Scott Free (6 page)

“They go live at seven, eastern time. That's three hours from now. You'll look like last night's hors d'oeuvres.”

“It's not a beauty contest, Larry,” Audrey protested. “It's not even a book tour, though God knows the sales of the
Mirror
series have been slipping. She's a worried mother, for Christ's sake. She's supposed to look like she hasn't had any sleep. Honestly, Sherry, Molly Bartholomew is a sweetheart. She's the producer I was telling you about. She won't let you go on the air if you're hideous.”

Oh, now, that was reassuring. “Okay,” Sherry said. “Do it.”

“Excellent,” Audrey said. “Now, I want to talk to you about a book idea I had.”

“Jesus, Audrey.” This time, Sherry and Larry said it together.

“What? Is it so wrong to pursue unique opportunities while they're hot? I think Baker Publishing would jump on the chance to publish this story. Rich Czabo recently moved there, and I thought, if I could lock him in early, it would probably be good for a solid six figures.”

“No,” Sherry said.

“Why?”

“We're talking about my son, Audrey.”

“We are not. We're talking about you. It's just so high-concept. ‘The counselor needs assistance.'”

Sherry could hear the finger-quotes as she uttered that last phrase. “It's unseemly.”

“It's horrifying,” Larry said.

“How is it horrifying? Jesus, everybody wants to know how celebrities deal with stress. It's a natural.”

“No, Audrey,” Sherry repeated. “And I'll say it again, in case you didn't get it the first time. No. Good God, I'd look like a ghoul.”

“No one would have to know,” Audrey pressed. “We could put a complete embargo on the story.”

“I'm hanging up, Audrey. Call this Bartholomew lady and tell her we're a go in the morning.”

“Okay,” Audrey said. Sherry envisioned her as wired on thirty cups of coffee. “And I'll let you know what Rich Czabo says about the book.”

“Audrey!” The line was dead.

“She's Satan incarnate,” Larry said as he wandered back in from the kitchen.

“She's made me a fortune, Larry.”

He stopped in his tracks, placed a hand on his hip. “I'm sorry, have you not read
Faust?”

She flipped him off.

“This television thing is a mistake,” Larry warned.

“Oh, for heaven's sake.”

“Roll your eyes all you want. People are going to see you on television within a few hours of Scott's disappearance, and they're going to draw all the wrong conclusions.”

“What wrong conclusions?”

“Exactly the same conclusions they would have drawn about a book: that you're exploiting this whole thing for publicity. With all due respect, my dear, you don't do ‘caring nurturer' very well. Your strong suit has always been ‘in-your-face preacher.'”

Sherry recoiled. “I'm insulted.”

“Well, forgive me, then.” Larry headed for the foyer. “You pay me for my opinions, and I give them to you.”

“Is that what I pay you for?”

Larry opened the door and paused before leaving. “I don't know what the hell you pay me for. But in deference to the generous check, just please take my advice and be careful.”

Sherry glanced at the clock and panic gripped her. “Oh, my God, look at the time. I've got to get a couple of hours' sleep.”

“I'll give you a wake-up call at five-thirty,” Larry said.

“And then another one ten minutes later, in case I fall back to sleep!” Before she could finish, the door was already closed. She had no idea whether he heard her.

T
HERE'D NEVER BE A WAY
for Brandon to thank Jim Lundgren adequately for his help.

After working the phones for an hour, trying to find an airline that was still launching planes this late at night, he'd finally realized the hopelessness of his efforts. Noise restrictions forbade any commercial liftoffs after 9:00
P.M.
As a last resort, he'd called Lundgren, president of Federal Research—Brandon's employer for the past eighteen years—with the express purpose of stepping way out of line. “My son's been in a plane crash out in Utah,” Brandon explained to the groggy executive. “I can't find a flight to get me out there, and I—”

“Take my jet,” Lundgren offered, without missing a beat, and without hearing the rest. The Gulfstream was a perk reserved only for the top dog, and no one—
no one
—else was permitted to use it. “I'll call the pilots right now and have them meet you. You know how to get to Manassas Airport?”

He didn't but he said he did. That's what maps were for. “I can't thank you enough for this,” he'd said.

Lundgren replied with a huff. “Now we're both wasting time. Keep me informed, take as long as it takes. Don't even think about the plant. Mary and I will keep you in our prayers.”

Now, as the posh Gulfstream cut through the night on the way to Salt Lake City, Brandon tried to determine his next move. An obsessive planner, he visualized problems as giant knots, even the most hopeless of which could be untied if you just turned it over enough times. A tug here and there, action and reaction. To Brandon, that was what problem-solving was all about.

Sitting in the luscious leather chair with his seat belt loosely fastened across his lap, he closed his eyes and tried to find the thread that would lead to Scott's rescue. He had no idea where to begin. He didn't know the players, he didn't really know the situation, and now that he thought about it, he didn't even know where Arapaho County was, precisely.

Even more basic than that, he didn't even know what he hoped to accomplish out there. What could he possibly contribute to the search effort? Surely prayers offered from Virginia carried just as much weight with God as prayers launched from Utah, and beyond that, what did he have to offer? Would he even be welcome?

Probably not. He didn't care. His goal here was simple: He wanted his son back. He left for Utah alone to return to Virginia with Scott at his side.

Maybe he could help with the search. At the very least, he could be another set of eyes combing the terrain. Would that satisfy him? Suppose another team found his boy, and Brandon was off traipsing through a different search grid? Was he ready for that?

And what if they found the wreckage, only to discover that…well, that it was bad news? The worst news? Suppose Brandon himself was the one to find it? Was he ready for
that?
Is that how he wanted the final memories of Scott to be burned into his brain? A grotesque image of a dismembered corpse tried to form itself in his mind, but Brandon opened his eyes before it took shape.

“He's alive,” he said to the empty cabin. “I know he is.” And don't bother asking how he knew. He just did.

But what if he wasn't alive? Worse yet, what if Scott were dead and that reckless asshole of a pilot who killed him were still alive? Of all the possibilities, that was the scenario that Brandon had the hardest time wrapping his mind around.

He knew how people were going to react to this accident. All they were going to see were the impossible odds, and no matter what Brandon said, they were likely going to dismiss his words as the blind optimism of a frightened father. It was human nature to think that way, just as he always assumed that missing kids on the news would ultimately turn up dead. It was just the way things happened.

But not this time. Brandon would talk himself hoarse to convince everyone involved in the search that Scott was still alive. He was a strong boy, an experienced camper. A winter survival course graduate. If anyone could prevail against the odds, it would be Scott.

Brandon's job was to make damn sure that no one gave up on him.

The clock was his enemy now, the one element that showed no mercy, ticking endlessly forward. Closer to the end. Closer to death.

He's not dead!

But he had to be hurt, didn't he? A person can't just fall from the sky and not be hurt. But how badly? Concussion? Broken leg? Broken
back?
Brandon's mind tapped into the horror of lying paralyzed in the snow, slowly freezing to death, or worse yet, burning.

Oh, my God.

No! He couldn't think this way. He couldn't allow it. Pessimism was an unaffordable luxury. Negativism need not apply. Still, the most horrible images lurked just outside the door, waiting for his defenses to weaken.

Scott's life was Brandon's life. They were a pair. Team Bachelor. And while the boy was strong enough and smart enough to plod through life without his old man, Brandon knew with absolute certainty that he himself couldn't make the trip alone.

He didn't possess that kind of strength.

S
HERRY SAT IN A HARDBACK CHAIR
, in front of a six-by-six-foot-square wall emblazoned with the familiar peacock logo. The sign on the door out in the hallway read
PRESS ROOM
, but the place was really a ballroom that had been hijacked by the press corps for the duration of the president's visit to SkyTop. A dozen such minisets lined the perimeter of the room, one for each of the networks and cable stations, plus a dozen others from around the world, with logos Sherry didn't recognize. In the far corner, toward the front, sat a familiar blue lectern with its two microphones. Somebody just needed to add the presidential seal, and the lectern would become the set for a presidential press conference.

Security had been tight but not impossible as she'd reported in for her interview. When she asked why, she learned that the First Skier, as the press had dubbed the president, had no plans to do anything but ski until the Founder's Day address later in the week. They assured her, however, that if the time came when POTUS wanted to address the nation, an impenetrable security net would materialize in an instant.

As it turned out, when Audrey had referred to Molly Bartholomew as a friend, she'd overstated the relationship by about twelve thousand percent. “Sworn enemy who didn't have the clout to argue” was far more accurate. It turned out that Audrey's real friend was Molly's boss in New York, who'd yanked Molly away from a planned day off in order to accommodate this interview. They'd scheduled it for the eight o'clock hour in New York, after they'd discussed all the hard news for the day, but before they'd turned to the latest fashion trends.

As a camera moved into place in front of her, and two floodlights became supernovas, Sherry tried to sit motionless as Molly threaded a microphone under Sherry's sweater and another technician jammed an earpiece into her right ear.

“Here's the deal,” Molly explained. “They're trying out a new news anchor this morning. His name is Brock, and try not to laugh when you say it. Anyway, he's going to be asking you these questions”—she handed Sherry a sheaf of papers—“during the bottom of the hour news break. Look into the camera when you answer and try not to shout.”

“I've done television before,” Sherry said. “Are we going to be live?”

“Absolutely. And if you do a good job, it'll probably be broadcast all day at the news breaks and on CNBC.” The producer made a point of looking Sherry squarely in the eye as she added, “This is news, not
Frasier,
okay? Nobody yells ‘cut' if you screw up, so try to get it right.”

Sherry nodded and looked down at her notes. At first glance, she didn't see anything too difficult. It was mostly about emotion. How was she holding up under the stress? Did she think that the authorities were acting quickly enough? Are there things about her son that the world should know?

With the microphone finally clipped to the collar of Sherry's turtleneck, Molly took a call on her cell phone. “Hello? Yeah? Shit.”

Sherry's heart rate doubled. “What?”

Molly held up a finger and listened for a moment more. “Okay, yeah, we can be ready.” To Sherry, she said, “Change in plans. They want to go live in one minute, as soon as they come out of the break.”

Instantly, Sherry's mind went blank.

“Don't look so scared, Mrs. O'Toole. I wrote the questions and they're all softballs.”

“It's Dr. O'Toole,” Sherry corrected.

Molly rolled her eyes and smiled. “Quiet on the set, please.” She donned a headset with a boom mike and stepped behind the camera, disappearing in the glare of the lights.

After a brief pause where nothing seemed to move, Sherry's earpiece popped to life, and she was listening to the
Today
show. A satiny smooth voice was in the process of introducing the segment when Molly's voice boomed, “Okay, Doc, stand by. We're ready to go in five, four, three…”

 

S
COTT FELT LIKE HE'D BEEN BEATEN
. Every muscle, every joint screamed a dissonant chorus, with his ankle playing the role of lead singer in the newest boy band, Scott O'Toole and the Agonies.

But at least he'd lived through the night. What were the chances of that? How about a thousand to one? Nobody would have touched that bet. Stack a night of sure hypothermia on top of surviving a plane crash, and you might as well hand over your dollar to the lottery.

According to his wristwatch, it was nearly eight in the morning. He'd slept for a solid six hours—about what he got at home during school. During the night, though, his shelter seemed to have shrunk. It was like being in a grave.

That was the thought that drove him back outside.

The rescuers would come today. He knew it as surely as he knew his name. He'd never held much hope that people would come looking for him last night, not with the storm raging the way it had been. Now that it was daylight, though, even though the snow continued to fall, he figured that the search teams would find the margin of safety they'd need to do their jobs. He expected them to come by air, but he'd say yes to a dog sled if that was all they had to offer. He was ready to be warm again.

Outside the shelter now, Scott surveyed his surroundings, wincing against injuries he swore to God he didn't have last night. His neck and his back hurt, his fingers throbbed, and his ankle hurt all the way up to his knee. That didn't even count the six thousand bruises that had to be covering every inch of flesh beneath his clothes.

“I feel like I yelled ‘redneck' in a biker bar,” he mused aloud. The image made him smile, and even the smile hurt.

Everything looked so much smaller in the daytime. Distances that had seemed impossibly far last night now showed themselves for what they really were. The whole crash site, including the wrecked Cessna and the pitiful shelter Scott had built didn't cover a circle more than a hundred feet in diameter. Last night, he'd have sworn that it was twice that large. Maybe more. That's what happened when every step through the deep snow yielded such little distance.

Even the twisted remains of the airplane itself seemed smaller. The unrelenting snowfall had blunted every edge and rounded every corner. If he hadn't known that wreckage lay under all that powder, he'd have thought maybe it was a strange rock outcropping. Okay, a
very
strange outcropping with flashes of blue and red paint.

Still, if he'd just been wandering by this spot, not expecting to find anything, he wasn't at all sure he'd have seen it.

The thought froze his insides.

Standing there in the hip-deep snow, he arched his back and looked straight up. Through the swirling snow, the lead-colored sky appeared only as tiny patches of gray, peeking through an unrelenting canopy of frosted green, the arms of countless towering firs stretching forever toward the sky.

Oh, my God, we're invisible
.

He could hardly see the wreckage from the ground, for crying out loud—from close enough to spit on it. How the hell could anyone see them from the air? What were these trees, a hundred years old? Five hundred? God only knew how many secrets they'd concealed from the air.

Stop it,
he commanded himself.
You're panicking.

Damn straight, I'm panicking.
Facts were facts, and no lies he told himself were going to thin out these trees.

Maybe they're all torn up from the crash
.

That was always a possibility, wasn't it? When something as big as an airplane falls through the canopy, it would have to leave a hell of a mark, wouldn't it? Broken branches and shattered wood. It'd have to do at least that much damage, right? Up above, from an angle that was invisible to him, there had to be a clear sign of damage that would draw the rescuers' eyes to his location. That was his ray of hope.

The snow.

His stomach knotted even tighter as he lifted his face again, craning his neck to watch the gray specks against the gray sky. It hadn't let up a bit all night. Whatever damage might have been visible on a clear sunny day was now completely obscured by an even blanket of white. Nobody would be able to see a thing.

So, what was he supposed to do? Just wait? What was the point of that? Wait for what?

For rescue. It's what everyone who'd ever written or spoken a word about being lost in the woods had said: You stay put and wait for the rescuers.

Who couldn't see you.

In the snow.

When you were freezing to death. And hungry.

Yes, that's what everybody said. He remembered Sven telling the class how important it was to decide ahead of time what your response to an emergency was going to be, so that when it finally happened, you'd be prepared to respond.
Commit yourself to doing the sensible thing,
he had said.
And never back away from that commitment, no matter how tempting the alternatives might be.
For all Scott knew, a whole battalion of rescuers was just minutes away.

But what if they weren't?

For the first time since last night, Scott felt the claws of real fear kneading his insides. Would he freeze before he starved, or vice versa? And after he was dead, was there even a remote chance that someone might find his body and give it a decent burial?

He wondered what it would feel like in that last moment. Did you really understand that you were dying, or did it sort of sneak up on you and sucker punch you into the Great Beyond? Would he go to heaven, or had all that cussing and talking back and jerking off sentenced him to hell instead?

“All right, stop it!” he commanded aloud. “Just stop it.” He gave his head a hard shake and punched himself in the chest. Sven had warned the class about panic. It was the first session, as Scott recalled, and the grizzled Scandinavian was addressing the psychology of the stranded victim. And Scott had taken notes.

“You are scared,” he'd said, through whatever accent that was. “You are all alone in a strange environment, and you are scared to death. What is going to happen? Will you survive? If you don't, what will it feel like to die? Will it hurt? Will you know when that last minute arrives?” As he'd asked these questions, he'd paced slowly around the room, making eye contact with each of the dozen or so students, of which Scott had been the youngest by at least five years. Sven had zeroed in on the boy, his piercing eyes blasting all the way through to the back of his head.

“Well, it's natural to be scared,” he went on, as if addressing Scott individually. “It's good to be scared. Healthy, even, because fear makes us all more aware. It sharpens our senses and makes us better survivors. But…”

Sven paused here and leaned in very close to Scott and he'd lowered his voice nearly to a whisper.

“But
panic
kills. This is when the fear switches from its rightful place in your gut and spreads like a cancer to your brain. Panic comes when fear is all that's left in here.” He'd poked Scott in the chest…

“And here.”…another poke, between his eyes. “You worry only about death—not how to live, mind you, but about when you'll die. You visualize death, and when you do, you give up on life.
That,
young man, is the moment when your fate is sealed.”

Jesus Christ, it's like he'd had a crystal ball tuned to Scott's future. How had he known so precisely? Scott trembled from the chill these memories triggered. As creepy as Sven had seemed, he clearly knew his stuff. When you're cold and wet, and the snow falls without end, and you realize that the odds are bad at best, it's so easy just to give up, to stop fighting. And when that happens, what's left? It's not like you could just sit down and take a break; you couldn't hit the Pause button and go get a snack or switch game cartridges.

Scott understood now what Sven had been trying to say: Unless you plan to live, and work on the assumption that you're going to come out of the experience alive, then you might as well kill yourself early and get it over with.

“There's a way to do this,” Scott said, and hearing the words, he actually believed them. “There's always a way.” All he had to do was figure out what it was.

So, what was first?

He needed a better shelter, for sure. Last night's hole in the ground had kept him alive, but not much more.

What about food? Scott was a decent fisherman from a rowboat on a calm lake, and he'd read the stuff in Sven's handbook about setting traps for small animals, but who was he kidding? He didn't know jack about baiting traps, even if he'd had the tools and materials to build one.

So, what
about
food? He couldn't go without forever, and he was already pretty damned hungry. Yesterday at SkyTop, he'd barely taken time to scarf down a quick burger before heading back out to the slopes. He hadn't come to SkyTop to eat, he'd come to ski. Since then, dinner and breakfast had passed him by, and as lunchtime loomed, his belly was aching pretty badly.