Parallax View (11 page)

“So, where
are
we
going, then?”

“My apartment’s
not far from here. I’ll patch you up the best I can and you can crash there for
a few hours while you figure out what you want to do next. Your story is
complete bullshit, but I’m not going to just drop you off in the middle of this
‘tiny nowhere town,’ as you call it, injured and alone. I wasn’t raised that
way. Maybe you won’t go to the hospital, but I can’t just leave you, either.”

Tracie said
nothing, stunned. This guy was a complete stranger, he had risked his life to
save her from a burning airplane, and by way of thanks she had threatened him
with deadly violence. Now he was driving her to his home. And to top it off, he
was cute as hell.

“Think you could
get that gun out of my face?” he said into the shocked silence, and she lowered
the Beretta to her lap. She was really starting to like this guy. “What’s your
name?” he asked.

“Name? Why do you
care about my name?” She was instantly suspicious.

“Jesus,” he
answered in exasperation. “I’m just making conversation. It’s what people do.
For example: I’m Shane Rowley, it’s nice to meet you.”

Tracie stared at
him, thinking, then chuckled despite the pain. She must be getting paranoid.
There was no possible way anyone on either side of the geopolitical fence—USSR
or United States—could have known that B-52 was going to crash-land in Bangor,
Maine. Thus, there was no possible way this guy could be anything other than
what he claimed to be: a Good Samaritan who had been driving past, seen the
plane go down, and pulled her out of the burning wreckage.

She sighed and
smiled. “My name’s Tracie,” she said softly, realizing with some surprise that
she hadn’t introduced herself to a stranger using her real name in well over
half a decade.

“See, that wasn’t
so hard. We’re making progress.” He hung a left at a red brick bank building
that was maybe five stories high—what passed for a skyscraper here in Nowhereville,
USA—urged the Beetle up a hill, banged a couple more turns, and drove into an
apartment complex overlooking a good-sized river. Small pools of sickly yellow
light dotted the parking lot from poles spaced too far apart to do much good.

Her rescuer guided
the Bug into a spot directly under one of the light poles and Tracie said, “No,
not here.”

“What are you
talking about? My apartment’s right in front of us.”

“Not under the
light,” she said. “Park in one of the dark spots.”

He looked at her
like she was crazy—he seemed to be doing that a lot—but didn’t argue. He simply
shook his head, shifted the car into reverse, and backed directly into another
spot, between two of the light poles lining the rear of the lot. “Better?” he
asked.

Tracie nodded.
“Better.” She unsnapped her seat belt and opened her door, placing her right
foot on the pavement.

“Wait,” the young
man said and she ignored him. She grabbed the roof for support and swung
herself out of the car. Instantly a wave of dizziness and nausea rolled through
her. “This might have been a mistake,” she said. Her savior said something in
return but she couldn’t make it out. A buzzing sound started up in the
distance, like maybe someone had chosen the middle of the night to fire up a
chainsaw. The buzzing got louder and Tracie realized it was coming from inside
her head. Black spots bloomed in her vision, making the weak light in the
parking lot even less effective.

She was vaguely
aware of the driver rushing around the front of the Volkswagen. She let go of the
car and took one shuffling step toward the apartment complex and then another,
and then the pavement rushed up to meet her and the world went black.

19

May 31, 1987

12:25 a.m.

Bangor, Maine

The woman collapsed into his arms
and Shane shuffled backward, trying to keep his feet. She wasn’t very big,
maybe five-foot two and all of a hundred pounds soaking wet, but her momentum
had been moving forward as she staggered away from his car. It was like
catching a hundred pound bag of potatoes someone had tossed at you.
Although,
he thought,
a bag of potatoes probably never felt this good.

He glanced around
the lot. Empty. That made sense considering the time, but if a neighbor
happened to glance out a window, couldn’t sleep or whatever, the Bangor Police
would be all over this apartment complex within minutes. A man, half dragging, half
carrying a woman, unconscious and covered in blood, into his apartment in the
middle of the night. Christ, he’d look like Jack the Ripper.

But then, maybe a
visit from the cops wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Shane had never had a gun
pointed at him before and decided he didn’t like it very much. This beautiful
crash victim was obviously hip-deep in some serious shit, and who was to say
she wasn’t one of the bad guys?

Shane didn’t think
so, though. He liked to think he possessed a pretty reliable bullshit
detector—he’d seen right through the dying father yarn the injured woman had
tried to spin—and his instincts told him the girl was trustworthy, at least to
the extent she didn’t want to cause him harm.

And in any event,
she was completely helpless now; he couldn’t very well just dump her on the
side of the road. So, resigned to risking possible arrest, he hoisted her onto
his shoulder one more time and walked as quickly as he could to his apartment.

He dug his key out
of his pocket and stabbed for the lock. Then he staggered through the front
door, kicked it closed behind him, and crossed the living room to his old couch.
He lowered his guest onto it as gently as he could. She groaned and muttered
but her eyes remained closed. Then he backtracked, locked and bolted the door,
and sank to the floor, out of breath and exhausted.

Shane looked at
his watch. Twelve thirty a.m.
Shit.
He had to call work. He should have
been there half an hour ago. Between climbing into burning wreckage, saving a
pretty—if very strange—young woman from certain death, and staring down a gun
barrel, he had completely forgotten about work.

He trudged across
the living room and checked on his new friend on the way to the telephone. She
was right where he had left her, still out like a light, pale and unmoving.
Again Shane thought about the hospital and wondered briefly about personal
liability should the woman die on his couch. It didn’t seem likely, but still,
she had been through a lot, had lost a lot of blood, and who really knew how
badly she had been injured in that crash? He decided he’d make his call, then
tend to her immediately.

Shane dialed
quickly. He knew the tower supervisor, who normally would have gone home at
midnight, would still be in the facility making notifications and coordinating
with rescue personnel about the aircraft accident, and he was right. The line
rang seven times, eight, and then was answered on the ninth ring by supervisor
Chuck McNally.

“Bangor Tower,”
McNally barked into the phone, gruff and intimidating. Shane realized the line
had probably been ringing off the hook since the accident and felt a stab of
sympathy for the supervisor, normally the most kind-hearted of men but right now
probably at the end of his rope.

“Chuck, this is
Shane, I’m sorry about not calling sooner, but—”

“Shane, where the
hell are you? We’ve had a crash just off the airport! Things are fucking
insane, man. Tonight was definitely not the night to blow off work without even
a call.” Shane listened to McNally rant and broke in when the man slowed down
to take a breath.

“That’s why I’m
calling, boss. I know about the accident. It happened right next to me as I was
driving to work. The damn airplane fell out of the sky and almost landed on my
car. I climbed inside the wreckage, man. I pulled a victim out alive.”

The line was
silent as McNally processed the information. “You saw the crash?”

“I didn’t actually
see it happen because of the trees, but I sure as hell heard it. I stopped the
car and hiked out to the crash site to see if I could help anyone, and damned
if there wasn’t a young woman trapped in the cabin. Anyway, I’m really sorry,
but there’s no way I can come in to work tonight, I’m tired and banged up and even
burned a little bit.”

“You were inside
the burning airplane?”

“Yeah. It was a
frigging nightmare.”

“Holy shit. I can
imagine. Anyway, under the circumstances, sick leave is approved, obviously.
I’ll be in the tower until morning anyway. But listen, an NTSB accident
investigation team is on the way. They’ll be here tomorrow along with
representatives from the Air Force, since it was their airplane. Under the
circumstances, they’re going to want to interview you, so call the facility
first thing in the morning and plan on coming in here sometime during the day
to talk to the investigators.”

“Will do, Chuck,
and thanks.”

“No problem. What
kind of condition is the victim in? Have the doctors told you anything?”

“There are no
doctors. She’s passed out on my couch even as we speak.”

“Your couch? What
are you talking about? She’s at your apartment?”

“Yeah, she refused
to go to the hospital.” Shane said nothing about the young woman waving a gun
around.

“But you said
she’s passed out. How do you know she didn’t want to go to the hospital?”

“She was conscious
in my car and she told me. She didn’t pass out until we got back to my place.”

“Christ, Shane,
don’t be an idiot. Get that girl to the hospital, like, right now.”

“Yeah, I guess I
should,” Shane answered, knowing it was the smart thing to do but knowing also
he was not about to do it. “Anyway, thanks again, Chuck, and good luck. I know
you’re busy.”

“It’s just
paperwork bullshit at this point. I’ll be fine. Get that girl to the hospital.”

“See ya.” Shane
hung up the phone and glanced around the kitchen’s open entryway into the
living room and saw Tracie watching him from the couch. She looked even paler
than before, but Shane figured regaining consciousness had to be a good sign.

He flashed a
smile. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Never mind that,”
she said shortly. “Who the hell were you talking to just now?”

“My supervisor, if
it’s any of your business,” he said, angered by her tone and, he had to admit,
a little hurt by her attitude. After all he had done for her, who was she to
snap at him for no reason?

“Your supervisor?
Who do you work for? Why do you need to talk to your supervisor in the middle
of the night?”

“Again,” he said,
“not that it’s any of your business, but I’m an air traffic controller at Bangor
Airport and I’m supposed to be at work right now. I thought my supervisor might
consider it rude of me not to let him know why I didn’t show up, especially
tonight. They’re kind of busy. It seems there was an airplane crash. I’m lucky
I still have a job.”

She was silent.
Shane could see her thinking. “Did you tell him about me?” she asked.

“Of course. You’re
the whole reason I’m here and not there. It wouldn’t have made much sense for
me to say I stopped and watched the burning wreckage of a crashed military jet
before blowing off work and returning home.”

She blew out an
angry breath and shook her head. “You could have said you checked inside the
wreckage and didn’t find anyone alive. Dammit!”

Shane spread his
hands in exasperation. “Why would I do that? What would be the point?” He
turned toward his kitchen, anger building, and then spun back around to face
the injured woman. “Who the hell are you? Why were you on that plane? Where
were you coming from? What were you doing that’s so freaking top-secret that
you can’t even go to the hospital after a goddamned plane crash?”

Again she was
silent and Shane could see her weighing her options for a response. Finally she
sighed. “Never mind,” she said. “Forget it. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful
after everything you’ve done for me, but I simply can’t talk about it. I’m
sorry.”

She closed her
eyes and leaned back on Shane’s two Syracuse University throw pillows his proud
mother had knitted when he was accepted into their journalism program after
high school. He’d graduated with a degree he had never used, opting instead to
apply for a job with the FAA after the disastrous PATCO strike in 1981, when
President Reagan fired the illegally striking air traffic controllers en masse.
His mother, angry and hurt, had never asked for the pillows back.

Shane walked
across the room and perched on the arm of the couch at her feet, unsure of what
to say. Tracie’s face was still bone-white, shiny from a thin coating of sweat.
Her eyes looked glassy. “Sorry I’m dripping blood onto your couch,” she said,
her voice weak, and suddenly she looked very young and vulnerable.

Shane waved a hand
airily. “This old thing? Don’t worry about it. I picked it up for twenty bucks
at the Salvation Army. In fact, I should apologize to you for subjecting you to
all those potential germs.”

She attempted a
smile.

“Speaking of
germs…” he continued.

“I know. I need to
clean this wound.”

“I’ll help you. I
have a decent first-aid kit in the bathroom.”

She narrowed her
eyes and Shane raised his hands in surrender. “My intentions are honorable, I
swear,” he said. “Come on, I’ll help you to the bathroom. I think I still have
a pair of gym shorts from high school that are too small for me. You might be
able to wear them without them sliding right off. I’ll toss them in and you can
put them on, then we’ll clean your leg in the bathtub.”

Tracie nodded and
rose to a half-sitting position, gritting her teeth against the pain. Shane pulled
her arm around his neck, then stood slowly and the pair began stumbling awkwardly
across the living room. When they reached the bathroom, he kicked the toilet
seat cover down and eased her into a sitting position on it.