convince Seattle P.D.'s brass that they should take action. Assuming they did that, Powell would have his hands full just coordinating the operation as a joint effort with the law-enforcement folks up in San Juan County on our side of the border. Crossing into Canada and working with Canadian authorities as well as with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would add another whole dimension of complication and difficulty.
Larry Powell has been my squad commander for years. I have considerable faith in his abilities. But since I hadn't been able to make Major John Gray go along with the program-since I couldn't convince him of the validity of my suspicions about what was happening on board One Day at a Time — how could Captain Powell possibly expect to pull the RCMP into line?
'Can we beat Alan Torvoldsen to the border?' I asked.
Paul Brendle shrugged and eased the helicopter into the air far enough to take us out to a small landing-pad triangle that had been painted onto the tarmac. 'Like I said before, it depends on how fast he's going and on winds aloft.'
I tried to say something more, but now, intent on receiving radio transmissions coming in from Air Traffic Control, Paul held up his index finger, motioning for me to be quiet and wait.
Never before having seen a helicopter pilot at work, I confess to being impressed. I've ridden in Metroliners on occasion-the kind of cigar-shaped, one-seat-per-side, sardine-can-type airplane where, if you're lucky, they keep a curtain closed between you and the pilots and their daunting array of instruments and gauges.
The reason I like a closed curtain is that, if something goes wrong and I can't do a damn thing about it, I don't want to know beforehand. I find it reassuring, however, that Metroliners always have two real, reasonably trained, bona-fide pilots.
Paul Brendle's helicopter had only one pilot on board-him. And it was no wonder he didn't want to talk. He didn't have time. Both hands, both feet, both eyes, and his mouth were all working at once in a display of coordination I found nothing short of dazzling. He was talking back and forth to Air Traffic Control when the chopper lifted off, tilted sharply forward, and sped down the runway, quickly gaining altitude.
While the helicopter had been parked without the engine and blades running, a slanting, wind-driven rain had covered the clear plastic bubble, making it almost impossible to see out. As soon as the blades whirled overhead, most of the moisture had been blown away, but now the windshield wipers came on as well.
As the airport tarmac fell away behind us, I was dismayed to realize there was nothing between me and the ground but carpeted metal flooring and a thin-very thin-layer of wraparound, see-through plastic. To my surprise, however, despite what I knew to be serious gusty winds and thick rain, the ride inside the machine was far smoother than I had expected.
I glanced at my watch again. Time was passing too quickly. I felt more and more urgency about getting back to Captain Powell and letting him know what was up.
I pressed down the button on my microphone. 'What about calling…' I began, but Paul cut me off once more with his silencing finger while an air-traffic controller advised us to watch out for a medical helicopter inbound across Puget Sound, heading for the landing pad at Harborview Hospital.
Once more I shut up and warily scanned the horizon. I didn't want to die in a midair crash, and I was relieved when I finally managed to spot the incoming chopper through the pouring rain.
We followed the path of the freeway north across the city. Since it was Sunday morning, most of the downtown city streets appeared pretty well deserted, although there was still a residual backup in both directions on the freeway at the Ship Canal Bridge. Somewhere near Northgate we veered northwest and headed toward Puget Sound.
'What was it you wanted back there?' Paul asked.
I was so fascinated by what I was seeing that it took me a minute to remember. 'I need to get word back to Captain Powell, about what's going on.'
'No problem,' Paul Brendle replied. 'I'll have Roger handle it. What's his number, and what do you want to tell him?'
Good question. Should I go ahead and trust to Captain Powell's ability to call in the cavalry, or should I try marshaling reinforcements independently? If Powell was actually making progress cutting through regular channels, a call from me to the San Juan Sheriff's Department would only muddy the issue.
Conscious that every moment of delay counted against us, I gave Paul the number. 'Give him the location,' I said. 'Tell him to try to get us whatever help he can.'
Having called for help through official channels, I sat back to worry in silence. What were the chances of our actually catching up with Alan Torvoldsen's boat before it reached Canadian waters? And if we couldn't make it in time, did San Juan County or the Coast Guard have a boat capable of getting there first?
Once we were out over Puget Sound, the clouds began to break up. Whitecaps on the gray-green water showed that the wind had kicked up considerably, but the helicopter bounced very little. Despite my initial misgivings, clearly we were far better off up in the air than we would have been down on the water bobbing around in a boat.
That was discouraging. Rough seas made things tougher, lessening the odds of pulling off a successful rescue mission without someone getting hurt.
What would Alan Torvoldsen do once he realized we were onto him? I wondered. Would he try to run and hide, or would he stand and fight? Was the skipper of One Day at a Time armed and dangerous? If so, how much firepower did he have at his disposal? Enough to bring down a helicopter? The plastic bubble of Paul Brendle's cockpit sure as hell wasn't made of bulletproof material.
A garbled-sounding radio transmission came in. I couldn't understand a word of it.
'What did he say?'
'Mr. Sato, one of our R-22 pilots, just took another peek,' Paul answered. 'He says they just passed Danger Rock. Looks like they're heading on down the Spieden Channel between Spieden Island and San Juan. The international border is in the middle of Haro Strait on the other side of San Juan Island. My guess is that's where they're headed.'
That was my guess, too, even though I didn't possess Paul Brendle's photographic memory for San Juan Island geography.
'We're gaining on them, though,' he added. 'We've got a thirty-knot tailwind, and they must be running a little slower than we figured.'
'So we might still catch them?'
'Of course.'
'Where?'
'There's a marine atlas in the back pocket behind my seat. Take a look at that, and we'll see.'
Sue, sitting in back, dragged out the oversized book. After spending several minutes studying it, she tapped me on the shoulder and passed it up to me through the space between the two front seats. When I looked back at her, I discovered the skin on her face was a surprising shade of gray-green-almost the same color as the water below us. The same color mine used to be when I stepped off a Tilt-a-Whirl.
'I can't read in moving vehicles,' she managed. 'It makes me sick.'
'There's a barf bag in that same pocket, if you need it,' Paul suggested helpfully.
While Sue went rummaging for the air-sickness bag, I busied myself with the atlas. It took some time to sort out the way the atlas worked and to find the proper chart for the area where we were headed. As my eyes ran up the side of San Juan Island, the name Deadman Bay caught my eye. Seeing it seemed like an omen, somehow.
Another radio transmission came through. The basic gist of this one was that San Juan County had a boat heading out from Friday Harbor to offer assistance, but the sheriff was having difficulty assembling his Emergency Response Team. San Juan County's single trained hostage negotiator was leading a religious retreat at Leavenworth up in the Cascades. And the sharpshooter on the San Juan Emergency Response Team was in the hospital in Bellingham giving birth to her second baby.
That meant that our only hope of help was from the two specialty teams dispatched by Captain Powell, and they weren't expected to leave Boeing Field for another ten minutes.
I glanced questioningly back at Sue. Clutching the bag in her hand, she was leaning back in the leather seat with her eyes closed and her face still a pukey shade of green. From the looks of her, it was possible she was out of the game for good.
'What are they up to?' Paul demanded.
