight. We have to fly back to the U.P.”
“Fly? Man, you must be onto something big. I keep trying Eugenie’s number, but all I get is her machine.”
Service had always been uncomfortable in aircraft. “Tell Kalina we’re sorry.”
Nantz stopped to see Lorelei Timms.
Service was waiting in the Yukon. “What did she say?”
“Wanted to ask questions, but I told her there’s no time and that I’d get back to her. She and Whit were planning to stay until Sunday. Campaigning starts again Monday morning. I’ll come back Sunday. Soong’s chauffeur’s name is Irvin Terry.”
Service thought, Irvin Wan, Terry Pung: One and same?
They were at the plane in twenty minutes.
Nantz got out. “I’ll do the preflight, make sure it’s fueled and ready.”
Service sat in the Yukon, waiting.
Mecosta called on the 800. “These people are getting ready to move stuff down to the river on their four-wheelers.”
“How will they get the stuff upriver?”
“Slate ledges and low water. They can run it like a highway.”
“Get down to the river and monitor.”
“What about the camp?”
“Only one radio, I don’t want Santinaw on his own. We’re coming north.”
“Now?”
“Soon.”
Service hung up and the phone rang. Mecosta again: “You didn’t let me finish. Dort called. The cabin is owned by White Star Properties, a subsidiary of White Moon Trading Company of Southfield. Mean anything to you?”
“Thanks, man,” Service said.
Nantz came back.
“I need one more callback,” he said.
“I need coffee,” she said. “I’m going to find a vending machine.”
“Don’t dawdle.”
She laughed. “I thought that’s what we’d be doing in bed about now.” She gave him an exaggerated wiggle and strode away.
The field was silent and there were only a few lights. He got out of the truck and began piling the gear and clothing he needed on the tarmac.
Nantz brought two coffees and looked at the pile.
“Let’s get all that stuff out to the bird,” she said. “We can wait in the plane as comfortably as here.”
He agreed.
He sat in the copilot’s seat, half-seeing the bewildering array of instruments and gauges.
The cell phone buzzed. “Service.”
“They just filed for an 0745 takeoff,” Sterling said. “Same destination.”
“Stay with them until they’re off the ground and call this number when you see them lift off.” He gave Sterling Captain Grant’s cell phone number.
“Thanks,” Service said, checking his watch. It was 5:23 a.m. If the other plane took off on time, he and Nantz would have more than a two-hour lead. He opened his cell phone and called the captain.
“Treebone loaned me a bird dog and he’s going to call when the plane leaves Oakland for Sawyer. His name is Sterling. He’s stuck in some sort of bogus IA mess and Tree thinks he’d make a good man for us. He’s done the job for me. He’s a pro.”
The captain thanked him, said they would talk about Sterling later.
Nantz said, “I checked weather when I got coffee. There’s a cold front coming down off Lake Superior. Should make landfall midday. We should be fine if the advance winds aren’t too stiff.”
Service buckled his lap harness and nodded. “Let’s roll.”
The phone rang again as they paused at the end of the runway. Nantz nodded for him to answer it as she adjusted the throttles.
“This is Eugenie Cuckanaw. I’m sorry to take so long. Wan doesn’t own a camp in the U.P., but he uses one in—”
“Alger County,” Service said interrupting her. “Thanks.” He hung up.
Service held up his 800. “Can I use this?”
She nodded. “Be quick.”
“Jake, we’re on the runway, ready to go. Cap’n Grant is arranging backup. Give him a bump and have somebody meet us at Hadley. You’ve definitely got the place. ETA . . .” He looked over at Nantz who held up three fingers. “We’ll be there zero eight forty-five. See you later.”
“Copy,” Mecosta said.
Nantz said into her headset, “Roger, Four Niner Mike Juliet Mike is rolling.”
She pushed the throttles up and Service felt vibrations in his ass as she taxied onto the runway, went to full power, and took off into the wind, pulling the nose up steeply and leveling at eighteen hundred feet.
When they finished climbing to their assigned cruising level, she put the bird on autopilot and dug through her flight bag for let-down charts.
“Hadley’s a grass field,” she said. “Its field closes tonight until May 15.”
She looked at a calendar on her leg-board and said, “Boo!”
“What?” he said.
“Today’s Halloween, big boy.”
40
Service was on the 800 as soon as Nantz set the plane down on the grass. The sky was gray and roily, with an erratic light wind sending leaves fluttering in bunches from trees ringing the perimeter of the field. He saw the captain parked and waiting, and radioed Jake Mecosta. “We’re on the ground, where are you?”
“On the rim, directly above the target.”
“Where do you want us?”
“These guys are back and forth on the route I told you about. Best you come in from the up-water drop, and make sure you stay on the Reagan side.”
The up-water drop was Laughing Whitefish Falls. Reagan side meant conservative, therefore the right, which meant the east as they would come in. “Copy. We’ll call back when we start in.”
Mecosta responded, “Get set and I’ll come to you.”
Service acknowledged receipt with two clicks of the mike button.
Nantz helped him load his gear into the back of the captain’s truck. “I should head back,” she said.
The captain said, “I could use your help first.”
She smiled and got into the backseat.
McCants and the other officers were waiting in the small gravel parking lot at the trailhead that led to the falls. There was a green porta-john, a picnic table chained to a tree, a barbecue pit, and a sign with a map of the walking trail through the area. All of the officers carried packs and MAG-LITEs. McCants and Moody carried their recently issued rifles, Gary Ebony a shotgun.
The captain exhibited his usual calm. “I’ll take keys. This is too public to leave the vehicles. Ms. Nantz and I will move them to the original hide. There’s bottled water in back. Help yourselves.” They each took three one-liter bo
ttles of water and put them in their packs.
Nantz looked like she wanted to hug him, but simply looked into his eyes and nodded. They had reached a point in their relationship when words weren’t necessary.
She and the captain left in two of the trucks as the group started the almost one-mile hike to the falls. It was a wide, groomed trail through second-growth beech and maple. The leaves of the maples ranged in color from red to orange.
There was a wooden stairway at the top of the falls that went down nearly two hundred feet into the canyon. The falls at the top dropped fifteen or twenty feet straight down onto a limestone and slate slope that sent the water cascading at a forty-five-degree angle. Ahead they could see open sky and canopies of forest, the leaves ranging from lavender to red and pink. The air smelled earthy and fishy. They stood on the top platform and Service laid out the situation for them.
“Pairs?” McCants asked.
“You and Gary, Gut and me. I’ll hook up with Jake later. Remember, we’re looking for a bear, one of a kind.” He let that thought sink in, took out the wrinkled computer image and passed it around. “It probably looks like this—blond, ninety to one hundred and forty pounds or so, with a mane like a lion.”
“I think I used to date her,” Ebony joked.
“Right tense on all your women,” McCants said, grinning.
Ebony grimaced.
“Focus,” Service said sharply. “These people have killed twice so far.”
“I don’t like the so-far shit,” Gutpile Moody said.
“Use it to stay on track,” Service told him.
McCants was studying the photo. “What’s with the cage?”
“I don’t know that,” he said.
“Lotta unknowns here,” Ebony said.
“The scene looks medieval,” McCants said. “Creeps me out.”
“That was the nineteenth century and a lousy photo,” Service said. “This is now.” He took them through the case again, in more detail, concluding, “I think they’re testing the waters. If they can bring this animal in, they can take out what they want.”
“Bring the animal in for what?” Moody asked.
“We’ll find out,” Service said, thinking about the picture but not sure what it meant.
None of the officers asked what they would do if this was not the group he was after. They came up empty lots of times and simply regrouped. Failure was part of the job.
Chasing a Blond Moon Page 44