Athabasca (14 page)

Dermott said, "I could be wrong, but you wouldn't be two policemen disguised as civilians?"

"There we go," said the fair-haired man. "Can't be very good at undercover work if it's as obvious as that. I'm John Carmody. This is Bill Jones. You must be Mr. Dermott and Mr. Mackenzie. Miss Brady described you to us."

Mackenzie asked, "You gentlemen on overtime tonight?"

Carmody grinned. "Tonight? Two gallant volunteers. Labor of love. Doesn't look like being any great hardship."

"Watch them. Beautiful she may be, but Stella's a conniving young minx. One other thing. You know we have a feeling some bad actors might try to hurt her. Or take her out of circulation. Just a suspicion, but you never know."

"I think we might be able to take care of that."

"I'm sure you can. Most kind of you gentlemen. Very much appreciated, I can tell you. I know Mr. Brady would like to thank you himself, but as he's in the land of dreams, I'll do it on his behalf. The girls are through there. I hope you have a pleasant evening."

Dermott and Mackenzie returned to their table, where they talked in desultory fashion. Then the phone rang again. This time it was Alaska: Prudhoe Bay.

"Tim Houston here. Bad news, I'm afraid. Sam Bronowski is in the hospital. I found him lying unconscious on the floor of Finlayson's office. Appears to have been struck over the head with a heavy object. He was hit over the temple where the skull is thinnest. Doctor says there may be a fracture -- he's just finishing some X rays. He's certainly concussed."

"When did this happen?"

"Half hour ago. No more. But that's not all. John Finlayson is missing. He vanished soon after coming back from Pump Station Pour. Searched everywhere. No trace of him. Not in any of the buildings. If he's outside on a night like this, well" -- there was a grim pause -- "he won't be around for long. We've got a high wind and heavy drifting, and the temperature's between thirty and forty below. Every man in the place is out looking for him. Maybe he was attacked by the same person who attacked Bronowski. Maybe he wandered out dazed. Maybe he was forcibly removed -- although I don't see how that could be possible with so many people around. Are you coming up?"

"Are the FBI and the State Police there?"

"Yes. But there's been another development."

"A message from Edmonton?"

"Yes."

"Telling you to close down the line?"

"How did you know?"

"They made similar demands. We've got one here. I'll talk to Mr. Brady. If you don't hear, you'll know we're on our way." He replaced the receiver and said to Mackenzie, "Armageddon? Enough to wake Jim?"

"More than enough."

Eight

Ferguson, the pilot, was unhappy and with good reason. Throughout the flight he was in more or less continuous touch with the operations center in Prudhoe Bay, and knew that the weather ahead was dangerous. The wind was gusting at 40 miles per hour. Flying snow had cut ground visibility to a few feet, and the thickness of the drifting surface snow storm was estimated at sixty feet or even more -- less than ideal circumstances for landing a fast jet in darkness.

Ferguson had every modern navigational and landing aid, but although he could make a hands-off touchdown if he had to, he preferred to see terra firma before he put his wheels down on it. One factor in Ferguson's favor was that he was a profound pessimist. His three passengers well knew that he was not given to endangering his own life, let alone those of other people on board, and would have turned back had the risks been too great.

Brady, who had been wakened from a deep sleep and was in a sour mood, spoke scarcely a word on the way north. Mackenzie and Dermott, aware that the flight might be their last opportunity for some time, spent most of the trip asleep.

The landing, with much advancing and retarding of the throttles, was a heavy, bouncing one, but nonetheless safely accomplished. Visibility was down to twenty feet, and Ferguson crept cautiously forward until he picked up the lights of a vehicle. When the cabin door was opened, freezing snow whirled in, and Brady lost no time in making his customary elephantine dash for the shelter of the waiting minibus. At the wheel was Tim Houston, lieutenant to the invalided Bronowski.

"Evening, Mr. Brady." Houston wore no welcoming smile. "Filthy night. I won't ask if you had a good flight because I'm sure you didn't. Afraid you haven't had too much sleep since you came to the northwest."

"I'm exhausted." Brady didn't mention that he'd had six hours' sleep before leaving Fort McMurray. "What's the word about John Finlayson?"

"None. We've examined every building, every pump house, every last shack within a mile of the Operations Center. We thought there was a remote chance that he'd gone across to the ARCO Center, but they searched and found nothing."

"What's your feeling?"

"He's dead. He must be." Houston shook his head. "If he isn't -- or wasn't -- under cover, he couldn't have lasted a quarter of the time he's been missing. What makes that even more certain is that he didn't take his outdoor furs with him. Without furs? Ten minutes, if that."

"The FBI or police come up with anything?"

"Zero. Conditions are bad, Mr. Brady."

"I can see that." Brady spoke with feeling and shivered. "I suppose you'll have to wait for daylight before you can carry out a proper search?"

"Tomorrow will be too late. Even now it's too late. Anyway, even if he is around, the chances are we won't find him. We might not find him until warmer weather comes and the snow goes.','

"Drifting, you mean?" This was Mackenzie. ~

"Yes. He could be in a gully or by the roadside -- our roads are built five feet high on gravel -- and he could be lying at the bottom of a ditch with not even a mound to show where he is." Houston gave a shrug.

"What a way to die," Mackenzie said.

"I'm accepting the fact that he is gone," Houston said, "and though it sounds callous, maybe, it's not such a bad way to go. Perhaps the easiest way to go. No suffering. You just go to sleep and never wake up again."

Dermott said, "You make it sound almost pleasant. How's Bronowski?"

"No fracture. Heavy contusions. Dr. Blake reckons the concussion is only slight. He was stirring and seeming to make an effort to surface when I left the camp."

"No further progress in that direction?"

"Nothing. Very much doubt whether there will be either. Sam was the only person who could have told us anything or identified his assailant. It's a thousand to one that he was attacked from behind and never caught a glimpse of his attacker. If he had, the attacker would probably have silenced him for keeps. After you've killed two people, what's a third?"

"The same people, you reckon?"

Houston stared. "It's too much of a coincidence to be different people, Mr. Brady." "

"I suppose. This Telex from Edmonton?"

Houston scratched his head. "Told us to close down the line for a week. Says they're going to check in forty-eight hours."

"And in your own company code, you said?" Dermott asked him.

. "They didn't give a damn about letting us see it was an inside job. Damned arrogance. And the Telex was addressed to Mr. Black. Only someone working on the pipeline would know that he was up here. He spends nearly all his time in Anchorage."

Dermott said, "How's Black taking this?"

"Difficult to say. Bit of a cold fish -- not much given to showing his feelings. I know how I'd feel in his shoes. He's the general manager, Alaska, and the buck stops with him."

Houston was doing Black a degree less than justice. When they arrived/at his office in the Operations Center, he had a distinctly unhappy and distraut air about him. He said, "Good of you to come, Mr. Brady. Must have been a highly unpleasant trip -- and in the middle of a winter's night." He turned to a tall tanned man with iron-gray hair. This is Mr. Morrison. FBI."

Morrison shook hands with all three. "Know of you, of course, Mr. Brady. I'll bet you don't get too much of this sort of thing out in the Gulf States."

"Never. Don't get any of this damnable snow and cold either. Mr. Houston here tells me that you're all up against a blank wall. Finlayson' just vanished."

Morrison said, "We were hoping that a fresh mind might be of use."

"I'm afraid your hopes are misplaced. I leave detection to the professionals. I'm merely, as are my colleagues here, a sabotage investigator, although in this case it's clear that sabotage and crimes of violence have a common ground. You've had Mr. Finlayson's office fingerprinted, of course."

"From top to bottom. Hundreds of prints, and not one seems to be of any use. No prints there that shouldn't have been there."

"You mean that the owners of those prints all had regular and legitimate access to the office?"

Morrison nodded. "Just that."

Brady scowled. "And since we're convinced that this character is someone working on the pipeline, any one of those fingerprints might be his."

Mackenzie asked the FBI man, "Any sign of the weapon used on Bronowski?"

"Nothing. Dr. Blake believes the blow was administered by the butt of a gun."

Dermott asked, "Where's the doctor?"

"In the sick bay, with Bronowski, who's just recovered consciousness. He's still dazed and incoherent, but it seems he'll be okay."

"Can we see the two of them?"

"I don't know," Black said. "The doctor, certainly. I don't know whether he'll allow you to talk to Bronowski."

"He can't be all that bad if he's conscious," said Dermott. 'It's a matter of urgency. He's the only person who might be able to give us a clue about what happened to Finlayson."

When they arrived in the sick bay, Bronowski was speaking coherently enough to Dr. Blake. He was very pale, the right hand side of his head had been shaved, and a huge bandage, stretching from the top of his skull to the lobe of the ear, covered the right temple. Dermott looked at the doctor, a tall, swarthy man with an almost cadaverous face and a hooked nose.

"How's the patient?"

"Coming on. The wound's not too bad. He's just been soundly stunned, which is apt to addle anyone's brains a bit. Headache for a couple of days."

"A couple of brief questions for Bronowski."

"Well, brief." Dr. Blake nodded at Dermott's companions,

Dermott asked, "Did you see the guy who knocked you down?"

"See him?" Bronowski exclaimed. "Didn't even hear him. First thing I knew of anything was when I woke up in this bed here."

"Did you know Finlayson was missing?"

"No. How long's he been gone?"

"Some hours. Must have gone missing before you were clobbered. Did you see him at all? Speak to him?"

"I did. I was working on those reports you asked me to get for you. He asked about the conversation I had with you, then left." Bronowski thought about it. "That was the last I saw of him." He looked at Black. "Those papers I was working on. Are they still on the table?"

"I saw them."

"Can you have them put back in the safe, please? They're confidential."

"I'll do that," Black said.

Dermott asked,."May I see you a minute, doctor?"

"You're seeing me now." The doctor looked quizzically at Dermott down his long nose.

Dermott smiled heavily. "Do you want me to discuss my chilblains and gout in public?"

In the consulting room Dr. Blake said, "You look in pretty good shape to me."

"Advancing years is all. Have you been up to Pump Station Four?"

"Ah, so it's that business! What stopped you discussing it out there?"

"Because I'm naturally cagey, distrustful and suspicious."

"I went up with Finlayson." Blake made a grimace at the memory. "Place was a ghastly mess. So were the two murdered men."

"They were all that," Dermott agreed. "Did you carry out an autopsy on them?"

There was a pause. "Have you the right to be asking me these questions?"

Dermott nodded. "I think so, Doctor. We're all interested injustice. I'm trying to find out who killed those two men. May be three, by now, if Finlayson stays missing."

"Very well," Blake said. "I carried out an autopsy. It was fairly perfunctory, I admit. When men have been shot through the forehead, it's pointless to try to establish the possibility that they died of heart failure instead. Although, mind you, from the mangled state of their bodies, it's clear that the blast effect of the explosion would in itself have been enough to kill them."

"The bullets were still lodged in the head?"

"They were and are. A low-velocity pistol. I know they'll have to be recovered, but that's a job for the police surgeon, not for me."

"Did you search them?"

Blake lifted a saturnine eyebrow. "My dear fellow, I'm a doctor, not a detective. Why should I search them? I did see that one had some papers in an inside coat pocket, but I didn't examine them. That was all."