Night Flight

by Donna Ball

  The officer took his license, examined it with a flashlight, and glanced at Dave and back at the license. "Escaped fugitive," he said. "There's been a shooting."

  "Jeez. What's this world coming to, huh?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The officer shined the flash in the back seat and around the floor. Another car pulled onto the ramp, its lights flashing in Dave's mirror, and slowed abruptly when the flashing blue dome light came into view. The officer returned the license.

  "Have a good day, sir. Drive carefully."

  "Hope you guys catch him."

  Dave pulled forward, building up speed for the freeway. Sometimes things went right. Sometimes the bad guys didn't win. Sometimes ordinary people made ordinary judgments, like not asking for the car registration with the license, like not walking around the car to notice a trunk that wasn't quite closed, like not knowing or remembering that Portersville, California was also where the fugitive was from. Sometimes you got a break. Sometimes you slid by.

  The road sang beneath the wheels. He watched his speed. They weren't out of the woods yet, and if he got stopped for speeding there would be a registration check. But he wanted to speed. He wanted to push the little car 'til its wheels shuddered, to beat that daylight that was coming up on them too fast. He wanted to stop and let Cathy out, and that was the need he fought the hardest. If he got off the freeway again he might not be so lucky next time; if he pulled over he'd only draw attention to himself. Anyone might see, anything might happen, and they dared not take a chance.

  Cathy understood that. She knew she had to stay put until they made the final exit off the freeway. It would be less than an hour, if his guesses were right. Dave hated small places, and he knew every minute must seem like an eternity to her. He tried not to think about that. And he tried not to think about how Cathy would react when she found out where he was taking her, which was nowhere near where she wanted to be.

  The changing of the texture of the road aroused Cathy from a stupor that was induced by exhaustion and monotony, fear and discomfort. First there had been the freeway, then an exit, and she thought Dave would stop and open the trunk. But the car picked up speed again, on a paved road with many twists and turns. She didn't know why but she got the feeling they were climbing. Maybe she could detect the subtle strain of the engine or the downshifting of gears, or maybe she was imagining it. Then there came the gravel road, and that was what jarred her out of the half-dozing, half-hypnotic state into which she had retreated. The road was badly rutted, and every time the wheels bounced her shoulder hit the tire well, or her head rapped painfully against the trunk lid, or her hip banged the floorboard, and it went on for a very long time. But it wasn't the discomfort that alarmed Cathy. They should not have been on a gravel road. There were no gravel roads between Hinesville, California and Albany, Oregon, that much she knew. Why had they left the highway? Where were they?

  She didn't know what she was speculating or what the worst might be, but it comforted her to be able to reach Dave's windbreaker, to feel the pistol he had zipped in the pocket, to wrap her hand around it. When she thought about how many of the night's horrors had been directed by weapons, and how badly every encounter with them had ended for her, she did not know why there should be any reassurance at all in the presence of the gun. But there was, nonetheless.

  The car stopped. She moved her hand, as much as possible, to bring the nylon-wrapped pistol closer. She felt the shifting of weight as Dave left the car, the click of his door closing. His footsteps made no sound, so she knew the car had left the gravel. She could smell pine and spruce. She tried not to think the worst. She tried to be prepared for it.

  Dave cut the shoestring with which he had tied the trunk, leaving room for air circulation, and the lid swung open creakily. Cathy wanted to spring to the ground, ready to run, but she could hardly straighten her legs. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gray light that filtered over her.

  Dave reached in to help her as she struggled to sit up. "You okay?"

  She lost her hold on the windbreaker, and the gun slipped back onto the floorboard. She nodded, tripping despite Dave's support as she climbed over the back bumper. It was morning—

  the barest edge of morning but morning nonetheless. The air was damp, foggy and a little chill. Despite the heavy cloak of evergreens that surrounded them, it was light enough to see clearly. What Cathy saw was that they were at the end of some kind of rutted trail in the middle of the woods. The fog was coming from a lake that lapped against the side of the bank about two hundred yards below them. Before them was some kind of structure—a small shed or shack with peeling cedar shingles, dirty windows and a rusty tin roof.

  Before she could speak, Dave said, "This is a fishing cabin I own. We're safe here. It was dangerous to stay on the road much longer, you know that, don't you? We had to find a place to--"

  "Hide out," she finished tonelessly. But as quiet as her voice was, it seemed to echo in the stillness. It was so isolated here, so empty. Anything could happen and no one would ever know. No one.

  "I know I promised to take you to your brother. I will. But we're going to have to wait here until I figure out the safest way to do that."

  He was still holding her arm. Wordlessly, she pulled away.

  He stepped in front of her. He was almost half a foot taller than she and he had to bend his neck to look at her. His face was lined with exhaustion and his voice was intent. "Cathy," he said, "you believe me, don't you?"

  She looked at him steadily for a long time. Then she said, "Of course."

  The minute she said it she knew it was true. She started walking toward the shack.

  ***********

  The night was over. Cathy felt the daylight on her eyelids, and that was the first thing she thought: It's over. Thank God, it's over. At first she didn't remember why.

  She opened her eyes, and then she remembered. The cot on which she lay was narrow and lumpy; it smelled musty even though she had seen Dave take the clean sheets from a cupboard and she had put them on herself. The window opposite was cloudy with grease and half-obscured by a sagging shade, but it allowed enough light to penetrate that Cathy could tell it was late morning, perhaps even afternoon. With a jolt that hurt her chest she came fully awake, and as the memories of the night returned waves of panic spread through her stomach and out to her limbs like ripples in a pond. It wasn't over. She wasn't safe. Hours were gone, wasted; people were still trying to kill her, she was stranded without a car or money in this strange place, and Jack . . . what had happened to Jack? She had to get to him, he was depending on her, and she was no closer to reaching him than she ever had been. Her purse was gone, her car was gone, she was alone in the middle of nowhere . . .

  The last thought sent a shaft of ice-cold terror through her veins, because for a moment she thought it might be true. She sat up abruptly, and before her feet hit the floor she saw him.

  He was standing at a counter at the opposite end of the room, spooning instant coffee into a cup of hot water. "I know," he said without turning, "the place is a mess. Somehow it doesn't seem so bad when it's just a bunch of men sitting around in smelly fishing clothes."

  He brought the coffee to her, leaving the spoon in the cup. "No cream, but there's some sugar somewhere if you want it."

  Cathy shook her head, pushing her hair back from her face with one hand and accepting the coffee with the other. It was a thick crockery mug, hand-glazed, perfectly suited for the rustic cabin, yet oddly out of place. It was the kind of thing a woman might shop the mountain fairs and country craft shows for, but a man would never think to buy.

  Dave put a fresh pan of water to heat on the hot plate and returned to her with his own cup. There was another cot opposite hers, and he sat on the edge of it, facing her. Cathy wondered whether he had slept at all. From the looks of him, the answer was no.

  She stirred the coffee absently, waiting for the steam to dissipate, looking at the man across from her. She
thought, He looks like a cop—and what that meant, she wasn't entirely sure. He had a face that was neither handsome nor unhandsome, the kind of face that defied description because it was simply so ordinary. The kind of face that could blend in with a crowd, which Jack had once told her, from his vast store of spy novel information, was an essential characteristic in an undercover policeman or a secret agent. His eyes were brown, now deeply pocketed with weariness and bracketed with lines that probably were not, on other occasions, as prominent as they were today. His cheeks were stubbled with beard, his hair was thick and brown and rumpled. Though now he looked older, Cathy figured him to be in his late thirties.

  He was looking at her in the same quiet, unaffected way as she was looking at him, resting his elbows on his knees, holding the coffee cup loosely between his hands. Both of them knew what had to be said, but neither of them wanted to begin. Cathy sipped from the mug and wondered who was the woman who had thought of him at a mountain crafts show.

  After a moment he said, "There's nothing to eat—nothing you'd want to chance, anyway. But there's a little country store not too far from here, we can walk up there in awhile."

  Cathy said, "I need to call-"

  "I know.” He took his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. “I can’t get signal here, but we might have better luck out in the open. If not, there's a pay phone at the store."

  They sat for a while longer, sipping coffee. It was slightly stale and had a dull bitter aftertaste, the way most instant coffees do, but it was hot and strong and gradually began to restore Cathy's strength. After a moment Dave got up to refill his cup, but when he gestured to Cathy questioningly she shook her head.

  He took his time measuring out the coffee, stirring it. Then he crossed the room again and stood at the cloudy window opposite Cathy's bunk, looking out at the lake.

  "We had a call," he said, "From a woman named Laura, about a drug deal that was supposed to go down last night. We never met her, we never saw her, we didn't even know her name until later. We just knew that she was going to take a call at that phone booth that would give her the specifics, then she was going to turn the information over to us."

  Cathy saw his shoulders lift in a half-shrug. "A lot of unanswered questions in a situation like that. You believe about half of what you hear, you never know what to expect. I was surprised to see anybody show up at that phone booth at all."

  It took Cathy a moment to absorb the implications, to make sense of what, at any other time, would have been a ridiculously simple scenario. "You thought I was Laura."

  He nodded. "What're the odds, huh? That you would show up where you did, when you did . . ."

  Cathy said nothing. She could hardly even think.

  "Toby—my partner—he expected you to go willingly. He wasn't prepared for any gunplay. Neither was I. But it must've looked like you were being forced. Deke, the man I . . ." There was a pause, and he lifted the cup to his lips. It was longer than it should have been before he continued. "The other man—his job was to protect you, or the woman he thought was Laura. He had no choice but to open fire. He was an undercover agent. I didn't know that until later." There was a long silence, and still he didn't turn around. Then he said softly, "Jesus, what a screwup."

  "Screwup," Cathy repeated flatly, staring into her coffee. "Yes, I would say that." Her hands tightened around the mug, slowly, tendons showing white and veins pulsing blue. She fought to keep her voice steady but it rose on every word. "I've been chased, shot at, arrested, kidnaped — my life has been torn apart, my car's impounded, my purse is stolen, my brother is in the hospital and I don't even know whether he's alive or dead, all because you screwed up, isn't that right? My God! You mistook me for a woman you'd never even seen! You started shooting at people you didn't even know! Screwup? Yeah, I'd say you screwed up, wouldn't you?"

  She stopped, because she was afraid if she said any more she would become incoherent. She brought her fingers to her lips, pressing hard as though to literally hold back words, and was surprised to see her hand was trembling. She could see Dave's shoulders tightening, as though her accusations were physical blows, with every word she spoke, and though she knew she should be sorry she wasn't. Her anger was a magnificent thing, fierce and energizing and right, and she wouldn't apologize for it. For one brief perverse and satisfying moment she let herself revel in it.

  Dave stood at the window, silent and unmoving, while the sting of her bitterness faded slowly from the air. Cathy took a gulp of coffee. She made herself swallow it. She said after a long time, in a deliberately calm voice, "What about the real Laura? What happened to her?"

  "Kreiger killed her."

  She stared at him, outrage forgotten, resentment abandoned, even fear put aside in the simple shock of that matter-of-factly uttered statement.

  He lifted his coffee cup, turning now to face her. Backlit by the sun, his face looked even more haggard, his eyes haunted by exhaustion and a bitterness of his own. Cathy felt something twist inside her, reaching out in sympathy to him. She was sorry, then.

  "At least that's what I figure," he went on. "He knew she was dead, that much is certain. My theory is he followed her to the rendezvous at the convenience store, saw his chance, and wasted her right there, planning to step in and take the call himself. But you got in the way."

  Cathy's head was spinning. "That man— the black man who got shot ... he was trying to warn me. Or her. He said 'It's off for tonight, babe. You've been made.' "

  Dave's attention quickened briefly, then he nodded. "He knew about Kreiger, then. But he was taking a hell of a chance, warning you. Because it wasn't really off, otherwise they wouldn't have made the call."

  She frowned, running her fingers through her tangled hair. "But the phone call. It didn't even make any sense. Just numbers and letters, nothing anybody could use."

  "A code." He nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense. Then he gave a shake of his head. "So you really don't know what the caller said. After all this, even if you wanted to tell what you know—you don't know anything."

  Cathy lifted her eyes to him. There was a moment's hesitation, but no more. And afterward it never occurred to her to wonder whether she'd made the right decision. She said, "I said it didn't make sense, not that I didn't know what was said. I have a memory for details. I remember exactly what the caller said."

  Dave held her gaze for a long and steady moment. She waited for him to ask. And he didn't.

  Cathy went to the hot plate to refill her coffee cup, diluting the muddy mixture it already held. "So Kreiger really is a government agent. And he was just trying to cut in on this drug deal?" She spoke uncertainly, trying to give herself time to accept it. It all sounded too much like a television show to be real.

  "Apparently he's been under suspicion for awhile. He was assigned to the Delcastle case under FBI surveillance, and he did exactly what they expected him to."

  "Well at least somebody was expecting something." Then she turned. "Wait a minute. If the FBI knew-"

  "Laura was the wild card. Nobody expected her to get pissed off at her boyfriend—Delcastle--and go to the local police. Not the FBI, not Kreiger, certainly not us. And when everybody arrived at the same spot at the same time . . ." He shrugged. "You can't tell the players without a scorecard."

  Cathy leaned against the counter, cradling the coffee cup, not even trying to make sense of it all anymore. "So where's the FBI now? Why aren't they here when we need them? Why did they let Kreiger get away, why did they let him take me—surely they knew I wasn't Laura?"

  The look Dave slanted in her direction seemed almost wry. "That fellow you left back in the parking lot of Two Mile Church? He was the agent in charge of the case. He won't be much help to anybody for a while."

  Cathy felt her knees start to buckle, and if she had not been leaning against the counter she might well have fallen. That she couldn't accept. She thought of the terror of the road duel, the drawn gun, the thunk of the body hitting her car. . . . A
nd he had been trying to help her. All the time, he had been her ally . . .

  She felt the grip of Dave's fingers on her upper arm and saw the concern on his face, and she realized she must have grayed out for a minute after all. In an instant he had crossed the room and now was removing the coffee mug from her fingers, guiding her to a chair. "Here," he said. "Take it easy. Sit down."

  She sank into the hard, ladder-backed chair, shaking. She brought her hand to her mouth, breathing deeply through her fingers. When she could speak she managed, "I could have—killed him."

  Dave knelt beside her, pressing her coffee cup into her hand. "Here. Drink some."

  She obeyed, and he watched her carefully. After a sip or two of the hot coffee she could feel the color return to her cheeks, and he must have noticed it as well. The concern on his face was replaced with satisfaction. He got to his feet. "I wouldn't worry too much about the FBI, if I were you. It was their idea to use you as bait."

  She stared at him. "What?"

  "That's why they let Kreiger get to you. They can't bust him until he steps out of line, and he can't make his move until he gets the information you have."

  Cathy's throat was dry. Drug lords, rogue government agents, the FBI . . . She had done nothing to deserve any of this, nothing to invite it, but people she had never heard of were trying to kill her. All of them wanted something from her and none of them cared what they had to do

  to get it. And none of it was her fault.

  She looked at Dave and said, her voice totally devoid of expression, "What about you? What do you want from me?" As soon as she spoke she wished she could take the words back-but was actually glad she couldn't. She needed to know. She had to ask.