Final Disposition (39 page)

      “As Sergeant Harthburn here would say, ‘Roger that’, Doc,” Cellars replied with a cheerful smile and then turned to Marcini, who ignored his outstretched hand, stepped forward, and then rose up on her toes and kissed him firmly on the cheek.

      “Is that the best you can do?” he said with a grin.

      “No, it’s not … so you just keep that in mind, and be careful out there, Cowboy,” she said solemnly, her dark eyes unflinching.  “Like Doc said, we’d like you back in one piece, mental problems and all.”

CHAPTER 30

      More-or-less resigned to whatever amusements fate had in store next, Cellars slipped on the helmet, secured the chin strap, then bent down low and ran out to the open left side door of the fierce-looking recon/ light-attack helicopter … hoping to stay under the now-rapidly-rotating blades that he couldn’t even begin to see.

      The pilot silently assisted Cellars in, strapped himself into the cross-chest safety harness and secured the door, and then reached back and plugged a cord into the back of his helmet.

      “Can you hear me, now, sir?” the pilot asked in a voice that sounded robotically clear, flat and emotionless.

      
Electronically enhanced and modulated … probably to improve clarity of communications under stressful conditions.  Weird, but interesting
, his frontal lobes noted.

      “I can hear you fine,” Cellars replied, speaking into his helmet microphone.

      “Excellent.  Major Cellars, I’m Chief Warrant Officer Robert Fudd, the pilot of this aircraft.  My job today is to take you wherever you want to go within our flight range … which, I‘m told, involves a crime scene somewhere on the Bancoo Indian Reservation.”

      “That’s correct, Chief.  However, I’ve been advised that the entire Bancoo Reservation is designated a Federally Restricted Territory.  Is that going to be a problem?”

      “Not for me or this bird,” Fudd replied.  “My job is to set you down wherever you’d like to start working, and then maintain air cover over your position until you’re ready to be picked up again.  I’m not required to obey traffic signals.”

      “That sounds good to me.”

      “And don’t worry about us running into an intercept over the Reservation.  We’re flying low and dark.  No civilian aircraft can keep up with us at night … especially in weather like this.”

      “Low and dark?”

      “Flying at low altitudes with zero running lights, utilizing an infrared spotlight slung under the belly of this bird and night vision goggles that you can access by pulling your set down like this.”

      Fudd demonstrated how Cellars could lock down and adjust the night vision goggles mounted above the visor on his helmet.

      “Please be advised that as a Chief Warrant Officer and the senior pilot on this aircraft,” Fudd went on in his mono-toned voice, “I won’t be calling you ‘sir’ in this chopper again unless you insist on it, Major.”

      “Fine with me, I’d rather you didn’t anyway; and you can skip the ‘Major’ tag too,” Cellars said.  “If you ever feel compelled to address me by rank, I’d much prefer you use my police rank of ‘sergeant’ … or just plain ‘Colin’ will do fine.  Not sure why, but I’m not really comfortable with the idea of being a member of the brass.”

      “Copy that, sergeant.  Also be advised, you are seated in the co-pilot/observer seat of an Ocean-Henry-Five-Eight-David Kiowa Warrior Recon/Light-Attack Helicopter.  You have a full set of flight controls in front of you.  You are not to touch these controls under any circumstances.  Your proper role in this aircraft will be as ‘the observer’ at all times.  If you attempt to co-pilot this aircraft, you and I will probably die.  If you attempt to use the laser sight and fifty-caliber machine gun controls on your console panel, a lot of other people will probably die too.  Are we clear on all of that, sergeant?”

      “Absolutely clear,” Cellars replied.

      “Excellent. So, where would you like to go?”

      “Do you know where Fire Watchtower Twenty-Seven is located on the Reservation?”

      “Roger that,” Fudd replied as he pulled a map book out of his seat pouch and quickly flipped through the pages.

      “And if you were a couple of politically-connected — but not necessarily very bright — kids from Jasper Springs who wanted to hike out to that Tower to try to spy on a secret military investigation, where would you likely park your car?”

      Fudd seemed to consider that idea for a long moment.

      “If I didn’t want everyone in town — specifically the patrolling cops and MPs — to know what I was doing, I’d park my car in the Forest Service Maintenance Depot right here, and enter the Wilderness area about a quarter mile down the road … right about here,” he said, using his gloved index finger to point out the locations.  “The bad guys would have trouble vectoring in on my position.”

      “Did I happen to mention that we’re the ‘bad guys’ in that equation?”

      “No, but I’ll keep that in mind, sergeant.”

      “Okay,” Cellars went on, “now I need to find a place along a logical hiking trail that is approximately two-thirds of the way from that starting point to Tower Twenty-Seven.”

      “Roger that …” Fudd considered the map silently for a few seconds.  “Right about here.”

      “Good, then ‘right about here’ on that map is precisely where I’d like you to drop me off, Chief.”

      “Lock those night goggles into place and hang on, sergeant,” Fudd said as he gently increased the speed of the Kiowa’s whirling rotor blades.  “We’re about to go for a bumpy ride.”

*     *     *

      They had just crossed over into Bancoo reservation territory, Chief Warrant Officer Fudd keeping the Kiowa Warrior helicopter a steady hundred feet over the tree line, when Cellars spotted the first light green figure bouncing along the snow-covered ground on what looked like a snowmobile … both brightly lit up by the under-slung infrared spotlight.

      “Is he headed in our direction?”

      “Roger, he is … but driving like that, he’ll be upside down in a ditch or t-boned into a boulder before he gets another hundred yards.  The ones to worry about are up ahead.”

      “How many?”

      “Wait one,” Fudd responded as he quickly brought the Kiowa up another five hundred feet and then began working switches and controls on his console.

      “Looks like two larger groups of ten-to-twelve each … and three others bringing up the rear.”

      “Where?  I still don’t see them,” Cellars said, staring out into the greenish darkness.

      “My Mast Mounted Sight gives me a forward-looking capability you don’t have with that spotlight,” Fudd said.  “Wait one.”

      Fudd flicked another switch on his console that caused a monitor screen to light up in the middle of Cellars’ console.  He immediately saw what Fudd was talking about: two groups of ten-to-twelve tiny bright green figures stretched out in two lines about fifteen yards apart … then three more figures about ten yards behind the line of figures on the right.  Several of the small figures in the left-side group seemed to be waving brightly-glowing objects in the hands.

      “Oh crap,” Cellars muttered.

      “You know those people?” Fudd queried.

      “Yeah, most likely,” Cellars said.  “If my Captain got his info correct, the larger group on the left should be the Reverend Slogaan and a handful of his rabid nut-case followers, probably hoping to catch up with me so that they can burn me at a stake before I find evidence of extraterrestrial contact that would destroy the basic tenants of their supposed religious beliefs … and, more to the point, I suspect, cripple their billion-dollar fund-raising scam.”

      “Those would be the ones with the torches and —” Fudd worked his console controls again to zoom in on the left side group, “— the pitch forks.  Typical conservative mind-set; always go with the proven standard.  On the bright side, it looks like they forgot to bring along a stake.”

      “Wonderful,” Cellars muttered as he watched the monitor screen zoom back out to show all three groups again.

      “Recognize anybody else?”

      “The larger group on the right,” Cellars said, “should be a nice old lady named Eleanor Patterson and her Alliance of Believers followers.  They like me because I gave them a lecture on basic CSI techniques so they can collect their own evidence of extra-terrestrial contact — which, if they ever do manage to find something interesting, will undoubtedly flip the Reverend out completely … and probably send him out looking for a lot more stakes.  In the meantime, I’m guessing that the two larger groups are probably yelling and waving bats and torches and pitchforks at each other … but aren’t  really anxious to get it on with each other because they’re a little spooked by the neighborhood.”

      “Scared of the dark?”

      “No, more like scared of the things that skulk around in the dark … speaking of whom, the three figures tagging along behind the first group most likely include Ann Tillman — special administrative assistant to Senator Mariott — and maybe even the Senator herself.  Tillman wants to serve me with a subpoena; but she may be a little conflicted because her missing son is my primary crime scene focus out here … and things just got a little more confusing because the Senator’s son and another companion just got added to the ‘missing’ list.  My guess is that both the Senator and Tillman would like me to find their sons first … before they have me arrested, flogged, and then handed over to the Reverend.”

      “Interesting friends you have, sergeant,” Fudd commented.  “Who’s that bringing up the rear?”

      “I can only assume our out-of-control snowmobile rider is Ace Bellringer, radio host of the Jackson County based Sky Search Show, who would really like to interview me and describe
my
extraterrestrial-contact evidence to all his world-wide listeners … but mostly he just likes to egg the other three groups on … presumably to entertain his listeners and boost his ratings.”

      “A man with a mission,” Fudd chuckled tonelessly.

      “So, yes, Chief, to answer your initial question, I’m sorry to say that I do know those people down there,” Cellars finished.  “For the most part, I sincerely wish I didn’t.”

      Fudd was silent for a long moment.

      “Do I assume correctly, sergeant, that you don’t want any of those idiots to reach your crime scene while you’re still there?”

      “That would be ideal,” Cellars agreed.

      “Let’s see what we can do about that,” Fudd said as he powered the Kiowa around in a wide sweep … switched on a narrow laser beam that instantly appeared out of the belly of the helicopter, glowing brightly in Cellars’ night vision goggles … and then sent a stream of fifty-caliber bullets streaking across the night sky along that laser beam at a right angle to and about twenty feet ahead of the two slowly moving groups, causing large chunks of dislodged rock, soil and snow to fly in all directions.

      “Holy shit!” Cellars muttered.

      An instant later, the monitor on Cellars’ console showed about twenty-five tiny bright-green figures diving to the ground in all directions.

      “That should slow them down a bit —,” Fudd spoke calmly into his radio mike as he powered the Kiowa around to the left in another wide seeping turn.

      “Yeah, I’ll bet it will,” Cellars agreed.

      “— and this should keep them from beating up on each other for a while,” Fudd added as he triggered a second stream of fifty-caliber rounds down the laser beam — shredding another long stretch of rock, soil and snow along a line precisely in between the two large groups, and perpendicular to the first ‘heads-up’ barrage … and, as a bonus, sending the one bright green figure still upright diving off his snowmobile.

      “Wow, are you actually authorized to do things like that?” Cellars asked as Fudd calmly returned the Kiowa to its original course.

      “Training exercises are always authorized,” Fudd responded with mono-tonal indifference.

      “You call that a
training
exercise?”

      “Absolutely,” Fudd said, briefly glancing back over his shoulder at the sprawled figures.  “Now they all understand the meaning of ‘no trespassing.’”

CHAPTER 31

      By the time the Kiowa arrived over the general area that Fudd and Cellars had located on the map, five minutes later, the dark storm clouds had parted, revealing a bright full moon that bathed the snow-covered landscape below in a cool radiance of distantly reflected sunlight.

      “Hey, what’s that over there,” Cellars asked, pointing to a large dark area a little east of their position.

      “A big hole in the ground filled with water,” Fudd replied.

      “You mean a lake?”

      “Looks like a lake to me, but that’s a point of disagreement right now.  On the other hand, you won’t need night vision goggles down there,” Fudd commented as he brought the Kiowa around into a hovering position about a hundred feet over a spot of relatively flat snow.

      Cellars unlocked and pushed aside his helmet-mounted goggles, and then stared out through the helicopter’s armored windshield at the dazzling vista below.

      “Wow, that’s quite a view,” Cellars commented.

      “Mother Nature at her finest,” Fudd agreed.  “Too bad humans like to mess it up.”

      “What are you, Fudd, a closet environmentalist?”

      “No, I just don’t like humans very much,” the pilot said.  “Where do you want to set down?”

      “Actually, I’d like to check a few things out first, if you don’t mind.”

      “Your fare, I’m the taxi driver,” Fudd said agreeably.

      “To start with, is it possible to adjust the frequency of one of your searchlights over to the blue-violet spectrum, and then sweep it across this whole area at about a forty-five degree angle?”

      “As in oblique lighting?”