Sean and Lien-hua said nothing, and I realized they’d never met. I quickly introduced them. “Sean, this is Lien-hua; Lien-hua, Sean.” They shook hands amiably, but their attention was obviously still on me and Tessa.
“Sean,” I said, “I need to borrow your sled.”
“It’s Amber’s,” he told me needlessly.
“Right.”
He must have been able to tell I was anxious to leave because he didn’t argue, just handed me his helmet. “Nothing impulsive, okay? It’s the only snowmobile we have left.”
“I promise.”
I gave Lien-hua the personnel files and time cards that Sean had brought with him. “Take a close look at the date Donnie started working at the sawmill,” I said. “And check to see if and when he clocked out on the day of the murders and if he received any phone calls that day at the mill prior to leaving.”
When I mentioned the phone calls, Sean reached into his pocket. “Oh yeah. Almost forgot.”
He passed my cell to me, but I realized that Alexei had Lien-hua’s number, not mine, so I would need to keep hers in case he texted me again.
I gave her my phone. “I’ll get yours back to you as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have an errand to run.” Then I said to Sean, “Amber’s in room 104. Can you guys keep an eye on Tessa?”
“Absolutely.”
After reading Amber’s note this morning, I wondered when she was going to tell Sean about leaving him. I hoped she’d have the good sense to wait until Tessa and I were out of town.
Go, Pat. You need to move.
“I have to go, Raven,” I called. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She was quiet.
“Tessa.”
She didn’t turn. “Sure.”
Wonderful.
“Lien-hua.” I motioned toward the door. “Can you come here a sec?”
We stepped outside, and I held out my hand. “I need your gun.”
“What’s going on here?”
“Mine’s in a snowbank by the Chippewa-”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I can’t-”
Her hands went to her hips. “Are you going to the ELF site by yourself?”
“No, it’s just… Please…” For the second time in two minutes I said it: “You have to trust me.”
“Trust you.”
“Yes. You trust me, don’t you?”
The hesitation in her reply made me think of last night when she’d walked in on me and Amber, but then she took off her holster and her Glock and handed them to me. “Be careful and call me if you need me. Don’t shut me out.”
“That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
I wanted so badly to hold her, feel her arms encircling me, gain strength from her embrace, the scent of her presence, but I knew things were still tenuous between us. Instead, I placed my hand gently on her arm. “You’re the person who matters more to me than anyone else.” As I said the words I realized they were true to an extent I’d never even been aware of before. Yes, I cared fiercely for Tessa, loved her in a protective, parental way, but with Lien-hua I had to acknowledge that my feelings were the deepest, most intimate kind. “You know that, right?”
“Yes.” The answer didn’t come as promptly as I would’ve hoped, but there was no uncertainty in it.
After a moment’s debate I gave her a light kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I love you.”
“You too,” she said softly.
And in her words I found a shot of courage and a renewed sense of hope that we were going to work things out after all.
She turned and went back into the lobby, and as the door opened I heard Jake’s voice. “Where’s he going?”
“Out,” she answered.
Then it swung shut, and I limped down the path to the snowmobile to go meet Alexei Chekov in the basement of the hospital I’d been in yesterday, recovering from trying to save the man he’d thrown into the Chippewa River.
I only hoped I would be more successful saving Kayla than I’d been when I tried to save Bryan Ellory.
56
On the computer screen in front of her, Solstice monitored the progress of three of her mercenaries.
Forty minutes ago Tempest, Eclipse, and Typhoon had skied toward the east entrance to the national forest, where they were now preparing to take down the telephone lines that led into the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, Cane and his two Eco-Tech hard-liners were reviewing the speech he was going to record after the team had taken over the station. Seated at a table beside them, Gale and Equator were online, keeping tabs on the JWICS chatter through Terry’s back doors. Nothing so far on subs or the ELF station. Cirrus was analyzing the base schematics, calculating the most effective placement for the TATP ordnance.
Solstice had thought the team members might be troubled about Clifton White’s or Tsunami’s demise, but everyone seemed to accept that the mission took precedence over any personal attachments. In fact, Solstice had a feeling that seeing her decisive response to incompetence and insubordination had served a solidifying effect on their loyalty.
Or maybe it was all about the money to them after all. The best and most reliable motivator on earth-a bigger bottom line.
The three operatives in the forest all wore cameras attached to their headsets, and now, through the video signal relayed to her computer, Solstice saw that Tempest was ascending a telephone pole.
A few residential customers would be affected by the downed telephone lines, and she was confident that soon enough the scattered users would contact the phone company on their cell phones, and the disruption in service would be reasonably blamed on the storm.
The staff at the ELF base would no doubt use their satellite uplink to get an update on the disruption in landline service and have no immediate cause for concern.
With the roads as bad as they were, no phone companies would be able to send crews out until tomorrow at the earliest. And by then it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Solstice felt her pocket, fondled the passport she was carrying for Ariose Heaton, another of her identities. Waiting out the storm wouldn’t be difficult. Flying out of the regional airport in Rhinelander, an airport without facial recognition software, would be no trouble. And then, in two days, she would be reunited with Terry in Mali, a country without extradition treaties with the US, and they would have enough money to hide away for the rest of their lives.
Unless, of course, they decided to engage in a little mischief now and then along the way.
That thought brought a smile.
“How long?” she asked into her mic.
“We’ve run into a few issues,” Eclipse replied. “Nothing serious. We should be done by three.”
Perfect.
“All right. We’ll meet you at the maintenance building at 3:30.”
