59

The elevation of Rostov’s airport was five thousand feet. Page climbed three thousand five hundred feet higher than that and headed west along the county road that, according to his aerial map, formed one boundary of the observatory’s prohibited airspace. That altitude provided a good perspective on the flat, sparse grassland off to the right.

Tori adjusted the microphone on her headset.

“Two columns of smoke.” She pointed.

Even at a distance, the white observatory dishes were obvious, including the one that was tilted sideways and aimed toward the south- east. One section of smoke was on the left side of the dishes, very close to them. The other was in front of the dishes, rising from a dirt lane that led from the observatory to the county road.

The dark smoke reminded Page uncomfortably of the gasoline tanker he’d seen explode in Santa Fe, just four days earlier.

As he guided the Cessna along the boundary road, he and Tori came parallel to the fires on their right, gaining a closer view. She removed binoculars from Page’s flight bag and peered through them, adjusting their focus.

“Wreckage near the dishes.” She sounded more troubled. “Rotor blades. Looks like a helicopter crashed.” She aimed the binoculars to- ward the lane. “The other fire’s coming from a vehicle. A van. It’s got a dish on it. Looks like a television news van.”

Page activated the police radio.

“Cessna Four Three Alpha calling Captain Medrano.”

Immediately Medrano’s voice crackled through Page’s headset. “Go ahead.”

“We’re seeing what appears to be a downed helicopter next to the observatory. It and a television news van are on fire.”

“What?”

“It isn’t clear what happened. I told you prohibited flight areas usually involve national security. Do you suppose there’s some kind of special government project there? The kind terrorists would want to attack?”

“The FBI must be worried about the same thing,” Medrano’s voice said starkly. “They gave you permission to take a closer look. They also gave me permission to send police cars in there.”

“Understood. I have clearance to enter.”

He banked to the right toward the columns of smoke. Through the canopy, the white dishes got bigger.

Tori kept staring through the binoculars.

“Do you see any survivors?” Page asked.

“No. Wait. Yes. But not at the helicopter. At the van. I see two people stumbling along the road. They’re heading in our direction. A man and a woman. It looks like the woman’s hurt.”

As Page flew closer, they came into his line of sight. Struggling along the dirt lane, the man held the woman up with his left arm. He was carrying something in his lowered right hand.

“Is that a television camera?” Tori asked in amazement. “My God, that’s the TV reporter who’s been looking for us.”

The woman’s knees bent. She slumped, dragging the man down with her, both of them toppling to the ground.

Tori adjusted the binoculars. “The woman’s covered with blood.”

Medrano’s voice blurted through Page’s headset.

“The FBI has rescinded your clearance! Turn around! Get out of there!”

Page frowned at Tori. “What’s going on?”

He was about to press the police radio’s transmit button, but Medrano kept talking.

“You must be right-this has something to do with national security! And somebody with influence must be involved! A special team is being sent in!”

Page kept flying toward the observatory.

“Do you copy?” Medrano’s voice demanded. “Your clearance to enter the prohibited airspace is no longer valid! Turn around!”

“The police radio’s been acting up lately,” Page told Tori. “All I hear is static.”

“Yeah, I don’t hear him, either.”

Page gestured toward the man and woman who’d toppled onto the lane. The woman was sprawled on her back while the man knelt be- side her, doing something to her left arm.

“How long do you think it’ll take for that special team to get organized?” Page wondered. “The nearest place they can come from is El Paso. Maybe farther away than that. My guess is it’ll take at least two hours for help to arrive. That woman might be dead by then.”

“Do you understand?” Medrano’s voice was loud enough to be distorted. “You do not have clearance to enter that airspace!”

Page shut off the radio. “It keeps overheating, too.”

Beyond the burning van, he saw that three high fences encircled the observatory dishes. An open-backed truck was parked near a shed- like building.

The dishes loomed. At a thousand feet, Page flew over them, made a turn, and headed back toward the man and woman sprawled on the lane.

As the plane went over the observatory, Tori peered straight down.

“That truck near the small building,” she said.

“What about it?”

“I think I saw…” She stopped suddenly.

“Your voice sounds strange. What’s wrong?”

“Corpses in the back.”

“Corpses?”

“A bunch of them,” Tori said.

Page immediately banked to the left. He flew in a circle and re- turned over the dishes, heading toward the truck. This time he positioned the plane so he could look down from his side.

In the back of the truck, bodies were dumped on top of one an- other, legs and arms splayed in every direction, so that he couldn’t count them. Some wore tan uniforms, others white lab coats.

“Jesus,” he said.

As he neared the couple on the lane again, the man looked up in desperation, but what Page concentrated on was the lane itself. Made of dirt, it appeared to be flat, but that didn’t mean there weren’t rocks or potholes that could blow a tire or snap off wheels, causing the plane to flip.

“Tory, is your seat belt tight?”

“Is there any other way for a seat belt to be?”

He pulled back on the throttle, causing the plane to lose altitude. At the same time he eased back on the yoke, tilting the nose slightly upward, reducing speed. To reduce speed further, he lowered the maximum flaps.

The plane sank toward the ground. At sixty knots, Page leveled the aircraft above the lane and felt it settle.

In most landings, he protected the nose wheel by touching down on the two main wheels first. For this kind of landing, however, the objective was to stop in the shortest distance possible, which meant there wasn’t time for the front wheel to settle gently onto the lane. In- stead Page landed on all three wheels. The moment he felt the jolt, he pressed his feet on the brake pedals and pulled back on the yoke. He came to a stop a mere two hundred feet from where he’d touched down.

In a rush, he shut off the aircraft’s engine, vaguely aware of the clinking sound of seat belts as he and Tori unbuckled them. He opened the door, jumped to the ground, grabbed a first-aid kit from under the back seat, and ran toward the couple on the lane.

Tori was next to him, matching his urgent pace.

They reached the man and woman, and yes, the man was the television reporter, looking more haggard than ever, his ear bloody, his suit and blond hair caked with dirt. But Page didn’t have time for any more details as he crouched next to the woman and tried not to think about the quantity of blood that soaked her clothes.

“Keep your head down!” the reporter urged.

“What happened to her?”

“She was shot! Keep your head down!”

“Shot?” Page unzipped the first-aid kit.

“The guard might be back by now.” Ashen, the reporter looked over his shoulder toward the observatory.

“A guard shot her?” Tori asked in confusion.

Page studied the necktie that served as a tourniquet.

“Did you do this?” he asked the reporter.

“It was all I could think of.”

“You probably saved her life.”

Page stared at the huge, ugly exit wound. He thought he saw bone. No time to clean it.

“Tori, open these packets.”