Killer Summer

“You can contact me on either of these numbers,” Walt said, scribbling them down and handing them over.

The room phone beeped, and a woman’s voice filled its speaker.

“Sheriff? I have Special Agent Barlow for you, line one.”

The news of a call from the FBI won the attention of everyone in the room. Walt’s office was to be gently pushed aside in the name of national security. All eyes turned to him. He hesitated before answering.

“Tell him I stepped out for a minute.”

64

Summer stuck her nose to the jerrycan’s cap and sniffed. She couldn’t tell the difference between gasoline and diesel, but the can clearly contained some kind of fuel, so she dragged it out of the garage, having spent less than a minute inside. A moment later, she faced the large pile of split firewood. She circled the pile, dousing the wood, then drizzled a fuse of fuel some twenty feet away.

She wasn’t sure how big the fire would be, but big enough, she hoped, to bring them ru

She stood there, with the empty jerrycan in one hand, the lighter wand in the other, thinking she wanted the can well away from her before she lit the soaked ground.

She screwed the can’s metal lid down tight and ran it back to the woodpile, launching it up on top.

She hurried back into the grass and found the lighter where she’d left it. The grass stank of fuel.

A trapezoid of light played across the lawn in the distance. Voices!

She fumbled with the wand, its safety feature requiring both thumb and index finger working in concert to light.

She pulled the trigger: click, click.

A silhouette stretched across the light-painted lawn as a man filled the doorway.

The wand sparked, a tiny blue flame dancing at the end of its chrome barrel.

She lowered the wand to the grass, expecting the flame to creep along. But what happened was nothing like that.

Whoosh!

In a fraction of a second, the woodpile ignited, black smoke spiraling up from it. She fell back, off balance, and then scrambled to her feet and made for the woods.

“FIRE!” she heard someone shout.

She raced down the mountain, dodging tree trunks and tearing through bramble and shrub.

Behind her, the men were shouting frantically now as the woods glowed yellow from the fire.

Then there was an explosion, as the jerrycan blew up, sounding like a bomb going off. She stopped and turned around in time to see a ball of orange flame rising forty feet into the smoke-black sky. Sparks rained down like fireworks.

She continued her way down the mountain, made easier by the light from the fire. She reached the level airstrip, the sound of the river not far off. Turning to admire her handiwork, she saw the orange glow now lighting the rocky face of Shady Mountain.

Keeping to the trees, Summer hurried toward the jet at the far end of the strip, its wings and tail covered with pine boughs.

Feeling in her pocket, she took the Learjet’s key firmly in hand.

65

Jerry Fleming, all business from the moment his son had picked him up at the airport, looked straight ahead out the Cherokee’s windshield as he spoke, as if it were twenty years earlier and he was teaching his son to drive.

“How certain are we?” Jerry asked.

“At this point, I’m convinced. Until something comes up to suggest otherwise…”

“Is Sumner prepared to play along?”

“With a ransom call?” Walt asked. “No. He’s in denial. Says kidnapping is out of the question.”

“Nothing strange about that.”

“No. He seems able to reconcile someone stealing the jet but not kidnapping his daughter.”

“What happened to your mentoring the boy?”

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Walt said, adding sarcastically, “This is all my fault, you know.”

“Myra has no control over the boy. We’ve discussed it.”

“We’ve discussed nothing, Dad. Not since Robert.”

“Don’t bring that up.” Jerry stared out the side window, Hailey’s amber streetlights flashing across his face. “I knew you would. Why aren’t we going to your shop, this new shop I’ve heard so much about?”

Walt had not told him about the new headquarters. Either Myra was playing both sides or he’d read about it in the paper.

“Since when do you keep up with anything I’m doing?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Jerry.

“Believe me, I am.”

“I thought you’d want to show off.”

“Yeah, that’s me all right.”

“No need to get defensive.”

“We’re not going back to the office,” Walt said.

He’d stopped at his house and was loading in some extra camping gear for his father while his father remained in the passenger’s seat, never offering to help.

“So, you’re in charge, are you?” Jerry said. “Is that right?”

“I can’t go back to the office without dealing with the Bureau. At this point, if we’re going to avoid their intervention, then we’ve got to outrun them. You and I are going to co

“Are we, now?” Jerry said.

“We’ve got a plane aloft with some cell gear that may help us pinpoint Kevin. It’s up there sweeping now. We’re fairly certain the jet got down in one piece. It was fully fueled, so if it had gone down hard there would have been a fireball, and nothing like that has been reported. There are some private strips, some grass strips, maybe a few better than grass. All I’m saying is, it’s possible-probable, even-that they got down, that they walked away. If we get a hit, we can narrow this down… maybe even talk to Kev.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“You’re supposed to listen,” Walt said. “Your former employers would love nothing more than to take over this case. For the time being, my phone is off. And, if you noticed, the radio’s off too.”

“Of course I noticed. I notice everything. Don’t test me, son.”

“This whole thing is going to test you, Dad, because it’s my way or the highway this time. You can follow or you can stay behind, but you can’t lead. There’s a system in place, a system I put in place. The arrangements have been made. You can badger me all you want, guilt-trip me… Have at it. But I won’t budge. We’re going into the backcountry. All your criticism about me being a hick sheriff, well, welcome to Hicksville, Dad. You get to see it up close and personal now. I’m going in and I’m getting Kevin back. We’re getting him before the Bureau even hits the ground, because, once they do-”

“I know. I know,” Jerry said. “I was the one warned you about the SAC, remember?” He looked tempted to say more, to challenge Walt, but he didn’t.

Then the silence set in, a wall rising between them. And where once Walt would have done anything to tear that wall down, including acquiesce, this time he did not. Instead, hands gripping the wheel, he bit his tongue.

They stopped by a buddy of Walt’s and loaded a raft onto the roof. They bypassed a mile and a half’s worth of traffic backed up from the bridge by going off-road, arriving at the bike-path bridge that still remained under Brandon’s control.

“How long?” Walt asked his deputy out his window.

“Another fifteen or twenty. Almost there.”

“Good. You’re coming with me,” Walt said. “Turn it over to someone.”

They stopped for five minutes at Brandon’s trailer.

“She inside?” Jerry asked.

“Probably,” Walt answered. “But please don’t…”

Jerry climbed out of the Cherokee and went inside the trailer to speak with Gail. Walt felt like driving off and leaving his father in the company of the woman he thought of as his ex-wife and the deputy she now was sleeping with.