Nick’s love of airplanes stopped short of commercial flying. But E-Group’s 757 was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was decorated as tastefully as Berkeley’s Faculty Club. Individually lighted oil paintings glowed from the walls, as did the deep-piled Oriental carpeting that ran down a central aisle wide enough for a cocktail party. Add to that massive leather passenger seats that folded into luxurious beds and E-Group’s Boeing rivaled the best Architectural Digest had to offer.
Even so, Nick hadn’t slept during the flight. To her, a red-eye was a red-eye. A long red-eye at that, a nonstop from Washington to Seattle, where they’d refueled for the last leg to Anchorage, Alaska. At the moment, if her watch was correct and the pilot on schedule, they were two hours from touchdown.
The man sleeping across the aisle hadn’t helped her mood any. Gordon Hurst had been added to the expedition at the last moment as an adviser, or so Dr. Alcott had assured her. But last night when she’d tried to talk to Hurst about why he hadn’t told her, he’d been distant and cold. He’d begged off, saying he needed his rest if he was to be fresh for the expedition. Well, judging from the engine-rivaling snores coming from him, he’d be a hell of a lot fresher than she was. She wondered what Alcott had told him his exact role would be.
She rolled over to be rid of the sight of him and saw the window shade on the bulkhead next to her glowing red. Holding her breath, half-expecting an engine fire, she slid it open and was greeted by the rising sun.
Nick pulled back her blanket and sat up fully clothed. No one else in the cabin was awake. She folded her blanket and stood up. Before she had time to stretch, the flight attendant was at her side. At the push of a lever, the bed became a chair again.
“Are we on time?” Nick asked.
The attendant nodded toward the cockpit. “Here’s the co-pilot now.”
Up the aisle, the copilot was stopping at each chair to wake the passengers. No impersonal, hard-to-hear intercom for E-Group, thought Nick.
When he reached her, he said, “Ms. Scott, you’ll just have time for a cup of coffee before we land.”
Nick put her watch to her ear.
“Our orders were to get you there as soon as possible,” he explained. “We’ve burned enough fuel for a round-trip but we’re an hour and a half early.” He touched his cap and moved on to the next passenger.
Their party had now swelled to seven. In addition to Hurst, the other newcomers were Karen Royce, a doctor who’d been recruited because of Wes Erickson’s age, and Lew Tyler, a documentary cameraman, who’d been described to Nick as a strong back who could pitch in if the excavation site demanded it.
But the notion seemed ridiculous. Tyler looked fit enough, but he’d be busy filming most of the time. Besides, he was untrained. Nick would have to depend on herself and her digger, Mike Barlow. And she couldn’t imagine Dr. Alcott getting his hands dirty, or Fred Ivins, E-Group’s vice president, using a pick and shovel either. Karen Royce was close to Nick’s age, but asking an MD to do manual labor seemed out of the question. That left Hurst. He was young and fit enough, but Nick thought of him as an academic with no real field experience. Or was he coming along to direct the digging?
Across the aisle, Gordon Hurst was up and doing stretching exercises. He was wearing a light blue jogging outfit and white running shoes with matching blue stripes. When he caught her eye, he smiled cheerfully and said, “I can practically smell Alaska already.”
Grunting noncommittally, she headed for the bathroom to escape his fresh-faced eagerness. One look in the mirror told her more than cold water would be needed to soothe her bloodshot eyes. The rest of her, jeans and tan work shirt, looked no more rumpled than usual. To hide her cow licked half, she crammed on her Cubs cap as tightly as possible.
Fifteen minutes later their 757 was shunted onto an auxiliary taxiway that led to a private terminal, where portable boarding stairs stood waiting. The moment the plane came to a stop, Ivins hustled forward, cracked open the door, and then stationed himself beside it like an overeager tour guide.
“Let’s go,” he said, making a hurry-up, circling motion with one hand, “we’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”
Tyler, their cameraman, was first out of the plane, so he could film their arrival. Outside, the sky was bright and cloudless, the morning crisp and invigorating, not much different than a fall day in Albuquerque.
Three huge, bright yellow Ford sports utility vehicles were parked nearby. Each was equipped with a sleek, slipstreamed cargo carrier attached to its roof rack. Three men were clustered around the lead vehicle, which had photographs spread over its hood. One of them, Nick hoped, was her digger.
Ivins ushered everyone toward the lead Ford, while Tyler circled the group like a border collie, recording their every move.
“This is our guide,” Ivins announced as soon as they’d settled into a semicircle around the front of the car. “Terry Kelly.” Kelly, a tall, lean man wearing a brown park service uniform, tipped his Smokey-the-Bear hat in recognition.
“He’s lead ranger at the Szczesiak Wildlife Refuge,” Ivins continued, “and an expert on where we’re going.”
Kelly grinned, a self-effacing expression that wrinkled his leathery, weather-beaten face. “I’m a relative newcomer to Alaska. It’s Gus here who knows every nook and cranny.” He indicated the man next to him. He had classic Inuit facial features, though he was taller than most, Nick thought, six feet at least, with vivid blue-green eyes. He, too, wore a park service uniform, though his hat was adorned with an eagle feather. “His real name is Auqusinauq and he was born not far from where we’re going,” Kelly continued.
“It will be my pleasure to take you to the land of my fathers,” the Inuit said.
Kelly turned to a young man who was standing a little behind the Inuit. “This is Mike Barlow. He tells me he’s your digger.”
“He’s a grad student at the university,” Nick interjected. She saw a tall, fair man whose blond locks seemed in danger of springing away from his head in all directions. Blond stubble on his face gave his visage a generally blurred impression. He looked like a hundred other grad students that Nick had worked with. “Glad to finally meet you, Mike. I tried getting hold of you yesterday, but was unable to.”
“Gee, Ms. Scott. I didn’t know. My hard disk crashed. I haven’t been able to scrape together enough money to get it fixed.”
And you don’t answer your phone, Nick thought. You’d better be more reliable than you seem or I’m going to kill Elliot. She stepped forward to shake Barlow’s hand. He looked like he would be more at home with a tape recorder than a shovel. She was pleased to notice that his hands were hard and callused. “It doesn’t matter.” She waved a hand at the loaded cars. “It looks like E-Group thought of everything. We can compare notes on the way.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. Scott.”
Ivins gestured impatiently. “We can introduce everyone properly later, but first let’s take a look at the aerial photos of our target area. They’re less than twenty-four hours old. What do you think, Mister Kelly? Is it a viable area?”
“I’ve been there, but like I said, Gus is the expert.”
At a nod from Kelly, the Inuit fished a map from his pocket, unfolded it, then laid it on the hood next to the photos, which had been arranged to form a continuous image of the target area, the Hammersmith Mountains.
“This is the best map we’ve got,” Kelly said. “We’ve compared it to your aerial shots. As far as we can see, nothing specific shows up, though it’s rough country, rough enough to hide a hundred airplanes.”
“Hold it,” the cameraman said. “I want close-ups.” He pushed forward with his camera.
Ivins ignored him. “It was too much to hope that our airplane would be in plain sight, but let’s have our fighter pilot take a look.” Ivins cleared a space for Erickson.
Seen in harsh daylight, Erickson seemed more fragile than ever, Nick thought, though flying a red-eye did that to just about everyone. Even Dr. Alcott, immaculate in a safari outfit, looked frayed.
Erickson moved from photograph to photograph, now and again pausing to touch a particular geographical land mark with his forefinger. “I remember three mountain peaks in particular,” he said finally, “saw-toothed peaks.”
Kelly and Gus exchanged looks. Ivins sported the eye contact and asked, “Does that ring a bell?”
Before Kelly or the Inuit could answer, Erickson said, “This looks right.” He touched a photograph. “Or maybe this one.” He stabbed another. His finger was following a single ridgeline.
“That’s a lot of country,” Kelly said.
Ivins bent over the photograph, his finger retracing Erickson’s course, a matter of inches. “How far can it be?”
“Don’t be deceived by scale,” the ranger answered. “Those were relatively low-level photos but we’re still talking maybe a five-mile area.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Tell me that after you’ve been on the ground.”
“All you’ve got to do is get us there.”
Gus snorted and looked away. Kelly said, “What Gus is trying to say is that there’s only one road that goes anywhere near that area, and it’s not much of a road. The proper way to travel in this region is on foot. Considering the amount of equipment you have here, I understand why that’s impossible.”
Ivins slapped the Ford’s fender as if playing to Tyler’s camera. “Lack of roads won’t be any problem with these machines. They’re top of the line, four-wheel drive with special suspension. They’ll go anywhere. Trust me.”
Kelly shook his head. “Trail blazing is strictly forbidden in the refuge. If we leave the road, any road, we do so on foot. If we see a bear on the road, or anywhere else for that matter, we stop and wait for it to move on. In the refuge, bears have the right-of-way. We don’t feed them, approach them, or molest them in any way.”
Ivins held up his hands in immediate surrender. “It’s your bailiwick.”
“One other thing,” Kelly said. “I’m the only one permitted to carry a firearm in the refuge. If anyone’s carrying, please speak up.”
“We’re strictly peaceful,” Ivins said.
“But are the bears peaceful?” Alcott asked.
“We’ve never had a human attacked here in the refuge,” Kelly answered. The comment got him a look from Gus. “My associate reminds me that we don’t have many visitors, so that statistic may be misleading. Let me just say that bears are wild animals and should be treated with caution and respect at all times. It’s the female of the species you have to beware of especially if they have young. They have powerful maternal instincts and constantly tend their young. A female will even attack a dominant male if he gets too close to her cubs.”
“I thought animals had their young in the spring,” Ivins said. “Bears have been known to keep their cubs with them for up to three years. So if we come across a female with cubs, do exactly as I say. And don’t be deceived. After three years, a cub can be almost as large as its mother. So if you see two or three bears together, it’s safest to assume that they’re a family group.”
“Have you ever had to shoot a bear?” Erickson asked.
“No, but there’ve been a few tourists I wouldn’t have minded shooting,” Gus interjected.
“On that note,” Ivins said, “I think we’d better get moving. How far is it to the refuge?”
Kelly collected the photos and handed them to Ivins. “Not far, two hundred miles, give or take. We’ve got decent roads most of the way, so with luck we’ll be there by nightfall. Now, I think you’d better check your gear before we take off.”
Ivins said, “E-Group, Anchorage, took care of that before delivering the vehicles.”
“So they told me, but once we’re on the road there’s no opportunity to recover from an oversight. Supplies are hard to come by this late in the summer.”
Ivins turned to Karen Royce. “Doctor, if you’ll give me a hand checking your supplies. You, too, Nick, let’s go over our checklists.”
Each of the three Ford Excursions had huge cargo compartments in addition to the streamlined carriers on top. Each vehicle had been loaded with such precision that Nick hated to meddle. The food had been packed into metal, insulated containers. Similar containers held a portable satellite dish, a gasoline-powered generator, and, judging by the Red Cross markings, enough medical supplies to cover just about any eventuality. Add to that sleeping bags, tents, stoves, survival clothing, tools for excavating, and half a dozen five-gallon cans of gasoline and Nick had a definite feeling of overkill. Compared to her father’s low-budget expeditions, this one had been arranged with military precision. Of course, now that their ranks had swollen to ten with the addition of Kelly, Gus, and Barlow, they were more like a small army than an archaeological dig.
“Well,” Ivins asked, “are we missing anything?” The doctor shook her head.
“Ms. Scott?” Ivins prompted.
“If you ask me, we’re overloaded.” She saw Hurst smiling at her, no doubt remembering their discussion about the length of her equipment list.
“It’s best to be prepared,” Kelly said. “And don’t be fooled by Anchorage.” He and Gus peered up at the painful blue sky. “Or the good weather either. This may look like back home, but it’s not. Up here, the weather can change like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“We’re not tourists,” Nick told him. “We weren’t expecting to see igloos and totem poles.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ivins quipped.
Kelly ignored the comment. “An hour from now we’ll be in another world.”
“A far harsher world than you are used to,” Gus added.