the heck’s that doo-hickey down there?’
Bond saw it as Rushia pointed. Something small, glinting on the carpet. He reached down and came up with a stick pin, the kind of thing people wore in their lapels to show they belonged to the Rotarians or the Elks. This one had three tiny letters fixed to its head. The letters spelled out FBI.
‘So now we know who snatched her.’ Bond looked blankly at the pin. ‘I’m not only going to get Brokenclaw, but I think I’ll probably also have a go at those crooks Nolan and Wood.’
‘Just say the word, James, and I’m with you.’
‘It’s more than just a word, Ed. I need inside help. Information. I need to know stuff that I think you can get for me.’
‘Shoot.’
Bond talked carefully for a good half-an-hour. When he had finished, Rushia leaned back in his chair. ‘There’s an awful lot of it, James, but I can probably get it all within an hour or so – make that two hours, so why don’t you get this place squared away while I go and do the jobs? I’ll call you as soon as I have anything. Better, I’ll come and pick you up but I also think we’ve got to watch our backs; leave some billay doo, as they say in Paris, France, just to make certain the old folks at home know roughly where we’re heading.’
‘I leave that entirely to you, Ed, but the last thing I want is the cavalry coming to my rescue. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it alone. It’s an end game. Me and Brokenclaw alone.’
‘And what if he doesn’t see it your way?’
‘The man has a gigantic ego, Ed. I can’t see him turning down a chance to beat me, one on one, as your people say.’
‘A one on one with that guy could mean something pretty deadly, Jim.’
‘Don’t ever call me Jim.’ There was no humour in his voice. ‘I know a guy called Geoffrey in the business, back in London. He has a damned great notice in his office. It says ‘The name is Geoffrey,
‘Excuse me,’ Rushia said with exaggerated politeness. ‘Just didn’t know you cared.’
When he had gone, Bond began to tidy up. He hauled the door back into place, took down the shattered poster and generally made the apartment look a little less messy.
The telephone rang around midnight. Rushia said he had everything they needed. He would pick him up within the hour.
‘We’ll have to charter,’ Rushia said when Bond was seated next to him in a big green Chevy sedan. ‘I don’t see us getting on any regular flights. I left word, by the way. Said all three of us had gotten a sniff of Brokenclaw and couldn’t raise anyone else.’
‘Will that hold up?’
‘Maybe not for ever, but it should give us twenty-four hours.’ Then he started in on the information Bond required.
The area around the Chelan Mountains, high in the north of Washington State, was what Ed called ‘Vacation Land’. ‘There’re scenic routes to walk or drive. They ski there in the winter – there’s been no snow as yet this year, but it’s going to be cold. We’ll need some heavy clothing, but most of the holiday stuff goes on south of Lake Chelan. This reservation you talked about . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a semi-official thing. Washington State has a lot of regular Indian Reservations. The one you’re after isn’t just confined to Blackfoot people either.’
Bond waited. Since he had seen the arrow piercing the oil painting in Chi-Chi’s bedroom and read the message attached to it, he had heard one thing over and over again in Brokenclaw’s voice—
‘I doubt if I could live with myself if I did not spend time among my other people. I need to recharge my batteries like the next man. There are members of the old Blackfoot Confederacy who live apart. High in the Chelan Mountains, in Washington State, there is a peaceful camp where they live out their lives in the old way. I go there often. I like to breathe the smoke from my tepee, reflect on life, talk to my ancestors.’
It was not a mere hunch that had brought him to the conclusion that Brokenclaw had gone off to this ‘peaceful camp’ as he had called it. This was logic. If Brokenclaw believed in his own powers of escape, evasion and ability to remain outside the law, the camp in the Chelan Mountains was the one place he would go. Maybe to recharge his batteries, possibly to take stock, to think out his next move. He would have funds outside the United States, and in the peace of the mountains, he could, as he put it, breathe the smoke from his tepee and make a decision.
If he wanted revenge on the two people who had been the cause of his downfall, it was in those mountains he would wreak that revenge. Chi-Chi would be there, and Brokenclaw’s logic must have told him that Bond would eventually follow.
‘Not just Blackfoot people?’ he queried.
Rushia took the car on to the airport road. ‘Nope. Around twelve years ago a number of Indians from various tribes settled in the Yakima, Colville, Warm Springs and Nez Perce Reservations, asked if they could live outside their allotted reservations in a camp of their own choice. There were Blackfoot Confederacy people, Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow and Mandans. They swore an oath that they would live together in peace, but they wanted to live in the old way. Up there they don’t bother anyone. They’re self-supporting, they use original tools, they hunt game and small animals and they keep to themselves.
‘Somehow they’ve worked out a common understanding with one another. There have been rumours that they practise a lot of their old, somewhat barbarous ceremonies, but, as long as nobody bothers them, they don’t cause any trouble. I have a map that’ll take you right up to the camp.’
‘Where do we go first?’
‘We hire an air taxi, James. That’d be our fastest route, a jet if possible, to the field at Wenatchee. Then we hire a Range Rover or some such. There’s a track that’ll take us to within five miles of the place. It’s uphill, through wooded country, but the paths are there if you look for them. Map’s in the glove compartment here.’
‘I’ll look at it on the aircraft. If we can get an aircraft.’
They got a Learjet, and when they said where they wanted to go, they also got a strange look. ‘Something going on up near Wenatchee?’ the man from Weatherproof Air Services asked.
‘Not that we know of. This is a mission we’re on. Government business.’
‘Why don’t you get a government airplane, then?’
‘You know what it’s like.’ Ed became very confidential, very trusting. ‘So many damned forms. We want to get up there as quickly as possible, not wait for a week. We put the Learjet on Amex and shove it in for expenses when the time comes. You know how the old song goes?’
‘Sure.’
‘Why did you ask if something was going on up in Wenatchee?’ Bond asked.
‘Because you’re the second job we’ve had tonight. Same route. Had to use our one DC-3, the old workhorse herself. Slow, but still flying.’
‘You couldn’t give them a Learjet?’
The man shook his head. ‘Another government job.’ He dropped his voice. ‘FBI. One agent and a male nurse. Taking a woman back home. She’s been in some accident. Looked in a bad way. Unconscious. Had to get her on a stretcher.’
‘How long ago?’ Rushia asked.
‘Why the interest?’
Rushia sighed. ‘If you really want to know, it’s connected to the case we’re on.’
‘Well, they left about three-quarters of an hour ago. If we get your flightplan filed and okayed quickly enough, you’ll be landing within ten minutes or so of the DC-3.’
‘Let’s go then.’ Bond was not smiling.
The DC-3 was parked near the terminal building at Wenatchee, under the big floodlights. They saw it as they came in to land, and, as the Learjet taxied in, both Rushia and Bond craned to see if there was any activity around the aircraft.
In the terminal, Rushia went in search of the crew while Bond headed for the car rental services. He tried Avis first and found they had only just let their last Range Rover go. ‘Big call for them around these parts,’ the girl said. ‘I can let you have an almost new Isuzu Trooper. It’ll do the same job for you.’
