The F-27 was already parked at the Interior terminal, forklifts doing their dance, and Reginald was nowhere in sight. I had parked the Chevy and was still calming down when a Mercedes, the twin of the one in Fairbanks, pulled out of the employee parking lot and hit International Airport Road. Reginald was at the wheel and I locked on two cars behind him.
He turned right on Minnesota, left on Dimond Boulevard. (Yeah, spelled correctly. It’s named for Judge Dimond, not the gem.) We drove halfway to the mountains and turned right again on the old Seward Highway. The town tapers off and stops after the Peanut Farm Lounge, so we were headed for the Rabbit Creek Inn. Good choice for an assignation. Good restaurant, a view of the mountains across Turnagain Arm, and discreet unless you bumped into an acquaintance on a similar project. I should bring Connie there next trip.
We drove right on by the Rabbit Creek Inn, passed the flats, and continued on the crooked shelf of Seward Highway. That’s an exciting drive. The Chugach Mountains on the left try to squeeze the highway into Turnagain Arm and occasionally spill rocks onto the pavement. The Arm itself is either a picturesque fiord or a disgusting mud flat, depending on the tide, and the mountains around Hope on the other side are worth the drive. The road is so crooked that I didn’t have to worry about being spotted until we got to the million-dollar mile. That’s a straight stretch, entirely built on fill after the ’64 earthquake submerged the old road.
At Girdwood, Reginald turned left into the valley. Two cars coming from the Portage direction made right turns to follow him, and I survived the left turn behind them. Maybe he was headed for the Double Muskee Inn, wonderful romantic spot, view to rival Switzerland and food to dream about. I should definitely bring Connie there next trip.
Forty-foot spruce hung over the road, but through the gaps, a view of Alyeska Mountain reared up on the right. It was scarred by almost annual avalanches, and by the ski lift that rose above it all. Reginald turned right and headed toward the ski lodge. One of the cars ahead of me went straight, the other turned, and I was number three pulling into the gravel lot in front of the massive log lodge.
That was the perfect place for an assignation. Ski season was still a month away, but the lift was running so tourists could ride up to the top of the mountain and down again. The view from the top of that mountain is more than worth the twenty-minute ride and the freezing year-around wind. You’re surrounded by mountains with a glimpse of the Arm and far enough away that it always looks good. The restaurant is wonderful, its big picture windows looking up at the mountain and the bunny slope, and the bar is suitably rustic with a massive stone fireplace and a predictable Alpine motif. Perfect place for an après ski toddy. Definitely have to bring Connie here.
Reginald drove right through the lot and turned right on the service road toward the ski lift, then right again behind the row of detached chalets. It would have been a little pointed to follow him there, but the road only ran fifty yards behind four matching units. I parked in the lot facing the lodge and rolled down the passenger window. I saw the Mercedes pass behind the first two units, but it didn’t come out from behind the third.
A young athletic type bounded down the steps from the chalet and strode around the corner toward the back. This kid was a Norse Adonis, if that’s not too great a cultural stretch. Just over six feet, long blond hair, and a wisp of blond mustache. He had the slender athletic build of a professional ski instructor. In one minute he was back, and Reginald was right behind him. The kid opened the door and ushered Reginald in, but just before he disappeared, Reginald reached back and squeezed the kid’s bum.
I didn’t upchuck. I spun the Chevy around and burned the pavement back to the airport. I was strolling down the hall toward the rental booths this time, and Trish gave me her glorious smile.
“Hi, Alex, did you make it in time?”
“Yep, thanks to you. I can’t talk about it, but you and I averted an international incident.”
“What’s the matter with your face?”
“Just a little gunshot wound, nothing to worry about. How much for the car?”
“Company reimbursing?”
“Yep, deepest pockets in the world.”
“I thought so. I charged you for a full day, is that all right?”
“Trish, the only thing that mattered was speed, and we did it. We’ll let the General Accounting Office pick up the pieces.” I signed the contract, solemnly folded the copy into my pocket, retrieved my card, and thanked her with the ten-thousand-watt official smile. She blushed with pride. I stomped back through the building and out to the airplane.
I made it back to Fairbanks, refueled the plane, and was again on duty as the lot watchman by a quarter to three. I’d barely had time to get bored when a sleek Piper Apache with the gold star logo of Cordova Air landed. That was a good excuse to move my vigil to the coffee shop at the terminal. I made it to a seat by the window just as the passengers deplaned from the Apache. The plane taxied across the ramp and parked on the tarmac. The pilot climbed out and strode toward the terminal. I had been hoping it would be Tommy Olsen, and it was.
Tommy and I got to be good buddies down in Juneau. We’d both delivered legislators for an emergency session, got in just ahead of a storm, and were weathered in solid. We spent two days hunkered down in the Baranoff Hotel, most of it in the bar. A Taku wind tried to rip the islands out of the channel and deposited ice about two inches per hour on everything. That old hotel creaked and groaned, ice and water were screaming sideways up Franklin Street, but the bar was warm and very well stocked. I don’t remember a lot about those days, except that the waitress was named Donica and was the prettiest little mixture of Russian and Haida Indian ever born. Other than that, Tommy and I shared our life stories, sometimes drunk, sometimes sober, but the bond was established.
“Hey, Tommy, over here.”
“Alex? Kinda far from home, and what’s with the bandage? You prang an airplane?”
“Nah, Second Avenue bar and no backup. You here for a while?”
“Long enough to scarf down a hamburger and a cuppa joe. You?”
“Little longer, personal business.”
Tommy waved down a waitress and ordered a hamburger. I asked for coffee.
“I gather you’ve spent some time here recently. I noticed you made a flight for Interior.”
“No, not that I remember. I’ve been through a few times, seasonal fishermen heading home and such, but I haven’t stayed over.”
“You sure? You never flew that new turbine Twin Otter of theirs?”
The waitress brought our coffee and Tommy sipped. “Alex, I’m pretty sure. I have forgotten a few things. Sometimes I can’t remember which bars I’ve hit, and once in a while I can’t remember who I hit them with. That’s particularly awkward when she’s still in bed with me in the morning, but no, I don’t think I’ve forgotten any flights.”
The waitress slapped his burger on the table when she ran past with an armload of plates destined elsewhere. He glanced at his watch and stuffed his mouth full.
“My mistake. I thought I saw your name on a flight ticket, must have been someone else. Business good?”
He chewed and took a sip, but still had his mouth full. “Too good this week, probably nothing next. I’ve been to Kodiak, Anchorage, and now here since six o’clock this morning, and if I don’t get a two-hundred-mile-per tailwind, I’ll be late for a flight to Homer.” He shoved the rest of his burger into his mouth, tried to wash it down.
“I’ll get the check. See you around.”
“Thanks, Alex, I’ll look for you at the Baranoff.” He skipped out, still chewing. I signaled the waitress for a refill and watched Tommy almost run across the apron and scramble up into the Apache. He fired engines and was rolling. I could see him talking on the radio while he taxied toward the runway. He made an intersection takeoff rather than taxi back to the end, and he was gone.
I was perplexed. I was positive I’d seen Tommy’s name on a flight ticket at Interior. I remembered being surprised, but it didn’t seem like I could have been mistaken. I finished the coffee and paid the tab. The waitress was a pretty little thing with one too many buttons open on her blouse, so I tipped her two dollars.
A jet slammed down and shook the terminal when the pilots honked on the reverse thrusters. I made the excursion down to the passenger area and watched the arrivals, but didn’t see Dave or any obvious assassins.
I gave up my vigil and met Angie at the back door of the Lathrop Building. When she got in, I made a U-turn and headed back to our old haunt at the River’s Edge for an evening of nostalgia.
“You’re tired of my cooking already?”
“Angie, at the peak of gustatory delight, you need to stop and cleanse the palate. Besides, I’m developing dishwater hands.”
“By proxy? All you’ve done is dry. Did you find Reginald’s paramour?”
“That I did. Very attractive, slender six-footer with long blond hair, real athletic type. You’d have been impressed.”
“So, why isn’t Reginald showing her?”
“Bit more complicated. Maybe because his mustache is a little wispy?”
“Reginald’s?”
“No, his lover’s.”
“Oh no, don’t tell me.”
“I thought you insisted on all the frightening details.”
“Okay, so tell me. Could that have been what Stan overheard?”
“Possible, but the lover isn’t the wolverine type. I still think it was Dave that Stan overheard.”
“You don’t suppose Reginald and Dave are lovers?”
“Possible, but how about this? Suppose Dave knows Reginald’s preferences and is blackmailing him?”
We arrived at the River’s Edge. The receptionist looked as if she was going to kiss us and took us straight to our usual table. We ordered the lamb but Angie wanted a bottle of pinot noir. I think she was expanding my horizons. The wine was served along with bread and butter. We sipped and did the smiley face thing. Our Caesar salads were almost instant.
Angie tore a chunk of bread and buttered it. “Do you suppose Dave has his eye on a political office if Reginald is elected?”
“I doubt it. I think Dave knows that Reginald’s chances of election are written on a snowball in hell. I think it’s more immediate, something to do with the business, and consider this. If Dave thinks that we know, and we might blow the whistle, there goes his blackmail scheme, and that just might be valuable enough to kill for.”
“Not trying to worry me with bombshells?”
Our dinners arrived and we dug in. When I had my mouth empty again, the subject was still hanging in the air.
“Angie, that was just a little bombshell. After that, I was going to worry you with a very strange conversation I had today.”
“New blonde, or more of the same?”
“No, kind of a grizzled dishwater with gray around the edges. A pilot I know from Cordova stopped by for a snack. What’s bothering me is he said he’d never flown the Interior Otter, but I could swear I saw his name on a flight ticket.
“Another strange thing keeps bothering me. Interior keeps a Howard and a pilot standing by at Point Barrow, but why would they do that? If freight was sent to Point Barrow on the mail plane he could shuttle it to Prudhoe, but the mail planes are Interior’s competition. Interior flies the Skyvan direct, Fairbanks to Prudhoe almost every day, so why keep a plane at Point Barrow?”
“Maybe he’s shuttling the other way? Picking up stuff they drop at Prudhoe and taking it to Point Barrow?”
“Possible, but there couldn’t be enough to justify a full-time pilot unless there’s something very illegal and profitable in the shipments.”
“You mean like drugs?”
“Could be. Barrow’s a good-sized village. Drugs on mail planes get sniffed out by dogs and such, but freight to Prudhoe isn’t suspect, so a shuttle would get it into the village.”
Angie was considering and nodding. She poured the last drops of pinot noir into our glasses.
“Alex, it could be the other way. Walrus ivory used to be a big export from Point Barrow, but now it’s illegal to sell raw ivory. Natives can possess it, but it has to be a work of art if they sell it, so it has to be scrimshawed. That only raises the price of raw ivory and it’s really valuable now.”
“Okay, one way or another there could be big bucks coming out of Barrow. Maybe not enough money to kill for, but illegal enough. Maybe I should run up to Barrow in the morning and have a chat with Mr. Alvin Hopson.”
“Really? Can I come with? I’ve never been north of Fairbanks.”
“Sure. Can you get the day off?”
“Very likely. Let me work on it.”
“Fine, I’ll appreciate the company, but bring a good book with you. We’re talking about hours of boredom here.”
We blasted into a clear blue sky at eight thirty in the morning. The Skyvan was already missing and I wondered where he’d gone. I opted not to file a flight plan because those are public and anyone in the air can hear the radio. Flight plans aren’t for the benefit of the aircraft; they’re for the benefit of the searchers if something goes wrong. If you put a plane down and need to be found, you have a locator beacon on board for that purpose. I didn’t want Interior to hear me file a flight plan to Point Barrow.
Angie was glued to the window so I stayed low for the view. That cost us some speed and a little extra fuel, but made the flight a lot more scenic. Angie was wearing her leather jacket with the faux fur nestled around her cheeks and was so darned attractive it was hard to keep from staring. Someday when we’re both sober, I should really try to tell her what a lovely lady she is. Meantime, I fudged right of our course and flew through the White Mountains.
They have some spectacularly rugged areas, and flying up the creeks rather than over the top is fun. We spotted Dahl sheep on several hillsides, then waterfalls where new snow was melting and gushing down cliffs. Angie was beaming and pointing every which way.
“Alex, why did you say it was boring? Oh, look, there’s sheep on that hillside.”
“Just wait. We’ve got two hours to go.”
“Wonderful, I could do this forever.”
The mountains tapered off and the Yukon Flats spread out. That’s interesting too, because the river divides into a dozen channels at that point, and altogether is close to twenty miles wide. Moose and beaver would be old stuff to Angie, but fall colors still carpeted the flats so I dropped down to a thousand feet and got the full effect of the twisting river and sloughs.
The village of Beaver was hugging the northern bank of the main channel on our right. I realized we were farther east than I’d intended, and was about to turn back toward Barrow when I noticed a moving speck in the sky above us. We were catching it fast, so I stayed behind it and climbed up a bit. It was Interior’s Skyvan on a direct course for Prudhoe Bay.
Angie was studying the plane above us. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Yep, that’s Interior making their morning milk run. Might be fun to beat him to Prudhoe. If the pilot is Freddy it will be awkward, but if we catch him offloading cocaine, it will be awkward anyhow, and if the Howard is there to meet him, mission accomplished. Besides, it probably isn’t Freddy. The plane left Fairbanks too early for that.”
Angie shrugged and turned to watch the village go by. A dozen log cabins were scattered along the riverbank. A yellow wooden frame building was the BIA school, and the larger log building on the west end was the store and general community center. What looked like a dirt road paralleled the river, but it was only a quarter-mile long and had an orange windsock flapping against a pole beside the east end.
I dropped us right down to the deck and used the descent to pick up speed. We were indicating two hundred knots when we passed the Skyvan, a solid fifty knots faster than he was and six thousand feet below him. I figured there was very little chance of us being spotted and no chance at all of being identified.
The river dropped behind, the ground started to rise and support a few spruce trees. “Angie, see that bright red stripe on the ground?”
“Where?”
“Right there at the edge of the trees.”
“I don’t see anything. What the heck are you talking about?”
“Darn, you missed it. We just crossed the Arctic Circle.”
“Alex, I may be a dumb little girl from the bush, but no one is stupid enough to fall for that.”
“Angie, you’d be surprised. I’ve even had passengers who claimed to see it. Anyhow, you’re officially in the Arctic. I’ll have Vickie mail you a certificate when I get home.”
“Is that part for real?”
“Yep, suitable for framing. Good grief, look at that beaver dam.” The dam must have been a quarter of a mile long and backed up a lake big enough to support half a dozen resorts. The ground climbed fast, the Endicott Mountain Range was coming up, and tendrils of fog instead of waterfalls were leaking out of the valleys. We followed the ground up, and the higher we got, the more clouds I could see against the far mountains. At ten thousand feet there was a gray carpet below us with occasional eight-thousand-foot peaks sticking through like islands. That cloud layer appeared to reach clear to the North Pole.
“What do we do now?” Angie asked.
“Hey, me heap big Gussak honey bee. We fly straight to Prudhoe Bay, what else?”
“You have X-ray vision?”
“Sort of. That’s what all these little clocks on the dashboard are for. They’re not very exciting now, but as soon as we pass the mountains, they’ll all start to flash and beep and whistle and lead us right down to Prudhoe.”
“It’s a good thing I know you never exaggerate.”
Mountains tapered off and stopped sticking through, but the cloud reached on forever. First the automatic direction finder (ADF) swung around to point at the non-directional beacon (NDB) at Prudhoe. I corrected three degrees east and centered the needle. Then the VHF omni-directional range (VOR) flag began to flicker with a signal from Point Barrow. I turned the compass indicator to west and the
To
flag settled down, but the needle was off scale to the right.
“Angie, these are the hours of boredom. You did bring a book with you?”
“Yes, I brought a good book, but it’s hard to concentrate when you’re terrified.”
“Yeah, that’s why I never read while I’m flying.” I keyed the microphone. “Point Barrow Radio, Cessna Eight-Zero-Eight-Four Zulu out of Bethel requesting current Barrow weather.”
“Eight-Four Zulu, current weather five hundred feet and one mile. Altimeter two-nine point nine-five, wind north at seven. Please state your destination.”
“Barrow Radio, no particular destination, just a sightseeing trip. Thanks.” I switched the radio to the Prudhoe Unicom. The Barrow VOR was straight magnetic west of us. Geographically, Barrow is north of Prudhoe, and if you live in Kansas City, you may think there isn’t much difference between magnetic and geographic directions, but that close to the pole, the difference is eighteen degrees. When the VOR said Barrow was magnetic west, I reduced power and dropped down into the cloud. It bumped a little, not bad. I kept the ADF needle centered on Prudhoe.
“Alex, can we go back to boredom?”
“Any moment now. We’re down to four thousand feet. See, this needle here is pointing toward Prudhoe Bay. We just keep it centered.”
“Oh, goody. I feel much better.”
The needle wavered, then swung around to point behind us.
“Now what?”
“Now, we’re over Prudhoe at two thousand feet. We fly straight ahead for two minutes while we drop down to five hundred feet, turn around and go back.”
“How do you know we won’t hit a mountain?”
“Because there’s nothing taller than an oil derrick within fifty miles. Be quiet and read your book.”
I started a two-minute turn to the left. Angie grabbed her seat and took on that morning-after-the-Wagon-Wheel pallor.
“Prudhoe Radio, Cessna Eight-Four Zulu, initial approach fix.”
“Eight-Four Zulu, authorization, please.”
“Interior Air Freight, second section.”
“Eight-Four Zulu, we have a Skyvan authorized, we do not have a Cessna.”
“Can you check it out? I’m on final approach. The Skyvan is the first section and he’s right behind us, we’re just a little faster.”
“Better break off. If you land, the aircraft will be confiscated, and you with it.”
“I’m declaring an emergency. Not enough fuel to return.”
“Fine. Same difference. Land and your ass is grass. Suit yourself.”
We were down to three hundred feet, white frosty tundra flashing by below us. “Angie, look sharp. We’re going to fly right down their runway. We’re looking for a Howard, a red boxy airplane with one big radial engine on the front. You look on your side, I’ll watch the left.”
“Are we really out of gas, Alex?”
“Heck no, and he knows it. Here comes the runway.”
I slowed us up to eighty but didn’t drop gear or flaps. We flew the length of the strip at fifty feet. Half a dozen aircraft were tied down, none that remotely resembled a Howard. Tan buildings with round corners went by, self-contained metal affairs that looked as if they were designed for a lunar colony, which might be close to true. I poured on the coal and climbed back into the cloud.
“I didn’t see it.” Angie was shaking her head, half negation, half shock. “Now what?”
“Now, we grab some lunch. How about a hamburger patty at the Barrow Road House?”
“Do we stop this time, or do I grab it while we fly by?”
We climbed to a thousand feet and turned magnetic west, sky the consistency of a vanilla milkshake. Angie was biting her lip and staring at the white windshield. “You do have some idea where we’re going?”
“Sure, smell the hamburgers? We just follow the aroma to its source.”
I didn’t bother to climb, so it took five minutes before the Barrow VOR locked on. “Barrow radio, Eight-Four Zulu. We decided to stop for lunch, estimating Barrow in ten minutes.”
“No reported traffic. Everyone else is too smart to be flying. Are you enjoying your sightseeing?”
“Immensely. We’ve taken a thousand pictures. We’re over the middle marker.”
“Eight-Four Zulu, cleared to land.”
Landing gear came down with a satisfying clunk and three green lights glowed. Flaps whirred down to twenty degrees, engines protested the adjustment to high RPM, but slowed us down. White cloud below us changed from milk to cottage cheese, then morphed to tundra, and the outlying approach lights whiffed beneath us. The tarmac runway was still black, not yet frosted over. Single-family houses went by on our left looking like storm survivors, which they were, but that wasn’t the cause of the irregular shapes. Each house had been built by its owner out of whatever materials came to hand. The results were solid and snug, but strange by suburban standards.
We flew more than halfway down the strip before we touched down and still had to taxi a hundred yards to the apron. Barrow is not the usual Eskimo village. Because of its location, it’s a regional hub with a runway that can handle anything flying and has instrument landing capabilities. There’s a lot of airline traffic over the pole, and Barrow is the first possible landing for a plane in trouble. Also, Barrow is home to the Holmes and Narver Arctic Research Center maintained by the navy.
The research center is located five miles from the village on the last possible spit of land, with more of the moon-colony type buildings and a road to get there. That accounted for the occasional rusting hulks of dead pickups in some front yards. We taxied into the tie-down area, surrounded by half a dozen Piper Cubs and Cessna one-eighties, a Cessna one-seventy-two, and a Beech Barron, but no Howard.
“Kinda big, huh?” Angie was looking at the cluster of houses around the runway, and they were a confusing mass, maybe ten times as many as a typical Eskimo village. True to the Eskimo custom, they were arranged without regard to surveys and seemed to huddle together for warmth. The first impression is of dark clutter, but that’s not fair. Houses aren’t painted, but there might not be two days a year when paint would dry in Barrow.
One house had two beaver hides and a seal skin nailed to the wall, the beavers a circle, the seal an oval. They added to the impression of clutter, but to their owner, they were money in the bank. A couple of buildings were two stories, looming over the usual low-roofed jumble. Those were the store and the Road House, both owned by Hopsons. Angie was staring at a whale vertebrae beside a house. It was the size of a chair and probably used for a seat. I caught her hand and pulled her toward an opening between houses.
“Come on, I promised you a hamburger, remember?”
“Oh yeah, still following the aroma?”
“Yep, it’s leading toward that big building on the right.” We wound between houses and tromped up the wooden stairs. The first door opened into an Arctic entry, bare wooden floor and plywood walls. The next let us into a low-ceilinged dining room with six long wooden tables under fluorescent lights.
The room was capable of seating sixty people family style, but only one chair was occupied. A bear of a man, sporting a shock of white hair and wearing overalls over a red wool shirt, sat at the table nearest the kitchen. Old Eben wore a two-day accumulation of white stubble and his usual satisfied smile. He well deserved the smile, lord of all he surveyed and revered by every soul on the North Slope.
“Hey, Alex, welcome to God’s country. You got yourself a wife?” He turned to shout toward the kitchen. “Ellie, need two hamburgers and two coffees.” He hadn’t bothered to ask because anyone who arrives in Barrow hasn’t had food for several hours. His specifying hamburgers was because I’m a Gussak (Caucasian). The Road House has plenty of variety but mostly local Eskimo foods. Gussaks either wouldn’t like them or their systems couldn’t stand them, so he didn’t take chances. If you think I’m kidding, try a plate of muktuk or blubber, or maybe a beaver with the head on and the eyes staring at you. Black fish the size of sardines are served in the round. That makes good sense because the Eskimo diet is short on vegetables. The fish has been eating plankton, so if you don’t clean the fish, they will prevent scurvy. The bones are soft enough to crunch and if you’re squeamish you bite the head off and swallow it whole.
Angie was hanging back so I pulled her by the hand again. “Eben, this is my sister-in-law, Angie.” I needed to squelch the wife assumption because it wouldn’t play well in some villages.
Eben stared, his smile flickered off, and his features turned to stone. He had registered that Angie was Indian. He had to work fast, replace thousands of years of animosity with the new veneer of tolerance, before his smile inched back up. Angie was having the same reaction, almost cowering behind me and gripping my jacket, but when Eben got control, she relaxed and came around beside me.
“Hi,” was all she could manage.