'Well, I guess we'd better check on Miller before he freezes to death.' Jessie closed one of the black volumes and tossed it aside.
'I haven't changed my mind,' he said. 'We're going to the cellar to study these.'' He held up one of the black volumes. 'Then, unless I discover something new in here, we're going into the mountains. And for your information, it's now thirty-six miles to Johnson City on the road.'
'For God's sake, these people have to be stopped! If we can't go to Johnson City, isn't there some other place?'
'I'll get our friend from the porch. Then we'll go to the cellar, where it's safer-'
'A town with a phone wouldn't be safer?' she cut in.
Kier walked over to her until his chest was six inches from her nose. Looking down into her eyes he sighed his frustration, then said in a very soft voice: ''Are you ready to use the gun?'' There was such intensity in her silence that for a second he wondered if she was thinking about it. 'Then I'll get him.' He walked out the back door.
Chapter 8
A mother's cleverness for her children is double that for herself.
Her ferocity is tenfold.
Jack Tillman regarded the old man and his wife silently. carothers read the little sign by the driveway. There was shiftiness to their eyes that Tillman couldn't trust. Tire tracks led into the forest, past the Carothers' snug little tin-roofed cabin. Tillman was almost certain that these tracks matched those that had come from the Donahue farm. Nobody was going to make it over the Elkhorn Pass now. At any moment Tillman half expected his men to tell him they had found the vehicle in the woods out back.
'Doc came by earlier,' Mr. Carothers was saying when Doyle joined them.
When Doyle had come to Tillman from England, Tillman had made him second in command of the field people. More and more, though, Tillman felt tempted to promote him over Brennan. This red-haired Englishman embodied the no-holds-barred, kick-ass attitude that Tillman liked.
Like Tillman, Doyle was a big man. Together they towered over their reluctant hosts. With the addition of three of Tillman's other men, the two-room cabin was almost filled to capacity. Everybody stood away from the door, near the stove that dominated one wall.
Carothers apparently noticed Tillman's naturally dark complexion and asked if he was part Indian. Tillman took it as a compliment, feeling as he did that he was in touch with his primal self and therefore much fitter than many of his softer counterparts.
''Well, the National Guard is here on government business.'' Tillman eyed the frail man as an owl might study a mouse. 'And we can't do our job unless we know the whereabouts of everybody in the valley. As I said, we found the Donahue place empty, but freshly so, like they'd left in a hurry. Two vehicles went in this direction, but only the truck, which was first to leave, kept going. The car may have turned around. I don't know for sure.' He paused. 'Coincidentally, there are tire tracks coming right into your place here-'
The door opened and Brennan stomped in. 'We got 'em,' Brennan said. 'Just up the road, in the woods.'
'Thank you for your cooperation,' Tillman said on his way out the door to the old man.
The Donahue woman had driven the truck up an old logging skid trail well into the woods and had been working in the dark to obliterate her tire tracks when his men found her. She had a long way to go if she had intended to complete the job all the way back to the county road. Now Doyle had her in the cab with the kids.
Claudie Donahue struck Tillman as a handsome woman, even though ripely pregnant in a heavy overcoat and peering out from under her dowdy stocking cap. He spoke through the open driver's side window. At first he proceeded slowly, showing his fake I.D. and explaining his military status. He was careful to let her study his driver's license, and even showed her his dog tags. Oddly enough, he joked, he was General Grant of the National Guard, no relation to the Civil War hero. That her expression remained too impassive to read irritated him. Her cool skepticism cut him like a knife.
'Take the kids,' he told Doyle finally. 'I'll ride with Mrs. Donahue.' He opened the door of the king cab truck.
'The kids stay with me.' She said it calmly, but forcefully. 'And where are we going?'
Tillman held up his hand, signaling Doyle to wait.
'Back to your house, ma'am. It's necessary.'
'The kids can ride in back,' she said.
'We need to talk, ma'am. Things that aren't for kids.'
She hesitated, studying him. He supposed she was trying to decide whether he was really a general of the National Guard.
''I can get you out of here on a snowmobile if you cooperate.'
Hope flickered in her eye. 'Can we talk here?'
'Fine. Take the kids to the house,' he told Doyle.
'Let's go, chaps,' Doyle said with a big, friendly smile.
Getting in the cab beside her, Tillman spoke in conspiratorial tones. 'We're searching for a downed plane, and we thought maybe you could help.'
'Don't know anything about it.' Her response was too careful.
'You heard nothing this afternoon?'
She hesitated.
'Of course, you did. Why are you afraid to talk?'
'I don't know what I heard. A boom. Later, I heard what sounded like guns, more explosions.'
'Two vehicles left your driveway. You were driving one. Who was driving the other?'
'Frankly, I don't know.'
'Who was staying with you? Come on, ma'am, we need your cooperation. We've got an emergency here.'
'Why are you here?'
'That's classified, ma'am, for your own protection. Now, I'm the one asking the questions, and I need your help.'
'My sister was staying with me.'
'Who else?'
'No one else. But our friend, Dr. Kier Wintripp, was visiting.'
'How do you know him?'
'He's been a friend of ours for years.'
'This is an important government operation, ma'am; we know a lot. We just need you to confirm it. Tell me about your sister. Where's she from?'
'Back East.'
'What's she do for a living?'
Again Claudie hesitated.
'Mrs. Donahue, I really need your help here. I don't have a file on your sister because she doesn't have a place near Mill Valley. Now, she could be in real danger… so please help me.'
'She's with the FBI.'
'A special agent with the FBI?'
'Yes.' The woman sighed.
'Was she there when you heard these noises?'
'No. Later.'
'Did she go investigate?'
