Mapmaker

by Mark Bomback

“Right,” I said, staring back at the screen. I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer, and I also knew that it was possibly for my own protection.

  “Zoom in on the stream,” I said. I felt my heart racing. The image was crystal clear. In the stream, a splash of red salmon swam upstream, north to south. I followed the river on the computer until the black spot, where it disappeared. What was happening? I traveled backward again, knowing I’d missed something. I watched it again, and again. Thirty times, following the bend of the stream.

  “Do you see what I see?” I said to Cleo.

  Cleo nodded slowly. “The river was gone. The water slowed to a pool. Someone had redirected the water flow. Built a dam and changed the water pathway.”

  “But why would someone redirect it and then make the place disappear?”

  “Water and oxygen. The two main staples of life on Earth. Science 101.”

  “Right. Science 101.”

  I touched the image of the stream on the computer, following it to where it disappeared, to the “black spot” as she’d called it.

  “How can I get there?” I asked.

  “Sweetheart, you’re not going anywhere. You’re not risking your life for this. They’ll squash you without a second thought and no one will know. They’ll cover their tracks just like they did when they killed your father.”

  The reality of her words fell against me. I felt hopeless, insignificant.

  “They can’t just keep killing people and getting away with it,” I insisted as her eyes flickered over my face. “Someone will investigate. Someone will find out.” I was talking loudly, furiously. The injustice of it was burning inside of me. They killed my dad without leaving a trace? Without any consequences? They couldn’t keep getting away with it.

  “Ever taken a history class, sweetheart?” Cleo asked. “Or do the schools just give you PG versions of the truth? The powerful get away with mass murder all the time. Countries, corporations, individuals … It’s nice to see you’re an idealist but let’s get back to the facts.”

  “I’m going with or without your help.”

  Cleo laughed. “Good luck getting the visitors’ bus to take you. And don’t forget your mosquito clothes and pepper spray to keep the grizzlies away.”

  “Cleo, please—”

  “End of discussion,” she interrupted, her smile gone. “I have some work to finish up here, private work. Go back to my house and make yourself at home. You can’t get into any trouble there, unless you play with guns.”

  Cleo stayed at “Bill’s house” until nightfall. She had a telescope on a tripod at her living room window, next to a side table and sofa. When she returned, I began looking through it at the clear sparkling stars, at the glow of the crescent moon. I doubted it was the stars Cleo was looking for in the night sky.

  In the kitchen she cooked up a stir-fry from vegetables in her garden. I got bored of the telescope and picked up a black-and-white photo of Cleo and a family. It probably wasn’t even hers. The picture wasn’t recent. Cleo looked about twelve years old.

  “Did you ever go to the place in Alaska with Dad?” I asked.

  Cleo froze. She had her back to me but I could see the question made her nervous. “That was my camera,” she said. “As soon as we found the house, we knew that it wasn’t left off the maps by mistake. It was no accident.”

  “The house?”

  “Later, Tanya.” She turned off the stove and carried two steaming plates to the table. “You need to eat something.”

  “What house?” I persisted.

  She leaned back and sighed, then waved me outside into the backyard. She began walking into the desert. I followed.

  “You’re just as stubborn as your dad, you know that?” she said. “There was a cabin. We thought it belonged to the park ranger. We didn’t see anyone. Your dad filmed it. Then we went back to the campsite. We had something to eat, and he went to catch a plane back home. That was the last time I saw him.”

  I swallowed. “He never got on the plane. He never came back home.”

  “No, he disappeared somewhere before he reached the airport. There were no witnesses I could find. Nothing on surveillance in Alaska. The thing was, they didn’t know I was with him. They didn’t know I had already downloaded a copy of the video. When I got back to civilization, the Cambodia story was in full swing—” She broke off. “Tanya, he only told you that he went to Cambodia to protect you and Beth. That was his story.”

  I ignored the lump in my throat. I had to focus on what was going on here, now. My dad was dead, but if what Cleo was saying were true, if her hunch was correct, then Connor was still alive and his life hung in the balance—over this.

  “So all this has something to do with the house? Is it the government?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Not unless it’s a security division I can’t access. But that’s unlikely.”

  “Cleo, you have to help me get there. I need to find out what happened to him.”

  “That’s what the police are for,” she said. “That’s what the government is for, too. Trust me. You’re safe here, and that’s what matters.”

  “Harrison and the rest of MapOut say he drowned in Cambodia. And you know that. They even have his plane ticket to prove he was there. They even have him on tape, leaving the airport and checking into his hotel.”

  Cleo raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen the tape? It’s not exactly high definition, is it, sweetheart? It’s a black-and-white blur of a white man in his late forties.”

  “You mean …?”

  “I mean, whoever is behind this has a lot of money, resources, and has their asses covered.”

  “I still need to try. It’s not just about my dad. It’s about Connor, too. It’s my fault he was even snooping—”

  “Okay. okay.” Cleo held up her hand, stopping me. “I understand what you want to do. Go in and eat something before it gets cold. I’m going back to Bill’s.”

  Half an hour later, after I’d cleaned my plate and returned to the telescope, Cleo came back inside. She held a metal briefcase that she set on the table. She opened the top; inside was a collection of small pistols. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They filled me with a sense of fear and dread I wasn’t prepared for. I wasn’t ready to shoot anyone.

  “I don’t … I don’t know how to use a gun,” I stammered. Nor did I want to.

  “You might need to learn. Or you can take the laser.”

  She pulled out what looked like a harmonica box. Inside was a thin silver tube, with an electronic screen on the side.

  “This is simple to use. It won’t kill anyone, but it will knock them out temporarily.”

  I let out a breath. “Okay.”

  “I’ll show you how to use it. You touch the screen with your thumb. It will imprint your fingerprints. No one else will be able to use it, even if they take it from you. It’s undetectable, too, or as close to undetectable as you can get.” She handed it to me.

  “Thank you, Cleo.” I felt cold with fear as I turned it around in my hand. It was oddly heavy, as if it were made of lead or gold. I knew this was what I had to do, but somehow the reality of it hadn’t quite set in.

  “Let’s get ready. Gretchen will be here soon.”

  “Who’s Gretchen?”

  “She works with me.” I could tell by the finality of her tone that this was probably all she’d offer in terms of explanation. “By the way, we’re coming with you. Your dad would kill me if he knew what I was letting you do, but I know you’ll try to get there, anyway.”

  I forced a smile, even though I was so anxious I could barely speak. Cleo took me into her bedroom. She opened her closet revealing an array of jeans, T-shirts, and sweaters. Then she took a key from the top shelf, unlocking a second door hidden behind the hanging clothes. She pulled out unopened clear bags; inside were plain grey jackets, pants, and sweaters.

  “There’s lead inside the fibers; no one will be able to detect weapons beneath.”

  I
pulled the jacket on; it felt the same as any other jacket, just slightly heavier and the material stiffer. She gave me warm socks and a pair of boots to wear, too. “It’s cold there, even in the summer.”

  Cleo filled the dogs’ bowls with fresh water and gave them each an extra few handfuls of food.

  “Goodbye my sweeties, I’ll be back soon. Rita will take good care of you.” The dogs whimpered, knowing she was leaving.

  I heard a strange sound, almost like a propeller plane. It hummed overhead, and then its pitch dropped. It popped, crackled, and faded into silence. It was past midnight. Cleo scrawled a note to her neighbor, asking her to feed the dogs and horses while she was gone. We went outside, where she slipped the note under her neighbor’s door. I looked back at the house, the two dogs were watching through the window as we walked across the desert. I caught a whiff of gasoline, and in the moonlight I could just make out a silhouette of a tiny propeller plane. A woman stood beside it.

  “That’s Gretchen,” Cleo said.

  My heart seized. I wasn’t generally afraid of flying—but this crazy-looking woman didn’t seem much older than me. Her light brown hair was cut short in a boyish style, and she had a diamond stud in her nose. She wore a leather bomber jacket.

  “Gretchen, meet Tanya,” Cleo said as she gave Gretchen a huge hug.

  I hesitated.

  “Sweetheart, Gretchen is a pilot for some very important people.”

  “Come on, get in,” Gretchen urged, holding out a hand and opening the door for me. “Flying is the safest way to travel. We’re already about twenty minutes behind schedule and we need to do this in the dark.”

  Swallowing my fear, I took her hand and clambered aboard.

  Cleo sat up front next to Gretchen and I ducked into the third seat in the back. I fastened my seat belt and closed my eyes as the propellers started up. The plane roared across the desert. It wasn’t until we were off the ground that I realized we were flying in the dark. Literally. There were no lights on the plane; the only light came from the instrument panel. We were black against the night sky.

  We rose up and up for about ten minutes or so. The flight seemed smooth, or at least as smooth as a propeller plane can be. I felt the tension in my stomach ease for a moment when Gretchen suddenly nose-dived fifty feet before settling the plane again. I covered my hand with my mouth.

  “I think she’s gonna be sick,” Gretchen alerted Cleo.

  Cleo rummaged around the front of the plane and handed back a white wax-paper bag. I grabbed it but I wasn’t sick. I think I was actually too nervous to throw up, even though I wanted to.

  “I know it’s not the smoothest flight,” Gretchen shouted from the front. “But it’s better than being shot down.”

  “We’re avoiding detection,” Cleo stated more clearly.

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears with my hands.

  The air smelled like ice as we landed on the barren tundra. The sound of the slowing propellers faded into the wind that blew westward, sending blasts of snow tumbling across the flat expanse of white. We’d been aloft for over twelve hours. Gretchen cut the engine and pulled on a coat and gloves. She took something that looked like a metal briefcase from beneath the pilot’s seat.

  “You have the box?” Cleo spoke in a whisper.

  Gretchen nodded. In the creeping dawn I could see her profile, short brown hair, clear skin; from the side she almost looked like a boy. Cleo pulled her own hair back, twisting it into a bun at the base of her neck.

  “What are we waiting for?” I leaned forward.

  Cleo looked at Gretchen for an answer. Gretchen monitored the screen; it was purple except for four tiny dots of red, flickering like flames. “I don’t know if they are human or animal.”

  “They look human to me,” Cleo said, and for the first time I detected a nervousness in her voice. “If they were animals they would be in a pack or farther apart.”

  “They can’t see us in here,” Gretchen said.

  Gretchen and Cleo watched the moving infrared dots on the screen. Outside, I could make out the shadows of huge trees and land around us in the early dawn light.

  “Someone’s coming close.” Gretchen pulled out a gun, gripping it in her hand. We looked out at the darkness, completely silent in the cabin.

  The reflection of two sets of eyes appeared in the dim blue morning light: wolves. They circled the body of the plane not with fear just with curiosity. They sniffed around, but the cold metal scent didn’t interest them and they moved on, disappearing into the woods, leaving no trace but a red trail on the screen.

  “It’s clear,” Cleo said, gesturing to the screen. “Darkness is our best cover.”

  “Okay.” I was growing increasingly nervous. What had I thought, that I’d be coming here to map the park? Observe the wildlife? Yes, that’s what I had thought, sort of, or wanted to think. Cleo showed me how to strap the weapon to the inside of my arm, where it lay flush against my skin, hidden beneath my sleeve.

  Outside, it was freezing. My cheeks burned; I could see icy blasts of my own breath. Gretchen was going to stay by the plane. Cleo placed a small compass in my hand. I didn’t need it, but I took it, anyway. The sun was starting to appear above the horizon; cautiously I started east with Cleo by my side.

  On the long flight, Gretchen had warned me not to speak while we were outside. The coats Cleo had given us would hide our body heat from infrared detection, make us invisible. Then again, this entire place was invisible—

  A roaring ball of fire shot through the trees.

  “Cleo!” I screamed.

  An explosion drowned out my voice. Flames burst from seemingly everywhere around me. The air was suddenly thick with black smoke. In that instant, I lost my bearings. I had no sense of direction. I couldn’t see Cleo; I couldn’t see the plane. I tried to make my way through the thick smoke but it was impossible. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Cleo!” I shouted again as another ball of fire exploded nearby.

  “Go!” Cleo shouted.

  I felt the searing heat, very close now, and panic took hold. I ran blindly, trying to outrun the smoke. I looked behind me; I couldn’t see Cleo. I didn’t stop running. I knew the smoke would suffocate me. I ran until I fell from exhaustion. My lungs were tight. I choked for air on my hands and knees, covering my mouth with my shirt, trying to breathe.

  As the smoke cleared, I found myself in the woods. I had lost Cleo and Gretchen completely. I was sure they would find me, that I would see her at the “place.” She and Gretchen were prepared for this. They’d been expecting it. That’s what I told myself as I tried to stand, and see through the clearing smoke.

  “Cleo? Gretchen?” I shouted their names.

  No answer. Please have made it back to the plane, please be safe. But another part of me made a grim tally. Again, I’d put someone in danger. Two people. Cleo had warned me not to come and I’d insisted. As I ran ahead frantically searching for them, I knew she’d been right. I was lost, alone in the woods in Alaska. But Cleo was alive, at least. She’d yelled at me to run. Maybe she was searching for me. Even in the plane they wouldn’t see me in the woods. I had to get somewhere where I might be visible from the sky.

  The woods could stretch for hundreds of miles. The smoke was so thick, so heavy, and it lingered. I couldn’t see to orient myself with the sun. I felt my belt; I had the weapon Cleo had given me and my compass. I took out my compass but could barely see the needle …

  My ears perked up. The birds had cleared out with the explosion, and the woods were all but silent—except for the sound of rushing water. I stiffened, listening. The river, I thought, the river we had seen on the satellite images. I knew where it would lead if the images were accurate.

  I crawled toward the sound, trying to stay below the toxic cloud of smoke. But when I reached the riverbank, my heart sank. The river was over fifteen feet wide, rushing powerfully downstream from the mountains. Chunks of i
ce from the glaciers floated in the strong current. On the maps it was a meek stream. In my father’s video, it was slow moving, almost still.

  I cupped my hands, washing the soot from my face and gulping down handfuls of water. The icy liquid soothed my parched throat. I glanced around, wiping my mouth. Where was the small house my father had found? If I tried to cross the river, the ice would cut like glass, and the force of it would pull me under.

  I followed it, like my father had done in the video—four hundred more yards downstream. The air was full of mist and fog; the landscape looked unrecognizable, much greener than when my father had been here. I was about to retrace my steps, thinking I had made a mistake, when I saw the house.

  In the middle of the woods, two hundred yards from the river’s western edge, stood a simple wooden cabin. I stood still, watching it to see if anyone was around. This house was the mystery. It wasn’t on any of the maps. There was no forest ranger patrol hut marked with a red star here on any of the visitor’s website or guides; Cleo had driven this point home on our flight. Nor was there an image of the house on the satellite maps. There were no images of the boulders by the river, there was nothing at all because this was the place that had been blacked out.

  This was the place my father had found the day before he disappeared.

  At first glance it looked exactly like a park ranger hut. I found myself walking toward it. I summoned what courage I had, thinking of how Cleo would behave in this situation. I fought to feel secure knowing that the weapon she had given me was safely strapped to my arm. I drew closer and saw the telltale green National Park emblem; it was disguised to look exactly like a ranger’s hut. The door was ajar.

  “Hello?” I called, peeking inside. It was only six by eight, a simple wooden structure with a woodstove against the back wall. Inside was a wooden picnic table and benches. A pile of unused, folded blankets was stacked at the door, along with what looked like an emergency supply of water. A cigarette had been ground out on the concrete floor and the scent of tobacco lingered.

  “Hello?” I called out. I had the distinct feeling someone was watching me. Was someone here? I thought I could hear the sound of breathing. I spun around.