by J. A. Jance
"I see," I said. "When will Paul be here?"
"The Department of Transportation has finally hauled the semi off the bridge. Traffic is beginning to move. He should be here within the next half hour or so."
Once again Hammersmith left the room. When I looked over at Sue Danielson, she drummed her fingers on the table and said nothing. She didn't have to. It was my operation, and she was forcing me to call the shots and do the right thing.
For a time, we sat in silence, waiting and drinking coffee. And after the coffee-incredibly awful swill that must have been made weeks earlier-I paced the floor with my guts at a full boil, wrestled with my indecision, and longed for the physical comfort of an antacid chalk-pill.
Every minute that passed brought us closer to the showdown, the moment when we would find them. It would have been easier to know what to do if we could have predicted in advance exactly where and when we'd find them. Where and when the inevitable confrontation would take place.
Despite my general-practitioner lamentation, I knew damn good and well that not all jurisdictions had trained hostage negotiators available. And even if they had, all such trained individuals are not necessarily created equal. Regardless of whose team was designated to do the job, it might take time-precious time-to assemble team members on a rainy November Sunday morning.
Finally, at ten o'clock, I decided to take my best shot and called Captain Lawrence Powell at home. I was glad he answered the phone himself. I wouldn't have wanted to try explaining the whole tangled web to Mrs. Powell, only to have to explain it again to her husband a few minutes later.
"Not you, Detective Beaumont," Captain Powell said into the phone, as soon as I identified myself. "Whenever you call me at home, it usually means trouble. What's going on?"
Unlike my relationship with Major Gray, with Captain Larry Powell I have a long history of working together. It's been stormy on occasion, but we do have a reasonable understanding of how the other guy thinks and where he stands. Captain Powell listened to every word I said without once interrupting.
"Let me get this straight," he said when I finished. "You're there at Boeing Field right now, waiting for one of the chopper pilots to spot the boat. When they do, you want me to have a Seattle P.D. hostage negotiation team assembled at the airport ready to go, but you don't know where they'll be going?"
"That's right."
"Jurisdictional lines be damned?" he demanded.
"That's true, too," I conceded, "but we have letters of mutual aid with most of the other jurisdictions in Washington State, don't we?"
"One would hope," Powell answered thoughtfully, "although whether or not those Memorandums of Agreement are all in order-properly signed, witnessed, and on file in the right office-is another question entirely."
"It's always easier to step on toes first and say you're sorry later," I advised him, speaking with the benefit of my lifelong history of bending, if not actually breaking, the rules. "If we try going for permission in advance, we may end up stuck in some petty jurisdictional squabble when what we need is the ability to take immediate action."
Powell thought about that for a few moments and evidently came to the same conclusion. "All right," he said. "I'll go to work on this and see what I can do. You realize, of course, that I'm going to have to run this by the brass?"
Talking to brass has never been high on my list of skills. If it were, I wouldn't still be a detective after all these years. Just his saying it made the possibility of a successful outcome sound like a hopeless pipe dream.
"All right," I said.
"What about an Emergency Response Team?" he added. "Do you think we'd better haul those guys along as well?"
"With our necks already out that far, why not?" I returned. "If those guys can shoot from a moving helicopter and knock someone off a moving boat, I say let's bring 'em along."
"Helicopter," Powell repeated. "That reminds me. You told me you're planning to pay for the initial search part of this operation, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"From what you've told me, that may or may not be necessary. We've worked with Paul Brendle before. Is he around there somewhere?"
Paul had arrived only moments earlier. He had waved to me through the glass-paned walls of the conference room while I was on the phone with Captain Powell.
"I believe he's out in the hangar area. If you'll wait a minute, I'll go get him."
Paul came in from outside to take the call. Here it comes, I thought, as he took the phone. This is when I'm going to get my ass chewed. But Paul Brendle was smiling broadly at me when he finished the conversation with Larry Powell.
"That captain of yours sounds like an all-right guy. He says he's trying to get permission to send out two specialty teams. If it works, one of them will bring along the city's signed requisition to use the helicopters. Two separate requisitions, if necessary. He did say, though, that if you and your partner-" he nodded toward Sue Danielson-"intend to go up in a helicopter prior to the arrival of that official requisition form, then the two of you will have to buy your own tickets."
Suddenly, my heart felt fully five pounds lighter. "No problem," I said cheerfully. "That's no problem at all."
27
After the phone call to Captain Powell, Sue Danielson's spirits improved immeasurably as well. Ten minutes later, Roger Hammersmith rushed into the window-lined conference room where Sue and I were waiting along with Paul Brendle.
"Got 'em!" he announced. "Sato just radioed into the tower. They're in President's Channel on a southwest heading between Waldron Island and Orcas."
I felt an initial surge of triumph, followed immediately by a rush of concern. On those occasions when I personally have traveled to Orcas, it's been on board Washington State ferries. Because I have an unerring knack for missing ferries by minutes, that kind of travel tends to leave me with a distorted view about how far it is and how long it takes to get there.
"How long will it take?" I asked.
"Not long," Paul said. "Let's go."
Instantly, he was on his feet, pulling on his flight jacket, and heading for the door. Sue and I followed. Walking with a distinct limp, Paul hurried out to the flight line, where a bright red American Eurocopter A-Star helicopter sat at the ready.
Heading there, I glanced at my watch and wondered if I shouldn't rush back into the office long enough to call Captain Powell and let him know what was happening. But it was already too late. While Paul was doing his last-minute visual, preflight check, Roger was already handing Sue into the backseat of the chopper, helping her to don the headset, adjusting the microphone, and showing her the control button on the floor that made it work.
Erroneously assuming helicopters to be similar to automobiles, I headed for the right side of the helicopter. Roger Hammersmith was quick to point out my mistake. In helicopters, the left-hand side is always the passenger side. Properly chastised, I headed for the opposite side of the aircraft.
Embarrassed at being shown up for such a helicopter neophyte, I climbed in. The carpeted interior, the plush leather seats, and the myriad of gauges set in a wood-grain panel reminded me of the dashboard of my 928. Except for one thing-the helicopter had a lot more legroom.
Before Hammersmith could give me any further instructions, he was summoned away by yet another telephone call. Following the directions he had given Sue, I put on my own headset. As I waited for us to take off, I tried to keep preflight jitters entirely to myself.
Shameful as it is to admit, as a kid, I never liked carnival rides-not even those as tame as the Ferris wheel. They made me queasy and turned my skin a sickly shade of green. Bearing that in mind, it goes without saying that I don't take to flying. In middle age, I'm a reluctant and generally grouchy airline passenger as opposed to the blase frequent fliers of the world.
It's easy to understand that prior to that windy, rainy morning I hadn't spent any of my adult life searching for ways to take helicopter rides. Helicopters are noisy. Sitting in
a moving plastic bubble high above the ground isn't my idea of a good time.
Paul took several minutes to complete the outside checklist of the helicopter, then he, too, climbed aboard. In his office on the ground, he had been relaxed and easygoing-jovial almost. Once inside the aircraft, he was all business.
"Where exactly did he say they are?" I asked.
Without answering, Paul put on his headset and pressed the Start button of the jet-turbine engine. As the helicopter blades roared into action, they seemed to swallow my question whole. Paul's eyes were busy checking gauges and instruments, and he didn't look in my direction.
"If you want to talk to me," he said, his voice coming through the headset, "you have to push down the black button on the floor. What did you ask?"
"Where are they?"
"Far north end of the San Juans."
"How close to the Canadian border?"
"That depends on how fast the guy is going. From Point Disney on Waldron Island, it's probably only ten miles or so to international waters-ten nautical miles, that is."
Only ten miles? I thought in dismay. By now Captain Powell would be deep in the process of trying to convince Seattle P.D.'s brass that they should take action. Assuming they did that, Powell would have his hands full just coordinating the operation as a joint effort with the law-enforcement folks up in San Juan County on our side of the border. Crossing into Canada and working with Canadian authorities as well as with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would add another whole dimension of complication and difficulty.
Larry Powell has been my squad commander for years. I have considerable faith in his abilities. But since I hadn't been able to make Major John Gray go along with the program-since I couldn't convince him of the validity of my suspicions about what was happening on board One Day at a Time — how could Captain Powell possibly expect to pull the RCMP into line?
"Can we beat Alan Torvoldsen to the border?" I asked.
Paul Brendle shrugged and eased the helicopter into the air far enough to take us out to a small landing-pad triangle that had been painted onto the tarmac. "Like I said before, it depends on how fast he's going and on winds aloft."
I tried to say something more, but now, intent on receiving radio transmissions coming in from Air Traffic Control, Paul held up his index finger, motioning for me to be quiet and wait.
Never before having seen a helicopter pilot at work, I confess to being impressed. I've ridden in Metroliners on occasion-the kind of cigar-shaped, one-seat-per-side, sardine-can-type airplane where, if you're lucky, they keep a curtain closed between you and the pilots and their daunting array of instruments and gauges.
The reason I like a closed curtain is that, if something goes wrong and I can't do a damn thing about it, I don't want to know beforehand. I find it reassuring, however, that Metroliners always have two real, reasonably trained, bona-fide pilots.
Paul Brendle's helicopter had only one pilot on board-him. And it was no wonder he didn't want to talk. He didn't have time. Both hands, both feet, both eyes, and his mouth were all working at once in a display of coordination I found nothing short of dazzling. He was talking back and forth to Air Traffic Control when the chopper lifted off, tilted sharply forward, and sped down the runway, quickly gaining altitude.
While the helicopter had been parked without the engine and blades running, a slanting, wind-driven rain had covered the clear plastic bubble, making it almost impossible to see out. As soon as the blades whirled overhead, most of the moisture had been blown away, but now the windshield wipers came on as well.
As the airport tarmac fell away behind us, I was dismayed to realize there was nothing between me and the ground but carpeted metal flooring and a thin-very thin-layer of wraparound, see-through plastic. To my surprise, however, despite what I knew to be serious gusty winds and thick rain, the ride inside the machine was far smoother than I had expected.
I glanced at my watch again. Time was passing too quickly. I felt more and more urgency about getting back to Captain Powell and letting him know what was up.
I pressed down the button on my microphone. "What about calling…" I began, but Paul cut me off once more with his silencing finger while an air-traffic controller advised us to watch out for a medical helicopter inbound across Puget Sound, heading for the landing pad at Harborview Hospital.
Once more I shut up and warily scanned the horizon. I didn't want to die in a midair crash, and I was relieved when I finally managed to spot the incoming chopper through the pouring rain.
We followed the path of the freeway north across the city. Since it was Sunday morning, most of the downtown city streets appeared pretty well deserted, although there was still a residual backup in both directions on the freeway at the Ship Canal Bridge. Somewhere near Northgate we veered northwest and headed toward Puget Sound.
"What was it you wanted back there?" Paul asked.
I was so fascinated by what I was seeing that it took me a minute to remember. "I need to get word back to Captain Powell, about what's going on."
"No problem," Paul Brendle replied. "I'll have Roger handle it. What's his number, and what do you want to tell him?"
Good question. Should I go ahead and trust to Captain Powell's ability to call in the cavalry, or should I try marshaling reinforcements independently? If Powell was actually making progress cutting through regular channels, a call from me to the San Juan Sheriff's Department would only muddy the issue.
Conscious that every moment of delay counted against us, I gave Paul the number. "Give him the location," I said. "Tell him to try to get us whatever help he can."
Having called for help through official channels, I sat back to worry in silence. What were the chances of our actually catching up with Alan Torvoldsen's boat before it reached Canadian waters? And if we couldn't make it in time, did San Juan County or the Coast Guard have a boat capable of getting there first?
Once we were out over Puget Sound, the clouds began to break up. Whitecaps on the gray-green water showed that the wind had kicked up considerably, but the helicopter bounced very little. Despite my initial misgivings, clearly we were far better off up in the air than we would have been down on the water bobbing around in a boat.
That was discouraging. Rough seas made things tougher, lessening the odds of pulling off a successful rescue mission without someone getting hurt.
What would Alan Torvoldsen do once he realized we were onto him? I wondered. Would he try to run and hide, or would he stand and fight? Was the skipper of One Day at a Time armed and dangerous? If so, how much firepower did he have at his disposal? Enough to bring down a helicopter? The plastic bubble of Paul Brendle's cockpit sure as hell wasn't made of bulletproof material.
A garbled-sounding radio transmission came in. I couldn't understand a word of it.
"What did he say?"
"Mr. Sato, one of our R-22 pilots, just took another peek," Paul answered. "He says they just passed Danger Rock. Looks like they're heading on down the Spieden Channel between Spieden Island and San Juan. The international border is in the middle of Haro Strait on the other side of San Juan Island. My guess is that's where they're headed."
That was my guess, too, even though I didn't possess Paul Brendle's photographic memory for San Juan Island geography.
"We're gaining on them, though," he added. "We've got a thirty-knot tailwind, and they must be running a little slower than we figured."
"So we might still catch them?"
"Of course."
"Where?"
"There's a marine atlas in the back pocket behind my seat. Take a look at that, and we'll see."
Sue, sitting in back, dragged out the oversized book. After spending several minutes studying it, she tapped me on the shoulder and passed it up to me through the space between the two front seats. When I looked back at her, I discovered the skin on her face was a surprising shade of gray-green-almost the same color as the water below us. The same color mine used to be when I ste
pped off a Tilt-a-Whirl.
"I can't read in moving vehicles," she managed. "It makes me sick."
"There's a barf bag in that same pocket, if you need it," Paul suggested helpfully.
While Sue went rummaging for the air-sickness bag, I busied myself with the atlas. It took some time to sort out the way the atlas worked and to find the proper chart for the area where we were headed. As my eyes ran up the side of San Juan Island, the name Deadman Bay caught my eye. Seeing it seemed like an omen, somehow.
Another radio transmission came through. The basic gist of this one was that San Juan County had a boat heading out from Friday Harbor to offer assistance, but the sheriff was having difficulty assembling his Emergency Response Team. San Juan County's single trained hostage negotiator was leading a religious retreat at Leavenworth up in the Cascades. And the sharpshooter on the San Juan Emergency Response Team was in the hospital in Bellingham giving birth to her second baby.
That meant that our only hope of help was from the two specialty teams dispatched by Captain Powell, and they weren't expected to leave Boeing Field for another ten minutes.
I glanced questioningly back at Sue. Clutching the bag in her hand, she was leaning back in the leather seat with her eyes closed and her face still a pukey shade of green. From the looks of her, it was possible she was out of the game for good.
"What are they up to?" Paul demanded.
Preoccupied with concerns about Sue, I hadn't bothered to listen to the latest radio transmission. "What's going on?"
"They just came around Flattop Island," Paul answered. "Then they sort of eased into a ninety-degree turn and headed northwest."
Once again I picked up the atlas and studied the chart. On it, land masses were colored the same green as Sue's complexion. Water was white with black depth markings that indicated the depth of the water around the various islands and rocky shoals. Suggested courses were lined and numbered in red. Shipping lanes and precautionary areas were marked with purple.
