places, though. Plays hell with the runners on your snow machine when
you hit one of those.'
Ventura smiled politely. He had done some background research before
they'd flown into Anchorage. He probably knew more about the terrain
and local country than Morrison did, but he didn't let on. In almost
every situation, knowledge was power, and because you worked for a man
didn't mean that you trusted him.
From what he had learned, the HAARP site was a hundred and some odd
miles northeast of Anchorage, almost to the Wrangell Mountains, the
high range that divided Alaska from the Canadian Yukon.
He already knew that the nearest town was Gakona, and that it was about
fifteen miles north and west of the town of Glennallen, which wasn't
exactly a major metropolis itself. Up here, people gave directions
differently than in a city--the Sourdough Motel, for instance, was at
Milepost 147.5--you didn't need to say which road, there weren't so
many you'd get confused. Gakona was on the Glenn Highway, though the
locals called it the Tok CutOff, a couple of miles from the Richardson
Highway intersection.
The town, what there was of it, was near the confluence of the Copper
and Gakona rivers. The original inhabitants were Ahtna Indians, though
few of them lived here now. Few of anybody lived here now. During the
busy season, there were more people working at the HAARP site than
lived in town. People who chose to be up here enjoyed the great
outdoors, and they were either hardy or they didn't stay.
The landing strip at the site was new, and according to his research,
there wasn't a commercial airport closer than Gulkana, a few miles
south of Gakona. No railroad, and the roads called highways were more
like state roads.
A hundred years ago, somebody had built a roadhouse, the Gakona Lodge,
and it was still there, now a restaurant.
If you didn't work for HAARP--or against it, and there were some who
did that, work against it--you came up here to hunt, fish, hike, canoe,
kayak, ski, or snowboard.
There were a couple of paramedics with the volunteer fire department,
but no hospitals, clinics, or doctors around, so if you chain sawed
your foot off, you were shit out of luck.
The pilot, who was a grizzled man of maybe fifty, lined up on the
narrow runway and dropped his airspeed. A lot of these bush pilots
were experts, and this one was better than most at flying this little
bird, because after he'd left the Navy, where he'd flown jets off and
onto an aircraft carrier, he had flown crop dusters for a living down
in central California. Ventura had checked him out, too.
When you took on a client, you didn't take any chances-you examined
everybody who got within rifle range of your charge if you could pull
it off. It was easier up here in the middle of nowhere, at least
insofar as the numbers went. And it wasn't that hard to do, much
easier than a lot of people realized.
Ventura subscribed to a computer investigative service.
You logged onto the site, gave them your password and the name of
