Cape Disappointment (45 page)

IT WAS OUR FOURTH AFTERNOON
in hiding, and Kathy and I decided we would drive to Cape Disappointment, which was just down the coast from where we'd been staying and was the locus for any search for the maybe phantom EMI device that may or may not have taken down the Sheffield flight. In retrospect, I think Kathy wanted to see the farmhouse where she'd been held for so many days, but the Cape was as close as she dared suggest. In her mind there was still something terrifying and otherworldly about those missing ten days and that farmhouse.

The Pacific Ocean was enjoying a series of the lowest tides of the decade, but the swells were rambunctious and at one point we saw a whale spouting off the coast. The weather forecasters said another serious storm would roll in by morning. We met with my Coast Guard friend, Hutchins, then talked to locals about electronic problems, if any, on the day the plane went down. We learned that two fishing boats had reported trouble with electronic equipment around the time of the crash.

Then, at loose ends, we did all the touristy things one does at the Cape: visited the lighthouse, checked out the World War II bunkers constructed to defend against a Japanese invasion that never arrived— as if the Japanese could only hit the coast at that one spot— and strolled
through the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center hand in hand. We had never been more in love or more uncertain about our future.

By closing time at the interpretive center, we'd had a long day. Still, instead of tramping out to the parking lot with the remaining patrons, we walked along the bluff trail and watched the roiling ocean below. It didn't take long before even the docents had left and we were alone.

We found a great depression in the bluff, a grassy swale that sloped steeply down to the water two hundred feet below. At the top of the depression was a bench with a donor's name engraved on a metal plate. We sat on the bench and waited for the sunset to color ten miles of gray between us and the horizontal strip of blue sky that was just beginning to turn orange at the far side of the storm front. “This is going to be great,” Kathy said.

“Spectacular.”

“Look at us. We're reduced to living in the moment.”

“Something we should try more often.”

“Planning for tomorrow and worrying about yesterday overloads your brain.”

“Fries the circuits.”

“Maybe the moment's all you've got.” The voice belonged to a man behind us. Because of the wind and the susurrus of the ocean below, he had closed in before either of us noticed. I kicked myself for being unalert enough that somebody could sneak up on us.

He was a tall man with a broad torso, wearing a rumpled suit and holding a chrome-plated revolver in his bandaged right hand. When I stood up, he pointed the revolver at my stomach. Kathy didn't know him, but I did. “Mr. Hoagland,” I said.

“Mr. Black.”

“Reports of your death have been exaggerated.”

“We're not here about my death. It's yours we're going to see about.”

“The whole world thinks you're dead.”

“They're going to think you're dead, too. Except, in your case, it will be true.”

“You barely know me. Why would you want to do me harm?”

He gave me an appraising look, as if trying to determine if he'd heard my voice before or if maybe he'd ridden in the trunk of my car,
if I'd carried him in a tarpaulin. “You've been all over the state asking questions about the plane wreck, doing your best to prove I'm doing something inappropriate. You've become a nuisance. Hell, when we get the laws changed, your Internet records alone should be enough to get you thrown in prison.”

“For what?”

“Treason.”

“Since when does reading different opinions constitute treason? And how do you know what I've been doing on the Internet?”

“We've got logs. You get on every morning and check Velonews for the latest cycling, and then you read your treasonous sites—9/11 conspiracy theories, CIA operations in Central America. All that crap.”

“I'm just a guy, man.”

“You're a guy who buddies up to Bert Slezak, is what you are.”

“I know the man. A lot of people do.”

Somehow he'd figured, or assumed, or guessed that Bert had been his captor, and because of it he'd blown up Bert's trailer, or ordered it blown up, and now he was after me.

Kathy walked around one end of the bench while I walked around the other. Hoagland stepped back a pace but kept the pistol fixed on my belly.

“Get over there with him,” he said, gesturing with the weapon.

“Don't do it,” I said.

“Get over there.”

“Screw you,” said Kathy. I made a slight feint, just enough so that he was reluctant to take the pistol off me. I knew from my police training, as no doubt he did, too, that holding a gun on someone who was only nine feet away wasn't much protection. Human reaction times were such that somebody inside a ten-foot range had an excellent chance of jumping the gun holder. But then, I was still convalescing from my wounds, so my reaction time would be slower than normal. Also, if we engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Hoagland would have the advantage of outweighing my one-eighty by at least fifty pounds. He'd worked for the CIA and had probably had hand-to-hand combat training. All I had going for me was desperation and knowing how to fight dirty. Bert had tortured him three days ago, and while he carried marks from that
experience on his face and his bandaged hand, I couldn't be certain it had weakened him the way the bomb and my hospital stay had weakened me.

“Let her go,” I said. “She doesn't have anything to do with anything. We just met in a bar in Portland.”

“You don't drink, so I doubt you spent any time in a bar. And you haven't been to Portland in a year. Don't carry a gun, either. You have an aversion to them. In fact, you're pretty much of a sitting duck.”

“Is that how you look at it? Anybody who doesn't carry a gun is a sitting duck?”

“That's right.”

“How do you know all this about me?”

“We keep tabs. And this woman is your wife.”

“Why me?”

“Don't be disingenuous, Mr. Black. You and Bert Slezak have been dogging me since I arrived in state. I should have had somebody take him off the playing board that first week, but I mistakenly thought he had been rendered harmless by years of alcoholism.”

“How did you find me?”

“We traced your cellphone to Mount Rainier. Guy had it tried to play tough, but we managed to get him into our van in the parking lot. It took eight minutes to break him down. From there, it was a cinch to triangulate on the cellphones he'd given you. We had to be patient, though, because you only turned them on sporadically. We picked you up outside your motel this morning actually, and followed you here. Nice of you to hang around until everybody else was gone.”

“I don't see any
we”

“Rest assured, I'm not alone. Where is Bert Slezak?”

“I don't know.”

“If you want, I can kneecap your wife. But I
will
get some answers here.” He made as if to swing the gun toward Kathy. I took a step forward, and he brought it back to me. Recognizing what I was doing, Kathy made a move, too, so he wasn't sure where to point the weapon.

“Why are you doing this?” Kathy asked.

“Don't be blaming this on me,” Hoagland said. “I was tending my own business when somebody decided to make it personal. People get personal with me— I get personal back. Your friend, Slezak, attacked
me. I just want to know what you know about it.” He chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. When I didn't reply, he continued, “I think you were involved, too.”

“I wasn't.”

“Oh, but you were.”

“What did you do to Tommy?”

“Who's Tommy?”

“The man who had my cellphone.”

“He's in a quiet place where he will remain.”

“Until what?”

“Until the animals carry away his bones.”

I couldn't think about anything but Tommy's pregnant girlfriend and my stupidity in putting him at risk.

“I'll give you one last chance to come clean. You do, maybe I'll spare you. It's a long shot, but right now all you have are long shots. I was taken up into the mountains by a couple of bastards who thought they were going to get away with it. One was tall … like you … and smelled of medicine. He was also disabled, as you seem to be.” I was still moving with a slight limp from the bombing. “The other was Slezak.”

“I have friends. They'll find out what happened here.”

“Slezak's brother, Elmer? We're removing him from the equation tomorrow. And this? This is going to look like just another unfortunate drug-related crime. Even if they don't buy it, they'll never look for me. I'm dead, and dead men can do whatever they want. Ironic, isn't it?”

“Look. You've scared us plenty. Now let us go.”

Hoagland laughed, and I noticed he had a habit, when he laughed, of tipping his head back and for just a fraction of a second, closing his eyes. I remembered his trademark guffaw from our first meeting at Boeing Field. He'd done the head-tipping thing back then, too. If I'd known it was coming I might have used that moment to rush him. It would have given me just the head start I needed. It would have been chancy; he might have gut-shot me anyway, but it was a glimmer of hope, and a glimmer was more than I'd had up until now.

“My name is Kathy Birchfield,” Kathy said. “You might have seen my name on the passenger list from the Sheffield flight. The world thinks I was on the plane. When they find me here, there's going to be a lot of interest.”

“What makes you think you'll be found?”

Kathy turned so pale that I had to jump in, both to distract him and to distract her. I said, “I have proof you were involved in taking down that plane.” Hoagland turned to me, and for the first time I saw a note of alarm in his impassive features. “The proofs with an attorney. You were in state and talking about it before it went down. You were part of it.”

“I came out to see my nephew.”

“And met with Maddox prior to the accident.”

He gave me a long look, trying to figure out where I'd gotten my information. One way would have been if I'd been involved in the interrogation in Bert's barn. “You don't have crap on me.”

“But I do. For one thing, I met the mechanic who rigged the plane.” He was even more amused than I'd dare hope for. His dead eyes lit up. “Your mechanic gave me every detail of how he did it.”

Hoagland surveyed my face for a moment. I knew why he was entertained. The plane hadn't been rigged; they'd found some other way to take it down, probably the EMI device Bert was so keen on. My assertion was hokum and he knew it. Once again he threw his head back and roared— and when he did he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.

I went in low and fast, grabbing his gun hand and turning it toward his torso, using my full body weight and momentum to bowl him over, at the same time putting a foot behind him to make sure he tripped and went down. He landed heavily, I on top of him, the revolver between us. My quickness had startled him. It had startled me, too. Thinking about getting murdered and watching your wife get murdered alongside you jacks up the adrenaline. He had the gun by the handle, while I had it by the barrel. He tried to pull the gun out of my fist, but I had a death grip on it. He tried to pull the trigger, but I was holding the cylinder so that it wouldn't revolve. I was weaker than I'd reckoned, but still I maintained my hold on the weapon as we rolled on the gravel pathway.

“Run, Kathy. Get the hell out of here.”

For half a minute we rolled in the gravel, neither gaining an advantage. I found his bulk and weight difficult, if not impossible, to direct,
and for a few seconds it seemed as if he was going to maneuver his way on top and hold me down, but I wriggled out of it and we rolled again.

We rolled off the path and down onto the grassy slope, picking up speed, the two of us locked together. I gouged his eye. I bit him. And then, somewhere in all the rolling, I got my left elbow into his throat and hit him hard. I hit him again, this time in the face. Blood spurted from his nose, and he stopped fighting just long enough for me to pull the gun out of his limp fist. I stood over him while he rose up on one knee and tried to reach out for me, but I danced to one side and clubbed him across the forehead with the gun. When he got up and tried to rush me, I clubbed him again. Scalp wounds bleed a lot, and soon most of his face was coated in scarlet. He balanced on one knee, teetering this way and that, trying to regain his footing and equilibrium while I stepped back and scanned the hillside for Kathy, who was on the trail where I'd left her. Despite my urging, she hadn't deserted me.

“Walk up there,” I said to Hoagland. We were thirty yards below the bench on the steeply sloping hillside. It seemed to take him forever to get to his feet and stumble up the grassy hill. It was steeper than it looked, and the grasses and undergrowth were wet and slippery, causing him to skid several times. Out over the ocean the sunset had turned glorious, shafts of brilliant light piercing the clouds and brightening the various shades of green on the hill below us. The ocean sounded close, though the path extended a good two hundred feet below the bench, and it was maybe a fifty-foot drop to the water after that.

Walking like a drunk, Hoagland managed to stagger up the hill and lean against the back of the bench with one hand. It was the second time in as many days that he'd become my prisoner, and once again I didn't know what to do with him other than to leave him here and run. But that didn't seem right or practical. He'd find us again, and next time maybe we wouldn't be so lucky. While the three of us were trying to figure out what should happen next, something small and fast whizzed erratically off the cinder path twenty feet in front of us. Simultaneously I heard a distant pop. When I looked up, a man in a light
blue suit stood eighty yards away, aiming in my direction what I assumed from the sound was a 9 mm pistol. A second bullet whirred off the cinder path, this one somewhat closer than the first. He was either a bad shot, or these were warning rounds. Even at this distance I was pretty sure I knew who he was. It was an odd feeling of wanting to believe it and not wanting to believe it at the same time. Tying these two men together so blatantly was something I'd been attempting and failing to do for a week, and now they'd done it for me.