No Return (24 page)

They were parked next to a rectangular, two-story, flat-top building. It was white, and had outside breeze-ways on both the first and second levels. Wes turned and saw two more identical buildings to the side. All unmistakably military.

He did a full three-sixty. There were three more buildings on the other side of a narrow road, but otherwise, there was only desert in all directions.

“Come on,” Lars said.

“Wait. What were you supposed to help my father with?”

“Not now. We don’t have time.”

“Lars, we’re talking about my dad!”

“Later.”

“Do you know why he went up Nine Mile Canyon?”

But Lars was already jogging along the side of the building, toward a door at the top of a short set of concrete steps. Wes hesitated a moment, then followed. As soon as he reached the steps, Lars opened the metal door, revealing a stairwell inside. Without a word, they went up.

The stairs ended at the second-floor landing. From there, Lars led Wes onto the breezeway. Along the wall were five metal doors. Lars hurried down to the one at the far end, his footsteps echoing softly through the empty night, and pulled the door open. He motioned for Wes to enter.

The room was about fifteen feet wide by twenty long. There were three desks, each covered with books and papers. The wall on the left was a heavily used, floor-to-ceiling dry-erase board, while the wall on the right and the one directly across from the door sported waist-high, wood-framed windows.

Lars moved quickly to the corner where the two windowed walls met. He looked out one, then the other for several seconds before turning back to Wes. “You can see both routes from here.”

He pointed through the window to the left, indicating where the road that ran between the buildings met with another that curved out into the darkness of the desert. Through the window to the right, he pointed at a narrower road that passed between two of the buildings on the other side of the main road and then led out into a different part of the wilderness.

“If you see anything,
anything
, you tell me right away.”

“Hold on,” Wes said. “What, exactly, are we doing here?”

Lars took a moment, then said, “You were right about Adair.”

“Hold on. You’re telling me for sure the pilot wasn’t Adair?”

Lars nodded. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

“You’ve known this all along?”

“No,” Lars said quickly. “That part of things I didn’t know until this evening.”

“What things?”

“Look, the reason we came out here is because there’s information that will prove you were right, but I can’t just access it anywhere. I called in a favor and got the password to a secure computer terminal downstairs that does have access to the info. It’s not a perfect solution. But they won’t realize it right away, and our location out here will hopefully buy us a little extra time for me to find everything. What I need you to do is watch the roads and warn me if anyone’s coming.” He turned the phone on the closest desk to face them. “There’s an internal intercom in this building. When I get downstairs, I’ll call you on this line.” He pointed at an unlit indicator on the phone. “Just press that and we’ll be connected. All right?”

Wes looked at his friend for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. All right.”

AFTER FORTY MINUTES PASSED WITHOUT STEWART
returning to his room, the man in the car began to get annoyed. When it hit an hour, his annoyance became concern. Not for Stewart, but for the possibility that Stewart had given him the slip.

He waited an additional ten, then made the call he was dreading, and was told to look around the motel and see if he could find the missing cameraman.

He checked the rooms the rest of the crew were staying in, listening at doors and windows to see if he could hear Stewart inside. Most were quiet. The only exception was the sound of a TV in one.

He thought for a second that maybe Stewart had snuck off to have a little fun with the other woman in the crew who’d stayed for the weekend, the tall one. But when he checked her room, there was only silence.

Before getting back in the car, he checked Stewart’s room, just in case the guy had returned as stealthily as he left. Didn’t sound like it, though.

The son of a bitch was messing up the plan. Tonight was supposed to be
the
night.

“I have no idea where he went,” he said, checking back in. “As far as I can tell, he’s not anywhere on the grounds.… No, she’s still there.” He listened, then cocked his head, surprised. “Are you sure? … Okay, okay, if that’s what you want.… Yes, I’ll call as soon as it’s done.”

The man hung up, not completely sure how he felt. Changes were never something he was comfortable with. But what could he do?

He looked at his watch, marking the time, then leaned back, saving his energy for later.

“HOW’S IT LOOKING?” LARS ASKED OVER THE
speakerphone.

“Quiet,” Wes said.

Night in the desert meant miles and miles of nothing but dark. Wes would be able to see the headlights of any approaching vehicle in plenty of time for him and Lars to get away. So far the roads to the isolated set of buildings had remained empty.

“Good.”

“How’s it going there?”

“I’m in,” Lars said. “Just searching for the files on the flight.”

Wes continued to scan the desert, hearing only the clacking of a keyboard through the phone’s speaker. He became so lost in the darkness that it was several seconds before he registered that the typing had stopped.

“Lars?”

“Give me a minute.” Lars’s voice sounded hushed and anxious.

Wes checked each road again. There was a faint light off in the distance through the window on the right, but as far as he could tell, it wasn’t in-line with the road.

“Did you find something or not?” he asked.

“I can work faster if you don’t ask questions,” Lars told him.

More typing.

Wes looked out the windows again. The light he’d seen before was gone.

“The roads are still empty,” he reported.

A grunted acknowledgment, then nothing but keystrokes for nearly ten minutes.

Suddenly Lars said, “Got it!”

“What did you find?”

“Proof. I’m printing it out. Get back into the truck now!”

Wes reached forward to cut the intercom connection, but held up as he noticed movement out the window to his left. There was something on the road in the distance. It was almost as dark as the landscape, but it was moving fast.

“Lars, we have company!”

“I thought you said the roads were empty.”

“They’re coming in with their lights off. There are at least two of them. West road. I’d give us three minutes, tops.”

“Get your ass down here! Now!”

WES FLEW ALONG THE SECOND-FLOOR BREEZEWAY
and dove through the door into the stairwell. Taking the steps three at a time, he hit the first-floor door twenty seconds after he’d hung up the phone.

“Lars?” he called out.

The five office doors of the first floor were all closed. He moved quickly from one to another, trying each. The fourth knob he turned was unlocked.

“Lars,” he said, sticking his head inside. “They’ll be here any second. We need to go!”

His friend was across the room, standing next to a printer.

“Two more sheets,” he said. “Go wait in the truck.”

“Just leave them.”

“I can’t. This is the only thing that will keep us alive.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

Lars didn’t answer, so Wes pushed out of the doorway and raced to the end of the building. He peeked around the edge. From this angle he could see where the road that ran between the buildings intersected with the road the cars were on. As of yet, it was clear.

Hearing a door close behind him, he looked back. Lars was heading toward the truck, several sheets of paper in his hand.

Wes checked the intersection again. It was no longer empty.

“We’re not going to make it,” he yelled, running to join his friend. “They’ll be here in just a couple of seconds.”

“Here.” Lars shoved the papers into Wes’s hand. “Hide somewhere. I’ll distract them.”

“What?”

“You said yourself we’re not going to make it. If they find you here, we both go to jail. If it’s just me, I’ll get a hand slap. When we’re all gone, walk back, and find a way off the base without being seen. Can you do that?”

Wes was scared to death, but he nodded.

They could now hear engines approaching.

Wes started to turn away, but Lars grabbed him. “Wait.” He snatched back one of the papers, pulled out a pen, and scribbled on the back of the sheet. “That’s the key,” he said, shoving it at Wes. “Now go! Hide!”

Wes turned and ran straight into the desert.

About one hundred feet out, he found a shallow ravine cut by an ancient flash flood. It was just deep enough for him to lie flat below the prevailing ground level. Once prone, he tilted his head up and looked back at the buildings.

Lars was in the truck and had started it up. But he only went a dozen feet before a dark sedan darted out from around the corner of the building and skidded to a stop half a car length in front of him.

Brake lights flashed, and the truck slammed to a stop. Just then a second car swung around the back of the building and cut off any potential retreat. Two more cars soon joined the first near the front, then, almost as one, doors flew open, and over a dozen armed men rushed out, their weapons pointed directly at the truck.

This is not going to be just a slap on the hand
.

Wes heard sharp, raised voices, but couldn’t make out the words. Then the driver’s door of the truck opened, and Lars stepped out, his arms above his head.

“On your knees!” a single voice barked, just loud enough for Wes to hear.

Lars immediately complied.

The men surrounding him began closing in, their weapons still drawn. When they were within ten feet, two of the men behind Lars rushed forward. They grabbed Lars’s arms and shoved them down. One of the men pulled something out of a pocket and secured Lars’s hands, then they yanked him to his feet.

More voices as most of the guns were lowered. One man walked up until he was standing just a few feet in front of Lars. Even at this distance, Wes recognized Lieutenant Jenks.

After about a minute, Jenks looked back at the other men. As one, the remaining guns that had not been stowed were lowered. More talk, and then Lars was led to one of the sedans. Jenks opened the rear door and guided Lars’s head as he climbed in, then Jenks got in after him. Two others got into the front. The doors were barely shut when the sedan made a quick U-turn and sped off the way it had come.

Wes watched the twelve remaining men, willing them to get into their cars and leave, too. But instead, they gathered together. When they finally split, two went over to Lars’s truck and began searching through the cab. Six others headed to the first-floor breezeway of the building, disappearing from view. And while the final four men got into a sedan, instead of leaving, they began driving between the buildings, stopping every once in a while to shine a handheld searchlight at one of the structures.

After several minutes the car disappeared behind the buildings on the far side of the road. Just when Wes was beginning to think maybe it had driven off, headlights swept out from around the end of the building to Wes’s left.