Breaking Point (9 page)

Ventura nodded. He had been in backcountry towns so small and isolated that a big topic of conversation on a Sunday morning was the size of a particularly large icicle hanging from a bar awning. "Gets a little chilly for street dancing," Ventura said.

It was not a question, though Morrison treated it as such. "Yes, it drops to forty or fifty below in the dark of winter, and usually there are a couple feet of white fluffy powder on the flats, piled higher against the buildings. Sometimes the wind blows hard enough to scour the ground clean in 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 chainsawed 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 whoever or whatever you wanted to know about, and within a few minutes, usually, they came back with as extensive a report as was available. The service had access, however legally, to social security, state motor vehicle departments, credit bureaus, police computer nets, and a bunch of others they wouldn't talk about. It was an expensive service, but they were pretty good. Not perfect--all they had on Ventura himself was what he allowed anybody to have on him--but as good as you were going to find outside of a serious spook shop. Good enough to track and define most honest people. Spotting the others was his job--if it took one to know one, he certainly ought to know a shooter.

The pilot brought the plane in smoothly, didn't even hop once when he touched down, and taxied toward a wind sock on a steel post next to a corrugated metal shed with a very steeply angled roof.

Once they were out with their bags, the pilot headed from the apron back to the runway, never even killing his engine.

It was warm--high seventies or low eighties, Ventura figured.

Morrison said, "Didn't think it would be so warm, eh?"

"Actually, I was wondering where the mosquitoes were. They're usually pretty bad this time of year in the lake valleys."

Morrison blinked, apparently surprised that Ventura wasn't surprised by the temperature. "Um. Well, the DOD has a guy who comes out and fogs the site every now and then. The mosquitoes are worse away from here. So, you've been to Alaska before? Why didn't you say so?"

"It never came up," Ventura said. He smiled.

"Um. Come on, I'll show you the setup. There's a fuel-cell cart in the shed; it's a mile or so to the front gate from here. We'll ride."

Ventura nodded. He adjusted the pistol in his belt holster. It had been there since they'd left Seattle. There were half a dozen ways he knew of to avoid having to pack your weapon in your luggage. People who thought you couldn't carry a gun onto a commercial jet were only fooling themselves.

Fooling himself was not Ventura's game.

I-80, just northwest of Laramie, Wyoming

"Wow, look how big they are!"

Tyrone glanced away from the small herd of buffalo penned next to the truck stop, and at Nadine. "Yeah. I've seen vids, but you don't get the reality of it. They stink, too." In the heat of the early afternoon, the dry air carried the musky, dusty odor of the animals. It was kind of hard to say exactly what it smelled like, but it wasn't something you smelled on a street in Washington, D.C. This was a fairly level spot, but they were into the northern Rocky Mountains now, and it was a lot slower going in the big RV than it had been on the flatlands of Kansas.

He and Nadine stood next to the tall wooden rail fence bounded by a single wire plastered with warnings that it was electrified, and not to touch it, not more than twenty or thirty feet away from the nearest buffalo as it chewed on hay or something. As they watched, the creature let loose a big dump, clumps of brown and yellowish stuff plopping onto the ground under its tail. It never even lifted its head from its grazing. Poot and eat at the same time. Yuk.

"Puu
wee
!" Nadine said.

Before it had smelled kind of rank, but now it
really
stunk.

"Yeah, well, I'm impressed. No wonder they wiped them out. Come on, let's get upwind," he said.

Behind them, the thirty-foot-long RV Tyrone's dad had borrowed from an admiral he knew was parked at the gas pumps, sucking up fuel. The thing would hold like fifty or sixty gallons in the tank, and it needed it, because it got only eight or ten miles to the gallon. On a round trip that was probably going to run almost six thousand miles, the RV was going to drink a
lot
of gasoline. Even with the new clean-burn technology and the solar-assist panels, the RV was a big old tank, big as a bus, and it lumbered along like a dinosaur. Of course, it was huge on the inside. There was a bedroom in the back with a queen-sized bed, where his mom and dad slept. A bathroom with a shower and toilet and sink, lots of closet space, and even a tiny bedroom up front that pulled out from one side of the main body like a drawer when they were stopped. Nadine slept in that little room behind one of those plastic accordion doors. Plus there was a dining area with a table, a kitchen with a stove, fridge, sink, microwave oven, and a pretty good-sized TV set and computer, with an automatic track-and-lock sat dish on the roof that caught narrowcast audio-vid, and telecom signals. You could sit there and eat a bowl of Haagen-Dazs pineapple-coconut ice cream and watch entcom stuff, or log onto the net, all while your dad was driving down the interstate at sixty. Pretty amazing. A lot more fun than being cooped up in the back of the family Dodge. Although being cooped up hip-to-hip with Nadine wouldn't be so bad. She wasn't gorgeous, but she was smart, athletic, and definitely female.

There was a couch behind the passenger seat that pulled out into a bed, and that was where Tyrone slept. He'd gotten used to it after the days on the road, and it was almost as comfortable as his bed at home. His dad had said it ought to be, since the RV had cost the admiral as much as they'd paid for their
house.

He saw his mom and dad coming back from the direction of the truck stop. They had a couple of big paper bags and a cardboard carrier of soft drinks. This was a treat, since Mom usually cooked in the RV.

"There's a place to park around the side of the buffalo pen," his dad said. "We can eat and watch the buffalo roam." He rattled the bags.

"Flawless," Tyrone said. "As long as it's not downwind."

The fries were good, the onion rings really good, and the burgers had a kind of smoky, odd flavor. Not bad, but different. Tyrone swallowed a bite of the burger and said, "They cook burgers kinda differently out here."

His father smiled. "It's not how they cook them, it's what they
make
them out of."

Tyrone looked at him. "Huh?"

His father pointed out the window over the table and grinned real big.

Tyrone looked at the buffalo. He looked at his burger.

Ah...

Both Nadines laughed.

All of a sudden Tyrone wasn't that hungry. Then again, he
was
going to eat this burger, and he would do it if it
killed
him. No way was he going to let his dad get this one, no ...
way.

He smiled, took a big bite, and smiled again, mouth full. "Good. I love it."

Chapter
9.

Wednesday, June 8th

Washington, D.C.

Michaels felt as if he were a thousand years old and mostly turned to dust as he held the phone's receiver in a death grip that threatened to break his hand or the instrument. He kept his voice as light as he could.

"... really great, Dadster, and all the kids in my class love him."

His daughter was talking about Byron Baumgardner, a teacher at her school in Boise--and his ex-wife Megan's boyfriend.

No, not boyfriend--
fiance
. They were getting married at the end of the month. And they wanted to have Byron the bearded wonder adopt
his
daughter, move in and take over as her father, and deny Michaels visitation--if he allowed it.

Needless to say, Michaels had not been invited to the wedding.

His initial inclination had been to fight it to the death--preferably Megan and Byron's death. He didn't like either of them right now, and at their first meeting had put the bearded wonder on his ass when the man had grabbed him. Megan had been doing her usual slash-and-burn number on him, and when he'd said something back in an angry retort, dear young Byron had taken it upon himself to defend her honor. Without thinking about it, Michaels had decked the man, thus proving that the silat he'd been learning actually worked.

In retrospect, that had been a mistake, but boy, it sure felt good at the time.

Well, Byron the bearded wonder would find out about how much
honor
his new love had the first time he crossed her--Megan fought dirty, always had. Michaels had overlooked that for a long time, blaming himself for a lot of their troubles, but eventually he realized it wasn't
all
his fault. Yeah, he had spent too much time at the office, and yeah, he could withdraw into his own head and not engage even when he was home, but he had been a good father, and when Megan started throwing the lousy-dad crap in his face, it was hard to smile and shrug it off.

But would taking his ex and her new love to the legal mat and trying to choke them out benefit Susie? How would an ugly custody battle affect her? Sure, kids were resilient, they could bounce back after really nasty trauma--mental, physical, whatever--but did he want to be the one who
caused
that trauma?

No. Even if it was mostly Megan's doing, she was going to be the person who got Susie out of bed every day, the person Susie would come crying to when she fell and skinned her knee, the person who could, with a few well-chosen words, plant a lot of lies about dear old dad that would slowly and surely turn his daughter against him. And he wouldn't put it past Megan, not after what he'd learned about her after they had split up. She had a mean streak, and it was a lot wider and deeper than he'd ever imagined it could be.

Getting into a tussle with her mother over Susie's affections would be a losing proposition, no question. At least until she became a teenager and rebelled ...

Susie, now eight, continued to talk about what a swell guy Byron was, and as much as he didn't want to agree with
that,
Michaels didn't say so. Poisoning a well was never a good idea in his mind, you never knew if somebody you loved might drink from it--or if you might have to drink from it yourself someday. Susie was going to be living with the man, and what good would it do her to be in the middle of a pissing match between her real father and the new stepdad?