Chapter 48
Chapter 48
N o sooner had the call with Maynard clicked dead than Camp jolted and sat ramrod straight. “We got a pic.”
He turned his screen to me.
The picture populated. Sadie sat on the floor of a cabin, fireplace behind her, leather furniture around her, bear rug on the wall, another on the floor. She was not clothed. The coffee table in front of her had a mirror top. The corner was fogged. As if she’d breathed on it. Looking closer, I saw she’d hastily scribbled a word. Camp turned the screen and read the three upside-down letters. “HRY.”
“Hurry.”
Looking closer into the mirror on the wall, we saw the reflection of Miriam and Ruth sitting across from her, huddled close to the fire, knees pulled to their chests. Neither clothed.
Camp shook his head in disgust.
“If you wanted to deter them from escaping and it was minus ten outside, what would you do?”
He still didn’t like it.
“Got a location?”
He waited as the pilot crackled over the speaker. “Runway in sight.”
Approaching landing, with the wheels a few feet off the tarmac at Ted Stevens International, Camp nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“How far?”
“Maybe two hundred miles as a crow flies.”
“Can we get there?”
He studied the landscape, “Not easily. It’s nothing but frozen tundra, a collage of lakes and rivers and small islands.” Then a pause. “Wait a minute. I got a town. Something that looks like a runway. Ten miles northeast.”
I turned to the pilot. “Can we land there?”
The wheels touched down, and the pilot pushed the stick forward, rocketing the G6 skyward and pinning me into my seat. Ascending what felt like a vertical climb, he cautioned over the intercom, “Hold on, boys. Gonna get a little bumpy.”
Three minutes later, having leveled and returned to our cruising speed of 594 mph, I asked him, “Can this thing go any faster?”
“Not if you want enough fuel for a return trip.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Burn it.”
He nodded and inched the stick forward. When it passed 700 mph, I quit looking.