No Return (39 page)

“Michael!” Dori screamed as she wiggled free of Wes’s grasp. She staggered over to where Dillman lay, and fell to her knees. “Michael.” She put a hand against his motionless face, then let out a wail.

“Dori,” Wes yelled. “It’s over.”

Suddenly she was on her feet again, rushing at Wes, a scream of fury spilling from her mouth.

With one arm wrapped around her side, she used the other to take a swing at Wes. He tried to back out of her range, but she kept coming as blood began to soak her shirt.

“You bastard!” she yelled. “You killed him!”

“Dori, stop,” he said.

“You killed him!”

“I had no choice,” he said.

“You pushed him off, because my goddamn sister told you to. You killed my baby. You bastard!”

It wasn’t Dillman she was talking about. It was Jack.

“Enough!” Wes yelled as another blow hit him on the arm. “Enou—”

A large hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around.

Dillman. He was a gut-shot mess, but alive. He pushed Wes into Dori, and made an awkward grab for the gun, but missed.

Wes whipped around and realized they were only a few feet from the edge of the rock. One good shove from Dillman and he and Dori would go over the side.

He tried to duck around the bigger man, but Dillman reached out and grabbed him.

Twisting left and right and left again, he struggled to get out of the man’s grasp. When he turned again, the butt of his gun knocked against Dillman’s hip and popped out of his hand, smacking against the rock.

Dillman let go of him and made a grab for the weapon.

But it was Dori, not her husband, who came up with the gun. She pointed it at Wes.

“You goddamn son of a bitch,” Dori spat. “It
is
over now.”

She staggered slightly from her wound, then took a step backward for balance. But she had misjudged her position, and her foot landed half on, half off the rock.

Her eyes went wide and her arms flew out as she fought to keep from falling.

Dillman tried to grab her, but instead of connecting with her hand, he knocked into her arm, stealing what little balance she had left.

With a face clouded in disbelief, Dori vanished over the edge.

DILLMAN FELL TO HIS KNEES, LOOKED OVER
the drop, then collapsed to the ground.

“Dori!” he cried out. When he said her name again, his voice had weakened. There was no third time.

Wes knelt down and checked Dillman’s pulse. He was still alive. Barely.

His own energy waning, he sat down on the rock.

“You’re bleeding.” It was Anna. Her hand touched the wound on his back, then found similar damage around front. “Oh, God.”

“Went clean through,” he told her, panting a little. “Is that good?”

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

The thought of walking all the way back to the car was not an exciting one. He wasn’t even sure he could do it, but he knew he was going to have to try. Then he remembered …

“Dori’s got the car keys,” he said. “One of us … is going to have to climb down and … get them.”

“You stay here. I’ll do it.”

“Yeah. That’s probably best,” he said, trying to smile. But before she could move, he touched her on the leg. “What about … Forman? Is he dead?”

“I didn’t check.”

She rushed over to where the commander lay. “He’s still breathing. But there’s no way we’re going to be able to get him to the car.”

“Keys first,” Wes said. “We can worry about that … later.”

Maybe there was some old wood around here they could use to make a travois. Worst case, once they were within cellphone range, they could call for help.

As Anna moved off into the darkness, he tried to track her progress, but soon he could hear nothing but his own breathing and the sounds of the breeze in the brush. He considered scooting over to Forman, but he knew he needed to conserve his strength, so the commander was going to have to just hang in there on his own.

A memory came to him, of him and his father camping up at Kennedy Meadows. Just the two of them sitting by the fire while a couple of trout cooked in a pan over the flames.

“What are we going to do tomorrow?” he had asked.

“Whatever you want,” his father told him.

“I want to fish again.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“I love you, Dad.” Not the Wes of the memory, but the Wes bleeding on the rocks said.

The sound of movement in the brush. It was off in the direction Anna had gone.

“Please tell me you found them,” Wes said, his voice not nearly as strong as he’d thought it would be.

More steps.

“Anna?”

Someone moved into the leveled area. The shadowy form was too tall to be his girlfriend.

Wes looked around for Dori’s pistol, unsure if it had gone over the side with her, but he didn’t see it. Instead, the best he could do was a palm-size stone. He picked it up.

“You don’t seriously think you could hit me with that, do you?”

“Lars?” Wes said.

The moonlight revealed the face of Wes’s old friend.

“I thought you were …? How did you …?”

Lars was about to say something, then he glanced at Dillman’s body.

“That who I think it is?”

“Michael Dillman. Remember him? He … was Dori’s husband. Dori Dillman … Only Dori Dillman was—”

“I know,” Lars said. “Mandy’s sister.”

“How did you know?”

“Later.” Lars paused. “Where’s Commander Forman?”

Wes nodded with his chin toward the dark form lying on the rock. “That’s him. Anna checked him a few … minutes ago. He’s alive.”

Lars jogged over to the commander and did his own check. When he came back, he said, “What about you? Are you okay?”

Wes raised the hand that had been pressed against his wound. “I’ve been better. Anna went down … to get the keys so we could take Dori’s car. Now that you’re here … maybe we can get the commander out, too. Wait, if you have a car, we can just take that.”

Lars shook his head. “I’m on your motorcycle.”

Wes stared at him. “I don’t even want to know how that happened.”

“Where did you say Anna was?”

“Down … there.” Wes looked toward the edge.

Lars walked out to the end of the rock, then knelt down and glanced over.

“No Anna. Unless she’s that body lying down there.”

“Dori,” Wes said.

Sounds in the bushes again, only this time it was Anna who stepped out. She was dangling something in her hand. “Found them. Now let’s get—”

She pulled up short as Lars stood up from where he’d been kneeling.

“Lars?” she said, then brightened. “Great. You can help me get him to the car.”

“You’re not going to need the car,” Lars said.

“What are you talking about?” Wes asked.

Then he heard a noise in the distance, something familiar. It almost sounded like the breeze, but it was growing steadily louder.

It took Wes a moment, but as soon as he placed it he smiled.

Helicopters.

WES SPENT TWO NIGHTS IN THE RIDGECREST
Regional Hospital, before being airlifted—courtesy of the United States Navy—to the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Anna spent every moment she could with him, overstaying visiting hours and making the nurses force her to leave.

Dione and Alison came by a few times, each telling him he was looking good, and asking when he was going to come back to work.

“We’ve got a shoot lined up for New Orleans at the end of the month,” Dione said one afternoon. “I expect you to be ready by then.”

Wes had smiled and thanked her, but had not committed. He knew he was going to have to get back to work soon, but it wasn’t something he wanted to think about yet.

Casey came by often, too—that is, after Wes remembered to call his brother and tell him to pass along the all-clear signal.

Danny visited only once. He looked like he’d aged ten years, and there was none of the humor he usually displayed. It was obvious he had taken Dori’s deception hard.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Wes told him. “No way you could have known. Hell, I didn’t even recognize her.”

“Sure,” Danny said without conviction, then left not long after, the cloud over his head as dark as it had been when he arrived.

Three days after Wes had been moved to Los Angeles, Lars showed up.

“Forman is still in intensive care but out of danger,” he said after a few moments of small talk.

“What story is he telling?” Wes asked.

“The truth, actually.”

“Really?” Wes was surprised.

“The investigators had pieced most of it together by the time he regained consciousness. And when they told him they’d already rounded up the two other commanders and a rear admiral who’d been involved with him, he knew he had no choice.”

They were silent for a moment. “What about you?” Wes asked. Lars had admitted his own part in Forman’s plan while they had waited for the helicopters to land at the Drama Rocks.

“My involvement is still under investigation.”

“I’m sorry, Lars. If you want me to talk to somebody, I will.”

Lars smiled. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine … well, maybe not fine, but I’ll make out all right. Senator Jamieson has been very helpful.”

“Oh, I see. You have friends more important than me now.”

“Something like that.”

They both laughed.

“So why didn’t Lieutenant Jamieson just follow your script? None of this would have ever happened if he had.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Lars said. “It would have. Maybe not with him, but with somebody else if SCORCH had been approved. Don’t get me wrong. I wish he hadn’t died, but exposing the flaws and those who were pushing for a defective product may have actually saved dozens of lives. So it was a good thing that the lieutenant was a straight shooter, and felt compelled to give SCORCH a full workout before giving his father his report.”

“Funny I haven’t seen any of this on the news.”

In fact, the only news that had come out had been a local story in Ridgecrest about the accidental death of longtime resident Doreen Dillman.

“The parties involved have agreed a more sanitized version is better for all concerned.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “And Senator Jamieson?”

“He’s also on board. In a few days his son will be reported killed in a training exercise at sea. The group who was responsible for his actual death will be dealt with appropriately by the Navy.”

Wes looked skeptical.

“I gave them my word you and your friends would go along with it, too,” Lars said.

“You seriously think they’ll all go along with it?”

“I’ve already talked to them.”

“Even Dione?”

“She was tough, I’ll give you that. But she said yes.”

Wes frowned. “Swept under the rug nice and neat.”

“Dealt with nice and neat, that’s all. I admit it’s not exactly right, but some good has come out of it. Project Pastiche has been shut down, Forman and his people have been rounded up, and SCORCH has been officially canceled.”

They were silent for a moment.

“What about Tony?” Wes asked.

“His body was retrieved two days ago.” Lars paused. “They found fiber evidence linking Dillman to the body. Couple that with Dillman’s confession to you, and as far as the police are concerned the case is closed.”

Dillman had never regained consciousness, and had died the day after his wife.

“And the other body?” Wes asked.

“There was no other body,” Lars said, his tone indicating that no matter what had really been found, officially the mine was empty.

So that was it. The incident with Jack was over. Wes was … free.

“Then you’re here just to make sure I play along?”

“I’m here to check on my friend,” Lars said. “If you don’t want to play along, I can’t stop you.”

The corner of Wes’s lip rose. “Your Navy friends wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

Lars shrugged. “Too bad.”

“I have to ask you something else.”

“Sure. What?”

“About my father. You were supposed to meet him that night, weren’t you? You were going to help him move Jack.”

Lars was silent for several seconds. “Yes.”

“What I don’t understand is why Dad wanted to move him.”