Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey (19 page)

“There’s a lot of country between here and Canada,” I said. “Do
you have any idea where she’s at?”

“I don’t know the name, or even if it has a name, but she
said there’s a series of small lakes near where they set up their tent, one of
the lakes she said looks like a crescent moon. I know it’s on this side of the
border and . . .”

“Do you have any idea how many hundreds of small lakes are
between here and Canada?” Uncle Andy said.

“ . . . And, as I was saying,” Doc continued, “she gave me
the GPS coordinates of where the helicopter dropped them off at; she said it
was about two miles from where they planned on setting up the tent.”

“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I said.

I walked out to my truck and got my laptop, then returned to
the camp office. I turned it on, entered my password and let it load all the
startup programs. My battery meter showed thirty-eight percent remaining so I
plugged the adapter into the outlet, once again triggering the thought of how
long we’d have power this time. A minute or two later I was ready to go and
asked Doc for the GPS coordinates. He read them off to me from a small yellow
Post-it. One of the advantages of working for a state law enforcement agency
was the ability to get a lot of software for next to nothing. Especially when
it related to your work, and we all know that anything can be justified as
“relating” to your work. My personal laptop had several of those “relating”
programs installed. One of the programs uses hi-res satellite imagery overlaid
on USGS topo maps. The neat thing about this program was you didn’t have to be
connected to the Internet to use it. I had the entire state of North Dakota,
each of the bordering states, and part of Southern Canada already saved on my
laptop. Of course with the Internet down I was pretty much SOL for getting any
further image updates. I clicked on the box that said “LOCATION” and opened the
sub menu where I had a choice of finding a location via address, zip code, or
GPS data. I chose GPS and entered the coordinates that Doc gave me, moved the
mouse cursor to the “FIND AND ZOOM” button, and clicked. Doc, Michelle, and
Uncle Andy had migrated to look over my shoulder. The picture on the screen was
an aerial view of a Chinese buffet in Fargo, the last place I had used this software
to find. I had been down there for an in-service training, and both the training
and the buffet turned out to be a waste of time. The picture zoomed away from
us like we were taking off in a rocket, then our ascent slowed and we began a
warp speed journey to the north west. A few seconds later we slowed and
descended, the green and brown blur becoming clearer as we fell. An elevation
counter on the bottom right gave us our approximate viewing height, the numbers
ticking off quickly until we reached 5,000 feet, then slowing slightly. Water
showed as black glassy areas, and as the landscape below raced up towards us we
saw dozens and dozens of lakes. Plunging further and further downward, the
software finally stopped our descent, holding at an elevation of 300 feet above
the coordinates. All we could see in our field of view from that height was a
brush-studded grassy area bisected with a small creek. A box popped up, asking
for a password.

“That’s kind of like using Google Earth,” Michelle said.

“Yeah, but unlike Google Earth, this program has a few
classified bells and whistles. Unfortunately, those bells and whistles are not
available if I’m not online. If the Internet was still working I’d be able to
enter my password and get access to the most recent high-res image of the area
were looking at, as well as a bunch of different stats and figures about that
area.”

I closed the password inquiry box and clicked on the "IMAGE
DATA" tab, bringing up a window that displayed a bunch of relatively
useless information, but also the date that particular satellite image was
taken. It was almost ten years old, but, considering the location, probably
still fairly accurate. I used the scroll wheel on the mouse, one click in
reverse and we shot up one hundred feet, widening our overall field of view. Then
another click, and another. At 700 feet we saw the edge of a small lake. At 1,500
feet we saw several small lakes in their entirety. At 1,700 feet Uncle Andy
said, “Hold it . . . Eric, I think I know where that place is . . . zoom out a
little.” I turned the mouse wheel two more clicks.

Uncle Andy said, “Stop . . . look there—can you zoom in a
little . . . ahh, move aside there boy.” Uncle Andy slid me aside and took over
the mouse; I was a little too tired to argue. He shifted the screen several
times, panning and zooming, muttering to himself all the time until he finally
said, “That’s what I thought. Eric, I’ve been there, and so have you.” I rubbed
my eyes and took another look as he continued. “Do you remember three years ago
when we tried to find a lake up near the border that your boss told you was
full of trophy sized perch?”

That jarred a few memories loose in my tired mind and I took
another look at the map. My uncle was pointing to a thin dark line saying, “See,
here’s that old logging road, and if we follow it down . . .” He zoomed out and
panned south-southeast, fiddled around a bit, and then zoomed in . . . “Ta-Da,
there is the cabin.” He was right.

Doc wedged himself in between Michelle and the laptop. His
excited voice added fire to his eyes as he talked. “You’ve been there?  You
know where she’s at?”

Uncle Andy met my gaze, both of us thinking along the same
lines. He beat me to the punch though. “Doc, there’s good news and bad news. The
good news is that the clearing where the helicopter landed is only about . . . oh
. . . I’d say eighteen to twenty miles from my cabin, as the crow flies. The
bad news is that Eric ain’t a crow, and there’s a lot of bad country between
point A and point B, which brings us back to the good news. There is a logging
road, more of an overgrown firebreak now, that starts on the west side of Ghost
Echo Lake. That road winds around and passes within a mile of my cabin, then
meanders generally north all the way up into Canada. If you look here on the
map, you can see where that road passes only five or six miles away from where
the helicopter landed. Which brings us back to the bad news. That road is
impassable in anything short of a tank this time of year. The Forest Service
runs a crew in July or August that will push aside or cut through all the trees
that fall over the winter and block the road, but it ain’t July.”

I thought about it for a few minutes, everybody else was
silent, pondering. Finally I spoke. “Hey old man,” I said to my uncle, “what
about the Gator?”

He said, “Yeah, I was thinking about that. If time wasn’t an
object, you could just take a chainsaw with you and cut your way around or
through the fallen trees, but that could take you days to get all the way up
there, heck, it would be quicker walking.”

“I could take the stump jumpers,” I replied.

Uncle Andy thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, at
the very least it may save you a couple miles of walking.”

Doc was looking confused so I said to him, “Doc, I can get
there . . . but my real concern is getting her back. Even for me, hiking from
the cabin all the way up that road, and then cutting cross country through the
brush to find where the helicopter landed is going to take awhile, two to three
days at least. Then you have to figure in that if her information was accurate,
she can be anywhere in a roughly ten square mile area. Now I can probably
eliminate a lot of that area just based on its inaccessibility, but we’re still
talking a big search area. What Uncle Andy and I were talking about was taking
his Gator—basically it’s a six wheeled, four-wheel-drive utility vehicle—as far
up the logging road as I can to save time. The problem with that are the trees
across the road. I either have to go around them if possible, or take a
chainsaw and cut through them. That part of the idea is an unknown; there could
be fifty trees across to the logging road in the first mile, or I may not run
into any for ten miles. The ‘stump jumpers’ that I mentioned are an idea that
my uncle came up with a few years ago. Basically it’s four boards—two by
twelve’s—eight feet long each. Instead of spending an hour cutting through a
big tree, you spend five minutes cutting through some of the limbs that stick
up and then set two of the stump jumpers on each side of the main trunk. They’re
kind of like ramps that allow you to drive up and over the fallen tree. They
don’t always work in every situation, but they saved us a heck of a lot of time
in the past.”

“Take me with you,” said Doc.

I shook my head. “No, you’d only slow me down.”

Michelle looked at me and said, “I’m going with you.”

I shook my head again, wheels turning, the internal chess
match trying to think several moves ahead. “No, you have another important job
to do; you need to go get those radios.”

Her eyes sank, but she knew I was right. A third shake of my
head snapped out the weariness and I said, “Doc, I’ll go look for Emily. You
need to stay here and help Amy and Sally get this campground ready for . . . everything.”

My uncle put his hand on my shoulder. “Well in that case, I’m
going with you.”

“Nope, you’re going with Michelle.” He started to argue but
quickly saw the wisdom in what I suggested.

We were all silent for a few more minutes, everybody lost in
their own mixture of adrenaline withdrawal and tiredness. Finally Michelle
stood up and said, “We need to get going.” I shut down my laptop, unplugged the
power cord and walked out to my truck. Doc asked me to wait a minute while he
ran to his RV. He came back a few minutes later with a little nylon pouch. I
didn’t open it, just waited for him to explain.

“There are several different types of medicine in here,
antibiotics, painkillers, an EpiPen for potential allergic reactions, Tylenol,
a few others. Just in case.”

I nodded and climbed into my truck, Michelle was already in
the passenger side. Before I shut my door Doc leaned toward me, offering his
hand. I shook it as he said, “Thank you,” over and over again.

We made it back to Walter’s house around 9:45 PM. I had to
run back down to the marina with the keys to let Max out. He was both happy to
see me and pissed that he was inside for so long. When I returned to the house,
Bernice had a big supper of biscuits, rice, and venison all ready for us. As we
ate, we made plans for the next few days. I would head back to the cabin
tonight, and tomorrow morning I’d pack up the Gator and start the search for
Emily. Also leaving tomorrow morning would be Michelle and Uncle Andy. They’d
be heading to her office, picking up the radios and whatever else may be of
use, then on to her house a few miles away to pick up “stuff”, as she put it. Walter
and Bernice would be staying in this area, helping out at the campground as
needed.

Michelle and Uncle Andy walked me out to my truck, all three
of us quietly considering the risks we were about to undertake. Max was pacing
back and forth along the truck, sensing that tension.

“Uncle Andy, hold on to my shotgun, but make sure you take
extra ammo for it, a lot of ammo,” I looked at Michelle and said, “What about
you, how many spare mags do you have?” She was about to answer when my uncle
interrupted with, “Eric, we’ll have plenty of ammo with us, remember, I’ve been
saving up for a rainy day.”

I continued after nodding, “Don’t take any chances—get in, get
out, come home. Your lives are a lot more valuable than those radios. And just
. . . just be careful OK.”

Michelle said, “About the radios, I doubt if you’re going to
have a signal all the way up there, the repeater towers are kind of sparse in
that area. Take one of the portables with you, put fresh batteries in before
you go, but don’t count on it. When we make it back from our trip we’ll try and
contact you.”

“Good idea,” I said, but added, “Just remember, don’t worry
if I don’t answer. Like you said, it’s unrealistic to expect I’d have a signal
all the way up there. And . . .” I emphasized that word, drawing it out . . . “don’t
do anything stupid like trying to come after me. I’ll be fine, OK? . . . OK?” I
repeated it again until they agreed. “All right, I need to get going.”

Uncle Andy gave me a quick hug; Michelle’s lasted longer.

I opened the door and Max jumped in the front seat. I
followed him in and turned the key. The engine caught and rumbled to life,
growling like an angry bear awoken too soon from hibernation. A glance at the
faintly glowing amber instrument panel showed an outdoor temperature that was
still hovering around forty degrees, but my tiredness was making me feel it
more.

“Do you still remember the combination to my gun safe?” Uncle
Andy asked. I nodded. “Take whatever you think you’ll need.”

I shook my head and answered, “I’m traveling fast and light
for this, I probably won’t even take the CZ.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“Probably just the 10/22 with the folding stock in my BOB.”

Uncle Andy scratched his head and yawned as he replied. “Yeah,
that would be a good idea, fast and light.”

He thumped the side of my truck and said goodbye again as I
was pulling out. Michelle stood there, unsuccessfully trying to hide a worried
look on her face as I headed down the driveway.