Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) (20 page)

Whatever I was going to do, and at this point my thoughts were still too jumbled to reach any conclusions, my impulse was to heed the nesting reflex. I had to get home. I raced out I-40 to the Old Hickory Boulevard Exit, pushing the speed limit but alert for darkened policed cruisers, and headed for
Chandler Road
.

I killed the lights and coasted into our driveway. I couldn’t see anything amiss, no wheel tracks from the fresh rain. Things looked safe. The sight of our cherished log cabin gave me a feeling of warmth that lasted about two seconds. Then the reality of Jill’s absence, that she was getting farther and farther away every second, chilled me like an icy hand gripping my throat. A last look around, noting a small break in the clouds overhead, then I parked in front of the house, grabbed the taped-up scroll package, and hurried inside.

The only consolation was a halfway decent look to the place, due to my straightening up.

I felt some guilt at scrapping Dr. Welch’s meticulous efforts to preserve the sheet of parchment, but the only chance I saw of getting that scroll back to
Israel
was to roll it up and replace it in a can like the one I had paid four bucks for in
Jaffa
. Locating a canister in the kitchen, I treated the scroll as gently as I could and pushed it inside. Then I grabbed what clean clothes I could find–Jill had not had a chance to do any washing–and threw them into my bag along with the scroll. I found another small padlock in my desk, which I used to replace the one cut off by Kamal Nazari’s men at
JFK
Airport
in
New York
. Reluctantly, I left my Beretta in the bedside table, took out my hacksaw blade knife and left it as well.

We had made it back from our trip with several hundred dollars in travelers checks. I stuffed them with my passport into my inside jacket pocket, which was secured by a zipper, and checked my watch.

Three-forty.

I had two calls to make. Grabbing the phone directory, I turned to the blue pages and ran down the number for the control tower at
Nashville
International
Airport
. When I inquired about a corporate jet that had departed an hour ago, presumably for
Israel
, I got a quick:

“Yeah, a slick-looking Astra SPX–it’s made in
Israel
, you know. They filed for Ben Gurion at Tel Aviv.”

“Do you have the tail number?” I asked. I wrote it down as he called it off. “Any idea about the name of the owner?”

“I’d say it was Imperial Diamonds, or something like that. I watched him take off. Was a white aircraft with ‘Imperial’ and a big blue diamond–you know, like a cut stone–painted on the side.”

I thanked him and then looked up the number for Air National Guard Base Operations, located at the opposite end of the field from the commercial terminal. A sergeant answered.

“This is Colonel McKenzie,” I said, staring at Jill’s photograph. “I’m a retiree interested in doing a little travel. Colonel Detchler told me you folks sometimes have space-available seats on flights here and there. I wondered if you might have anything scheduled today?”

The colonel was full-time commander at the 118th Airlift Wing base. I had met him there back in the spring while working a case for the DA’s office.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “We have a C-130 departing for McGuire . . . ”

My hopes soared. McGuire Air Force Base in
New Jersey
was the jumping off point for air transport flights to
Europe
. The Air Mobility Command people checking passports would not be looking for a fugitive from
Nashville
. But my high-flying plans were quickly dashed back to earth as the sergeant finished his message.

“ . . . But unless you’re somewhere close by, you’d have a hard time making it. The flight is scheduled for a four-fifteen takeoff.”

I glanced at my watch. No way I could be there and checked in by that time. “Anything else coming up?” I didn’t hold out much hope.

He gave a slight chuckle. “Well, if you’re interested in a little ice fishing, maybe. We’ve got a flight to Selfridge Air National Guard Base in
Michigan
. It leaves in about an hour and a half.”

I hadn’t been to Selfridge since it was deactivated by the Air Force back in the early seventies. It was on
Lake St. Clair
north of
Detroit
. I would be heading in exactly the wrong direction–north, not east toward
Israel
. “What’s up there?”

“The Air Guard flies F-16s out of Selfridge. Also C-130s. We’re hauling some surplus equipment up there. Nothing else scheduled except local flights.”

It was getting perilously close to
four o’clock
. I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of flying off to the icy shores of
Michigan
, but I didn’t see much choice in the matter. I needed to get out of
Nashville
without using my Jeep Cherokee, and the farther away I could land, the better it would be.

“I’m sure I can find something interesting up there,” I said. “Put my name down. I’ll be out within forty-five minutes.”

Before loading my bag, I made one last check of the house, including a walk through the kitchen. When I reached the door, I felt a flutter in my chest at a glimpse of what looked like Jill’s dark, fluffy hair along the wall near the stove. Turned out it was only a shadow cast by a low-slanting shaft of sunlight coming through a curtain, but it left my knees weak and a deep, hollow feeling inside. As I looked around, I could hear the lilt in her voice as she patiently chided,
Slow down, Greg, and eat something. If you want your brain to work right, you’d better feed it
.

I found a can of vegetable soup with chicken and rice, popped the lid in the can opener, put it in a bowl, zapped it in the microwave and gulped it down with buttered toast and a glass of milk. I don’t know whether that’s brain food, but it helped me relax. It also provided a few extra moments to consider what lay ahead. It was while smoking my after-dinner cigarette that I got the idea of heading for
Canada
.

Chapter
26

My arrival at the ANG Base on
Knapp Boulevard
was accompanied by a bit of a shock. I recalled from my previous visit that since the
World
Trade
Center
disaster tighter security had been put into effect. The gate to the hangar area, normally wide open except during drill weekends, was now manned full time. But as I pulled up to the guard shack, I saw that besides the man inside, a Security Forces vehicle sat nearby with a grim-faced airman beside it clutching an M-16 rifle. My first thought was they had been warned to be on the lookout for a fugitive Colonel McKenzie.

If I had noticed this from the street, I would have had second thoughts about pulling in. Now it was too late. I had stuck my ID card in my shirt pocket to keep it handy, but I was reluctant to pull it out as I stopped beside the shack and lowered the window.

“Can I help you, sir?” asked a tall, husky sergeant. I noticed his eyes switch quickly to take in the interior of my Cherokee.

“I’m headed for Base Ops,” I said, smiling. “Some kind of exercise going on? Looks like you’re expecting trouble.”

“Could I see your ID?” he asked, businesslike.

That didn’t leave me any choice, so I pulled out the card and handed it over, holding my breath as he studied it. After popping a quick salute, he handed the ID back.

“There’s been some trouble down at Arnold, Colonel. They’ve put us on maximum alert here.”

Of course. The terrorist threat that had sent Ted racing back toward
Tullahoma
. I nodded and drove toward a parking area out of sight of the main road, which I felt would keep me fairly safe from prying Metro eyes.

The sergeant at Base Ops checked my ID card, put my name on the manifest and introduced me to a young black captain with a mustache that reminded me of Tom Selleck as Magnum. He stuck his pencil in a pocket of his baggy green flight suit, on which a name plate said
GRUBBS.
He grabbed my hand in a firm grip.

“Glad to have you with us, Colonel. Sorry I can’t offer you an easy chair, but all we have are the usual web seats. Shouldn’t be too bad, though. Weather looks smooth. We’ll be there in a couple of hours. Gonna snow, though.”

“No loops or spins,” I said. “I have a delicate stomach.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry. We specialize in straight and level.”

We headed out to the ramp and our silver-colored aircraft. I figured my Jeep was out of sight, but I didn’t relax until the bulbous, four-engine Hercules roared down the runway and nosed up into the sunlight above a low cloud deck. Then I was only uncomfortable because of the green nylon webbing. And the side of my face where the Israeli had clobbered me. I rubbed it gingerly. Nothing apparently showed to get the attention of sentries.

I wasn’t alone. An airman with sandy hair and a body like a weight lifter sat beside me. A weekend warrior with the 105th Airlift Squadron, he had just come along for a joyride. Mostly, he seemed to enjoy talking, although it was more like yelling inside the noisy cargo bay. All I caught of his name was Steve. As it turned out, he was a little more attentive to mine.

“Where are you headed?” he asked as the turbofans droned.

“I’m thinking about visiting a friend who has a cabin on the lake,” I said. It sounded as good as anything. I didn’t say which lake. Besides St. Clair, there were
Lake Huron
and
Lake Erie
nearby, plus
Lake
Ontario
a couple of hundred miles to the east.

Steve launched into an account of his day job of babying computers for a
Nashville
law firm. When that subject was exhausted, he started in on his studies at night law school.

“What year are you in?” I asked.

“Second. It’s getting more interesting. I love the criminal law part. A couple of guys in our firm are big-time defense lawyers.”

I smiled. “I helped put away a goodly number of lawbreakers during my Air Force career.”

That perked up his interest. “What did you do?”

“I was an
OSI
agent.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. “
OSI
. Isn’t that the Air Force version of the FBI?”

“Something like that. It’s the Office of Special Investigations. We handled criminal investigations, counterintelligence and force protection.”

Something obviously clicked in his head and his eyes widened. “What did you say your name was?”

I knew I had said too much, as usual. But it was too late to go back. “Colonel McKenzie.”

“Yeah, McKenzie. You worked for the DA’s office. Got canned over the Peterson case. You really think he’s innocent?”

“You’re the budding defense attorney,” I said. “Isn’t every defendant innocent until proven guilty?”

“Sure, but you know what I mean. Do
you
believe he’s innocent?”

I nodded. “Frankly, yes. I know only too well how the police department is capable of heading off in wrong directions.”

I had screwed up. My watch showed
6:30
. My case probably hadn’t made the
six o’clock
news, but Detective Adamson could inform the media for the evening’s round-up at ten. This flight would have returned to
Nashville
by that time, and my seat-mate would likely learn exactly what the police department was accusing me of now. As a soon-to-be “officer of the court,” he would no doubt feel honor bound to report what he knew. That could bring law enforcement officers in
Michigan
sniffing at my heels damned quick.

Chapter
27

The countryside glowed a ghostly white as the C-130 descended through the swirling snow. For me it was an interesting scene. After so many warm winters in
Nashville
, I had forgotten what snow could do. Snow that piled high. Jill was not a snowbird, but I sort of missed it. There was obviously plenty of it here to greet me at Selfridge.

Captain Grubbs greased the old Hercules onto the runway and taxied over to a parking spot on the ramp that had been bulldozed clear. Steve offered to help with my bag, but I waved him off with a smile.

It was
7:30 p.m.
when we walked in. I dragged my wheeled bag that was now crusted with snow. Base Operations was busy. Aircrew types were all over the place, checking maps and weather and chatting in small groups.

I caught up with Captain Grubbs, who had entered just ahead of me. “What’s going on? Shrine convention somewhere?”