Or very bad. In this office, you often couldn’t tell which was which.
Finally, Paul nodded and said, “Put him through to this phone.”
Paul leaned forward over the desk in the oval office and handed the phone to the President.
“It’s Doc Hill, calling for you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Las Vegas, Nevada. August 25
IT HAD ALREADY been another long day, but there was still one more major detail to set in motion. There was one more player in this game that had to be invited to the table. And I was the only one who could do it.
I sat in the living room, across from Fleet, with the phone in my hand, thinking.
Actually, stalling.
Annie had left shortly after R.A. called back, and both Ace and my mother were taking a nap before dinner. The house had suddenly felt empty when Annie left. I wasn’t sure what to make of that feeling. Clearly, I was growing to like having her at my side.
She hadn’t much liked the idea that I wanted two of Mike’s men shadowing her.
“Remember, I’m the god-damned police here?” she had said, getting angry at the suggestion.
I told her I didn’t care what she was, and that had started a pretty good shouting match, with us standing face-to-face. I finally said that she had no choice if she intended on helping with all this. I wasn’t going to take a chance on anyone getting her any more than getting anyone else around me. So it was either guards watching her, or she could just step out and not come back until this was over.
She had finally accepted the guards shadowing her. Mike promised they would stay out of her way as she left and all she had done was grunt.
We had all decided that going back to the Bellagio for a late dinner made as much sense as anything, since we hadn’t stocked the house with food. Mike and his people said they could keep us safe and an eye on the house while we were gone. Annie said she would join us.
I looked at the phone in my hand again. I was really looking forward to getting all this over with, so I could just get back to playing poker.
I glanced at Fleet, who was sitting across from me in the living room, waiting for me to do what I needed to do.
“Butterflies?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said, smiling. “Just worried that this call may end up getting one of us killed. More than likely me.”
“And that doesn’t give you butterflies?” Fleet asked.
“Butterflies are way too small for the worry I’m feeling. Bats. Large flying rodents swirling in my stomach.”
“I’ll match your bats and raise you a dozen more,” Fleet said.
I looked at the secure phone in my hand, then dialed the number that Mike had found for me. It was a direct number into the White House, past the first levels of switchboards. I had no idea how he got it, and not in a million years would I have ever thought I would call the White House.
I got an operator, a woman with a nice voice and a charming way.
“I’m calling for Paul Hanson. Emergency business. My name is Doc Hill.”
“I will connect you to his office.” the operator said.
“Got through to the office,” I whispered to Fleet.
“Step one,” he whispered back.
A moment later another woman answered the phone. “Paul Hanson’s office.”
“My name is Doc Hill. I am calling for the President or Mr. Hanson.”
“Would you please tell me what this matter is about and I will get you to the appropriate party?”
“Just give Mr. Hanson or the President my name,” I said. “They will want to talk to me.”
“I’m afraid both Mr. Hanson and the President are very busy men.”
“I understand that,” I said. “I am a very old friend of the family and this is an emergency. Just tell either one of them I am on the line and one of them will talk to me. I am calling from Las Vegas, Nevada. Please tell one of them. I’ll hold.”
Fleet had bet me that I wouldn’t get through, especially at almost ten in the evening in Washington. I figured there was no way I wouldn’t get through to at least Hanson. Not with what had been happening and how much those two men had to lose.
I sat, waiting as the phone clicked a few times.
“Doc,” President Dolan Chase said, coming on the line. “I’m surprised and pleased at your call. I sure hope you don’t mind being recorded. Most phone calls coming in here are, you know.”
I liked how he had warned me about the taping system, to make sure I didn’t say anything that could get him or me into trouble.
I gave Fleet the thumbs-up.
“Not at all, Mr. President. And thank you for taking my call.”
Fleet’s eyes got about twice their size and he started shaking his head back and forth like he couldn’t believe any of this.
“Your father was a very good friend of mine,” President Chase said. “I’m sure sorry about what happened to him.”
“That’s the reason for my call, sir,” I said. “I am throwing a very special poker game in honor of Carson at R.A.’s ranch in Idaho.”
“Really?” the President said. The tone of his voice had suddenly lost some of its phony political friendliness. “Who is playing?”
“Just R.A., Nyland Harrison, and myself. I know you can’t join us because of your schedule, but I wanted to let you know, since you and my father had so much history between you.”
There was a long silence on the line, then the President came back. “This sounds very interesting, and a fitting tribute to your father. What are your stakes?”
“Just some old keys,” I said. “No money. You could say we’re playing for a piece of history.”
Again a longer-than-normal pause, then the president asked in a soft voice that had a lot of power behind it, “What would you do with a bunch of old keys?”
“Oh,” I said, keeping my voice as light and as upbeat as I could do under the circumstances, “I’m not after the keys, just answers.”
“What kind of answers?” he asked.
“Basic ones, sir,” I said. “I hope this game helps me learn what happened to my father, and Verne Adkins and Benson James and Aaron Bell and Kevin DeFoe and Jeff Taylor.”
Now the silence seemed so loud that my ears were ringing as I strained to hear anything from the other end of the line.
Finally, after a long ten seconds, the President said, “I hope it helps you find those answers as well.”
He did not sound sincere.
“I’m sure you understand,” the President said, “how much of a friend your father was to me.”
With him repeating what he had said earlier, I knew I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I had made sure that even if he wasn’t actually sitting in the game up in Idaho in three days, he would be there.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, now not holding the sarcasm from my voice. “I got the flowers.”
With that, I hung up on the President of the United States.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Idaho Primitive Area. August 26
ANNIE HAD NEVER had a trip like the one she had just finished.
At four in the morning, as the sun was just breaking over the hills, and the air still felt almost cool in comparison to the daytime temperatures, she and Mike had boarded a very swank Gulfstream private jet that was waiting for them at the Las Vegas airport.
The plane had an oak-trimmed interior, large, comfortable leather recliner chairs, a dining-room-sized table, and a flight attendant named Dan to serve her and Mike breakfast. And it was as good a breakfast as she had had in years.
She and Mike talked for a short time during breakfast about the Las Vegas police, then he laid out one of the chairs and went to sleep.
She managed to do the same twenty minutes later, giving herself time to enjoy her first flight on a private corporate jet.
This was Doc’s plane, Fleet had told her, or actually it was owned by one of the many corporations Doc and Fleet own
ed. From what she had read, Doc and Fleet controlled a lot of companies and assets. Looking around this plane, she finally understood how great the rich had it.
And she liked it. What was there not to like?
The flight attendant woke them as the plane made its approach into the Boise airport.
Next, they had boarded a single-engine Cessna for the second leg of their flight, a fairly bumpy two-hour flight over some of the most rugged mountains she had ever imagined seeing up close. And sometimes the pilot got way too close for her taste.
She sat in the back seat behind Mike, trying to focus on the horizon so she wouldn’t get airsick. Somehow, she held that ugliness off.
By nine in the morning, Las Vegas time, the small plane bounced to a landing on a small, rough excuse for a landing strip five miles below R.A.’s ranch.
Doc had given her a map with a trail marked on it, but basically all they had to do was follow the river upstream. She had asked Doc to let her look at a picture of R.A.’s ranch house to make sure they found the right one, even though Doc said it was the only house within twenty miles. She just found that hard to imagine.
Now, she and Mike stood to one side of the runway, their equipment and packs at their feet as the small plane took off, barely clearing tall pines at the end of the short runway.
As the sound of the plane died away, the intense silence closed in around her like a blanket.
She had been a Las Vegas native, born and raised. Las Vegas never slept, and the noise of the city went on all the time.
Here, there was nothing, no humans, no cars, no loud tourists. Nothing but crisp, cool morning air and silence.
A lot of silence.
And the air tasted and felt so fresh and clear and pure, it was almost like eating a wonderful dessert after a perfect meal.
She looked around slowly, taking it all in. The steep mountains, the forest, the intense blue sky. Now she understood why Doc came up here every summer. Maybe next summer she could join him for a trip.
She pushed that thought away at once. Until all this was settled, there would be no time for anything between her and Doc. And that also assumed he was interested.
“Never thought I’d see the day I missed the sounds of bumper-to-bumper traffic,” Mike said, looking around at the tall peaks that closed the valley in. “This could get creepy.”
“I kind of like it.”
Mike just shook his head. “So, which way, Detective?”
The river was on the left of the airstrip as they landed, and the pilot had pointed out R.A.’s ranch as they flew in, so she knew exactly where to go.
“That way,” she said, pointing to the opposite end of the runway that the plane had just left.
Three and a half very long hours later, they were in the trees at the end of R.A.’s private air strip, sweating, out of breath and hurting. It had been the longest and the toughest five miles she had ever walked. No wonder Doc always seemed to be in such top shape. She thought she had been as well, until she came into these mountains.
Mike was looking a little pale and she forced him to take some water, then down a large bottle of Gatorade and a salt tablet. Even though the temperature had to be thirty degrees cooler than Vegas, it still felt damned hot.
Doc had warned her at dinner last night that the hike would be tough, and that they needed to go slowly and take enough water. She had brushed his worries aside. After all, how tough could five miles be to someone as in shape as she was?
Stupid question. Five miles of a rough, uphill trail at eight thousand feet elevation. Now she knew. And she had a whole new respect for those hikers who could carry heavy packs and do ten miles a day. That should be an Olympic sport.
After resting, Mike looked better, so they worked their way up through the trees toward the house. Supposedly, R.A. had closed the place up for the winter when he left. But they were going to take no chances.
They scouted completely around the ranch, moving slowly and carefully.
No plane, no sign of anyone at all.
At the single-story ranch house made of logs, they found a window into a dining area and she went to work on trying to open it without leaving any traces.
Beside her, Mike kept glancing around.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Sure, I just don’t like going into a house without the proper paperwork is all, Detective.”
She laughed and kept working on the window. “Don’t worry, this isn’t the first time I’ve gone into a place without the correct warrant.”
“I’m not sure I wanted to know that,” he said.
Once inside, they found the way into the house’s attic space through a trap door in a bedroom closet ceiling. Mike barely fit through with his massive shoulders, but with her pushing, he made it.
In the attic, Mike set up the recording equipment.
Annie was impressed at the quality of the listening devices, and the fact that Mike was taking no chances in a machine not working. He set up three of them, in different hidden places in the attic, and used wires to run to the sensitive mikes he put down through the ceiling and into the light fixtures.
They had every room in the house wired within two hours, and within another hour, Mike had a satellite up-link working to send all conversation out of the house at the same time that it was being recorded.
Everything said in the house for the next three days would be recorded here, and listened to live in Boise. She had no idea how Fleet was going to be able to get any of this legally accepted in any court, but for the moment, she was going to leave that up to him.
By four in the afternoon, they were just finished policing the house to make sure they had left no traces. Suddenly, the sounds of a small plane broke through the stillness.
“We’ve got company,” Annie said as they both stood listening to the plane circle and start its approach to the narrow runway cut out of the pine trees. “A day early.”
As the plane landed and taxied to the other end of the runway, hidden from their view, they locked the window, went out the front door, locking it behind them, and headed for the river. They followed a nasty trail down from the house along a cliff face to the river’s edge, then turned upstream toward where rafts put into the river in the spring. Someone would be waiting for them there.
“Too close,” Mike said, glancing back.
The ranch couldn’t be seen at all from where they were, and if anyone saw them, Annie was convinced they would just look like hikers with their backpacks working their way along the river.
But it had been far too close. With that, she had to agree.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Idaho Primitive Area. August 28
GAME DAY.
It was eleven in the morning, Mountain Time, when I climbed out of the small Cessna and helped Annie out. We moved over to the edge of R.A.’s runway to give the plane room to turn and taxi for a takeoff. The sun was hot, the air clear, the sky a deep blue you only see at high altitudes in the mountains.
It felt great being back in the wilderness area again, back in the fresh air and the peacefulness of everything here. It had only been a couple of weeks since I had left, but it felt like it had been a lifetime.
Now, instead of fighting the river and dangerous rapids, I was in a completely different fight for survival. And just like in the rapids, losing was not an option.
We watched the plane take off, then as the sound faded away, replaced by the faint rustling sound of the wind in the pine trees, I turned to Annie. She was dressed like a Las Vegas dealer in a white blouse and black slacks, and carried a rack of professional chips and a number of decks of cards, still factory sealed.
“This place is really something,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
“It doesn’t come any more beautiful,” I said. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said.
I was worried about her being in this dangerous a situation, and had said some
thing about it to Ace. He had just laughed. “She’s a Las Vegas Detective,” he had said. “Trust me, you’re the wimp of the pair.”
I just hoped he was right. Last thing I wanted was her getting hurt, and no matter how much we had prepared for this, someone getting hurt or killed might just happen.
We walked over the rough ground past R.A.’s plane and his maintenance sheds toward the big house. There was no sign of anyone.
We had listened to everything that had gone on in R.A.’s house since the moment Mike and Annie had gotten back to Boise two days ago and Mike had set up the listening equipment base station for the satellite link in Ace’s home. My mother, Ace, and Fleet were there now, well-protected by Mike’s people and a number of Annie’s father’s Cold Poker Gang.
It seemed that when Ace offered Annie’s father and a bunch of his retired detective friends the opportunity to come up to his house and play a little cards, none of them could turn him down. I just hoped Ace kept in mind those guys were retired detectives and living on pensions.
R.A. had remained clearly alone during the last two days, and had seemed to be in a good mood.
He met us at the door and shook both our hands, not really paying any attention to Annie at all, or even asking anything about her. We had prepared a very intricate story for her, but it seemed R.A. just didn’t care.
Now it was my turn on stage.
I pulled out of a carrying case a small recorder, and while Annie set up the table, stacking the chips and getting ready, I showed R.A. how the recorder worked and asked him where we should put it.
He suggested an end table, and I hid it there in a drawer with the microphone tucked behind a lamp, then tested it.
R.A. seemed pleased that it worked. He, of course, knew nothing of the ones Mike had planted, and the entertainment we were offering everyone back at Ace’s house.
As we were finishing, the sound of another small plane filled the area and a few minutes later Nyland Harrison’s plane taxied up and let him and another man off near R.A.’s plane.
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