Thin Blood Thick Water (Clueless Resolutions Book 2) (31 page)

Max had been spending two or three days a week in Lakeside taking care of the essentials of his CFO responsibilities at USAP. Without the luxury of having the availability of a ski-plane, he and Brad contracted for a snow-clearance crew to keep the USAP runway clear.

Brad didn’t seem affected by Chip’s absence. He told Max that, back on the day before he briefed Max on the Cessna ski apparatus Chip had ordered that the Cessna Skyhawk be readied with the ski conversion, although there had been no snowfall in the Ithaca region. Because there were no specifics behind the abrupt order, as would be expected between two equal Partners, Brad was glad to get an inquiry about a ski plane from Max, another USAP Partner. He was more than willing to promote the use of the Cessna to Max. Two days later, when Chip came in to request the plane, he was furious to find out it that it had been assigned to Max.

Nevertheless, Brad was in sort of an engineer’s state of mourning. The mangled and bloodstained Cessna Skyhawk fuselage and wings had been shipped back to USAP and now sat in a back corner of the hangar awaiting Brad’s TLC attention.

During Brad’s initial inspection of the crashed retro-fitted Cessna upon its arrival at headquarters, he discovered the hybrid automatic weapon which Ezra had assigned to Max, still stowed in a secret section of the luggage compartment.

Max was surprised when Brad pointed out, with an air of resignation to fate and with no outward sign of remorse, that the metal shaft which had punched through the co-pilot’s floor of the Cessna and pierced the chest of Mahlah during the crash, was the titanium radial brace for the right-side ski on the landing gear conversion. Max knew Brad to be the serious type, but the manner in which that information was relayed seemed beyond factual. It seemed cold.

A consensus had developed during the past few weeks among Max and the other USAP Partners that it was time for a meeting to discuss the future of their organization following the resignation of its founder, Senior Partner Harold Lee “Chip” Chaplain.