Scavenger (23 page)

Was Viv trying to grasp at small talk and distract herself from what happened to Derrick? Amanda wondered. Or was the remark confrontational? She remembered the angry look Viv had directed toward her when the Game Master mentioned her education.

“I wanted to go to college, but I couldn’t pay the tuition,” Viv said.

Amanda worried that another fight was about to start. Was that how Viv would handle her grief, by lashing out at whoever was close?

“Hell, I don’t know why I got angry at you.” Viv’s unexpected comment made Amanda less uneasy. “I’d probably have flunked. What I really wanted was to climb mountains with Derrick.”

A raindrop fell through the roof.

“Cold,” Viv said. She wearily opened a water bottle. “We used a lot of energy. Make sure you drink.”

Amanda raised the single bottle she had, savoring each swallow. “That’s the end of it.”

“Leave the cap off, and set it outside. Some of the rain’ll collect in it. Meanwhile, we’ll share my other bottle. If we’re going to get out of this, we need to help each other.”

The thought was encouraging until Amanda thought of Ray. Then she thought of something else, although she hesitated to raise the subject. “There’s another source of water.”

“Where?”

“It’s difficult to talk about.”

“Tell me.”

“Derrick has two water bottles.”

“Oh.” The word was faint

“He finished most of one, but he has a full bottle in a pocket of his jumpsuit.”

Viv didn’t respond.

“We need it,” Amanda said.

“Yes.” Viv sounded hoarse. “We need it.” Her throat made a choking sound. “And the shirt under his jumpsuit. And his socks. And his boot laces. Anything we can use. If another storm hits ...”

She stifled a sob.

“The most ill-fated video game of all time is the first home version of
E.T.,
” the Game Master said without warning.

“Shut up!” Amanda yelled.

“The cute little extraterrestrial falls into a pit. The idea was to manipulate the controls so he could climb out. But no matter what players did, they couldn’t get him out of that damned pit. Pretty soon, the players felt
they
were in a pit. Millions of copies were returned or remained on shelves. The first home version of
Pac-Man
didn’t fare much better. It functioned so poorly that twelve million of those went back to the warehouse. The manufacturer got so disgusted that it dug a huge pit in the New Mexico desert. Ironic, given that the
E.T.
game’s problems involved a pit. The company dumped all those games, packed them down with a steamroller, and poured concrete over them. How’s
that
for a time capsule? One day in the future, maybe after a nuclear war or a catastrophic weather change exposes that concrete lid, somebody’ll find those millions of video games and wonder what was so important about them that they were saved for posterity.
Pac-Man
. Did you ever stop to consider that the game always ends in Pac-Man’s death? The smiley guy gets eaten and shrivels. In fact, a lot of games end in death. But players keep trying again, doing their hardest to postpone the inevitable. The SAVE button allowed a form of immortality. Players work their way through obstacles in a game until a threatening decision is required. They save what they’ve accomplished. Then they move forward in the game. If their avatar dies, they return to the saved position and try another decision and another. Or else, they pay for cheat codes, which allow them to avoid threats and get a new life in the game. Either way, the avatar is capable of constant rebirth. Players achieve in a game what they can’t in life. Immortality.”

“You bastard, you think you can hit a SAVE button or use a cheat code to bring my husband back to life?” Viv screamed.

“Or Bethany!” Amanda shouted. “You think you can bring
her
back?”

“I never allowed cheat codes in my games.
North by Northwest
,” the voice said.

“What?” The sudden change of topic made Amanda’s mind spin.

“When you spoke about Mount Rushmore earlier, I meant to tell you about the Hall of Records.”

At once, Amanda realized that her mind spun not just because the Game Master kept shifting topics. Her breathing was labored. The air in the small enclosure was becoming stale, accumulating carbon dioxide.

“The Rushmore monument was started in the 1930s during the Great Depression,” the Game Master explained. “The carved faces of the four presidents were intended to represent the solidity of the United States at a time when the country and the world seemed to be falling apart.”

Amanda noticed that Viv’s breathing, too, was forced. “We need to get fresh air in here.”

They tilted the door outward. Amanda took deep breaths of cold, sweet air. Then rain poured in, and they covered the entrance.

“Some Rushmore organizers were so fearful about the nation’s survival that they designed a chamber called the Hall of Records. The plan was to build the chamber under the monument and use it to store the Declaration of Independence and other important American documents. If rioting destroyed the nation, those treasures would be protected.”

Amanda lowered her head. Fear, cold, and fatigue drained her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open.

“But as the economy improved and social unrest waned, the project was abandoned.”

Dozing, Amanda barely noticed that the isolated drops of water stopped falling through the roof. The sound of the rain became fainter.

“Finally, in 1998, a historical group sealed documents about Mount Rushmore into the small portion of the Hall of Records that was completed a half century earlier.”

The noise of the rain stopped altogether.

“Another time capsule,” the Game Master whispered.

2

Hunt Field Airport, Lander, Wyoming, ten minutes after midnight.

As the Learjet touched down, Balenger stared out a window toward the lights on the runway, which glistened from recent rain. He waited impatiently to get into motion again. Before leaving Teterboro Airport, he’d made several phone calls and now prayed for the results he’d been promised.

The jet’s engines slowed, their muffled whine stopping. After the hatch was opened, he went down steps, saw a lighted window, and walked through puddles toward a door.

Inside, he found a mustached man in a cowboy hat sitting behind a counter watching a World War Two movie on a small television. “You Frank Balenger?” the man asked.

“That’s right.”

“Your rental car’s outside. The guy who brought it from town said to remind you there’s a surcharge for after-hours service.”

“That was the agreement.”

“Sign these papers. Show me your credit card and driver’s license.”

Balenger went out the front of the building and found a dark, waterdotted Jeep Cherokee. As promised, maps lay on the passenger seat. He studied them with the help of the overhead light.

“Can you give us a ride into town?” one of the pilots asked.

“It’s on my way.”

“You wouldn’t think an airport this small would be busy this time of night,” the other pilot said.

Balenger almost let the remark pass. A warning thought made him ask, “What do you mean?”

“The fellow inside told us a Gulfstream flew in five minutes before we did. Just like you, only one passenger. Funny thing, that flight also came from Teterboro.”

“What?” Balenger dropped the maps on the seat and went back inside the building. “Someone flew in on a Gulfstream from Teterboro?” he asked the man in the cowboy hat.

“Five minutes ago. A woman. She just drove off.”

“What did she look like?”

“Didn’t pay attention.”

“In her forties? Hair pulled back in a bun?”

“Now that you mention it.”

3

On Lander’s main street, Balenger let the pilots out at the Wind River Motel, then continued. The Jeep’s tires whispered on wet pavement as he studied the sprawl of low buildings. He stopped in a parking lot of a bar, familiarized himself with a map of local businesses, and drove to a sporting-goods store. By then, it was after midnight. The windows were dark, the place closed. But at least, he knew its location and could find it quickly the next morning. He drove to a truck stop, got a strong cup of coffee to go, returned to the Jeep, set the mileage indicator, and headed north along Highway 287. He passed a sign that warned ELK CROSSING. To his left, snow capped the hulking shadows of the mountains. Only occasional headlights came in his direction. Most belonged to pickup trucks and SUVs. One was a police car.

“Fifty miles,” Professor Graham had said. When the Jeep’s distance indicator reached 40, Balenger started looking for roads that led off the highway toward the mountains. He lowered his speed and studied the first one. It was primitive and blocked by a gate. The lights from the Jeep showed that there weren’t any tire tracks in the mud. The next side road didn’t have a gate, but there, too, Balenger didn’t see any tracks. He drove all the way to mile 60. Of the remaining four side roads, only two had tire tracks. He checked a map. Neither road was marked on it. The map didn’t have topographical features, so he couldn’t tell if either road led to a mountain valley. But the road at mile 58 was in line with lights in a building, whereas the road at mile 48 had only dark mountains beyond it.

The time was 1:52 a.m. When Balenger returned to Lander, the dashboard clock showed 2:48. Exhausted, he checked into a motel, lay on the covers of the bed, and might even have slept a little. The motel’s desk clerk phoned to wake him at eight as requested. He showered and used a razor and toothbrush that he’d bought from the truck stop the night before. He almost didn’t take the time to clean up, but he remembered an old movie,
The Hustler
, in which Paul Newman plays an epic pool game with Jackie Gleason. Newman’s character doesn’t shave and looks increasingly disheveled while Gleason washes his hands and face, gets his jacket brushed, and puts a fresh flower in his jacket’s lapel. Gleason wins.

Balenger drove to a McDonalds and got take-out orange juice, coffee, hash browns, and two Egg McMuffins. He ate them in his car while waiting for the sporting-goods store to open, as its sign promised, at nine.

The store sold firearms. He walked along a counter on the left and paused at the semiautomatic rifles.

“Anything special you’re looking for?” The clerk was hefty, wearing jeans, a denim shirt, and a belt buckle shaped like a saddle.

“Got any Bushmasters.” Balenger referred to a civilian version of the M–16 he’d carried in Iraq.

“Fresh out.”

“Let me look at that Ruger Mini–14.”

“The ranch gun? Sure.”

The clerk took it from a group of rifles in a vertical rack. He pulled out its magazine and tugged back its bolt, showing Balenger that it was empty.

Balenger inspected the weapon. As its name implied, it was a cut-down version of the military’s M–14, the precursor to the M–16. But unlike the harsh, distinctly military look of most assault rifles, the Mini–14’s blue steel and wooden stock made it resemble a standard hunting rifle. Indeed, its comparatively benign appearance caused it to be exempted from a 1994–2004 law that made it illegal to sell semiautomatic assault weapons in the United States, even though the Mini–14 fired the same .223 caliber and could deliver as much firepower as the civilian version of the M–16. When Balenger was in law enforcement, he’d known police officers who carried Mini–14s in their cars, choosing that model because it was compact.

“Good for varmint hunting,” the clerk said.

“Got any Winchester 55-grain Ballistic Silvertips?”

“Long-range accurate. Nice fragmentation. You know your ammo. How many boxes?”

Balenger knew there were twenty rounds per box. “Ten.”

“You must have a lot of varmints.”

“New rifle. Need to sight it in. Better make it fifteen.”

“All it comes with is that five-round magazine,” the clerk said apologetically.

“Got any for twenty rounds?”

“A couple.”

“I’ll take them. How about a red-dot sight?”

“This Bushnell HOLOsight.”

Balenger knew that the battery-powered sight used holographic technology to impose a red dot over its target. But the dot wasn’t projected in the manner of a laser beam, thus giving away the shooter’s position. Rather, the dot was projected only within the sight. Lining it up with the target was remarkably easy, virtually assuring an accurate shot. “You’ll attach it for me? Good. I’ll take that Emerson CQC–7 knife. A sling for the rifle. A knapsack. Tan camping boots and clothes. A first-aid kit. A canteen. Rain gear. Gloves. Wool socks. A flashlight. That wide-brimmed tan hat. Sunglasses. Sunscreen. A box of energy bars. And binoculars that convert to night vision.”

“It’s nice to have a customer who knows what he wants.”

Balenger gave him a credit card.

“Sign here for the ammo,” the clerk said.

Recalling his Ranger training, Balenger added, “I also need a compass and a topographic map of the eastern Wind River Range.”

“Which section?”

Balenger went to a map on the wall and pointed.

He put his purchases in the back of the Jeep, then drove to a truck stop on Highway 287, where he filled the canteen and bought a case of water along with a packet of Kleenex. The latter was a substitute for something he’d forgotten in the sporting-goods store and was as crucial as the water. He also bought a roll of duct tape from a shelf next to radiator hoses.

Back in the Jeep, he studied the topographic map. The valley wasn’t difficult to locate. As Professor Graham had told him, it was the only valley in the area that had a lake. Most of the roads he’d checked the previous night were also indicated on the map, but not the one where he’d seen the unexplained tire tracks, even though he believed
that
road did lead to the valley, just as he believed that Karen Bailey was in the vehicle that made the tracks. She presumably went to meet her brother. But if Balenger followed that road, the Game Master . . . Why don’t I want to call him Jonathan Creed? Balenger wondered ... the Game Master was virtually certain to notice him. Virtually certain. The words struck Balenger as morbidly apt. The Game Master’s world was virtual. Studying the map, he noticed that a little farther north, a road ran in the general direction of the valley but then stopped where the foothills blocked the way.