Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

  He poured himself a scotch, carried the message over to his favorite chair, and settled in for the chore of decoding. The sequence 6789 marked the beginning of the message, and 1234 the end. In between, every fifth letter was the one that counted, and the sequence ab marked the ends of words. To decode the message itself, he needed only to move each letter ahead five places in the alphabet. Thus, the first letter of the message that counted—the x—was in fact a c. The next four letters in the message meant nothing, and then the j translated to an o.

  After decoding the first two words, Isaac knew that it was the worst of all possible news. His hands trembled a bit, in fact; not so much from fear, but out of a sense of loss. What would be, would be, he knew. But he’d been hoping that the serenity would last a little longer.

  Isaac didn’t bother to check his work, there was no need. At worst, he might have dropped a letter or two, but what would that matter?

  He tore the decoded message from its pad and read it one more time before tossing it into the fire. No, there definitely was no mistake:

  “Cover blown You in danger They coming soon.”

  14

  BRANDON O’TOOLE spent the night in jail.

  Well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. He didn’t relish the thought of sleeping in Sherry’s chalet, and a dozen phone calls proved that the hotels were bursting at the cornices with stranded vacationers and presidential staffers. When Whitestone offered him a holding cell for the night, he’d taken him up on it. Eagle Feather wasn’t Alcatraz, after all.

  But it wasn’t Mayberry, either.

  Brandon didn’t recognize the deputy seated at the processing desk, but he seemed to have a great deal of trouble understanding the chief’s explanation of why their newest guest needn’t be strip-searched, could wear his own clothes and did not have to be locked into his cell. “In fact, Lester,” Whitestone had said, “he’s free to walk out anytime he wants to. No shooting, okay?”

  He said that last part as if it were part of a child’s game; as in, “no give-backs” or “no lead-offs from second.” Lester nodded, but Brandon worried why Whitestone had felt the need to say it in the first place.

  Oh, the details they leave out of the brochure. Nobody mentioned to Brandon that the lights stayed on all night, or that the prisoner down the hall liked to call for air strikes in his sleep, but those were things that he could live with, given the circumstances. The toilet, on the other hand, was out of the question. Deeply stained yellow-brown, it had no seat and less privacy, and he’d progressed too far in life to do his business where everyone with an inclination to watch could do just that. Thus, Brandon tested Lester’s trigger finger three times during the night as his nerve-wracked digestive system made use of the main rest room out in the office area.

  If he angled himself just so in the cell, he could watch Lester at work at his tiny desk. Who’d have thought that a prison guard would be a master paper airplane architect? All night long, the deputy sat at his desk folding white copier paper into intricately designed aircraft, all of which exhibited the aerodynamic properties of a brick. Lester cursed every failure, but never lost a beat pulling the next sheet off the stack, oblivious to the world so long as he was folding and tossing.

  Brandon made a valiant effort at the sleeping charade until about four, at which point he just gave up. What was the point of lying there counting roaches when he could be doing something more productive? What that something was, he didn’t yet know, but just about anything would be more engaging than this.

  Then he got it: The airport! If the weather lifted as predicted, he could be there when they launched the searches. And even if he could be of no more assistance than he was today, then at least he’d be underfoot one step closer to the action.

  This time, as Brandon left his cell, he tossed a friendly good-bye to his jailer, but Lester didn’t even look up.

  The road crews had done a hell of a job. If they’d been hit with this kind of storm back in northern Virginia, the schools would have been closed for a month. Here, the roads were all but clear.

  That same level of attention had not been directed to the airport parking lot, however, which resembled an expert ski slope without the slope, each mogul representing a parked vehicle. Brandon smiled at the thought of some poor sap coming home from his vacation in the Bahamas only to find that his ice scraper was buried under four feet of drifted snow.

  Brandon targeted a low spot between two moguls and plowed the rental into it, breathing a sigh of relief that the space was not concealing somebody’s VW Bug.

  No one would ever mistake the Arapaho Regional Airport as anything but the portal to a small town. Brandon saw two buildings along the side of the parking lot, pretentiously labeled as Terminal One and Terminal Two. Combined, the two structures might have been 7,000 square feet. Inside Terminal One, he saw only three counters, each bearing that sixties-era ultramodern look. The stations paralleled a carpeted wall that identified them as ticket booths for Wasatch Airlines, Jones Car Rental and, on the far right, General Aviation. All three stations were closed, as were the metal detectors and X-ray station.

  Brandon didn’t know what General Aviation meant, exactly, but his instincts told him that it was the desk whose future occupant would be most able to help him out.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  Brandon nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the voice that boomed from the shadows. He whirled to see a groggy, twenty-year-old security guard standing in front of the door to what might have been a closet, his right hand hovering over the revolver strapped to his hip. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!” Brandon exclaimed, bringing his hand to his chest. The guard wasn’t laughing. Brandon said, “Yes, you probably can. I understand they’re running a search and rescue operation out of this airport, and I was wondering where I might find the people involved with that.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” the guard said. “The airport is closed. Won’t open again till six o’clock.”

  Brandon checked his watch. “That’s only an hour from now.”

  The guard confirmed the time with a glance at his own wrist. “You can’t stay here,” he said.

  “It must be fifteen below outside,” Brandon said. “I can’t stay out there. I’ll freeze to death.”

  The guard—Freedman, according to his name tag—clearly saw the dilemma. “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you,” Brandon said. He tried his best to look like the friendliest, most reasonable man in the world. “I need to talk with the search and rescue people.”

  “You a reporter?” Just from the way Freedman asked the question, Brandon got the sense that an affirmative answer might very well reacquaint him with Lester the jailer.

  “No, I’m nobody’s reporter. My son was in the plane that crashed. I was just hoping I might be able to talk to the people who are looking for him.”

  Instantly, everything about Freedman’s demeanor changed. His scowl softened into something that looked like pity and he stepped forward to extend his hand. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry,” he said. “Of course you can stay here. It’s cold as—well, it’s too cold outside.” He hurried to pull a chair from inside the door where he’d obviously been napping and he gestured for Brandon to sit. “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

  Brandon held up a hand and shook his head. The very thought of Hawaiian Punch at this hour turned his stomach. “No thanks. I don’t need anything but directions.”

  The guard disappeared behind the door again and quickly came back with a second chair for himself. “Please sit down,” he said, and Brandon obliged him. “I’m Brigham, by the way,” he said. “Brigham Freedman. And I’m sorry for being so unfriendly before.”

  Brandon waved him off. “No problem. Hey, you were just doing your job, right?” How do you know I’m not a terrorist with a good line? Brandon didn’t say.

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  A long moment of si
lence hung in the air. Brandon prompted, “The search and rescue team?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. God, where’s my head? Yesterday, they had a couple of the locals up in their own planes, but today, I understand that they’re rolling out the Civil Air Patrol.”

  Brandon nodded as if he understood what that meant. “Okay, and where would I find them?”

  “Well, they’re all over. They’re volunteers. I was a cadet back when I was in high school. A guy named Colonel Morris is in charge, and they’ll be mustering over at Terminal Two in just a little bit, I suspect. In fact, Colonel Morris is over there now. I just saw him arrive about twenty minutes ago.”

  Brandon stood. “He’s in Terminal Two, then?”

  Brigham stood as well. “Yes, sir, but you’re really not supposed—” He locked eyes with Brandon and gave up. “Yeah, in Terminal Two. Just go through those doors there and follow the fence line.”

  “Thank you, Brigham. I appreciate it.” They shook hands again and Brandon headed for the door.

  “Sir?”

  Brandon turned.

  “I hope they find him.”

  Brandon smiled. “Don’t worry. We will.”

  BRANDON WAS WILLING TO BET that Terminal Two never saw commercial traffic. As he passed through the double doors, the building’s red brick façade gave way to the baby-shit–colored concrete block that Brandon had come to associate with military facilities, a decorating style emulated by many buildings at his own plant. The green tile floors bore the the look of pure efficiency that never would have been tolerated by paying customers. Then again, it wasn’t as if the residents of Arapaho County had a lot of options to choose from.

  The first set of double doors led to a second set, and from there, Brandon found himself in a large room littered with a dozen mismatched desks and chairs and telephones. Most looked as if they hadn’t been used in years, and if it weren’t for their precise arrangement in rows, he might have guessed that Terminal Two was little more than a ground-level attic.

  Sounds of movement drew his attention to the left rear corner of the terminal, where he saw a man in a green flight suit hunched over an ancient computer screen, involved in what looked to be a game of Free Cell. Brandon started that way, and the click of his heels on the lineoleum alerted the man that he was not alone anymore. Startled, the man jerked around and fixed Brandon with the glare of someone who was annoyed to be caught in the act of relaxing.

  “You must be Colonel Morris,” Brandon said, noting the silver oak leaves embroidered on the man’s epaulets.

  “I must indeed,” the man said, rising. Around five-ten, with black hair that had just begun to gray at the temples, Morris looked to be about forty-five. He had the physique of a swimmer and the smile of an insurance salesman. “What can I do for you?”

  Brandon led with his hand, which Morris accepted. “My name is Brandon O’Toole. My son is one of the people you’re looking for this morning.”

  Morris looked instantly uncomfortable. “Oh,” he said, and as he searched for more words, nothing seemed to come to mind.

  “I have an unusual request,” Brandon said, getting right to the point. “I spent all day yesterday down in Eagle Feather, waiting for word in the chief’s office of how you guys were doing.”

  Morris’s expression darkened even more.

  “Oh, I know not much progress was made. Weather and all of that, and that’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but at least I understand. Anyway, I was wondering…Do you have any kids?”

  The question caught Morris completelty off guard. “Excuse me?”

  Brandon just let the question hang there.

  “Well, yeah,” Morris said with a shrug. “I’ve got two, one in college, one just starting high school. Why?”

  “Good. So, surely you can understand my circumstances. The frustration of waiting, powerless.”

  Morris seemed to know where this was going, and he wasn’t happy. “I’m sure it must be very difficult for you. Hell, impossible for you. But if you’re about to ask if you can go along—”

  “Don’t say no,” Brandon interrupted. “Not just yet. No is too easy an answer. I want you to think about it first. I could tell you that I spent four years in the Air Force—which I did—and I could tell you that my current business is all about defense systems and such—which it is—but I know all of that is irrelevant. You’ve probably got standing orders not to do the very thing that I’m asking you to do, but I’m asking you to think about it really, really hard.”

  Morris sighed and made a pained face. It was too early in the morning to have to weigh decisions such as this. “Look, Mr….”

  “O’Toole.”

  “Mr. O’Toole, I appreciate your situation, I really do, but you hit the nail right on the head. I’m an officer in the Air Force Reserve, and in my spare time I’m the commander of this CAP squadron, and if you’ve been in the military, you know that regulations rule. You also appreciate what happens when those regulations are violated. I can’t just—”

  Brandon held up his hands to cut Morris off. “You’re about to say no, and I still don’t think you’ve thought it all the way through. For example, the regulations say you can’t have civilians in the aircraft with you, right? Isn’t that what you were about to tell me?”

  Morris’s scowl returned. “Well, yes, but—”

  “Okay, then, tell me this. What do you intend to do if you find them?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, my son and his friend are both civilians. If you find them, and it’s physically feasible to pick them up, you’d do that, right?”

  Morris rolled his eyes. “Mr. O’Toole, it’s not the same thing and you know it.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort. In fact, because you are an officer in the Air Force Reserve, and therefore an intelligent, thoughtful man, I believe that the more you think about it, the more you’ll see that civilians are civilians, and that as circumstances change, so can the requirement to rigidly stand fast to the rules.” Brandon was making this up as he went along.

  Morris sighed again, this time a deep groan that might have been a growl. “Oh, God, Mr. O’Toole…”

  “Call me Brandon, please.” There, he’d seen it. The first crack in Morris’s resolve. The argument had made a dent. “You see it, don’t you? You see that I’m right.”

  “What I see is a father who’s desperate to be a part of the effort to find his son. But there are other factors.”

  “Let’s talk about them,” Brandon said, sounding like the very essence of reasonableness. “Let’s talk about the main priorities here. Certainly, I’m not a risk to your crew’s safety, and I’m hardly a lawsuit risk. Besides, if you think about it—”

  “Shut up,” Morris barked. Brandon recoiled. “Just shut up and let me think for a second, will you? Jesus, it’s too early for this.”

  Interesting transition, Brandon thought. Just like that, Morris had gone from off guard to back-in-control. It was time for Brandon to show that he could follow orders.

  Morris returned to his desk and placed his hand on the computer mouse, moving a black eight over to a red nine and freeing up the ace of spades, which crawled its way to its spot above the rest of the animated cards. Brandon didn’t know what to make of this. Surely Colonel Morris wasn’t ignoring him. But it was annoying as hell to watch him lose himself in a game of cards. A good two minutes passed in silence as Morris worked to expose yet another ace, and then, without any fanfare, he swiveled back around to face Brandon.

  “Where’d you come in from to be here?” he asked.

  “Virginia. Just outside Washington, D.C.”

  “In the snow?”

  “Yes, sir. A friend offered me a plane and a pilot. Good wings and brass balls.”

  Morris nodded, weighing things in his mind. “Please do your best not to make me regret this,” he said, finally.

  Brandon nodded once. “I promise.”

  15

  SCOTT AWOKE WIT
H A START, unaware that he’d fallen asleep, and overwhelmed with the need to vomit. He barely made it from his butt to his knees before his insides cramped up hard, doubling him over till his nose nearly touched the frozen floor. He retched and his stomach heaved, producing only a thin line of yellow gunk that quickly spread as a stain on the shelter’s floor. Two more in quick succession produced only more of the same, and by the time his guts settled down, Scott found that he was crying, and feeling stupid for it. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his parka.

  You got nothing in you to puke up, his mind told him, and right at this moment, he wasn’t sure whether the thought of food was attractive or repulsive.

  As he stared at the mess he’d made, it dawned on him that he could see without a flashlight; that morning had finally arrived, ending the longest night of his life. Well, thank God for that.

  The wolves’ feeding frenzy had lasted for hours, producing sounds unlike anything he’d ever heard: a nightmarish cacophony of growls and barks and whimpers, punctuated with that grotesque tearing sound as meat was pulled from bone.

  But they never again attempted to enter the shelter.

  He crawled outside. The sun had climbed high, casting crisp black shadows against the sparkling snow cover. Marring what could have been a beautiful sight were the horrid remains of last night’s feast. The unbroken blanket of snow had been churned savagely, what once was white now stained crimson. Straight ahead of the shelter’s opening, great tufts of torn fur rose from the center of the largest stain—what could only be the remains of the alpha dog that he’d stunned or killed with the flare gun.

  “Jesus,” Scott breathed as he took in the carnage.

  But the real horror, he knew, lay behind him, over at the base of the tree near the shattered cockpit. His mind screamed for him not to look, but he couldn’t help himself. His head pivoted without his instruction, his eyes half-closed in anticipation of what they might see.