River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053)

by Bertsch, David Riley

  “Look at the geese spook.”

  “They’re dim. Old car?”

  “Looks like it,” Jake said. “Or just fog lights.”

  “Right; he could’ve cut the headlights.”

  The lights turned off at 8:51 p.m. and came back on just after 8:59.

  “Quick strike, if he’s our guy.”

  Jake nodded. “Wait, slow down here.”

  At 8:59:48, the lights grew dimmer but their beam wider. The car was backing up.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Looks like he’s facing north.” Jake pointed to the top left of the screen, where the headlights shone.

  33

  JACKSON, WYOMING. OCTOBER 24.

  10:45 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

  Layle was on McClelland’s radio, shouting an all-points to the surrounding law-enforcement agencies. Jake was catching McClelland up on the webcam.

  A call came back.

  “Ranger Klimpton for Deputy Layle.”

  Suddenly, despite the cold air, Jake’s cheeks felt as though they were burning.

  “Go ahead,” Layle radioed back.

  “I had a beat-up white Toyota Tercel come through a speed trap north of Moose around 9:20 p.m.”

  “Did you stop him?”

  “Wasn’t speeding. Driver was a woman.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s go.” Layle tossed the cruiser’s keys to McClelland, jumped into the passenger seat, and got back on the horn, updating the other agencies with the car information.

  Before he closed the door, he held out a hand, which Jake took and shook.

  “Appreciate your help. Discretion would be appreciated.”

  “Of course. But, Deputy?”

  Layle turned back to Jake.

  “What was all that about the chief, when you called me?”

  “Another time.” In the dim light from the cruiser’s interior, Jake thought he saw the deputy’s face turn ghost white.

  It was downright cold. Jake hustled back to the car and headed back toward the west bank of the Snake. On the way, his phone rang for what seemed like the millionth time in the last few days.

  Who is it now? He hoped it was Noelle—hearing her voice had gotten him all sentimental—but she didn’t know he had been with Layle. There was no reason she would call now, or any other time.

  Jake flipped the phone over on the dash to see the caller ID. Divya. Goddammit.

  He answered, intending to put an end to this once and for all.

  “Divya. Enough. What do you want?”

  She got right to the point. “I need you to help me find someone. Someone that lives in your area.”

  “Why? I’ve got no reason to cooperate with you.”

  She sighed. “We went over this.”

  “That information won’t hurt me now.”

  “I’m not trying to hurt you. But do you really want the Paris story public?”

  “Nobody here would listen. They wouldn’t care.”

  “I bet Noelle Klimpton would be astonished.”

  “Is that what this is about? Jealousy?”

  “Sure.”

  Jake weighed his options.

  “What’s the name?”

  “Meirong Xiao. I’ll email you a description.”

  “Never heard the name. How did she end up in your sights?”

  “We think we can use her to discredit the senator.”

  “Woman on the side?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Jesus, Divya! What are you doing?” Jake was fuming.

  “Check your email.” Divya hung up.

  Jake pulled in to the bed-and-breakfast at 11:10 p.m. The light in the guesthouse’s living room was on, exactly as he left it. J.P.’s truck was still missing. Inside, Chayote was running in his sleep on the rug next to the fire, being chased or chasing in a dog dream.

  Jake emptied his pockets onto the side table and sat down. He bent forward with his elbows on his knees and took a deep breath. Restless and annoyed, he went to the fireplace and added another log, which spooked Chayote. He hopped up and ran to the front door, barking the whole way.

  “You’re okay. C’mon.”

  Jake lay down on the couch and Chayote jumped up with him, settling down by his feet.

  “I should’ve gone fishing today, Chayote.” He closed his eyes. Why was Divya so hell-bent on involving him in her political games? He knew now that she had been manipulating him from the start, but to what end? And why him? How the hell had she learned about Paris?

  He shifted his legs, numb from Chayote’s weight. The dog grumbled his disapproval, repositioned himself, and got back to snoring. Jake followed soon after.

  34

  MORAN, WYOMING. OCTOBER 24.

  10:45 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

  Susan was loading the white Tercel with her clothes and toiletries.

  “You’re going to stay with him?” her partner asked. He tried to put up some resistance. He stood near the door to the house, arms crossed.

  “What does it matter? I can’t stay around here.”

  Dr. Eric Youst didn’t know what to say. She was right, he knew.

  “What do I do with Alfie?”

  “Bury him on the Buffalo Fork. That was always our plan.”

  “I can’t believe you did this. We’re fucked.” He threw his hands up in the air and let them fall to his sides, clapping against his painter’s jeans.

  Susan stopped packing. “They were going to incinerate him. Sweep him up like garbage and put him in a Dumpster.”

  “Where’s my money?”

  Susan resumed packing and pretended not to hear. Eric approached her and grabbed her by the arm.

  “Hey! When is my money coming?”

  “It’ll be here!”

  “You don’t need me anymore, I guess? You have him.”

  “Fuck you. I’ll bring the money. Then you can do whatever you want.”

  “They’ll catch you trying to get out of here.”

  “I’m not going through town.”

  “Good luck.” Eric didn’t mean it. He slammed the door and walked back inside the warm house.

  * * *

  Susan tried to shake it, but she was scared. Unfortunately, there still weren’t any other options. She had to go, now. From what the senator had told her, she assumed it wasn’t just the police that were after her. The safest place was anywhere but home.

  She opened the garage from the pad near the door, looked briefly at the warm light coming under the door from the main house, blew a kiss in Eric’s general direction, and got in the Toyota.

  The headlights were off, in case someone was watching the cabin from afar. She leaned over to the passenger seat to make sure the shotgun was within reach should anyone try to stop her.

  When she hit the highway, she turned on the headlights. At Moran, she went north through the Grand Teton National Park gates, unmanned at that late hour. Going the speed limit through national-park land was frustrating; she wanted badly to push the little four-cylinder to its limit and get the hell out of Jackson Hole as soon as possible. But that was asking for trouble.

  A herd of elk crossed right before she went through the Yellowstone gates, miles farther down the road. Thirty head or more. They seemed to move in slow motion.

  Another unmanned gate. Thank God. Susan had taken one man’s life. She wasn’t interested in taking another. A thirty-two-year-old murderess. She had been so close to starting over, finding peace after a youth of chaos, manipulation, and abandonment.

  The park was quiet, eerily so. She half expected to round a bend and find a roadblock waiting. She turned left onto Grand Loop Road toward West Yellowstone. Almost there.

  When she made it through West Yellowsto
ne and was headed south on Idaho Route 20, she called the senator.

  “Hi.” She knew she sounded like a schoolgirl, but she couldn’t help it. She was in awe of him. From nothing, he’d transformed himself into a presidential hopeful.

  “Susan? We’re in bed here.” Meaning he and his wife.

  “Baby, you said you were leaving her.”

  “You said that.”

  “Let’s not argue.”

  “Okay.” A hissing sigh that cut through Susan like a knife. “What is it?”

  Why did he sound so disappointed? “I’m coming there. I had to get away from Jackson.”

  He was walking, getting out of the bedroom so he could talk business. “I told you to stay.”

  “You said I was in danger.”

  “Shit. I said you needed to be aware that he was looking for you. Wanted you back. I’ve got nowhere for you to stay, and it’s definitely not safe here.”

  Things were falling apart. Why is he acting this way? “You tell my goddamned father to come and get me, if he can. You can protect me, can’t you?”

  Another sigh. “Where are you?”

  “I can be there in an hour.”

  “I’ll meet you at the lab.”

  * * *

  Senator Canart went back into the bedroom, where his wife was now awake.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just heard that CNN is going to tear me apart next week. I need to go meet with the boys.”

  “This late?”

  “It will all be worth it when this thing gets approved.” He gave her a peck on the cheek, got dressed, and headed downstairs.

  There was coffee left in the pot, which he drank cold. He took the keys to the Lincoln from the basket and went to the garage.

  Rick Canart was sixty-four years old, bald on the top with a ring of Just For Men “Real Black” hair cut short. He was shorter than he would have liked, and bigger around the waist. His tone was most often quiet and intelligent, but his speeches could become impassioned, almost fiery, when discussing immigration.

  His father, Rick Sr., was a self-made man, who by all public accounts had lived the American dream. Starting young, he created a lumber empire in Coeur D’Alene, without attending college. Later in life, he took the privileged family east to Idaho Falls and set up shop. There, Rick Sr. occupied various county political offices.

  Young Rick attended Washington State, where he studied mechanical engineering. After graduating in three years, he went back to Idaho to take over the logging business from his ailing father. It was then that he discovered his family’s involvement with members of the Christian Identity Church, who had helped form the Aryan Nation in the early ’70s.

  The twenty-one-year-old was enraged at his father, having taken his cues from a liberal state institution during the height of the social revolution. But by the time his father died in 1980, Rick Jr. had come to embrace many of the teachings of the Christian Identity Church—including the belief that European-descended Americans were the chosen race of God. In his young career, he’d already seen thousands of jobs taken by immigrants in the agriculture and logging industries.

  When the logging boom breathed its last breath, Rick Jr. sold off the business and seeded a technology firm, Catalyst Technologies, to take advantage of a growing industry. During the early years, Rick Jr. focused his mechanical-engineering knowledge on downsizing electronics for use in new consumer products such as the Walkman and the personal computer.

  Political aspirations took him away from the helm of the company off and on, and in turn the company veered away from consumer products to government contracts for various technologies, including Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). A predecessor to GPSN, RFID became mainstream by the early ’90s, and Rick Jr. was at the forefront of its introduction.

  As a public servant, Rick Canart Jr. grasped early on that a heavy-handed approach was counterproductive. With the advice of party mentors, his career arched along a path less extreme than his father’s. He found great success in Idaho running on a more moderate platform, at least on its face. He worked his Christian Identity message into his platform only in the most diluted way possible, and never directly, because he was a smart politician.

  Now, he was in the biggest mess of his life. The development of the nano-GPS was a quagmire of political and personal entanglements. It had been a simple transaction in theory. Canart would get the savant Meirong so he could complete his project. Xiao would be paid licensing fees for life. A cool million every quarter.

  The problems arose when the brilliant Meirong took a liking to Senator Canart that bordered on obsession. And the senator had been flattered by the exotic young woman’s fixation. Canart enjoyed her company. His desire was heightened by how wrong it all was. A married, xenophobic senator sneaking away to make love to a young Chinese woman. If he got caught, he knew his marriage and career would be over. Somehow, it added to thrill.

  Unfortunately, after a stupid argument with Meirong, she had informed her father of their tryst. His political survival was now at risk, and with it the fortune he would make from the GPSN technology.

  Now, Xiao wanted to take Meirong back and call off the whole deal. Luckily, his ability to do so was limited. As a former cyber-spy for the Chinese, Xiao wouldn’t dare show his face in the United States.

  The trouble now was what to do with Meirong. Canart needed her to complete his project and get the technology off the ground, but he couldn’t have her so close that she was threatening his personal life and public image.

  Indeed, the girl was something special to Canart—not because of the nights they’d spent together, but because of her intellect. After failing school the year her mother died, she became a prodigy. When she was eighteen, her father sold the technology she’d helped develop to the Chinese government for what amounted to just over fifteen million in US dollars. They called it Shar-Pei. Technology that would protect the herd—the Chinese ­population—from destroying itself.

  The senator went to the front office of the electronics laboratory and switched on the light. He cleared off the couch in the corner and tidied up the desk. Dim headlights shone through the window. It was her. She looked around in her normal paranoid way, then hurried to the door. Canart was there before she knocked. She met him with an embrace.

  “Get inside.” Though he was an hour from home, he didn’t know who might be watching. He walked her through the small lobby and to the office.

  “You need to stay here for a while. I’ll go over to Walmart and get bedding. You can’t leave, okay?”

  She smiled. “What are we going to do tonight?”

  “You’re not understanding what’s going on, Meirong.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Jesus. “Susan. You don’t understand. We need to get the prototype down to size and move on. Couple of weeks, max. That’s all you have. I’m back to DC in a week or so.”

  “What about us?” The smile had faded.

  “We can talk about that later.” He brushed his hand against her hair to placate her. “I’m going to get you some stuff so you can sleep, okay?”

  She kissed him on the cheek.

  Back in his Lincoln, Canart dialed Xiao. There was one card left to play.

  He got Xiao’s voice mail. “Listen,” the senator said, “let us finish what we started, and I’ll get you the information about your wife’s shooting. Be in touch.”

  For now, he would keep Meirong in the lab, working as much as she could to get the chip down to the size where investors would take him seriously. It would take all that and the public funds he was pursuing to get the chips into production.

  Once that was done, he would ride out another term to assure implementation of the program, and then resume his role as CEO of Catalyst Technologies.

  35

  WEST BANK, S
NAKE RIVER. OCTOBER 25.

  9 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

  Jake woke up and checked his email, where Divya’s description was waiting. He read it with disgust. Then deleted it, feeling nothing but hatred toward Divya now. What the hell am I supposed to do? Wander around Jackson Hole looking for an Asian woman in her early thirties? To hell with that. She can tell Noelle all she wants.

  He opened a new message and addressed it to Divya, letting his frustration out and informing her that he wasn’t going to be blackmailed. Send.

  Next was the Deputy Layle Statler situation. Jake was intrigued by his comments on Chief Terrell. What did he mean, the chief trusted me? Why doesn’t he trust me now? Where is he? He phoned the police station and asked for Layle, who was out. Then he asked the secretary about the chief.

  “Vacation,” she said. “With his wife. They finagled a free trip to China.” There wasn’t an inkling of concern in her voice.

  China?

  Unsatisfied with the answer, Jake resigned himself to starting the coffee, then went upstairs to change clothes and brush his teeth. When he got back downstairs, Chayote was yipping at the window as J.P.’s pickup finally rolled in.

  “What up?” J.P. looked happy to be home, but exhausted. Esma was behind him. “You just getting up?”

  Jake looked at the clock on the oven. It was almost 10 a.m. “Wow. Yeah, I guess I slept in. Everything okay?” He glanced from one to the other.

  “I’m going to run to the restroom.” Esma excused herself.

  “You good?” Jake asked again.

  “Yeah, man. We’re recovering. They, uh . . .” J.P. looked around to make sure Esma was out of earshot. “They treated her like shit, man. Those rednecks.”

  This confirmed to Jake what he’d already figured. “Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry.” A quick embrace.

  “But, you know, we’re good.” He nodded to convince himself. “We’re alive. How you been?”

  “Ah, crazy. I’ll tell you some other time.”

  Esma returned and gave Jake a big hug.

  “Welcome back,” he said.

  “We’re gonna head to breakfast. Wanna join?”