5
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE
CAMP SPRINGS, MARYLAND
MONDAY AFTERNOON
Special Agent Jack Cabot finished his preflight inspection by walking around the white FBI Skylane 182 with its distinctive blue stripe. He patted the fuselage, stood back a moment, and admired the shine. The Skylane was as clean as his dog, Cropper, after Jack washed him along with his SUV. He walked to the top of the airstairs and slid on his aviator sunglasses. It was a bright, hot afternoon, with only a slight breeze. The humidity was the killer. He wished he had a garden hose to spray himself down.
He looked out over the busy airfield. Andrews was always hopping, the noise at times just short of mandatory-earplug levels. He looked down at his watch thinking Agent Wittier was now officially late when he noticed a long-legged woman striding purposefully toward him, a banged-up backpack slung over her arm, a fleece sweatshirt tied around her neck. She wore lightweight dark green Polartec pants, a green-checked Polartec long-sleeve shirt, and well-worn hiking boots. So this was Agent Wittier, his partner on the assignment. At least she knew how to dress for their mission.
He wondered why he’d been assigned a female agent, truth be told, rather than an ex–special forces type like himself. There was nothing like field experience in holiday destination spots like Kabul to train for locating and bringing in dangerous hostiles hunkered down in the desolate hills. Maybe she was ex-military, or maybe she was as wily and mean as his ex-mother-in-law.
He had to admit Agent Wittier’s straight-on, take-no-prisoners stride as she walked toward him fit her hard-ass camping clothes and the Glock on her belt clip. But his image of her changed when he saw her short blond wavy hair tangling around her face in the hot breeze. He could tell from twenty yards away she was pretty. He’d bet her eyes were laser-sharp on him behind her aviator sunglasses.
Cam stopped at the bottom of the airstairs and looked up at the man staring down at her with his arms crossed easily over his chest. She’d wondered what an ex–special forces cowboy from New York would look like, and he fit the bill. Special Agent Jack Cabot looked tough and chiseled and military, no beard scruff on his tanned face. His dark hair was cut short. He was taller than she was, which put him over six feet, and younger than she’d expected, maybe early thirties. He was wearing a dark Polartec shirt and had his Glock clipped on his belt, as she did. His boots looked like they’d clomped over a great many gnarly miles. He was buff, but not a muscle-bound yahoo who liked to pretend he sprinkled nails in his Cheerios instead of blueberries. He didn’t look like he snarled very often. She could deal with him.
Then Cam looked past him at the tiny single-engine airplane, shocked at how small the propeller was, small enough to stir her guacamole with the blade. She was surprised to feel her stomach churn like a greasy ball. Until that moment, she hadn’t thought much about the flight. Of course she’d flown noncommercial before, with only the occasional butterfly flitting in her belly. But this white-winged miniature box, this big toy, was going to transport them to Kentucky? A stray bird could knock it out of the sky. She’d grill the pilot, make sure he knew what he was doing, maybe ask him if he had any Valium.
Jack was aware of her scrutiny, both of him and the plane, and gave her a wave. “Welcome aboard. I’m Jack Cabot and you’re Agent Wittier.”
She nodded, licked her lips. “Yes, Cam Wittier. Nice to meet you. Where’s the pilot?”
“You’re looking at him. I guess that makes you the copilot.”
The greasy ball in her stomach took a bounce nearly to her throat, this time with a dash of nausea. “You’re flying us to Daniel Boone National Forest?”
Jack wasn’t deaf—he heard the touch of panic in her voice and he’d seen that look before from soldiers who could walk through gunfire without hesitation but turned white when they boarded a helicopter. He’d talk her down, let her see how competent he was. He nodded to her, checked his watch. “I’ve finished my preflight inspection. We’re good to go. Two hours unless we hit a lot of bumps. There’ll be some, since we’ll be over the Appalachians. Nothing to be concerned about.”
Cam looked at the six steps built into the door that led up into the belly of the little white death trap. She cleared her throat. “I’ve never flown in a single-engine before. It’s—very small. It’s got only one engine.”
“One good engine. Trust me, that makes all the difference. You get airsick?”
“Not on a reasonable-size plane, but this?” She looked at his beautiful baby and gave a convulsive swallow. “That one engine—good or not—it goes out and we’re toast.”
“Nah, I’m a glider pilot. I’d find somewhere flat to land. No worries. I was expecting you sooner. We have to move out now if we want to get to the national forest well before dark.” He saw her place one tentative foot on the bottom step, gulp, then take another slow step. He tried for a bit of distraction. “We’re dressed pretty much the same, partner. We could be twins if you weren’t a blonde.”
She looked him up and down. She wanted to ask him about his pilot’s license but decided he could take it the wrong way. She sucked it up, vaulted up the stairs, got right in his face, and tried for bravado. “Twins? Nah, I’d have kicked you out of our mom’s womb.”
He grinned. “I won’t crash us, I promise. I’ve been doing this a long time. Toss your backpack with mine in the back and come up front into the cockpit.” He pulled the clamshell door closed, secured it.
She wanted to tell him he wasn’t old enough to have that much experience. Was he counting flying toy planes when he was a kid? When she stuck her head in the cockpit, Jack pointed to the copilot’s seat. “Sit down, and I’ll seat-belt you in.” He handed her headphones. “Press this button and we can speak to each other.” He reached into the back again to make sure her backpack was secured.
Cam watched him ease into the pilot’s seat, a tight fit for a big man. He fastened his own harness and began flipping switches. She listened to him speak to the tower, a lot of numbers and letters, an alpha and a tango thrown in. The tower seemed okay with what he said, and answered back with some more garbled letters and numbers. Okay, he talked like he knew what he was doing, and the guy in the tower didn’t seem concerned. When they got clearance and began to taxi, Cam sucked in air and smoothed out her fists. He looked over at her, grinned. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise; I’ll get you there without a problem.” Then he frowned. “Well, if we don’t get too much turbulence—just kidding, sorry,” he added, seeing her face go white.
They waited on the tarmac behind three small single-engine aircraft for their turn to shoot up into the sky in this oversize white coffin. Jack gave her another look, saw she was holding herself as stiff as a frozen pizza. “You’ll feel better once we’re airborne, trust me.” And then they were moving faster and faster on the runway, and the plane smoothly lifted into the sky. Cam’s breath whooshed out and he saw her lips move, imagined she was giving herself a pep talk. Or maybe she was praying.
As they slowly gained altitude, Jack said, “I guess if we get into trouble up here you won’t be taking over.”
“Trouble? What do you mean trouble? What kind of trouble?” Her voice came out in a croak, and she realized she sounded like a pathetic wuss. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Agent Cabot, it’s a perfect summer day, only an occasional billowy cloud in the sky to keep you from seeing where you’re going. So far I don’t see any SAM missiles below to shoot us down, no bows and arrows, either. So don’t disappoint my parents; get us there in one piece.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do my pitiful best.”
He banked the small plane, perhaps at a steeper angle than he could have, saw her jaw clench, straightened out again, and headed due west. Washington soon disappeared behind them, and suburbs sprawled out below them, surrounded by the beautiful rolling green hills of Virginia.
The small plane hummed smoothly, no kicks, or lurches, no flashing red warning lights. Cam breathed more easily and thanked heaven her nausea went away.
She pressed the comms button again. “I guess I was expecting to meet up with a guy with Spec Ops tattooed on his arm, maybe a skull with a bullet in its mouth on his neck.”
He shot her a grin. “My mama made me promise no tattoos until I’m forty-five. I guess she figured I wouldn’t be tempted, even drunk, to want a tattoo by that age.”
“At that age, your wife would probably shoot you. Now, I’m told you’re an expert at survival and all, but my boss, Agent Dillon Savich, didn’t say whether you leap tall buildings.”
He laughed. “Hey, Wittier, I’m proud of you. It’s hard to crack jokes when you’re terrified. You doing better?”
“No, but I’m sucking it up, and insulting you helps.”
“You’ll be fine once your brain accepts you’re in expert hands, namely mine. Yes, give me a bottle of water and the sun, and I can find an anthill. Leap tall buildings? Three stories is my personal best. But the truth is, I’m not nearly as tough as my ex-mother-in-law.”
“I’ve never had a mother-in-law, but yours sounds iconic.”
He laughed, checked his compass, his altimeter, his airspeed. All okay. Lucky for Agent Wittier it was a beautiful day to fly. She was still on the pale side, time to take her mind elsewhere. “Tell me what you bring to the table.”
Cam was quiet a moment, shrugged. “Not much, I’m afraid, except for a decent brain, for what that’s worth. I’ve been in the outdoors a fair amount of time, mainly when I was a kid, but in college, too, groups of us, hiking, white-water rafting. I know my way around a campsite. I’ve never been in the Daniel Boone National Forest, though.”
“They tell me you’ve got more than a decent brain, did some strong work in L.A.”
She perked up, preened for a second, then shrugged again. “That was a team effort.”
“Yeah, it always is, but you were the lead. I hear you nearly got your head blown off but managed to save your partner’s life. Tell me about it.”
Was he really interested? The small plane gave a bump, sending her heart into her throat. Who cared if he was interested or passing the time? She started talking, giving him the highlights of the Starlet Slasher case, from her first meeting with the LAPD detectives to the night she tracked down the serial killer with her partner, Detective Daniel Montoya. She told him about her parents, the actors.
Her story gave Jack a good idea what she was about—competent, able to think outside the box, maybe a bit too fearless. Telling him what happened had the added benefit of bringing color to her cheeks. “A good win. Okay, Wittier, so you’ve got a brain, you can hike, you wore the right clothes. Do you have any other useful skills?”
He didn’t sound hopeful, and that sent her chin up and thinned her lips. Good. Having her pissed off at him was better than having her scared.
“My friends in college called me a ninja camper—in and out of a campsite faster than well, the Flash, no muss, no fuss.”
“Ninja camping? Is that a military term?”
“It sounds like it should be—but I guess it isn’t manly enough. I can shoot straight. And I’m good at fixing mechanical problems, like busted fuel pumps on cars. I could help overhaul the engine on this plane if we got knocked out of the sky by a pissed-off goose. If you’re wounded, I can stitch you up without hurling on you.”
They hit some bumps, making the plane lurch and bounce. Cam looked down and wished she hadn’t. She saw nothing but tree-covered hills below those billowy clouds. Jack said, “We’ll be through this hit of air in a moment. Close your eyes, sit back, and hum James Bay’s ‘Let It Go.’ ”
She spurted out a laugh and closed her eyes and heard the song play in her head whether she liked it or not. They were through the turbulence soon enough. Jack checked his cruise speed—145 knots—and made minor adjustments to the elevator and rudder trim. “Okay, you can open your eyes. I guess I saved us. It’s time to talk about what’s going to happen when we land. I already spoke to Wayne Duke, the Cumberland District park ranger who will be our guide in the national forest. Chief Harbinger of the Pennington Gap PD will be meeting us when we land at London-Corbin Magee Field.”
“I hope he’ll have all the gear we’ll need with him, like bivvy bags, a portable stove.”
“Not a problem—he’ll provide whatever we need. We’re going to keep the team small—the two of us, Wayne Duke, the park ranger, and Chief Harbinger. The other park rangers will help us as lookouts. The chief is assigning four of his deputies to cover major exit points from the forest, and he’s coordinating with other local law enforcement to patrol outside the forest, both west and east, on the lookout for anyone who doesn’t belong there. Hey, look down. Is that beautiful, or what?”
Cam looked out the small window again, saw the endless chain of rolling tree-covered Appalachian hills below the thinning clouds, the occasional small town, and homesteads set far apart on the rich green land. A single road cut through them straight as a knife.
Jack checked his watch. “The field is just inside Kentucky, about thirty miles from the entrance we’ll be using into the national forest.”
Jack had already been slowly descending. “There’s Magee Field coming up.”
Magee was a large expanse of tarmac cut into the land in front of a row of flat-roofed white single-story buildings and a pair of hangars. A trio of single-engine planes was lined up in front of the largest building. Cam saw a couple of guys in overalls talking, paying them no mind. Other than that, the place looked deserted. One of the men with a rooster tail of white hair finally looked up, shaded his eyes, and gave them a little wave.
Jack had his flaps up, and Cam’s stomach did a flip as the ground came up to meet them. She decided to be heroic and keep her eyes open. The Skylane angled smoothly downward, already lined up with the end of the runway, bumped once, twice, and settled, its wheels solid on the tarmac. Jack turned and taxied to a stop beside the other three aircraft, cut the engine.
She was quiet for a moment, settling like the plane, taking big easy breaths until her heart stopped kettle-drumming in her chest. She turned to Jack as she took off her headphones. “We’re on the ground, and we’re in one piece. Good job, Cabot. I forgot to ask, do we have parachutes on board?”
He laughed. “The FBI could only afford one so we’d have piggybacked.”
She rolled her eyes, watched him go through his shutdown checklist.
“We made good time. No particular headwind. You did good, too, Wittier.”
“I’ll admit to some white knuckles. I was wondering if I’d make it to heaven if we crashed into one of those cloud-covered hills.”
“Lots of people are jumpy about small planes their first time out. You’ll be fine when we fly back. You ready to dance with the devil when we catch him?”
“Looking forward to it.”
Jack opened the door, grabbed his backpack, and walked down the airstairs, Cam behind him. She stood a moment, content to breathe in the clean warm air and feel the gentle breeze ruffle her hair and dry the sweat from her forehead. It was so quiet, so peaceful with the engine off, and only trees around them, enough to build a city.
Jack pulled out his cell, then slid it back into his shirt pocket. “No need to call, that’s Chief Harbinger there, in that big honker black SUV coming toward us. Amazing timing.”
“I texted him as soon as we had a signal.”
He hadn’t seen her do that. They watched a big man dressed for the woods climb out of the SUV. He shouted, “Welcome to Magee, outpost of the brave.” A very pretty young girl scooted out the passenger door and stepped around to stand at his side. His daughter, Kim Harbinger? Why had the chief brought his teenage daughter with him?