The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [59]
We reached the bank, and I shone my flashlight on the area John indicated. Snowmobile track, all right. Fresh, with little crumbled bits and chunks of snow scattered on both sides. Straight out into the field.
I turned off my light. “Son of a bitch. Doesn’t that track lead toward Borglan’s and his hired man?”
“I think it does. Harvey Grossman, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
I looked off in the direction of the track, letting my eyes readjust to the darkness. There was a discontinuity in the snow cover, about half a mile across the field. “You see that … that different sort of area … off that way, and just before the trees …?”
He did eventually. “Yeah, that’s that lonesome machine shed of Borglan’s. You know, the one with no other buildings anywhere …”
Oh, yeah. The one where some of the tracks led from Grossman’s place.
I walked back up the roadway, in the direction the snowmobile had come from.
“Was it this dark last night?” I asked.
“Darker, the moon was down by the time he came by.”
“Hmm.” We stopped at the point of the curve, about a hundred yards from our car. I looked at it. “You say he had no lights?”
“None.”
I could make out the exhaust plume of our car because I knew to look for it, but not the car itself. Well, not clearly, at least. Too much stuff in the way, like brush, trees, and rocks. I began walking toward it. About sixty yards from it, the left front fender became visible. By fifty yards, you could begin to see the area of the driver’s door. At forty or so, a shrub began to block the view of the left front fender again. A narrow range of visibility, but …
“It looks for all the world like he was coming around the corner, saw you, and ducked off the road.” I looked back toward the curve. “The distances are right if he’s goin’ about forty-five or so.”
“But he didn’t have any lights …”
“Yeah, I know.” So how did he see John? Night vision goggles, that’s how. “I’ll bet you look good in green light.”
“What?”
“Night vision goggles. NVGs.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’d do it.”
“Sure would,” I said. “Let’s get back in the car before I freeze to death.”
I stomped through the snow again, trying to hit my original tracks and not succeeding particularly well in the dark. But, back in the car, the heat felt good. I’d left my parka in the backseat, of course. Just too much of an encumbrance. Besides, the heat would warm up the granóla bars enough that they wouldn’t break my teeth …
We each cracked a window, subconsciously listening. To hear a railroad train over the loud hiss of the heater/defroster and the engine would have been quite a feat, but we did it anyway.
“Granóla bar?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
We munched in silence for almost a minute.
“So,” said John. “What do you think?”
“I think we got something really spooky here,” I replied. “I don’t know why, but somebody with a silenced snowmobile and NVGs is touring the countryside. Near a murder scene. Where the killer probably left via snowmobile.”
“I never heard of a snowmobile like that, with the goggles and all.”
“I did once,” I said, around a mouthful. “On TV. Finnish Army.”
“Who?”
“The Army of Finland. They and the Swedes were on TV. They have special units that use that sort of stuff. Go a hundred and sixty miles per hour on lakes in the Arctic like that. Quiet, and run ’em at night.”
“Yeah …” said John.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think we’ve been invaded. But military people use this kind of stuff. Or, at least, would if they needed to. Survivalists would probably know about it, then.”
“Oh.”
“Just have to figure out who and why,” I said. “For starters.”
I could just hear Art with that one. I’d be labeled the conspiracy theorist of the year.
“Don’t tell anybody. I mean, anybody. Got that?” I was deadly serious.
“Yes, sir.” So was John.
“I want you to keep working this area, but don’t hang it out too far on this thing. All right?