Wren drove Shaw to the address provided by Rangi, near the southern tip of Lake Union. The primary location for seaplane flights out of the city. A handful of passenger and sightseeing companies operated off the same collection of docks, with space for private aircraft to tie up during the day.
“Don’t forget your bag,” Wren said.
“In a minute,” said Shaw, leaning across to kiss her.
She’d stayed at Shaw’s apartment overnight, a rare occurrence. In the six months they’d been seeing each other, Wren had slept over an equal number of times. Sleeping being a relative term, and not only because of sex. Wren stayed awake much of the time, in Shaw’s living room, reading or watching television. She had told Shaw she didn’t rest well away from her own bed. Shaw had tried staying at her place twice, and her story checked out. Wren had slept soundly while Shaw had been the one staring at the ceiling, either awkwardly twisted in the sheets on her cramped full-size bed or trying to ignore her housemates arguing or screwing or both. Maybe it was a childhood thing, he thought. Wren had come from a large family. Shaw had barely had anyone around at all.
“You’re back on Thursday?” Wren asked when they surfaced for air.
“Best guess. Could be longer or shorter.”
“I get back to town and you leave. We should coordinate the next trip.”
“Together?” he said.
“Why not? Perhaps if the bed is new to both of us, it’ll even out.”
He grinned and reached into the backseat of her battered Jeep to grab his duffel. He’d packed underwear and socks for four nights, three changes of clothes, spare boots, and a heavier coat than the gray barn jacket he wore now. The forecast claimed the beautiful June weather would continue all week. Maybe Rohner had paid off the clouds. Shaw preferred to trust his own experience when it came to the mercurial Seattle climate.
The clothes served as padding for his gear. Frequency scanners for wireless alarm signals, portable power tools, a spare tablet computer, and a few other electronics. Rohner had said no burglary would be required, but even a cursory evaluation of the estate’s system might require a specialist’s touch.
“Ever been to Kyoto?” Wren asked as Shaw shut the passenger door.
“I’ve never been across the Pacific,” he said. “Every place the Army sent us out of Fort Benning was east.”
“I’d like to see Japan. With you.”
“Is Japanese one of your languages?” Shaw said.
“No.”
“Good. We’ll both start from square one.”
Wren said, “Race you there,” and drove off.
Shaw slung the duffel over his shoulder and headed for a long, white two-story building.
C.J. was waiting at the railing. No flight-attendant uniform today. Just a white shirt and blue jeans and running shoes even brighter than the blouse.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hello. Is this a Revol Air flight, too?”
“Kinda. We run a regular shuttle to Vancouver. Droma has a lot of managers and executives working here or there or both. Part of the innovation corridor between our nations.”
“And your clients pay for that?”
“The clients pay for the talent,” C.J. said, with the same implied wink as she’d had at Paine Field. “The shuttle helps recruit that talent for Droma.”
Shaw followed her into the office. The orange D logo of Droma was painted on the front window and again in reverse on the window to the rear. The office’s interior was simple to the point of being deliberately bland, though the view of the lake made up for it.
“Pilot for one airline, attendant for the other,” Shaw said, “and Rangi told me you arrange the executives’ commercial flights, too. That’s a lot of juggling.”
“It was just the pilot work at first,” C.J. said, moving behind one of the desks to collect paperwork. “Paid by the job. Then their local travel coordinator quit, and I made an offer to handle everything Rangi doesn’t. Worked out. I’ll be a pilot for Revol Air, too, once I’m certified for that level.”
“Onward and upward,” Shaw said.
C.J. smiled. “Exactly, Mr. Shaw.”
“Van.”
“Van. And which diversification of Mr. Rohner’s are you with? Not everyone rates a private flight to Briar Bay.”
“I’m also an independent. Facilities manager for the island. If this week goes well, we’ll see.”
She placed the papers into a satchel. “Help yourself to coffee while I complete the prechecks.”
Shaw poured a cup and followed her out to the wide floating dock. The day promised to be perfect for flying, with a light wind and only a few scattered mares’ tails of cirrus clouds. Shaw fished his sunglasses out of his pocket. Floatplanes of various vintages bobbed gently on either side of the dock, their pontoons squeaking against the recycled tires that formed an unbroken line of fenders. Like young birds eager to leave the nest.
The Droma plane was second on the right. A sleek white-over-blue single-prop. C.J. unlocked the door, tossed her satchel onto the pilot’s seat, and began a preflight check of the plane’s exterior. Shaw understood her surprise at his being granted a private hop. The plane had room for eight passengers not counting the pilot and copilot, and enough space at the rear of the cabin to store a full set of luggage for every one of them.
C.J. caught him looking over the plane’s fuselage. “You know planes?”
“Some. Last prop plane I was in was a Huron, I think.”
“In the military?” Shaw nodded. C.J. patted the plane’s wing. “This girl’s an Otter. A DHC, from the Great White North.”
“How long’s our flight?” Shaw asked.
“Just over an hour. Are you in a rush to get there?”
“No.”
“Good. We can take a little time and go up Rosario Strait and around. It’s a sightseer’s dream today, and I’ve barely seen that part of the islands.”
He finished his coffee while C.J. ran through the rest of her checklist. She invited Shaw to take the copilot’s chair, indicating a set of headphones hanging from a hook under the dash. He buckled in and adjusted the headset as she started the engine and cast off the last line. The engine heightened in pitch, and the plane eased away from the dock.
C.J. taxied slowly, careful of paddleboarders or other people on the lake. The nose of the plane drew parallel with the row of buoys that marked the runway on this side of the lake. She eased the throttle forward and the Otter surged ahead, the propeller spinning until only an afterimage of lazily rotating sickles was visible. Shaw felt the water under them dragging at the pontoons. Then they were hydroplaning for an instant before the craft lifted away.
She banked left. They passed over the Fremont Bridge and its bumper-to bumper traffic at the start of the workweek.
“Was that your wife dropping you off?” C.J. said through the intercom.
“A friend.”
“She’s lovely.”
“I agree. How often do you fly to the island?”
“It was once every couple of weeks at first. I only started with Droma three months ago. All the island construction and the family moving in happened last year.” She waggled a hand. “I guess moving in isn’t quite the way to put it. They still live in Seattle when they’re in town, most of the time.”
“A vacation home for people who don’t take vacations,” said Shaw.
“Could be. But in the past week, I’ve flown Mr. Rohner there twice already, along with a bunch of his VPs. And then the household staff with all the food and supplies. That took three trips. Everybody’s getting ready for the conference to start.”
“What’s the big meeting about? Rohner didn’t go into details.”
“I don’t know either. Could be nobody does, except the principals. I’m sure there will be a press release once all the papers are signed. Hey, check that out.”
She pointed to the Sound, where a submarine was cruising on the surface, flanked by two smaller navy vessels. The warship making headway toward the straits and the open sea beyond swiftly enough to send a steady plume of waves over her rounded bow.
“Out of the shipyard, I guess,” C.J. said. “Look at her go.”
“Are you local?”
“Me? No, I’m one of the terrible people moving here and eating up real estate.” She smiled. “But I like to get my bearings quickly. Part of the job.”
“You must hear a lot, flying the executives around. Any conflicts inside Droma on your radar?”
“Like arguments?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I like to know the lay of the land, too. Part of my job is making sure things run smooth. That’s tough if coworkers don’t get along and then they’re stuck on an island together for three days. Anyone have beef with the family?”
“Nothing like that. I do the Vancouver hops occasionally. Younger management, sometimes late in the day after they’ve had dinner and drinks, you know? Two of them got into a squabble about whether they could ever rise through the ranks. They’re American, for one, and for two—” C.J. looked at him. “I don’t want you to think I’m talking smack about the boss.”
“Smack away. Keeping secrets is in my DNA.”
She smiled. “This wasn’t really about the Rohners anyway. The junior guys, they think because Sofia Rohner is head of client development and Mr. Rohner’s son runs operations in Europe, that there’s no place for them. You want my opinion, that’s not just counting chickens before they hatch—they’re counting the whole farm. These guys haven’t even made department head yet.”
“But they see Droma as a family joint.”
“And that the Rohners being here on the West Coast is just a jumping-off point to Asia. World conquest.”
“Even though they just built an estate here?”
“‘Three hundred acres of overcompensation.’ That’s a quote I overheard.” She stopped and frowned. “But I can’t tell you who from. I don’t want my butt kicked back to Jersey.”
Shaw had the impression he’d overstepped. For the rest of the flight, he kept his thoughts about the Rohners to himself, speaking up only to remark on the scenery.
And the view was spectacular, he had to admit. C.J. set a course north-northwest, following the elongated reach of Whidbey Island and back to the water again, where Shaw had a close enough look at Deception Pass to see beachcombers strolling at the edge of the state park. Rounding Orcas Island, C.J. had loosened up again, spotting a pod of dolphins half a mile off the coast, splashing as they dove and rolled and feasted on some unseen school of fish below the surface.
Soon she pointed to what looked like a spit of land beyond the masses of bigger islands. “There. That’s Briar Bay.”
At first Shaw thought she might be joking. Compared to the nearest populated islands, Briar Bay looked barely larger than the submarine they had passed, and about the same shape. Then, as the plane drew nearer, it became clear that the island was much longer than he’d first seen. He tried to estimate its size. Almost a mile from tip to tip, perhaps, and more than half that wide, in a broad crescent with the wider edge to the north.
The land rose rapidly from the waters of the strait, as if to ensure that the tides would not overwhelm it. A heavy forest of hemlock and white pine blanketed the northern side and the center mound of the island. The inner edge of the crescent, to the south, was barren. The forest ended in a shallow cliff. After that only bedrock from the cliff all the way to the water.
The island looked like a hooked blade, Shaw realized, with its thick outer curve to the north and the stark interior shore forming a wicked edge.
“Let’s take a pass,” C.J. said.
As they neared the island’s eastern tip, the first signs of human habitation appeared. First a small field of midnight-black solar panels, then in quick succession a fenced area containing a cell tower and a satellite dish the diameter of a sewer pipe, a tall pole with the American flag fluttering at the top, and a flat twenty-foot square of concrete slab that Shaw guessed might be intended for a helipad. Half a dozen corrugated metal sheds were last in the motley strip.
In front of the sheds, a single floating dock extended ten yards out into the water before making a ninety-degree turn to continue parallel to the shore for thirty more. Enough moorage to fit Hollis’s Francesca and three more just like it.
The estate itself took up the final sixth of a mile, at what would be the handle of the island’s knife shape. Shaw found himself craning his neck, trying to take in every detail.
What he guessed was the main house was farthest from the end. A square of two tall stories, with a veranda encircling the ground floor. Its sides looked north and south. Expansive picture windows allowing every room a view.
The rear of the house was lent privacy and shade by the tall forest, while the front looked out into an elongated courtyard between two lengthy wings that extended toward the tip of the island. All three of the buildings were of the same style. Shaw dubbed it Mammoth Craftsman. Eaves over the windows, columns around the veranda, and cedar siding. Roofs of blue metal shingles merged with the water that would be in the distance almost any direction you looked.
At the very tip of the island, a short stretch from each of the two wings, was Rohner’s pièce de résistance.
“What the hell is that?” Shaw said, feeling C.J. grinning next to him.
“The pavilion,” she answered.
His first impression was of a diamond exploding from within. Or a monstrous, especially aggressive crystalline sea anemone. The structure was the size of the main house. Larger, if you counted how far its spikes and spires extended from the interior, upward and outward.
It appeared to be made entirely of glass. If there was a right angle anywhere, Shaw didn’t see it. Looking through what passed for its ceiling—through the clear facets created by the pointed spires reaching in a dozen directions—he could tell that the inside of the pavilion was one huge room. Someone standing within would look like a doll left in a vacant and kaleidoscopic greenhouse.
“Amazing, huh?” said C.J. “Reminds me of the Louvre, you know?”
Shaw hadn’t been to the Paris museum, but he understood what she meant. The classical building with a strikingly divergent glass pyramid in front. Sebastien Rohner’s estate wasn’t on that scale, but what it lacked in size it made up for in audacity.
“Here we go,” C.J. said, and the Otter banked hard right to reverse direction, leveling out as it descended. In the wind shadow of the strait, the waves were calmer. Near to shore barely a chop. C.J. brought the plane down so easily that the pontoons kissed the water for a full two seconds before sinking lower. She let the plane give in to the drag before nudging the throttle to goose it toward the dock.
Someone was waiting for them. A very tall and lean bald man, stooping to gather a coiled line that would secure the plane. The wind lapped at his tan suit coat and pant legs. His shaved head glinted in the afternoon sun.
When the plane drew within reach, the man ducked under the wing and deftly looped the line around a small cleat at the rear of the pontoon. C.J. killed the engine and stepped out onto the pontoon to jump to the dock. Shaw retrieved his duffel from behind the seat and clambered through the door after her.
“I don’t guess you two have met in person,” C.J. said as she secured the bowline. “Mr. Anders, this is Van Shaw. Van, this is Mr. Rohner’s chief of staff. Olen Anders.”
“Hello,” Shaw said, shaking hands.
The tall man nodded slowly. His long face seemingly stretched by hollow cheeks and a chin as meticulously shaved as his head. To Shaw the nod looked less like a greeting than as if something Anders had long believed had finally been confirmed.
“A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Shaw,” he said.