River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) (20 page)

Noelle joined in the beckoning.

The ruckus attracted the scarecrow, who wandered back toward the Yukon. “Some dog you got there.”

Jake didn't respond. He turned to Noelle. “I'm gonna go get him.” She was starting the car. He headed off through the blowing snow and behind the house. The scarecrow was following him at a distance.

“Hey! Chayote! C'mon!” No sign of the heeler. Jake turned around. The man, if he was still there, was concealed by the storm.

“Let's go!” The visibility was such that Jake realized he was at the riverbank only a few steps before tumbling over. He gave another few whistles here, since Chayote, like his owner, had a soft spot for rivers.

Jake started upstream along the Buffalo Fork, whistling the whole way. His hands were freezing; he'd left his gloves back at the house.

“Dammit, Chayote!” He checked again for the scarecrow—a vague gray outline behind him on the bank.

Chayote rarely wandered this far. Thinking he might have returned to Noelle and the truck, Jake turned around. The dog hit him from behind in his usual style—paws up and hard. “Hey! Let's go.” Chayote bounced in circles around him, excited.

“Get over here!” Chayote calmed down slightly and pranced to his owner. “Where the hell were you?” Jake swatted the dirty paw prints off his backside, then grabbed the heeler and cleaned off his paws and muzzle, which were covered in loose dirt and mud.
“What'd you find?”
A dead wolf, maybe?
The heeler only bucked back onto his rear haunches, begging,
Play with me!

When Jake didn't, Chayote took off back in the direction of the Yukon, looking for a more compliant friend. Jake followed. He had no authority to investigate Chayote's treasure without Noelle. The scarecrow was already onto him; Jake didn't want to push his luck.

Back at the truck, Noelle was wiping Chayote down with an old towel. “Sorry 'bout that,” Jake said.

“It's okay. He's too adorable to be mad at.”

“Where'd Se
ñ
or Creepy go?”

“Don't know. He followed you out there, but didn't come back out front.”

Jake checked Chayote for mud one last time and gave him a pat on the head. There was a tiny tuft of fur sticking out from his jowl.

38

WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER. OCTOBER 25.

3:45 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

After they wrapped up their search with no more answers and filled in Deputy Statler as to Chayote's behavior, Noelle dropped Jake off. The good-bye was stilted. Jake wanted to ask her to come in, talk about what was going on, have a drink, dinner, whatever, but he knew it wasn't the right time. He also knew she would have declined, no matter what she felt in her heart.

As it stood, the day was just a chance encounter. No indication of anything to come. Noelle would pursue the leads as her job required her to, including taking the fur to the park biologist, as Layle suggested. If it was wolf fur, a search warrant would be issued, and she and Layle would go from there. Jake didn't need to be involved.

She was “sure he was busy.”
What the
hell did that mean?

With respect to their information about Terrell's alleged mur
der, neither Jake nor Noelle knew the correct path to take. Divya, Jake knew, was not who she said she was. Who she was, he didn't know. For some reason, she'd posed as an FBI agent and insisted they keep the chief's death quiet. They'd agreed implicitly to keep it to themselves until something more came to light or their investigation came to a standstill. The chief was still MIA.

But
why did Divya try to
play me in DC? To what end?

She was still not answering her phone.

J.P. walked in as Jake was taking the Bialetti espresso maker off the burner. He tossed his keys on the counter and slumped into the couch.

“Coffee?” Jake asked, making himself a robust Americano.

“Anything stronger?”

“Too early for that. What's going on?”

“Ah, nothing, man. Esma's not doing great.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, I mean she's back in the hospital. Mild sepsis. They've got a handle on it with antibiotics and fluids, but she'll stay for another three days at least.”

Jake joined his friend on the couch. “She's gonna be okay.”

It was both a question and a statement.

“Yeah. Just more shit to deal with.”

“Can I get you something to eat?”

“Nah, gonna take a shower and head back over there. My stomach's torn up.”

“Gotta eat something.”

J.P. shrugged, then looked up. “Maybe you could keep me company? I'll buy you dinner over there. They say the cafeteria's fantastic.” He was smirking.

“Yeah, of course, buddy. Let me change my clothes.”

“Take your time.”

Jake put on khakis and a Mountain Hardwear flannel shirt, which he tucked in.

J.P. had just started the shower, so Jake wandered into his fly-tying den.

The small room had been underutilized for the last few months, but at least that meant it was spotless. He sat down on the office chair and reached down to his right, where the bins of hooks were stacked. He kept them organized under three broad categories: freshwater, saltwater, and salmon/steelhead.

Out of the steelhead bin, he selected a size 3 Alec Jackson design, standard weight Spey hook. He clamped it in his vise and let his fly-tying imagination run wild for a moment, which you could get away with for steelhead. There was no need to imitate a specific insect; garish patterns were often the recipe for success.

He grabbed a bobbin of red-wine-colored 3/0 thread and wrapped the shank of the hook from eye to bend. Then he selected a sparse bunch of wine-colored hackle tail fibers and fastened them to the back of the shank with two quick wraps.

Comparing two pieces of purplish-colored chenille, he chose the thinner of the two.
Less is more.
Before tying in the chenille, he secured a four-inch-long piece of silver tinsel, to garnish the body. After wrapping both materials forward, tinsel on the outside, he picked a piece of dyed-purple guinea fowl from its skin and hackled it around the shank near the eye, creating a fan of fibers around the body that would undulate in the water.

Jake finished the head of the fly just as the shower faucet turned off. He dabbed the final wraps with head cement, then took the fly from the vise and carefully inspected it from all angles. Not a piece of art compared with what many other tyers could do, but functional.

He laid it down on the table and stood up. J.P. was in the doorway, drying his wild, scraggly hair with a towel.

“Pretty.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“I'm trying. Can I borrow a shirt?” J.P. looked enviously at Jake's attire.

“Take whatever you want.”

He returned downstairs wearing a blue oxford-style button-down that was too snug to be tucked in. He complemented it with Jake's best pair of blue jeans and gray leather Wallabees.

J.P.'s sullen mood on the way to the hospital was punctuated by angry rants aimed at Esma's captor. “I'd like a few minutes with that son of a bitch!”

Jake assured his friend that it wasn't worth it. “He's going to rot in prison. No worse punishment than that.”

“How long?”

Jake had checked the Idaho criminal code to quench his own curiosity. “It's first-degree kidnapping, where there's intent to . . . uh . . .”

“Yeah. Go on.”

“Well, depends on the circumstances.” Jake looked at his friend, who stared eagerly back from the passenger seat.

He decided to err toward a longer sentence. “Thirty years, maybe.”

J.P. pondered this for a moment. “Seems short.”

Jake had to agree.

The sun was peeking through intermittent clouds as they pulled into the visitor parking at St. John's.

Inside, the lobby was empty. Jake and J.P. went straight to the reception desk. The nurse minding the desk looked up awkwardly. He was tense.

“Can I help you?”

“Checking in to see Esma,” J.P. said anxiously.

“Of course.” The nurse picked up the phone and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. “Visitors for Esma.” A pause for an explanation. “Okay. Thank you.”

“A doctor will be right out,” the man said.

“No,” J.P. said faintly, his nerves more obvious now. He shook his head. “I know where the room is, I'll go myself.” He started toward the far end of the desk, where a corridor led to the ICU.

The nurse stepped out from behind the counter, hands up, to stop him. Jake jogged toward his friend and restrained him from behind.

J.P. tried to pull away. “Why? What the fuck is going on?”

“Everything's okay,” Jake said. “The doctor is on his way out.”

“Got him?” the nurse asked Jake, who nodded and eased his writhing friend down into one of the waiting room's chairs, where he held him by the shoulders. J.P. continued to make a fuss. Jake eyed the red security button on the counter's edge and prayed the nurse didn't press it.

“What the fuck, Jake?” He was nearly hyperventilating, and still trying to get up.

Jake wondered the same thing. Sepsis was dangerous.
But she couldn't be gone.
Jake had seen Esma just a day ago.

“It's okay.” Jake was bent over his friend, keeping him planted in the chair.

“Get someone out here!” Jake shouted.

The nurse got on the phone again. “
I'm telling you to
hurry, please! It's her boyfriend.”
When he hung up, he mustered a calm smile toward Jake and J.P.

“Jake, why won't they let me in?”

“They will. Hold on.” J.P. was out of breath from the struggle and close to tears.

The doctor was a slight woman, barely over five feet. She looked to be in her early forties. She walked fast, which Jake didn't like the looks of. When she got to them, she held her hand out for J.P., who was too fretful to notice.

“Dr. Antol,” she said, tucking her hand back to her side. She showed the apparent ambivalence that doctors could sometimes summon in the face of trauma.

“What the hell is going on?” J.P. was trying to get around her to the corridor. Jake struggled to hold him back, and the nurse started coming around the corner.

She turned to the reception desk. “Danny, it's okay. I'm just going to take them back.”

She walked at a deliberate pace toward the ICU and talked calmly. Jake figured she was trying to work on J.P., manage his emotions before she broke whatever horrible news she had.

They arrived at a large window looking into a room, where Esma lay unconscious, surrounded by computers and tubes.

Dr. Antol stood in front of the door, blocking their way for a moment.

“Esma suffered a fibrillation of the heart.”

J.P. was distracted; he stared through the window at Esma's inert body.

“Hey, do you know what that means?” The doctor reached for his shoulder. It startled him.

J.P. looked up and shook his head. “No.” His face was ghost white. Another nurse went into the room, checked the monitors and the IVs, and left.

“An hour ago, Esma's heart rhythm became dangerously weak
and inconsistent, which is called a fibrillation. We revived her with CPR and the defibrillator. She is stable now.”

“How?”

“It's not always clear why it happens. We think in this case the sepsis may have been the cause.”

“The infection?”

“Yes,” the doctor answered. “Or possibly stress from the incident, or some combination of both.”

“Is she going to . . . ?”

“Her heart is functioning normally. The sepsis is still an issue. She is on a heavy dose of antibiotics.”

Jake could tell that J.P. wanted to fight back, tell them to work harder, save Esma no matter what, but an air of resignation washed over him.

“So there's a chance she'll be okay? When can I see her?”

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

Jake did his best to comfort J.P. in the lobby, where he insisted on staying until they kicked him out at 9:00 p.m. When his friend was calm, Jake stepped up to the desk.

“I'd like to see another patient, please. Allen Ridley.”

“I'll have to have someone come and take you back.” The nurse was unwilling to leave J.P. alone.

Allen's room, outside the Radiology wing, was a brighter scene. The man was awake, watching a late-night show, and eating flavored ice out of a plastic cup.

Jake knocked as he entered. “There's our hero.”

“Hardly.” He chuckled. “Like my outfit?” Allen nodded down at his gown.

“Armani? Hey, you've still got your leg though. That's a nice accessory.”

“Couldn't let the volleyball team down.”

Jake collapsed into the chair beside the biologist, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward. Words came pouring out.

“We're in a mess here.”

Allen listened for a long time—about Esma and the chief, Divya, and the murder at the Game and Fish warehouse. It was a rare occasion that Jake confided in someone like this.

“That's not a mess,” Allen said when Jake finished. “That's a goddamned train wreck.”

This made Jake laugh. “You saved our asses, you know, Allen. Saved Esma.”

“That remains to be seen, sounds like.”

“What do I do?” Jake was tired now. At his wit's end.

“You do what I did when you needed my help. Trust yourself. You were made for this.”

Jake scratched at the stubble on his face.

“Now get out of here. I haven't been able to relax and watch TV since they put me in that damned cabin.”

39

IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO. OCTOBER 26.

10 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

The senator was pacing behind the desk in the front office of the lab. He'd released his aides and staff for the recess, citing a need for personal time. Meirong sat still, turning her head only to watch him.

He was thinking hard.

“And she survived, the Mexican? Or we don't know?”

Meirong nodded first, unsure whether talking would enrage him further. She chanced it. “Don't know.”

Instead, he reset himself. “Okay. Where do we go from here?”

“I think the fibrillator is good, I . . .”

“
No
. What's our exposure?”

“What?”

Canart raised his voice again. “Can they find this place?”

Meirong spoke confidently now. “No. Materials are sourced
from all over. Some handcrafted. They won't be able to find the origin of the tracker or the fibrillator.”

“Can they somehow reverse-trace the signal?”

Meirong let out a little laugh, which drew a glare from Canart. Her face became serious again. “No. Our software is better than that.”

Canart moved on. “Any luck on microsizing?”

“Just a matter of getting the battery smaller, but still strong enough.”

“And?”

“We have some ideas.”

“Fine. Keep me up-to-date. I have to get home for dinner.”

The senator checked his phone, muttered something in frustration, and put on his suit jacket.

“You're leaving?”

“I have a family and a career, Meirong. What we did was a mistake. The result of too much time working together, that's all.” He hustled out of the building.

The Lincoln peeled out of the lot. Meirong slammed the door to the office that was serving as her makeshift sleeping quarters and headed back into the lab.

It was a skeleton staff: herself and three other researchers. They all had engineering or software degrees, even PhDs, which made communication between her and the group challenging. Communicating had never been easy for Meirong growing up. She understood
things
—computers, machines, and numbers—but not people. They were too capricious and volatile.

“Smaller!” she yelled at the men. The goal was to make the device so small as to be nearly undetectable. Her accent exposed itself when she was angry. “Is that so complicated?”

The energy density of the lithium-limited battery was slowing them down. They had to find a way to pack enough punch into the fibrillator to cause a fatal arrhythmia while downsizing the whole package size
and
maintaining a steady power source for the GPS unit.
How?
As it stood, the prototype measured eleven millimeters long and had to be implanted with a large syringe. Ideally, the device would be small enough to be hidden in smaller needles, implanted with vaccines, without detection.

But the senator's demand that the entire package measure 20 percent of its current size was outrageous. Impossible.

“What time is it?” She walked by a man inspecting something under a jewelry scope.

He pulled up his sleeve. Then tapped the face of his watch. “Dunno. Battery's dead, I guess.”

Meirong took one more step and stopped. “How many hours have you been working?”

He continued working. “Eighteen a day, like the senator said.”

“All in this seat? Let me see your watch.”

The man huffed and then obliged, peeling it off his arm and handing it to her.

“Get up,” she said, and took his seat. “Your battery isn't dead, idiot.”

Meirong searched a tool tray for a small file, then grabbed a ball-peen hammer. She laid the timepiece on its bezel and inserted the tip of the file between two layers of steel.

“Hey, that was a gift! It's a TAG Heuer!”

Pnnnk!
She hit the file hard with the hammer, and the watch broke apart. With nervous hands, she quickly sorted through the innards.

“Where are you? Where are
you?”
She was mumbling. The
PhD was wringing his hands—overworked and now witnessing the gory demise of his fine possession.

“Here!” She held up a damaged string of tiny metal parts, and rushed over to another lab table, where her laptop rested.

“I'm stupid.” She pounded her fist against her forehead a few times.

“Wha . . .” The man wasn't keeping up with her.

“It's perpetual motion.” She was typing fast, researching the technology. “The power comes from the movement of your hand as you walk, clap, shake hands, whatever.”

“So?”

“It's the solution to our battery problem.”

The PhD was on track now. “The torso doesn't move enough. Our signal would be inconsistent at best. The hand, it swings like a pendulum . . .”

“I'm not talking about the torso generally moving. The chest—I'm talking about the heart beating and lungs expanding. It's the most consistent power source in the body. I can't believe I overlooked it . . .”

“Will it generate enough power?”

“Plenty for the GPS, considering its efficiency.” She cracked her knuckles and typed some more, flying through science-journal articles online.

In the meantime, the other two men left their stations and gathered behind Meirong, transfixed by her breakthrough. They were amazed at the speed with which she scrolled through complicated microcircuit schematics, all the while talking to herself, noting God-knows-what in her head.

“If we have the right capacitor,” she finally said. Then closed the laptop.

“Huh?”

The little ducklings followed her to the front office but she shooed them out, wanting to talk to the senator alone.

“It's me.” She took a deep breath. “I think we can get the packet down to size.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Ten days, max.”