UnAlaska

19. Rotor Wash

Laura and the three Coast Guard officers sped over the choppy sea. The helicopter was deafeningly loud, even through her headset. Yu watched idly out the window as they waited to reach Unalaska.

Burns activated her headset. "We received a low pressure system warning from NOAA. You can see the sea getting choppier. We're OK for this flight. Our return will be fine but rocky. After that, we may need to re-evaluate."

Yu tapped his headset. "Understood."

Laura tapped hers. "Roger."

Laura watched the sea unfold. It looked cold and forbidding. The sky was gray. It was only about time for dinner, but it was rapidly going dark. It wasn't a sunset, just a thick cover of gloom. She had a moment to catch her thoughts.

Something in the back of her head was ringing an alarm bell. She had a long-cultivated instinct for situations. She had worked enough cases to know how the pieces fell together. She had a good read for how people behaved; their motives and actions usually followed a neat pattern. They would try to sweep over their tracks and complicate situations, but people were usually a lot simpler than they appeared. She couldn't shake the feeling that something didn't add up. A piece wasn't falling together.

—----------

Bogdan and Aleksandr reached Rusty's neighborhood in his old truck. They could hear the crunch of gravel under their tires. They had to turn the headlights on against the incoming gloom. They punched little columns of light into the mist, under the gray sky above. They saw the same assortment of chain link fences, cars under tarps, and manufactured homes set at odd angles away from the street.

They reached Rusty's driveway and pulled in slowly. The crunch of the tires changed to a loose slosh as they moved across his less packed gravel. They stopped, and Bogdan turned off the engine. They got out, and he tossed the keys into the driver's seat. They unloaded the duffel bags from the seats and piled them in the driveway. Wordlessly, they both pulled their sleeves over their palms. They wiped down every surface they touched in the truck. Door handles, the dashboard, the steering wheel, the shifter, and the console were all wiped over. They closed the door with a thunk, and turned to look at Rusty's house. A few lights were on, but the door and the blinds were closed. They looked at each other and shrugged. There wasn't much to do there.

They turned to walk down the soft gravel driveway. Their arms were loaded down with heavy bags. Their breath made long trails of fog, carried away by the blustery wind. After a short walk, they reached their van. It was sitting low and cold. It was white, but covered in dents, peeling paint, and small patches of rust. The windows were covered in foggy condensation on the inside, and small droplets of misty rain on the outside.

Aleksandr heaved open the sliding side door with a loud clunk and a grinding whine. Inside, the walls of the van were simple corrugated metal, painted dull primer white. The floor was worn plywood, chipped and cracked. A small, yellow dome light came on. He dumped his bags into the cargo area, and then stepped aside while Bogdan did the same.

They heaved the door shut, and then climbed into the cab. The seats were gray vinyl, worn flat. The outer edges of the seats were torn open, showing the yellow crumbling foam underneath. The diesel engine started with a clatter. A small cloud of exhaust steam pooled behind the van, swirling around the dim tail lights.

Another set of headlights, this time the yellowed beams of the old work van, pierced the gloom. The exhaust trailed behind them, and they heard the crunch of gravel again. They drove slowly and carefully to the outskirts of town. The jumble of houses faded slowly into a nondescript section of warehouses. The road turned to asphalt that gave way to a tangle of weeds at the margins, growing under chain link fences. Yellow sodium street lamps lit the corners.