The Queen pbf-5

by Steven James

  “Too long.” Patience is not my specialty. “We don’t know if the killer is still at large, and if he is I don’t want to wait any longer than absolutely necessary to get a clue that might lead us to him.” I pointed toward the water. “I’ve done this before, mountaineering. It’ll be all right. Lay it down and slide it out there.”

  “So you really don’t think it’s Donnie?” Ellory said.

  “Whether it’s Donnie or not, we need to vigorously pursue all leads as they arise. And I’m going to get a look at that helmet.”

  Finally, they extended the ladder to its furthest position and laid it on the ice. I knelt and then crept out on it while the team held the end that lay farthest from the water. The section in front of me poked out slightly over the waves.

  It’ll adequately disperse your weight. It will.

  But still, I could feel my heart racing.

  The wind stung my face.

  Two meters to the end of the ladder.

  All those childhood fears of going under the ice came rushing back, and I took a breath to try to calm myself. I paused. Regrouped. Crawled forward again, slower this time.

  I watched the waves take the helmet toward, then away from the broken lip of ice.

  “Pat, this is stupid,” Jake said.

  “It’ll hold,” I replied.

  Just a meter farther.

  I heard no hint of the ice cracking beneath me.

  Edging forward, I stared at the short stretch of ladder hovering in front of me, the black water rippling just inches beneath it.

  Thankfully, the wind had shifted slightly and was now coming toward me, so the helmet was being washed against the ice rather than drawn into the open water.

  The rhythm of the waves made me think of a heartbeat pulsing blood through a body, mocking my attempts to reach the helmet’s strap.

  Backward. Forward.

  Backward.

  I came to the end of the ladder, lay down so I could extend my arm farther, and then reached for the helmet, but it was too far to my left.

  Behind me, silence from the men. Unsettling in its depth.

  The water splashed toward me, then receded, easing the helmet forward and backward with each throb of wind-driven water. But it didn’t appear that the helmet was going to come close enough for me to grab it.

  I inched closer.

  “Easy,” Ellory whispered behind me.

  Nope. Still too far.

  “You need to swing me out.” I spoke softly, as if louder words would land too heavily on the ice and shatter it.

  I heard Jake say, “No, Pat.”

  “Just do it,” I told him.

  After a moment, I felt the ladder rotate to the left, and I moved farther out over the waves.

  The beating heart of the lake.

  Forward. Backward.

  Careful, Pat. Easy.

  Still lying down, I hooked my feet around a rung and gripped the edge of the runner with my right hand, then outstretched my left, but still couldn’t get to the helmet. A few rampant waves rushed forward and soaked through my sleeve, my glove, while others licked up at me and splashed against my chest. With the wet clothing came a shock of cold, and I knew I needed to hurry. Steadying myself, I eased out farther.

  Faintly, I heard Ellory say, “Careful,” but I was concentrating on keeping my balance. I told myself that my grip, earned from years of rock climbing, would be enough to hold me in place.

  The wind carried the helmet toward me.

  The water, black and terrifyingly cold.

  I timed the waves, and as they swelled toward me I dipped my hand into the water and managed to snag the strap of the helmet, still buckled in a half circle.

  “Got it.”

  And then.

  The sound was subtle, not sharp like I would have thought it would be. Over the years I’ve heard some people describe the sound of cracking ice to be similar to that of a gunshot-distinct, explosive, ricocheting through the air. But this was different. It was more like a deep groan stretching to both sides of me across the frozen lake.

  “Pull him back!” one of the officers yelled.

  As the ice along the edge of the water splintered apart beneath me it must have caught the men holding the ladder off guard, because my end dipped into the waves. I clung to the sides of the ladder, tried to scramble backward, and managed to keep from sliding in, but the surging water drenched my face and jacket and made my grip on the ladder more slippery, more tenuous.

  Hurry!

  Thankfully they’d managed to catch hold of the ladder and now quickly pulled me backward.

  But from my waist up, the front of my jacket was soaked.

  As they drew me back, my heart hammering in my chest, I watched the cracks finger out beneath my weight.

  And then, at last, I was past the fractured ice and safely away from the water.

  I dropped the helmet onto the ice and rolled off the ladder. Juiced on adrenaline and caught in the grip of the cold, I found myself shivering fiercely. I didn’t realize how tense I was until I heard Ellory saying to me, “Nice job.”

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then tried to quiet my frayed nerves.

  You made it. You’re good. It’s all good.

  Opening my eyes again, I pushed myself to my feet, then borrowed Ellory’s jacket sleeve to dry my face and tried to shake some of the water from my clothes.

  Softly, but not so softly that I couldn’t pick up the words, one of the officers muttered to his partner, “I don’t know how long he would’ve…” He must have noticed me glance his way because he let his voice trail off into silence. Looked away.

  Jake stared at me. “You better get changed.”

  He was right. In these clothes, in this weather, hypothermia could set in within minutes. I’d gotten what I came here for-a spatial understanding of the scene, and a clue I hadn’t expected. At the moment there wasn’t anything more for me to do here at the lake. However, before I swung by the motel to get into some dry clothes, I wanted to have a look at that helmet.

  At the moment, Ellory was inspecting it. “It’s got Donnie’s name on it,” he said quietly.

  “Let me see it.”

  He handed it to me. “He’s down there.” Ellory was staring at the water.

  Curious.

  Would a person about to crash, at any speed, take off his helmet?

  Black, with a gray cushioned interior, the helmet had a slight crack in the faceplate. On the rear of the interior was Donnie’s name, printed in black permanent marker.

  “We’ll compare the handwriting”-a wave of uncontrolled shivering chopped up my sentence-“to Ardis’s and Donnie’s to confirm that one of them wrote the name.”

  No one said anything, and I had the feeling the discovery of the helmet had closed the case for them.

  “You don’t think it’s his?” Ellory remarked.

  I pointed to the strap. “Whether it’s his or not, how could a helmet strap that’s designed to sustain a snowmobile crash pop off someone’s head in the water-and then rebuckle itself together?”

  That seemed to get their attention.

  It certainly had mine.

  Man, I was cold.

  On the way to the car I called Amber to cancel lunch, refraining from mentioning my near-miss with the open water. “It’s just that this case is taking a few turns I hadn’t expected,” I explained, doing my best to keep the shiver out of my voice.

  “I see.”

  “Anyway, maybe we could connect later on sometime.”

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  The lack of a substantial supper last night and my missed breakfast this morning wasn’t helping anything, and discussing lunch only reminded me of how hungry I really was. “Not yet.”

  “Well, you need to.” It wasn’t a mothering tone, but that of a friend. “You don’t know how long you’ll be in the area, so let’s get together while we can. Besides, you sound tense. Are you okay?”

  �
�I’m not used to the cold.”

  We got into the car, Jake started the engine, I cranked up the heat.

  Honestly, stepping away from the case for a few minutes would give me a good chance to decompress and mentally shift gears before my trip to the sawmill. And Amber was right, I did need to eat.

  She pressed me once again and I finally agreed to meet her and Sean at the Northwoods Supper Club at noon, giving me enough time to drive to the motel, change, and get to the restaurant. I decided I could take one hour for lunch, then head to the sawmill.

  Jake directed the car toward the road. After hanging up, I told him my plans and he said he was glad I could see my brother. “I’ll grab something to eat on my own. That way you and your family can reconnect.” Then he mentioned offhandedly, “I spoke with Director Wellington a bit ago. It’s just a local affiliate, but there’s going to be a press conference at 12:30.”

  “Here?” I shed my coat so the car’s heat would actually reach me. “In Woodborough?”

  “The station is in Ashland. They sent a correspondent down yesterday to cover the Pickron homicides.”

  Even though Margaret had put me in charge of the case, I like dealing with the media about as much as I like the idea of falling through the ice. “All right, well, make it brief. No specula-”

  “Pat.” His voice was sour. “I’ve done press conferences before.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  I thought he might respond sharply to my comment, but instead he just said, “Besides, I need to follow up on a few things at the sheriff’s office in Woodborough.”

  “What about the sawmill?”

  “Maybe I could meet you there? You could catch a ride with your brother?”

  Jake didn’t know about the state of affairs between me and Sean, and it wasn’t something I felt the need to address.

  “Sure,” I said. “Meet me at 2:00.”

  “I should be able to make it by then.”

  As we pulled onto the county road I called Tessa to tell her I really wasn’t comfortable with her driving over. “In this case I think we’re better off safe than sorry,” I told her. “Stay at the college or a hotel if-”

  “Are you shivering?”

  “I’m not used to the cold,” I said, repeating what I’d told Amber. “Use the credit card I left with you to reserve the room. If they hassle you, just have ’em call me.”

  It took her a long time to reply. “Okay.”

  “Talk to you soon.”

  “Bye.”

  After we hung up, I told Jake to keep an eye out for a store or gas station.

  “For?”

  “I’m gonna need to pick up a dry coat.”

  19

  Alexei fast-forwarded through the footage that his cameras had taken of the entrance to the Schoenberg Inn last night after he’d gone to bed, but found that no one else from Eco-Tech had arrived.

  He verified that the tracking threads in the seams of the duffel bag containing the $1,000,0000 were working properly. The transmissions were untraceable, undetectable-unless you knew specifically what to look for. This tracking system was not part of his arrangement with Valkyrie, though. This was for himself, and he’d kept it quiet.

  Valkyrie had given him limited intel about the project, so Alexei still wasn’t exactly sure what the significance of this target was.

  But he planned to find out.

  He took some time to research Eco-Tech. On their website they described themselves as “an international coalition of like-minded environmentalists with a progressive agenda to defend Mother Earth from anthropocentric shortsightedness.” Bloggers on the other end of the political spectrum called them eco-terrorists.

  Which was probably a more accurate description.

  After all, with millions of dollars in cash and some hard-to-obtain access codes, they were obviously not here in the northwoods to simply stage a protest or have a sit-in.

  Interestingly, there were eight pending lawsuits against them for alleged hacking activities into government and corporate computer systems. Some right-wingers were labeling them “hacktivists” (hacker activists), and it seemed like there was enough evidence to make the charge stick.

  With roots in the radical Deep Ecology movement popularized by Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey Wrench Gang in the seventies, and then sharpened by the radical ecological writings of Derrick Jensen, Eco-Tech pulled no punches in making their agenda clear: global population control, income redistribution, drastic carbon emission reduction, and most importantly, nuclear disarmament. Their motto said it all: “A New Breed of Green-Dialogue When Possible, Action When Necessary.”

  A new breed of green.

  Hacktivism.

  As their website put it:

  Human greed and selfishness have caused irreparable damage to the biosphere. The only chance for the long-term stability of the planet is a radical change of attitude and action, and despite the currently fashionable “Green Movement,” that change is not going to come simply from people replacing their lightbulbs or carpooling to work.

  To love your children you must leave them more than the legacy of your self-indulgence, the devastation of a world raped of its dignity to make your life more comfortable, more convenient, more consumer-friendly. We are committed to leaving the next generation a planet well cared for, a garden well tended. That is what we strive for. That is why we act.

  Despite their muddied philosophical roots and alleged hacktivism, Eco-Tech’s goal was certainly noble-fighting for more sustainable lifestyles and more conscientious, environmentally friendly corporate and political policies.

  At first Alexei wondered if maybe they were here to combat logging of old growth forests in the area, but he found confirmation online that virgin forests in Wisconsin were now pretty much all part of national forest land and weren’t logged at all.

  Still, something had to be here in this area or else Valkyrie would not have hired him to get access codes from Rear Admiral Colberg, would not have assigned him to come here to the middle of nowhere to deliver two million dollars.

  In preparation for his meeting, Alexei slipped the one weapon he carried, his specially modified spring-loaded bone injection gun, into his pocket.

  For close-quarters combat the device was one of the most useful weapons he’d found.

  Not much larger than a Mini Maglite flashlight, the bone gun was typically used by paramedics to quickly start IVs, especially in patients in cardiac arrest or with difficult-to-locate veins. Because of the amount of force generated at the tip, it easily perforates bone and is used to implant a needle into the marrow, usually below the kneecap. After removing the needle, a catheter is left behind and then used to administer the appropriate drug.

  However, Alexei didn’t typically use his bone gun to implant a catheter to administer medication. These days, when circumstances dictated it, he used it on adversaries to break bones, and in some cases, shatter them entirely.

  His bone gun had been modified so that if used properly it could cripple, or even kill-although he had never gone that far with it. But he had used it twice on the C7 vertebral prominence, once while on an assignment in Amman, another time in New Delhi.

  That vertebra was low enough to allow the subject to continue to breathe on his own, but that was about all he would ever be able to do on his own again. After six months both men on whom he had used the bone gun in this manner were still alive. Thinking of them in that condition had been unpleasant for Alexei, and he had anonymously paid for both men’s medical bills.

  Now, on his laptop, he pulled up satellite images of the region surrounding the Schoenberg Inn and got started connecting the uplink from the transmitter in the bag to the GPS tracking device.

  Unfortunately, fifteen minutes ago when Patrick called her, Tessa was already on her way to Wisconsin.

  She’d decided not to bring that up.

  The Walker Art Center had been closed for some sort of renovation, and the more she thought abo
ut it, the more she realized she wanted to see Sean, whom she almost never spent time with, and at least get a chance to finally meet her stepaunt. It’d be nice, after all, to connect a little more with Patrick’s family, the only one she had left.

  Maybe she could even find out why Patrick and his brother didn’t exactly get on famously with each other. She’d always been curious about that.

  Besides, she knew that Patrick wanted to see her, and she figured she’d have time to cruise around the Cities a little on Sunday before flying back home to Denver in the evening.

  A little while ago it had started to snow, but the roads looked good to her.

  Only a dusting so far.

  Even if the trip took a little longer than four hours, as long as the snow didn’t slow her down too much, she would arrive in plenty of time for supper.

  Tessa merged onto I-35 and headed north.

  20

  As Jake drove away, I walked up the snow-packed path toward the historic Northwoods Supper Club.

  I wore my new camouflage coat, the only jacket the combination gas station/convenience store/gift shop had in my size. I didn’t really want to think about what Tessa might have to say about how stylin’ I was.

  On the way here Amber had called to confirm the time, and when I asked about the location, she’d launched into a short history of the place: the site of the Northwoods Supper Club had been used as a lumberjack mess hall nearly one hundred years ago before it burned down in the 1970s. The current restaurant had emerged from the ashes and had benefited from the nostalgia of the site’s past.

  A large vinyl sign hung out front with a picture of a man dressed in a blaze orange jacket eyeing down the barrel of a gun. Bold lettering announced “Welcome Hunters.” I wondered which hunting season was open in the middle of January. Bear maybe. Possibly small game-squirrels, rabbits.

  I pressed the door open and stepped inside.

  Huge pine logs formed the walls, and stout handmade oak tables and chairs filled the restaurant. A bar, peppered with a few customers in snowmobile suit overalls and flannel shirts, took up most of the west wall. Though I doubted it was still legal to smoke in the restaurant, the residual smell of years of cigarette smoke lingered in the air.