The man laughed out loud. “Oh, yeah, I got that right here on my desk. Pentagon wouldn’t give it to me so I strolled on over to the CIA and the spooks printed me out a nice clean copy and then asked me what other secret shit I’d like to get my hands on.”
“I’ll take that as a
“Man named Toby Rucker runs a weekly in a little place an hour south of Nashville.” When he named the town, Horatio almost jumped out of his chair. It was the very place where Michelle had lived.
“What do you want to know for?” Freeman asked.
“I’ve got some questions about the disappearance of someone down there, say nearly thirty years ago.”
“Well Toby’s been there over forty years, so if it made the paper he’ll know about it.” Freeman gave Horatio the number and added, “I’ll call him right now and tell him you’ll be in contact.”
“I appreciate it, South, I really do.”
“You better. And don’t you forget our deal. Exclusive! Or I strangle you.”
“Right.” Horatio hung up, waited twenty minutes and called the number.
A man identifying himself as Toby Rucker answered on the second ring. South Freeman had just gotten off the phone with him, Rucker said. Horatio relayed his request and Rucker agreed to see what he could find out.
As Horatio clicked off his phone, there was a sound from overhead. He poked his head out the bedroom window. It was a chopper buzzing over Babbage Town. As it sped away Horatio thought about Michelle thousands of feet up in the air with a man Sean King clearly didn’t trust. So clearly in fact that he’d asked a special favor of Horatio that the man had granted.
“Come back in one piece, Michelle,” he muttered under his breath. “We still have a lot to talk about.”
The takeoff had been clean and smooth. The Cessna Grand Caravan was very roomy and luxurious, with a single aisle, seating fourteen counting pilot and co-pilot. It also had every navigation and communication bell and whistle, Champ had assured her.
“You take many people up?”
“I’m a solo kind of guy.” He hastily added, “It’s just that I like to think up here.”
She looked back at all the seats. “Seems like kind of a waste then, all this room.”
“Who knows, if things go really well, I could buy my own jet.”
“You don’t really strike me as all that materialistic.”
He shrugged. “I’m not really. I went into science because I liked figuring out things. But it gets complicated, and I’m not referring to the science.”
He fell silent.
“Come on, Champ, talk to me.”
He stared out the window of the plane. “Quantum computers have enormous potential to do good in the world and bad.”
She said, “I’m sure the guy who invented the atom bomb had the same concerns.”
Champ shuddered. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Okay, show me what this little old plane can do.”
He put the plane into a steep climb, something it handled easily. Next he guided the Cessna through controlled dives, cutting tight banks and even doing a rollover. None of it bothered Michelle; she’d ridden in just about anything with two wings in some of the roughest conditions possible.
He pointed out the window. “The infamous Camp Peary. This is about the closest we can get without being shot down.”
“Can we at least go a little lower?”
He eased them down to two thousand feet and circled back around. Michelle kept her eyes on the topography, taking in every detail she could. “So you can’t get any closer?”
“Depends on how risk-averse you are.”
“Not very. I take it you are.”
“Funny, not since I met you.”
He moved the flight wheel to the left and reduced their airspeed. The plane flew along on a straight line basically following the contours of the York River.
“This is really as close as we can get without having a missile up our butt,” he said.
Michelle could see the boat dock that Ian Whitfield had presumably used to launch his RIB. Next to that appeared to be the bunkers that Sean had shown her from the satellite map. From the air they looked like a series of concrete boxes lined up side by side. To the north of that was the inlet from the York that seemed to bisect Camp Peary. And farther north of that she saw the massive runway. Her gaze next ran across the old neighborhoods South Freeman had described, then an old brick home, and a small pond. And south of Camp Peary was the Naval Supply Center and the Weapons Station.
“The feds have this area pretty well locked up,” she said.
“Yes they do.” He banked to the right, flew east over the York, staying at two thousand feet and passed over some of the most picturesque country Michelle had ever seen.
“It is beautiful.”
“Yes, it is,” Champ said, staring at her. Then he looked abruptly away.
“Come on, Champ, it’s the girl who’s supposed to blush.”
He looked out the window. “I took Monk up once.”
“Really? Did he want to see anything in particular?”
“Not really. Although he did want to fly pretty low over the river.”
Michelle thought,
“Um, would you like to take the controls?”
She took the wheel in front of her and eased it to the left. And then to the right. “Can we climb a bit?”
“You can go up to eight thousand. Just take it slow and easy.” She edged the nose of the plane up and leveled off at eight thousand feet.
She said, “How about a controlled dive? Like you did?”
He stared at her a bit nervously. “Oh? Sure, okay.”
She eased the wheel forward and the plane’s nose dipped. Then it dipped some more. Michelle could see the earth coming at them awfully fast. And still she kept the wheel pushed forward. Suddenly flashing through her mind were nightmares that had torn at her for nearly three decades. A child petrified, but what child? Her? Even in her mind’s eye she couldn’t be sure. And yet the terror she was feeling was very real.
They were diving nearly straight down and yet Michelle didn’t seem to notice the altimeter reading plummeting or hear the warning horn in the cockpit. She also didn’t see that Champ was frantically pulling his wheel back, screaming at her to let go; that she was going to crash the plane. And yet she couldn’t pull her hands from the wheel. It was as though it had been electrified. For a second time she heard herself say, “Goodbye, Sean.”
Finally, through the fog of her mind she heard, “Let go!”
Michelle glanced to the side and saw a white-faced Champ straining with all of his might to pull the wheel back, to free them from the death spiral. Michelle ripped her hands from the wheel. Champ managed to pull the plane level and then took them in for a bumpy landing, the tires kicking off the runway twice before settling firmly down.
They taxied to a stop. For several minutes all each could hear was the other’s strained breathing. Finally Champ looked at her. “Are you all right?”
She could feel acid racing up her throat. “For nearly killing us both, yes, I’m fine.”
“I’ve known other people to freeze up at the controls. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let you take the wheel.”
“Champ, you did nothing wrong. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
They were walking back from the plane to Champ’s Mercedes when a motorcycle pulled up to them. It was Horatio Barnes’s Harley. The rider pulled off his helmet, and Sean King said, “Beautiful day to fly, isn’t it?”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He tossed her a spare helmet. “Let’s go.”
“Thanks for the flying lesson, Champ. I’m afraid I’m not up to lunch right now.” She climbed on the bike behind Sean.
