“It’s a thought,” Charles said, with a warm smile that applauded such a wonderful idea and the wonderful person who had had it.

Be careful what you wish for, little girl, Liam thought. Half a steak to go, some chitchat, and he was out of here.

“Liam.”

“Dad?”

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

“Catching a lot of cases?”

“No more than usual.”

“Now there’s a modest statement if I ever heard one, Colonel,” Jo said. “Just last month Liam busted a serial killer who’s been kidnapping and murdering women around these parts for the last twenty-five years.”

Charles nodded at the stripes on Liam’s arm. “I noticed the promotion. Good job.”

“Thanks.”

“Still flying out to the Bush?”

“Yes.”

“Still hating it?”

“Yes.”

Charles fortified himself with a drink. “I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Charles plowed on. “If you learned how to fly, if you learned the reasons why planes stay up in the air and how to keep them there, you wouldn’t be nearly as afraid to travel in one.”

Liam made no reply.

Jo met Special Agent James Mason’s eyes. Special Agent James Mason had been careful to keep his mouth full of food during this exchange, which made Jo think highly of both his intelligence and his sense of self-preservation.

Clearly there was a problem of communication going on here strong enough to overwhelm any residual parent-child affection. She wondered how hard Charles had pushed Liam to learn to fly as a child. She wondered how hard Liam had resisted. But that wasn’t all there was to it. On the surface, Charles was trying to reach out to his son, and Liam was refusing to see the outstretched hand. On the surface, Charles appeared fatherly and, well, maybe not loving, but at least proud and friendly.

Liam, on the other hand, looked sullen and churlish and about twelve years old. Charles had done something to make Liam angry, and Liam had not forgiven him for it. Charles was pretending it had never happened. Liam was reminding him.

She wondered what it was, and if there was a story in it. She was immediately, if only mildly, ashamed of herself. Looking for the story in everyone she met was an occupational hazard. There was always a story, though, and it was never the story the person wanted told. Some were worthy of her editor’s attention and some weren’t. A very few she kept to herself. She nearly always got the story, though, and she idled away a few moments, letting Charles’ questions and Liam’s monosyllabic replies join the slipstream, while she pondered what this one might be. Had Charles broken a law? Had he broken it in his son’s posting?

“Where’s the arm?” Charles said, and she woke from her reverie.

“At the crime lab in Anchorage.”

Jo looked down at her plate. Her filet mignon stared back up at her. With a shrug, she took another bite.

“I should take custody of it.”

Liam was uncertain of the protocol involved, but on general principles he decided that the arm should stay in the custody of the state of Alaska. “They’ll take fingerprints. Did they take fingerprints in World War Two?”

For the first time Charles looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I think they relied more on dog tags back then. Seriously, Liam, I can take charge of the arm and fly it back to D.C. I’ll turn it over to the FBI lab.” He hooked a thumb at Special Agent James Mason. “They’ll track him down. It’s what they do, and really, it’s only a matter of deciding between which of the three. It was a military plane, the property of the federal government. The FBI probably has jurisdiction.” He looked expectantly at Mason.

Mason, caught with his mouth full, chewed and swallowed without any noticeable embarrassment. “The only interest the FBI might have is if the wreck was anything other than accidental. We don’t really think it is.” He smiled, and Jo noticed because she was incapable of not noticing that it was a very nice smile, if not of the full wattage of Colonel Campbell’s, then with its own amount of shy charm. “I’m here mostly on a field trip. My boss wants to get as many of the Anchorage-based agents into the Bush as possible. This was an opportunity for him.”

An expression passed over Charles’ face that was as unpleasant as it was fleeting.

“I think I’ll stick with the plan, Dad,” Liam said. “The ME will turn it over in due course.”

“There are families waiting for word, for some kind of closure. These men have been missing a long time. They deserve an honorable burial as soon as possible.”

“It’s not like the families don’t know how or when they died,” Liam said. There was no answer to this. “Oh, and I guess you’ll probably want the gold coin, too.”

“The what!”

Charles’ exclamation was somewhere between a bark and a shout. It had a parade-ground kind of feel to it, and if activity in the bar did not come to a halt, it slowed down and heads turned their way.

Liam, not expecting this reaction, said, “The gold coin in the arm’s hand. It, uh, fell out.” He didn’t say where or when.

Charles had himself under strict control. The smile was gone, though, and Jo gave him a long, thoughtful look. This was the face behind the gun sight on his jet. She wouldn’t care to have that face on her tail. He lowered his voice. “There was a gold coin in the hand?”

“Yeah.” Liam, for his part, didn’t know what this was leading to. “It’s an American twenty-dollar gold piece. Bill’s got it.”

“Get it.”

Liam raised an eyebrow at the snapped order, but he got to his feet and walked to the bar, aware that most of the bar was eyeing him, openly or covertly. Moses was one of the former, that connoisseur of upheaval and disaster, and he grinned at Liam as he walked by. Eric Mollberg was one of the latter, nearly tucking his head beneath his arm to avoid eye contact. Clarence took advantage of Moses’ distraction by nipping off with Moses’ other knight. Liam and rest of the bar learned some new Yupik when Moses turned back and discovered the loss.

“Well?” Bill said.

“He wants the gold coin.”

Bill jerked her head. “Top drawer, in the office.”

“Thanks.” He found it and brought it back.

Charles almost snatched it out of his hand and then seemed to notice the odd looks he was getting. He laughed. It didn’t convince them. He saw it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It took me aback a little. I have a list of personal effects from the families, things the flight crew might have had with them on board. One of the copilot’s grandchildren said he remembered his grandmother talking about a lucky gold piece that her grandfather had carried. It had quite a legend attached to it, was supposed to have been won from Wild Bill Hickok in the poker game before the one he got shot in, and been in the family ever since. In the normal course of events, it would have gone to the son and then to the grandson. It’d be nice to get it back to him.”

It was a charming story, told with style and just the right touch of sentimentality. It was a pity that the only person at the table who believed it was the storyteller himself. He seemed to want to move on, and quickly, too. He looked at Liam and said, “Does anyone else know about this piece?”

Liam thought back to the scene in the bar two nights before. “Pretty much everyone in Newenham by now, I’d guess.”

“Damn it. Liam, we can’t wait until spring to recover the bodies. We have to do it now.”

“Dad, I told you, and so did Wy. That’s pretty much next to impossible. It’s October-hell, it’s almost November. Winter’s coming on. It’s snowing right now. That airstrip isn’t maintained, and there’s no way to get the wreck down off the glacier even if it were.”

“We’ll use helicopters. I’ll call Elmendorf, see what’s available. And there’s an Air National Guard base, too-Kulik, isn’t it? I’ll ask them what they’ve got.”