Phoenix checked his gas gauge.
He could not buy gas until he was deep in Humboldt; Alexis might scream, someone could remember the van.
The gauge edged toward half a tank.
For four hours he drove toward Humboldt with agonizing slowness, as the two lanes on each side became one and the look of the country changed as it rose, wide vistas closing in, oaks becoming pine, scattered towns growing smaller, and the road higher and more winding, until he ran along the cliff of the Eel River, a hundred-foot drop to the right. The radio thinned to a crackle; redwoods towered at the edge of the road, blocking the moon. The darkness ahead of him looked like Alaska.
The gauge moved toward empty.
The only safety was hours ahead, the carefully chosen shelter he had bought for cash from a realtor in Garberville, posing as a novice grower with thick glasses, earrings, a southwestern drawl. A hunter’s cabin so remote that it had not been used for years.
Twenty miles from Garberville, the gas gauge began merging with the line marked “E.”
Turning the knob, he found the Garberville station.
The twang of country-western music made his nerves raw; the break for news was almost a relief. The newsman’s voice became a drone he only noticed when it quickened.
“In a late bulletin, the Napa County Sheriff’s Office reports the disappearance of San Francisco publisher Colby Parnell and his wife, Alexis. The Parnells were reported missing by their attorney, John Danziger, whom they had earlier invited to dinner. Authorities theorize that they may have been abducted while playing tennis.…”
Instinctively, Phoenix grasped his Mauser.
He cranked down the window, to clear his head. His T-shirt was soaked; night air chilled his face and chest. Redwoods bounded his right, the steep cliff of the Eel his left. He had nowhere to hide short of where he was going.
At the bottom of the grade, the Eel veered abruptly beneath a bridge marked “Humboldt County.” Looking from the sign to the gas gauge, Phoenix saw that it was empty.
Moments later, he passed the Garberville exit without stopping for gas. To his right now, moonlight on the water shone like obsidian.
Turning from the river, Phoenix took an unmarked path between two redwoods.
As the van disappeared in the grove, his headlights caught the massive dirt-red trunks. Those and the road were all he saw; he drove ten miles an hour. The radio stopped making sound.
Slowly, he climbed through eight more miles of redwoods as the gauge slipped beneath empty. At the crest was a bowl of darkness, a valley without lights. The road turned gently south.
Turning with it, Phoenix took his foot off the accelerator.
For several miles, he idled downward, braking to save gas. Then, abruptly, the road hit bottom, crossing a wooden bridge. Beneath it, the Mattole River ran gently. The sign just beyond it read “Honeydew, population fifty.” One quaintly marked general store, with a gas pump.
Phoenix stopped by the pump, wiping his forehead, then honked.
A light went on; a face peered through the window of the store. Finally a figure emerged, shirtless in overalls, walking to the van. Phoenix imagined the gunmen holding Alexis, hand over her mouth.
“Sorry,” he drawled. “Gas gauge is fucked up.”
The man nodded. “Recognized your truck. Hardly recognize you. You look different.”
Phoenix handed him ten dollars. “I feel different.”
With each click of the gas pump, he waited for a noise from Alexis.
“Eight gallons,” the man said.
“Thanks.” Starting the engine, Phoenix watched him disappear inside. Sweat beaded his forehead again.
Two hundred feet farther, he stopped and got out.
The Mattole River was to his back. Facing him, more rugged than the country before, loomed the King Range.
He was standing at a phone booth.
Putting in four quarters, he dialed a toll call, so there would be no record. There was the hum of long distance, three rings, and then a woman answered, “Satellite News International.”
Phoenix placed a handkerchief over the mouthpiece.
Quickly but calmly, he told them where to find Colby Parnell.
A few hundred feet past the phone booth, Phoenix took the final path. Within two miles, he reached the first locked gate.
It was galvanized metal five feet high, lashed shut with heavy linked chain and a combination lock. Using a flashlight, Phoenix opened it, unwrapped the chain, drove through, and lashed the gate behind him.
Ahead the jeep trail began its precipitous climb to the summit of the King Range. A mistake could drop them down miles of ravine; the hours he’d spent memorizing its dangers must serve as his eyes.
Through three more gates, the trail narrowing as it grew steeper, he reviewed his trips in minute detail.
Each piece of equipment had become a new scrap of memory, a building block of cover.
One by one he had bought components in different names through different outlets, ordering in other states or overseas and always paying cash, so that tracing them in seven days’ time would be impossible. He had driven each piece up the mountain like a grower hauling fertilizer and irrigation line, mind photographing every spot where leaving the path would be fatal. At the end, he unloaded what he’d carried.
Two cameras. Videotape. A sound system. The components of a simple control room: transmitter; video-switcher; a generator to power them. Cable for two satellite dishes. One to receive; the other toward a specific azimuth—the satellite for SNI.
He had planned well. By the final trip he had assembled a broadcast station of the kind which had transmitted the wedding of Prince Charles and the trial of Harry Carson; people at the store in Honeydew had begun to recognize his truck, then to know the name he gave them, then to pigeonhole him as a rustic grower with earrings and thick glasses; he had memorized the route from Honeydew to his broadcast station as clearly as he could.
It veered upward at a sharper angle, piny cliffs on one side, a two-mile drop on the other. Ahead, a jet of white water cut across the path, a permanent stream. His headlights caught the quick splash of its waterfall and then the van hit it, tires spinning, catching, pushing forward as spray covered the windshield. Beyond, the road grew narrower and steeper; as Phoenix saw that darkness and the water had made him drive too slowly to make the grade, he pushed the pedal to the floorboard. The motor whined in protest.
Six feet from the top was the final gate.
Straining, the van climbed for it at a forty-five-degree angle, losing speed too quickly. The iron gate in his headlights seemed to move closer by only feet, then inches. Three feet from the gate his wheels began spinning again.
The van inched backward toward the ravine, then lurched.
For agonizing moments, he was caught in equipoise between gate and ravine, tires spitting dirt; in the seconds remaining before he skidded back into the ravine, the van must start.
It shuddered, tires catching.
Spinning, they inched forward—one foot, then two, and then the van crept to the gate, stopping at the crest. When he threw the brake on, it held.
Phoenix got out; his limbs had a malarial feeling. He opened the gate and sat with it in the middle of the road, looking back into the ravine.
In minutes he was driving through meadow on the Cooskie Ridge.
A doe flashed across the trail. For an instant she turned as if shot, black eyes reflecting the lights of his van. Then she skittered away, part and then all of her vanishing in the black, trackless meadow. Phoenix wiped both palms on his pants.
The van reached more woods, so thick with timber that no light came through. The trail was steep and too narrow to turn; in his headlights, pine boughs seemed to leap into the road, snapping on the windshield. Phoenix smelled sap as they broke.
He drove from memory, knuckles tight on the wheel. As the van strained upward, he felt the country swallow him in its tunneling effect, and then the t
rail opened.
The van broke into moonlight.
A meadow, beneath the crest of a ridge. To each side now there were only sky and stars. The air was crisp; the van climbed gently toward the pines at the top of the ridge. He stopped thirty yards from them. When he got down, Mauser in his belt, the meadow felt damp. Its shadow around him merged with the sky.
He walked to the back of the van and opened it. A man crept forward, then two others, staring out at him. The vastness made them silent.
From the meadow, Phoenix motioned them forward.
Stiff, they got down, half-dragging Alexis. Phoenix pointed toward the ridge line. They bore the half-conscious woman ahead, arms and feet still bound. Following, Phoenix thought they looked like a thin line of wounded.
As he aimed the revolver, Alexis stumbled and fell.
Phoenix fired.
His silencer popped; the man to the left flung one arm in the air. Feeling this tremor, the next man looked across as his friend fell to earth, then fell on top of him. Only the third knew what was wrong.
As he turned, Phoenix shot him in the heart.
He walked toward their shadows. The third man lay on Alexis. As Phoenix rolled him off, she whimpered. He noticed with disgust that she smelled like urine.
One by one, he dragged the three men toward the pines, to the grave he had dug. The third man was cold. It took a half-hour to cover them with the dirt he had piled; as he stepped back into the meadow, the night was thinning like smoke.
Dawn broke behind him.
Northwest across the ocean, white-blue with first sun, the distant outline became a jutting promontory of rock—Cape Mendocino, the westernmost point in California. The meadow glistened with dew.
He turned straight to the west.
The ridge of pines blocked the ocean, shadows still covering the cabin. But planes might fly over soon, looking for something or nothing.
In slanting light, he drove Alexis to the cabin.
Phoenix carried her inside.
In the dim light, he saw his cabin in pieces: a photographer’s lamp, a wood-burning stove, walls sealed with pine tar, his mattress on the floor, the sink, a mousetrap, a window covered with air-raid paper, an ancient refrigerator with an irregular hum, his picture of Stacy Tarrant. The television.
He unlocked the second room.
Inside was a narrow cot, a small refrigerator, the jerry-rigged shower he’d connected to his well system. In the makeshift closet were the clothes that he had brought for her.
Placing her on the cot, Phoenix put on his hood.
Slowly, he unbound her hands and then removed the blindfold.
The look in her eyes was different from a stare. It was shock, so profound that she seemed not to see him. Only her shallow breathing said she was alive.
He felt himself trembling.
Turning from her, he locked the door between them.
For twenty-four hours, he did not let himself go near her. Solitary, he slept, awakening to watch Alexis on SNI, listen to the sound of his distorted voice, feel their power growing. Waiting for fear and isolation to change her, until she would do as he pleased.
This morning, he had put on his hood again, and unlocked her door.
She lay on the cot, covers pulled to her shoulders. Her hair hung in oily strands.
“Please …”
He put one finger to the mouth of his hood, and again walked toward her. Waiting, she did not move.
Slowly, he pointed to his room.
It took a moment to change her expectations.
Rising at last, she seemed drained, yet circled away from him. Half-withdrawn, half-indifferent to self, afraid only that he would kill her.
The moment she saw his camera flickered in her eyes.
It faced a canvas chair, with black cloth pinned to the wall as a backdrop. She sat there without orders. The chair was too large for her; the effect of that and her expression was of utter helplessness.
Phoenix framed this shot, ready to complete his tape.
The light was wrong. Considering, he focused the photographer’s lamp on Alexis. The revision pleased him; surrounded by darkness, she looked even smaller, more fragile.
Stepping forward, he placed the microphone around her neck.
She sat with dumb, frightened patience. Then, as he backed away, she touched the cord at her throat.
“What do you want?” she mouthed.
Standing behind the camera, he pointed to the microphone. It did not matter what she said, only that her voice would wrench Parnell. As he focused the lens, her eyes were blank. Then she patted her hair by instinct.
Phoenix began filming.
Now he held the tape in his hand, waiting outside the cabin for the last pink tinge of dusk to vanish. Behind him, the generator kept on droning.
Across the country, he felt them waiting for his broadcast. Most of all, Colby Parnell and Stacy Tarrant.
It was 7:48.
It would be all right, he told himself.
His theory was taught in the military, at community colleges, in books at any library. Properly angled, the up-link dish sent a microwave to the SNI satellite in one quarter of a second, transmitting pictures and sound. Broadcasts of Muhammad Ali’s prizefights, the funeral of Princess Grace, even Stacy’s foreign concerts had originated from control rooms like this. But there had been no way to test this control room without his hostage.
It was 7:52.
If it worked, the awe he’d create through Alexis would be magnified tenfold; should it not, shuttling tapes to SNI would be dangerous and feeble-looking. Only remote broadcasts could reinforce the illusion of armed guards, explosives wired to his heartbeat, two hostages. As Stacy and Parnell restrained the FBI, two hundred million others would watch each surprise he had planned for them.
It was 7:55.
Behind the blackout paper, Alexis watched SNI. Night had fallen, silent and cool.
Phoenix went to the control room.
It was 7:57.
The tape he held was waiting to be broadcast.
For a moment, he hesitated. Then he pushed it into the cassette player and glanced up at the monitor. Bars of color appeared. He turned a knob on the monitor, breathed in once, and pushed a button.
It was eight o’clock.
3
STACY’S glass and redwood beach house was decorated with bold modern prints, Bokhara rugs, Ming vases, and some pleasing curiosities seemingly bought on impulse—a hand-carved rabbit, an old magazine rack stuffed with New Yorkers and a Rolling Stone, an antique pedal organ. They were arranged with care but fit in another home; Lord guessed she’d bought nothing for this one. Drapes blocked its view of the ocean.
On the bookshelf, a small TV from the primitive days of color faced her white wool couch. She sat on its edge, Lord by one arm, waiting. Neither spoke.
“To protect his hostages,” Rachel read in pious tones, “SNI stands prepared to broadcast transmissions by Phoenix. But, to quote the president, ‘This act of electronic terrorism has drawn the horror and condemnation of civilized people around the globe. No idea can be advanced, no purpose served, by the public torment of innocent men and women.…’”
Lord wondered how many millions watched her.
Stacy’s wall clock read 8:03.
Nervous, Lord glanced at the bookshelf. Some Ann Beattie short stories, a few books on psychology, several piles of sheet music. No plaques or gold records. No pictures of Kilcannon, or anyone else.
When he turned, SNI was showing clips. In sequence a younger Parnell reported on his missing son; Stacy bent over Kilcannon, Carson stared down at them.
It was the film that Lord had shown her.
She did not move or look away. Watching her was painful; it would not take much, Lord suddenly knew, to break her self-control.
“It’s filler, Stacy.”
She turned on him. “Filler—”
“I meant that maybe he can’t broadcast.”
Rache
l was sounding startled. “We have a picture.…”
They both turned. At first it was grainy, a shadow; for an odd split second, Lord thought of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Then the shadow became a hooded man announcing, “I am Phoenix—”
“No,” Stacy said softly. “This can’t be happening.…”
A mouthpiece distorted the terrorist’s speech. “I hold John Damone and Alexis Parnell. My death will trigger theirs within fifteen seconds.…”
Lord stood; leaning forward, Stacy balled her fists.
“There is no hope,” Phoenix told her, “but cooperation.
“Each hostage is to be freed or executed on separate conditions. These conditions are political: that Stacy Tarrant and Colby Parnell assist those stepped on by a murderous economic and social system—the poor, the unemployed, soldiers who protect the special interests which profit from their death. Only Tarrant can save Damone; only Parnell can spare his wife a public execution. And only you can help them, through the medium of SNI.
“There will be no negotiations.
“There will simply be compliance by Parnell and Tarrant, broadcast over SNI, or their loved ones will die at any time.
“You will judge their actions.
“John Damone will live only if Stacy Tarrant can persuade you to donate five million dollars to provide food and shelter for those in need.”
For a moment, he paused.
“She will do this,” he said slowly and succinctly, “by performing the night of April eleventh at the Arena in San Francisco—the site of her last concert.”
Lord heard her intake of breath. He forced himself not to watch her.
“This concert will be broadcast live on SNI. During the performance only, the audience may pledge donations through its local affiliates.
“If you contribute five million dollars, then I will give her John Damone.
“If not, I will execute him on the night which follows, as the world watches with her.
“Do not feel too sorry for them. Both have prospered from her career without sharing its benefits with others. If they had, my intervention would not be necessary.
Private Screening Page 27
