London Bridges - James Patterson [10]
As we pulled up and away from what remained of Sunrise Valley, I was aware of the high desert; the former town was at an elevation over 4,000 feet.
Then I tuned out the surroundings and started thinking about Shafer, trying once again to figure what could possibly tie him to this mess, this disaster, this murder scene. Three years before, Shafer had kidnapped Christine Johnson. It had happened during a family vacation in Bermuda; at the time, Christine and I were engaged to be married. Neither of us knew it, but she was pregnant with Alex when Shafer abducted her. We were never the same after her rescue. John Sampson, my best friend, and I found her in Jamaica. Christine was emotionally scarred, and, of course, I couldn’t blame her. Then she moved out to Seattle, where she lived with Alex. And I blamed Shafer for the custody struggle.
Who was he working with? One thing was obvious, and probably useful to the investigation: the firebombing at Sunrise Valley had involved a lot of people. So far we didn’t know who the men and women posing as U.S. Army were, but we did know that they weren’t real army national guardsmen. Sources at the Pentagon had helped confirm that much. Then there was the matter of the bomb that had leveled the town. Who made it? Probably somebody with military experience. Shafer had been a colonel in the British army, but he’d also served as a mercenary.
Lots of interesting connections, but nothing very clear yet.
The helicopter pilot turned to me. “We should be in visual contact with Wells as soon as we clear these mountains up ahead. We’ll see lights, anyway. But so will they. I don’t think we can sneak up on anybody out here in the desert.”
I nodded to him. “Just try to land as close as you can to the airport. We’ll coordinate with the state troopers. We might draw fire,” I added.
“Understood,” the pilot said.
I started to discuss our options with Wade and Moriarity. Should we try to land at the airport itself, or nearby in the desert? Had either of them fired their weapons before, or been fired on? I found out that they hadn’t. Neither of them. Terrific.
The pilot turned to us again. “Here we go. Airport should be coming up on our right. There.”
Suddenly I could see a small airfield with a two-story building and what looked like two airstrips. I spotted cars, maybe half a dozen, but I didn’t see a red Bronco yet.
Then I saw a small private plane taxiing and getting ready for takeoff.
Shafer? It didn’t seem likely to me, but neither did anything else so far.
“I thought we shut down Wells?” I called to the pilot.
“So did I. Maybe this is our boy. If it is, he’s gone. That’s a Learjet 55 and it moves pretty damn good.”
From that moment on, there was very little we could do but watch. The Learjet shot down one of the runways, then it was airborne, winging away from us and making it look ridiculously easy. I could imagine Geoffrey Shafer on board, looking back at the FBI helicopter, maybe giving us the finger. Or was he giving me the finger? Could he know that I was there?
A few minutes later we were on the ground at Wells. Almost immediately I got the jolting news that the Learjet was off radar.
“What do you mean ‘off radar’?” I asked the two techies inside the tiny Wells control room.
The older of the two answered. “What I mean is that the jet seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. It’s like it was never here.”
But the Weasel had been there—I’d seen him. And I had photographs to prove it.
Chapter 15
GEOFFREY SHAFER DROVE a dark blue Oldsmobile Cutlass full-bore through the desert. He wasn’t on board the jet that had flown out of Wells, Nevada. That would have been too easy. Weasels always have several escape routes planned.
As he drove, Shafer was thinking that the oddly brilliant plan in the desert had worked well, and there had certainly been backup contingencies just in case something didn’t work right. He had also learned