Just before midnight, with the summer sky ripped in two by a vivid Milky Way, Walt entered Friedman Memorial Airport, still reeling over his brief encounter with Dick O’Brien.
With O’Brien attending a dessert function at Trail Creek Cabin, where the commissioner of the FCC was giving an informal talk on the Politics of Policy to forty-five special ticket holders, he’d suggested meeting Walt at the Hemingway Memorial. A well-trodden path less than a mile from the cabin. Walt had worked his way down through the dark, flashlight in hand, to Hemingway’s bust. The famous writer overheard everything they said.
O’Brien, defensive from the start, lit a cigarette, its red ember traveling up and down like a firefly.
“So?” the big man said. “I heard you spoke to Bartholomew. You might have told me you had him under surveillance.”
“I might have, but I didn’t.”
“Hell of a view from up there,” O’Brien said.
“I’m not telling Patrick Cutter his business—”
“Wouldn’t be any point,” O’Brien said, sounding exasperated.
“Making that kind of offer…it wouldn’t hurt if I knew about it.”
“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“Did Bartholomew tell you about the hundred K?” Walt asked.
“He did. It wasn’t us.”
“Then who?”
“That’s the hundred-thousand-dollar question,” O’Brien said.
“Let me run this by you: If you’ve been planning to assassinate Elizabeth Shaler, if you’ve paid out maybe half a million in fees, and a good chunk in expenses and advance work, wouldn’t the arrival of First Rights scare you just a little?”
“The protesters get nasty,” O’Brien speculated. “It shuts down the conference, and you lose your shot at her.”
“The hundred grand serves as an insurance policy—to make sure nothing upsets the conference.”
O’Brien whistled.
“Tell me I’m crazy,” Walt said.
“Wish I could,” O’Brien said, lighting another cigarette.
It felt as if several minutes passed. O’Brien with the cigarette. The sound of the creek.
O’Brien exhaled a pale cloud. “I can’t take this to Cutter as further proof of the hit. If that’s what you’re asking—”
“The hell you can’t.”
“Do you trust some guy who let his protesters cause two million dollars’ worth of damage in downtown Seattle? Patrick Cutter won’t.”
“She should cancel that speech.”
“He’s going to need more.”
“That’s bullshit,” Walt said.
“Patrick will see this as a negotiating stance, nothing more. He eats guys like Bartholomew for lunch. This kid has zero credibility.”
O’Brien’s words stayed with Walt as he entered the air terminal. He’d received a message that Pete—the former volunteer fireman who now ran airport security—had to see him immediately. He’d called but reached voice mail. Heading to Hailey anyway, he swung by the airport.
“Hey, Walt,” Pete said, greeting him at the automatic doors. He’d been waiting for him. Pete wore extra-extra-large and had hands like an NBA player. He sounded as if he’d smoked from birth.
“What have you got?” Walt asked, releasing the handshake before it became a contest.
“Yesterday. You and Brandon,” Pete said. “The dog thing.”
“Yes.”
“Flight seventeen-forty-six.”
“If you say so,” Walt said. He followed down a wide corridor to the two small and unattended airline counters, pushed through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The back room was crowded with unclaimed luggage.
“Pete, it’s been a long day.”
“The way it works anymore,” Pete said, “is we gotta send back lost items to Salt Lake. They got the full-size X-ray machines down there. But we can’t scan ’em because of their size, so we open them up. In this case we could scan it, and we also did a hand search.”
“Pete,” Walt said again.
“Yesterday you were looking for some guy on flight seventeen-forty-six. Today we got ourselves an unclaimed bag from seventeen-forty-six.” He mugged for Walt, letting him stew. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, Walt, except for its contents.”
“Its contents,” Walt repeated.
Pete hoisted the bag onto a table and dumped it upside down. The contents scattered. Pete said, “Suture, bandages. Hypodermic needles. Fuckin’ traveling emergency room. Only thing missing is a scalpel, and you got yourself a regular surgical suite.”
Walt moved the contents around, using his pen. “You touch any of this?”
“No, sir,” Pete said.
“It’s good work, Pete,” Walt said. “Syringes got through security?”
“Diabetics are allowed syringes. See ’em all the time. More than one or two, you’re usually asked to put it in with the checked luggage. Not always.”
Walt inventoried the contents. A navy blue sweater. A paperback novel by Leslie Silbert. Three boxes of bandage wrap. A box of butterfly bandages. A pair of forceps. Two pairs of needle holders. Two containers of suture marked Ethicon #3 and Ethicon #0. A box of latex gloves. “Shit,” Walt said. “No ID?”
“No. None.”
He studied the sweater. “Some hairs, looks like. Maybe some prints on these boxes, or the forceps.”
“Who leaves something like this behind? You know? Wouldn’t you come back to get it? I would.”
Walt returned the contents to the bag. He noted a white loop of stretch string at the bottom of one of the back straps. “This coulda been an ID,” he said.
“Could have been tore off years ago.”
Walt glanced around the disorganized room and its filthy floor. “Do me a favor and ask these guys to sweep up. Let’s run any loose ID tags they find.”
“Against passenger manifest,” Pete stated. “Done.”
Walt wrote down the contents of the bag.
“Listen, Pete…could you buy me the weekend, before sending it down there?” Walt asked. He knew TSA regulations were strict. “I’d like to get some of these items to the Nampa lab. The lab will do weekend work for the right price.”
“Prints…” Pete said. “You think?”
“It’s possible.”
“I got ya covered. It’ll miss the morning flight. Shit happens.” Pete sniggered. He zipped the bag shut and handed it to Walt. “Monday morning, I need it back by seven.”
Walt thanked him. Right or wrong, he connected the bag to the shooter. The medical contents suggested the preparation for injury. If the man was prepared to doctor himself, he meant business.
And if such a man was so prepared to treat himself, then what exactly did he have planned for Liz Shaler?