Stealing Trinity (22 page)

"Mitchell's wife says her husband was hired out on a charter to Minnesota."

"Shouldn't be hard to find," the FBI man said. "We'll put out a bulletin to check all the airfields along the way."

Thatcher wondered how many there could be. Thanks to the war, England had become littered with them. Then he remembered Lydia's idea. "I think we should cast the net a bit wider," he insisted.

"Why?"

"Well, does this project of yours have a site in New Mexico?"

Jones exploded. "God dammit! That's it!"

Thatcher held the receiver away from his ear.

"You're done, Thatcher! Pack your bags and go home! If you're feet are still on American soil by nightfall, I'm sending the two biggest oafs I can find to escort you to a very slow boat. Go home now! That's an order!" The click was next, and when Thatcher hung up he smiled. He had his answer. He went back to the library.

"Well, is the bastard going to do anything?" Sargent asked.

"Yes. He's going to send me back to England because I'm interfering."

Sargent seethed openly.

"Will you go?" Lydia asked.

"Eventually. But I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Is that in New Mexico?"

"Arizona," Lydia said.

"Close enough."

"What can we do to help?" Sargent said.

"My official capacity here is -- well, let's say it's always been on unsteady ground. In all honesty, I'm a little short on funds right now. I wasn't planning on such a long stay."

"Whatever you need, Major. Somehow I think you have a better chance of tracking down Alex Brown than the FBI." He went to the writing desk and scribbled out a check. As he held it out he studied Thatcher. "What is it, Thatcher? Why do you want this guy so bad?"

It was a fair question, one Thatcher had been asking himself. "He's been sent here to contact a spy, and I think that's why he might head to New Mexico. It's simply my job to stop him."

"Bullshit. I'm a good judge of people, Thatcher -- this is personal. Did you ever know Alex?"

"No. I never knew he existed until a few weeks ago."

Sargent Cole pressed. "Has he hurt someone you know? Committed a war crime?"

Thatcher shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. I suppose he represents something to me. My war was more quiet than some. Chasing after the likes of Alex Braun -- it keeps me in the fight." He paused. "Anyway, I'll leave first thing in the morning." He held up the check. "And thanks for this. I'll repay you when I get back to England."

Sargent Cole waved it off. "Just find him, Major."

"Yes," Lydia added, her eyes glassy and fogged, but her tone clear, "you must find him."

Thatcher looked at her squarely. The girl was shattered, yet trying to hold up. He ought to tell her that time would heal everything-- that's what he'd been told. Of course, it was a lie. His own wounds had proven incurable. Blight lingered on his soul. There was, Thatcher knew, only one truth he could offer. "I'll do my best," he said.

The changes came subtly. The earth's hue was based in brown, but striations of red and orange swept in more frequently. The farm fields of Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle gradually ceded, the land almost barren now for want of water. Riverbeds cut deep into the rocky ground but, as far as Braun could tell, all were dry.

The remoteness increased as each mile passed beneath him, and there were few signs of civilization. The colors deepened further as the Luscombe passed into New Mexico, darker shades of red that made it look as if the world had begun to oxidize. Braun was beginning to understand why the Americans had chosen this place. He hoped the remoteness was a sign that Die Wespe's information was indeed as important as Gruber had held it to be.

The lack of anything manmade did not aid his navigation. The last recognizable town had been a place called Tucumcari, a dusty group of buildings that had bulged along the rail line thirty minutes earlier. There, he'd left the track he was following to pick up another, one that would lead to Santa Fe. Since that time, he'd seen nothing he could use to cross-check his progress as the Luscombe bumped along through turbulent air. And there were other problems.

He'd first noticed it on landing back in Kansas. There, the field elevation had been 2,800 feet above sea level, far higher than the other places he'd landed. Now, with the airplane struggling to hold altitude at 7,000 feet, he thought the ground looked much closer. The roadmap disclosed that Albuquerque was situated at over 5,000 feet. Braun wondered if Santa Fe might be even higher. He saw mountains ahead, clear on the horizon. Could the Luscombe even manage it? Braun tossed the map to the passenger seat. If nothing else, he was close. He might have to find an airfield and land short. Even a road would do. There were still two days until the scheduled rendezvous with Die Wespe. If he couldn't fly into Santa Fe, he would find another way.

Cumulus clouds had begun to build in the mid-afternoon heat. Unable to fly over the cotton white obstacles, Braun turned left and right to skirt between them. As he tried to keep the railway in sight, turbulence shook the little plane with more authority. The airspeed needle bounced erratically, gaining ten miles an hour, then losing five. He remembered yesterday's storm in Kansas, and old Mitchell's penchant for worrying about the weather. A look ahead, however, eased Braun's concern. The lower clouds were still scattered and soft, topped by darker versions above. He would simply slide beneath it all.

Approaching the mountains, he noted yet another change in the landscape -- the sides of the hills were increasingly green, covered in thick vegetation. The mountain tops lay obscured, lost in a curtain of gray and black clouds. With the Luscombe at 8,000 feet now, the airspeed had deteriorated to only sixty miles an hour. Braun thought it a logical trade.

The railway meandered into a deep valley between two imposing mountains. Braun soon found himself guided less by his steady reference and more by the terrain. This had to be the gap where the tracks cut through the mountains, he decided. On the other side would be Santa Fe.

Craning to keep the railway in sight, Braun clipped the corner of a cloud, everything turning white for a few seconds. When he burst back in the clear, another was straight ahead. He turned hard to the left, but yet another patch of white swirled before him. This time it took longer to come out, and when the little plane broke clear there were darker shades in every direction. He continued to turn as he hit the next cloud deck, and after a few glimpses of white, the world turned a heavy gray. The Luscombe rattled and suddenly seemed to strike a wall of water. Rain smacked at the windscreen like rocks against a sheet of tin. The plane lurched and Braun's head struck the ceiling.

He saw nothing outside now, only a swirl of black. He was flying blind. The instruments had gone haywire, the altimeter now showing 10,000 feet, but dropping, the needle spinning backward like a clock gone crazy. His senses told him he was in a turn, and he fought against the stick. Eight thousand feet. Still fighting the turn, he yanked on the stick. The Luscombe gave a shudder -- and began a freefall. The stick flopped uselessly in Braun's lap. He had lost control.

Seven thousand feet. He felt dizzy, disoriented. Braun tried to make sense of instruments that were spinning wildly, an incoherent jumble of information. Outside, the ocean of darkness kept swirling, swallowing. Sixty-five hundred feet.

He took a deep breath. Just as in Russia and the Atlantic, Braun let go. He took his hand from the control stick and it bounced aimlessly between his legs. He closed his eyes. One minute, he thought. But for the first time, Braun knew he didn't have that long.

An instant of confusion swept in. Then, suddenly, a sensation of light. Calm and bright. Braun opened his eyes. The Luscombe had broken clear of the clouds -- but it might have been more merciful had it not. A mountain filled the windscreen, huge evergreen trees, slate gray rock in the gaps. The angle of dive was impossible, the earth and trees seconds away.

His hands instinctively went to the control stick. It felt firmer now, the craft somehow having found purchase on the thin air. The crash was imminent -- but there was one chance. Braun forced the stick to the right and pulled back for all he was worth.

Ben Geronima Walker stepped quietly through the woods. As a Mescalero Apache, the art of stalking game came quite naturally. He had learned from his father, a hunter of considerable skill. Of course, fifty years ago, before the opening of the Mescalero Grocery, the knowledge had been substantially more important. In fact, Ben Walker had not killed a deer in six years, his last a buck taken with a clean shot from fifty yards. On that occasion he'd done the fieldwork, dressing out over a hundred pounds of venison and hauling it to his truck.

Now, at seventy-two years old, he had no desire to take any more from the forest. He knew that kill had been his last. But he still went into the woods, the rifle his excuse. His quarry was different now -- he enjoyed the solitude, the spirituality of the forest. Throwing a tent in his truck, he would come here for days at a stretch to escape his nagging wife and the idiot who lived next door, a self-taught auto mechanic who banged away at ridiculously late hours. Here, in the mountains east of Pecos, Ben Walker found peace. And he'd had it all morning.

As was often the case, however, the afternoon had brought storms. The sky darkened quickly, and gusty winds swept through the pines, bringing the sweet scent of ozone. As was his custom, Walker planned on sitting out the showers in the cab of his truck, three or four cigarettes before edging back out into the fresh, cool air.

He was headed in that direction when he saw a flash through the trees. At first glance he thought it was a bird, big and white, swooping over the hill. But then he recognized the glint of metal, and heard the sound of snapping tree limbs violate the forests stillness. Birds flushed and animals scurried for cover. But then the interruption ended as suddenly as it had come, and the woods again retreated to a natural rhythm.

If he hadn't seen it, the metallic reflection, Walker probably would have kept going. But there had been something, just over the ridge to his right. It was a steep climb and he moved slowly, his knees and hips not what they were so many years ago. The Winchester rifle on his shoulder seemed heavier than usual. Cresting the rise, he saw the source of the commotion. At first he didn't recognize the mess for what it was. He saw dust and smoke, but gradually a white tube of sorts came into view. It was bent and twisted, looking vaguely like an airplane. But the thing had no wings.

He scampered as best he could, weaving between saplings and shrubs. Fifty feet away he stopped. He saw the tail now, clear with numbers and lettering. It was definitely an airplane -- and there was someone in it. A man crawled out, bent and twisted, just like the metal frame. Covered in blood, he stumbled clear and came unsteadily to his feet.

Walker rushed to him. "Let me help you!" he called.

The man used a shirtsleeve to wipe blood from his face, revealing a dazed expression.

Walker glanced into the airplane as he got closer. He saw no one else. "I can help! Are you able to walk? My truck is at the bottom of the hill. You need a hospital, mister."

Ben Walker took the Winchester off his shoulder and leaned it against a nearby tree. He held out a helping hand. Oddly, the bloodied face looking at him wrenched into a smile.

Chapter 28.

It was four in the morning when Lydia moved gingerly down the stairs. Each step was a new revelation in pain -- her hip, her ankle, everything seemed to hurt. But it was her own doing. The nurse her father had brought in had dispensed a ration of pills last evening. Discretely, Lydia had dropped them all behind her bed. She'd had enough of the drugs. Unfortunately, without them she'd not been able to sleep a wink.

Lying awake, Lydia had decided on a trip to the kitchen. When she arrived, she was surprised to see a light burning. The Englishman was seated at the servant's table with a plate of leftovers and a pot of tea. He stood when he saw her.

"Good morning, ma'am."

"Oh, please, Major. That makes me feel so old. Call me Lydia."

"All right, but then 'Major' is far too formal. I think Michael will do."

She smiled and turned toward the refrigerator. The movement was a bad one, and Lydia grimaced.

"Are you all right?" he asked, standing. "Can I get you something?"

"No, please. I... I'm rather tired of people doing things for me." She poured herself a glass of milk and joined him at the table. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I have to catch the first bus down to New York. Then a flight. And you? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

She grinned. "That's all I've been doing, Michael. Sleeping." She wanted to add, my entire life. Lydia shifted to a less uncomfortable position. "Actually, I stopped taking my medication last night."

"I see."

"I've been walking around the house in a daze. Yesterday I found myself in the garage, but I wasn't sure how I'd even got there. And do you know what the last straw was?"

"What?"

"I woke up and saw a dim light outside my window, but I had no idea -- none whatsoever -- whether it was dawn or dusk."

He nodded. "That happened to me once, in the hospital after my accident." He gestured to his leg.

She saw his ill-fitting pant leg. Somehow Lydia knew he wouldn't mind if she asked. "What happened?"

"I was the ordnance officer for a squadron of Lancaster bombers. I tagged along on a mission to do some troubleshooting, and we tangled with a flock of ME-109s. Our ship eventually went down, but not before ..." he hesitated, "not before I actually took up a gun position. The lad who'd been manning it was killed."

Lydia was riveted. "Did you actually shoot at any of them?"

He nodded. "It was the only chance I had through the entire war to look the enemy in the eye and pull a trigger." Thatcher looked blankly at the table. "I remember it like it was yesterday-- the Messerschmitt exploding. The fireball filled the sky."