Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (58 page)

Gant-Ag
had left four or five acres of brush and trees as a small wilderness.

We knew
we were at risk of being spotted by surveillance equipment anywhere we crossed
the property line, but we thought we would be least likely to face detection
here. The tangled growth bordered an unpaved side road, so slippery with mud
from the spring rains that Murray’s Cobra spun out of control several times.

We
whiled away the rest of the afternoon in the town of Morris. After a late lunch
we went into the public library, where Murray used an empty conference room to
test his video equipment. Some pal in the public relations office at Ft.

Sheridan
had come up with a night-vision video camera for him as well as a lightweight
set of field glasses. Lugging these, together with an extra battery, extra film
cassettes, a blanket, a thermos, his tape recorder, and such supplies as my
gun, picklocks, and a flashlight, through muddy cornfields in the dark had left
both of us panting. My legs, still sore from Thursday’s hike up the Gateway
stairwell, turned rubbery with fatigue by the time we got close enough to the
airstrip to set up camp.

The
blanket was Mr. Contreras’s idea. He and I had a major fight over my going off
without him. The idea that I would go on an adventure with any man except him
cut him to the quick, but that it should be Murray, whom he thinks of as an
arrogant boor, was especially upsetting.

“We
may be at this all night,” I warned, “so don’t panic if I’m not back in the
morning. But if you don’t hear from me by noon make sure Conrad gets all the
details.”

“You
going off without telling him? Now, that really takes the cake,” the old man
fumed.

It
was knowing that I hadn’t told Conrad, though, that finally got him to stop
arguing. He even relented enough to pack me up a blanket, some chocolate, a ham
sandwich—pointedly not including one for Murray—and a thermos of coffee laced
with grappa. That I’d dumped in favor of plain coffee at the diner where we had
lunch. Now I was glad of all the provisions. Murray ate the sandwich while I
drank coffee and nibbled on a piece of chocolate.

We
kept our voices down. Although the buildings around the airstrip were dark, the
main office block showed a few lights. In the distance we could hear the
occasional truck rumble in through the front gate.

“You
don’t think your pal Fabian made this up to laugh at you spending a night in
the mud, do you?” he rumbled in my ear around ten.

“My
pal Fabian is capable of anything. We’ve been here for an hour and haven’t
heard anything. Let’s go see what’s in the hangar.”

“You
are the original action woman, aren’t you? If someone is waiting in there to
jump us, I’m awfully exposed if I carry this camera.”

“Hit
’em with it. I’ll cover you anyway. In fact, when we get there you let me go
around to the entrance. If someone jumps me I’ll holler and you can come video
us.” Murray was as cold as I was. He was only objecting because he hated not
being in charge of all the ideas. We carefully packed up our belongings: we’d
never find this exact spot again in the dark and we didn’t want to leave
anything that could be traced to either of us.

The
last hundred yards to the hangar we did on our hands and knees between the
hills of corn. We didn’t want some trucker to pick us up in his headlights as
he made the turn toward the warehouses. As we crawled, a fine rain started to
fall. Our knees became heavy with mud.

Near
the building we found ourselves in a drainage ditch, almost deep enough that we
could stand upright. Taking the burden from our weary knees we crept to the
back of the hangar, where we stood up fully and rubbed our sore limbs.

Murray
took a swig of coffee. We stood for a few minutes, straining to hear, but the
concrete blocks would shut out any voices. I pulled Murray’s head next to my
ear and told him I would go to the front to reconnoiter.

“If
I’m not back in fifteen minutes ease yourself off the site and go find some
cops.” Assuming Grundy County or city deputies would mess with Gant-Ag.

I
slipped around the edge of the building and followed the west side, toward the
blue lights of the runways. It was a long building, longer than I would have
thought they needed for their helicopters and crop dusters. In the dark it
seemed interminable.

When
I reached the apron at the front I paused again, squinting up the landing strip
with the field glasses. I swiveled and watched a truck move down the side road
to the warehouses. Finally I slipped around the corner to the entrance. Heavy
doors of corrugated metal closed the front. They were locked shut. I could
probably pick them, but the noise of their opening would be horrendous. I
hunted around and found an ordinary entrance on the east side, the side that
faced the main office block. It also had an ordinary lock. I worked it open,
then returned along the west edge of the hangar to fetch Murray.

“It
took you long enough, Warshawski. I was just about to come looking for you.”

“I
think we’re clear,” I muttered back. “But let’s stick to the cornfield side
just in case.”

When
we reached the apron we waited for a truck to turn up the track toward the
warehouses, then slipped past the corrugated doors to the side entrance.

When
Murray had followed me in I locked the door behind us.

In
the dark I could smell engines. I switched on the flash, shielding it under the
blanket in case there were windows up high that would show light to someone in
the office block. In this restricted glow we explored the hangar.

Up
front, next to a small jet, stood the surveillance helicopters, looking like
malevolent insects in the dim light, their rotaries giant tentacles, their feet
the stingers. I shuddered and moved deeper into the building. Murray followed,
filming everything around him.

Workbenches
along the west wall held the wrenches and torches needed to work on aircraft.
Fan belts hung from large hooks overhead; underneath the benches were spare
rotors, replacement windows, and even several extra airplane doors.

Parked
neatly alongside the bench stood a couple of carts that airliners use for
ferrying equipment to their craft.

We
passed two small planes that I supposed were crop dusters. A few helicopters
stood behind them. They may have been in for repairs—their doors were stacked
neatly on the floor beside them.

“What
we really need is a logbook,” Murray said, opening drawers in the workbench.
“You know—if Fabian is setting you up and there is no plane due in here
tonight.”

“What
would it say?” I jeered. “Another load of hundred-dollar bills arrived today
from the Caymans?”

I had
to admit he was right. I went to the far end of the room, where a small desk
stood, and started riffling through work orders for fuel, engine parts, and the
like. Murray joined me with the camera so he could film the documents for later
study.

I was
pawing through a pile of coffee-stained invoices when we heard a key turn in the
side door. We dropped the papers and dove into one of the open helicopters.
Murray slid onto a bench next to the door. I moved next to him, taking my gun
from my shoulder holster and easing off the safety.

Footsteps
sounded, male voices, laughter, and then the hangar was flooded with light and
I made out Jasper Heccomb’s voice. “Is she coming or not?”

“No
one knows where she is.” That was Alec Gantner. “When Messenger called me
yesterday morning I told him to give her the information but not so obviously
that she would smell a trap. We didn’t spot her car on the surveillance
cameras, but she could have come across the fields, I suppose.”

“We
should have thought of that sooner,” Jasper snapped. “Didn’t you tell me she
discovered last week that you survey the traffic on the perimeter?”

“Yes,”
Gantner said. “But she shouldn’t be able to get down here without being spotted
from the road. I asked the county people to keep an eye out for her car and it
hasn’t been seen around here.”

“She
could have rented one.” Donald Blakely spoke for the first time. “How long are
we going to wait?”

“Oh,
the plane will be here in thirty minutes to an hour,” Alec said. “My guess is
she’ll pop up when it lands. Unless the senator succeeded in warning her off.”

“You
don’t seriously believe she’ll pay attention to your old man, do you?”

Jasper
said.

“We
agreed we had to try it,” Alec reminded him sharply. “The Chicago cops seem to
be keeping an eye on her—my source in Landseer’s office says they want to see
if she leads them to the girl. Until they give up their surveillance we can
hardly do anything.”

I
didn’t know whether the mike on Murray’s tape recorder was sensitive enough to
pick up their conversation, but moving with extreme care I slid it from my
backpack and turned it on. After that we waited for the plane with the
musketeers.

They
seemed content to stay in the front of the hangar, their spirits frothy with
excitement. The conversation jumped around, from what Heccomb wanted to do
next—now that the lid had blown off the contractor scam he didn’t want to
continue at Home Free—to the Bulls’ chances for a repeat championship. But they
kept coming back to what they wanted to do with me when I showed up. Their
descriptions were graphic; a chill washed across my cheeks and arms and I
almost dropped the Smith & Wesson.

“You’re
the man for the job, Jaz,” Blakely said. “Didn’t she used to have a thing for
you in college?”

“Good
thing you didn’t respond back then—broad that mean could really crack your
nuts,” Gantner chimed in.

“Give
me half a chance and I will,” I muttered.

Murray
clamped a hand over my mouth but they were laughing too hard to hear me.

“Anton’s
itching for a go at her,” Jasper said. “I left him with your security boy near
the plant entrance. Anton’s so pumped he may rape the exhaust pipe.”

They
roared again. Suddenly, when I thought I couldn’t take another word of it, we
heard a car drive up next to the hangar. A couple of men joined the musketeers;
in another minute came the rasping clatter of the corrugated doors opening.
Someone started an engine—from the sound it was one of the little carts.

Murray
peered around the edge of the door, then put his mouth next to my ear.

“They’ve
all gone out to look.”

We
looked at each other, weighing curiosity against safety. I jerked my head
toward the front. Murray nodded and slid from the bench out into the hangar. I
packed up the tape recorder, stuck it in my backpack, and followed him, my gun
in my hand. Using the bigger machines as cover, we slipped forward toward the
entrance. We stopped behind the crop duster closest to the workbenches, where
we could crawl if the musketeers returned to the building.

In
the light pouring from the hangar we could see the tarmac glistening with rain.
Behind the shelter of the wing we watched Gantner talking with a man in yellow
waterproof coveralls. They stood next to the motor cart, with Heccomb and
Blakely behind them under the shelter of the hangar. The man in coveralls was
gesticulating at the overcast sky; Gantner seemed to be arguing with him. It
was frustrating to watch and not know what they were saying.

“If
they abort the flight we still have enough on tape to go to the federal
prosecutor,” I said to Murray in a prison-yard mumble.

“They
can’t abort the flight if it’s come all the way from the Caribbean.

It’ll
have to land somewhere,” Murray rumbled back.

As if
on cue the man in coveralls suddenly sprang to life. He picked up a couple of
wands from the cart, glowing sticks for guiding an airplane, and walked
forward. The three musketeers pulled out rain gear and climbed onto the cart,
which trundled to the middle of the runway. In another minute the landing
lights of an airplane appeared below the clouds.

Murray
and I ran past the open hangar doors to the side entrance. No one was looking
our way. We quickly skirted the building and reemerged on the cornfield side,
where we dropped into the drainage ditch. Murray turned the camera on again. He
filmed the small jet as it screamed down the runway, then moved up the field so
that he was directly opposite the plane. I watched through the binoculars.

As
soon as the plane stopped, the driver hopped from the cart to put chucks under
the wheels. The musketeers jumped down and waited by the door. Murray filmed
the door opening, two men coming down the stairs carrying suitcases, the
musketeers slapping backs and taking the suitcases from them. The man with the
cart drove them all to the hangar.

The
man who’d guided the plane up the runway ran up and removed the chucks.

His
partner zipped back with the cart. The two of them climbed into the plane. I
supposed they were servicing it.

We
were about to leave when a security car drove up outside the hangar, its roof
light flashing orange. I trained the field glasses on it. They were powerful
enough that I could pick out the Gant-Ag logo on the side, with security
written underneath in big black letters.