A Treasure Deep (40 page)

“It’s out of the question,” Perry said. “This
guy already has two of my friends. I don’t want him to have a
third.”

“At least let me stay a little longer,” Anne
pleaded. “You said the guy gave you twenty-four hours. That means
he’s not going to show up for a while. I’ll leave before he gets
here. I drove my own car here, so I don’t need a ride home.”

Perry looked to Jack, who just shrugged. “I’m
sorry, Anne, but the answer is still no. You’re going to have to
go.”

Anne’s face clouded with the same expression
of anger Perry had seen before, but then it softened. “Take care,”
she offered. “I would like to see you again. Alive.”

“We agree on that,” Perry said with a big
smile. “I owe you a great deal, Madam Mayor.”

“Yes, you do, and I expect a fancy dinner as
payment, Mr. Sachs.”

Anne bounded forward, threw her arms around
Perry, and pulled him close. The embrace lasted only a moment, but
it said many things. Releasing him, she quickly turned and started
down the slope, Gleason, Brent, and Dr. Curtis following a few
steps behind.

“So now we wait,” Jack said.

“Now we wait,” Perry agreed.

THE SUN MOVED behind the hills, casting long shadows
over the empty site. Overhead, the sky darkened into twilight.
Perry and Jack had passed the time resting from the night’s labors
and eating various snack foods that were kept on the work site.
They ate for energy and not hunger. The tension of the previous
hours and the anxiety of what was to come had eroded any hunger
they should have felt.

They were men in waiting, and waiting was
agonizingly difficult work. They didn’t speak of what was to come.
They made no speculations about what the visitor would do. Perry
paused to pray awhile for Claire and Joseph. He was a weary man.
He’d had far too little sleep over the past few days, and he
doubted any meaningful sleep was in his near future.

As the sun dropped out of sight, a new
stillness settled over the land. Where once there had been the
constant murmur of men working, of motors humming and engines
cranking, there now was almost no sound. The breeze was gone too,
as if it had abandoned the area for fear of what was to happen.

Staring over the site, Perry saw the sinkhole
that almost took his employee’s life. He also saw the scarred
ground he and Jack had so quickly dug up to uncover the
chamber.

In the distance a sound interrupted the
stillness.

“You hear that?” he asked Jack.

“Yeah. Sounds like a helicopter.”

“Agreed, but it can’t be ours,” Jack
said.

“Sounds low.”

The distant thumping turned into a roar as a
white Robinson R44 Raven helicopter flew over, its skids less than
a couple of meters above the trees. The power of its engine and the
beat of its blades vibrated the ground beneath Perry’s feet. The
copter shot overhead, then spun 180 degrees and returned.

“He’s landing,” Jack shouted above the noise.
“The idiot is going to land right in front of us, right on the
sloping ground. He must be crazy.”

Helicopters were versatile machines capable
of full three-dimensional motion, but landing one on sloping ground
was madness. If the tail hit the ground the rear rotor would
shatter and, without the counterforce of the blade, the craft would
spin out of control. Takeoff would be even more treacherous.

The pilot circled the area once and then,
remarkably, set the craft down without incident. Immediately the
engine powered down to an idle. The pilot’s door swung open, and
the villain exited. He was dressed in a suit.

“Load it up,” he ordered.

“A crook and a pilot. Impressive. You’re
early,” Jack said

nonchalantly.

“Always keep your opponents guessing. Now
shut up and load the crates.”

“You don’t want to inspect them?” Perry
asked. He made direct eye contact. The fires of fury burned hot in
Perry’s belly.

“No need,” Alex said. “You’re too smart to
play those kinds of games. You could only lose your friends. Now
load up the crates, boys. I have to call my boss in five minutes,
or your friends eat a few bullets.”

Perry stepped to the first crate and lifted
one end. Jack did the same and they moved in tandem to the
helicopter. The slowly moving blades swung threateningly overhead.
Behind the pilot’s seat was a cabin designed to hold seats for two
passengers. The seats had been removed. This man, Perry realized,
had thought of everything.

It took only two minutes to load the back
compartment.

“Now, back off,” Alex said. “I’ve got less
than three minutes to make the call. I don’t think you want me to
spend it talking to you.”

Perry doubted the thief’s words, but he
couldn’t risk challenging him on it. The man’s plan was smart. Fly
in, limit the amount of time available to Perry, then fly off.

One thing was certain: He was as smart as he
was devious. He was getting his way without outside help and
without guns. Perry could do nothing but watch as the suited man
entered the craft and expertly lifted it from the ground, mindful
of the helicopter’s altitude. A moment later he disappeared over
the hills.

“I don’t care how good a pilot I was,” Jack
said, “I’d never try that.”

“He’s showing off,” Perry said. “His kind
aren’t happy without making some display. You ready?”

“Absolutely. I hope Gleason made all the
necessary contacts.”

“Me too.” Perry raced to his Ford Explorer.
“Call Gleason on the radio. Tell him things are in motion.” Perry
started the car and slammed down the accelerator.

Jack picked up the microphone and keyed it as
Perry directed the big SUV toward the dirt road then up the hill to
the place he had first set foot on the site, the place his
helicopter had set down a few days before.

Stopping at the landing area, he and Jack
sprang from the front seat. “We should hear . . . there it is.”

More thumping of a rotor, then another
helicopter appeared. This time it was the Augusta A109 that had
brought Perry from Lindberg field in San Diego to the Tehachapi
Mountains. Perry watched as the pilot landed on the flat ground at
the top of the hill. Before the pilot could slow the engine, Perry
and Jack were in the passenger compartment snapping their seat
belts.

Perry slipped on the headset. “Hit it,” he
ordered.

The engine whined and the craft took off
fifteen seconds later with enough vertical acceleration to press
Perry into his seat and make his stomach drop to his feet.
“North-by-northwest. A white Robinson R44.”

“I saw it on the way in,” the pilot said.

“Did he see you?”

“I doubt it. I took a very wide approach from
the Tejon community airfield. He looked like he was headed toward
Bakersfield.”

“See if you can find him, but stay out of his
line of sight.” Perry said.

“Gleason said this was an emergency,” the
pilot said. “Is that true?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good,” the pilot replied. “I hate to think I
was breaking all these rules for nothing.” He banked the
helicopter. “I’m supposed to tell you that Gleason made the contact
you asked for. General somebody-or-the-other.”

“Hitchcock,” Perry said. “General Hitchcock.
We did some work for him at Edwards Air Force base in the Mojave
Desert. He liked what we did and said I could call on him if I
needed anything. He probably meant if I needed a personal reference
or something. I doubt he expected this. Can I contact him?”

“On the seat next to you is a cell phone. See
it? Just push ‘send’ and it will dial his number.”

“It won’t mess up your instruments if I use
it now?” Perry asked.

“Not enough to bother me. Make your
call.”

Perry did and heard exactly what he hoped to
hear: General Hitchcock was tracking the helicopter through several
military and civilian sites. “I had to call in a lot of favors,”
the general said. “You can’t tell me what’s going on?”

“Not now, but I promise to give you a
blow-by-blow account later.”

“You’d better. I could lose my stars over
this.”

“We can always use a good man at Sachs
Engineering.”

“That’s good to know . . . Hang on . . . your
man is landing at the Bakersfield airport.”

“I bet he’ll be leaving from there too, and
soon.”

Perry asked the pilot to slow. “We have Sachs
Engineering painted all over the side. I don’t want our man to see
us.”

The pilot did as instructed and slowed the
craft.

“Now the cat and mouse game begins,” Perry
said to Jack.

“I just hope we’re the cat.”

THE SACHS ENGINEERING helicopter slid sideways in the
stiff wind, but Perry’s eyes remained fixed upon the small form of
the other copter half a mile in front of them.

The distance between the two helicopters grew
steadily. That was fine with Perry. His pilot was doing an
admirable job of staying behind and above the other one, thereby
staying securely in the blind spot.

“He’s not in a big rush,” the pilot said.
Since Perry and Jack were in the passenger compartment behind the
pilot, he had to take his word for it. Perry could only catch
glimpses of the aircraft they were pursuing.

“He doesn’t want to draw attention to
himself,” Perry said. His mind was working at high speed. Despite
little sleep, despite long hours of physical labor, despite the
crushing weight of concern, his thinking processed like a Swiss
watch. He could be weary later. Now he had to use his mind, his
heart, and his faith to achieve two things: the rescue of Claire
and Joseph and the recovery of the world’s most precious
objects.

The fact that Alex was landing at the airport
in Bakersfield failed to surprise Perry. The R44 had a limited
range. He could have flown several hundred miles, but not much
more. That might have been enough if his destination was in
Southern California, but Perry doubted that it was. Even if it was
true, he knew that Perry and Jack had seen the helicopter and could
identify it later. Like an experienced bank robber, a change in
getaway vehicles would be needed.

The question was, what kind of vehicle?

The thief could land at the airport, offload
his stolen cargo into a van, a rental truck, or another aircraft.
Since he was headed to an airport instead of some secluded landing
area, Perry assumed the latter.

A part of Perry wanted to let the man go.
After all, he had what he came for. Maybe he would simply release
Claire and Joseph, but the logic was clearly flawed. This crook and
his cronies stood to lose too much if Claire could identify the
location of her captivity or the people who abducted her. He was
certain they would kill his friends—if they hadn’t done so
already.

The last thought made Perry’s heart quake.
Claire was a simple woman who loved her special son. Neither
deserved the treatment they had received. Perry had to see this
through, even though he had little idea of what he would do
next.

“Airplane?” Jack asked. “It’s what I’d
do.”

“I think so,” Perry said, “but what kind? Not
that it matters. We’re going to have trouble keeping up with a
fixed-wing craft.”

“The guy has money,” Jack said. “The suit he
wears comes at a price. He may have a private jet waiting for him.
If he does, we’ll be left in his exhaust.”

“General Hitchcock can track him, but not on
the ground. Once he touches down, we lose him. We’re going to have
to change horses.”

“To what?” Jack asked. “The company jet is
back in Seattle. I suppose we could charter one, but that may take
time.”

Perry frowned. Jack was right on both counts.
Perry hit “send” on the cell phone, and Hitchcock picked up
immediately. “General, I have another favor to ask.”

“Why do I feel nervous?” the general
asked.

“I’m going to owe you big time, General.”

“You’ve got that right. When this is all said
and done, I want all the details. Got it?”

“That’s fair.”

“What else do you need?”

Perry told him, listened, then rang off. He
pulled the headset’s microphone to his lips and spoke to the pilot.
“We think he’s going to switch aircraft. Once we’re sure of that, I
want you to pull off and head east.”

“To where?”

“Edwards Air Force Base.”

“I can’t fly there, Mr. Sachs. That’s
restricted airspace. They take that seriously.”

“I’ve made arrangements.”

“They better be good ones,” the pilot
said.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE was a sprawling affair laid
out on the flat, near featureless land of the Mojave Desert—home to
not only the Air Force but also Dryden Flight Research Center, an
arm of NASA. While certain areas were open to the public and school
children were often led on tours, much of what went on in the beige
buildings was secret. It was here that test pilots risked their
lives to fly the newest aircraft. It had also been home to many
historical aircraft including the X-1, X-15, and others. And it was
the alternate landing site for the space shuttle. Private aircraft
were not welcome unless invited. Fortunately, General Hitchcock had
opened the door.

He had done something else. Throwing the
weight of his stars around, he’d been able to get the municipal
airport in Bakersfield to cough up much-needed information that
meant that Perry’s copter was relieved of following the thief’s all
the way to landing—something that would be hard to miss. Once the
thief was on the ground, it would be impossible to follow his
actions without being observed themselves.

Perry’s pilot set the A109 down gently on a
concrete helicopter pad. Perry and Jack were out the door one
second later. Hitchcock was there to greet them.

“You boys been playing in the dirt?” the
general asked, tracing their soiled work clothes with his eyes. He
was a stout man with gray temples whose brusque manner made him
seem taller than this five-foot-eight-inch frame.