Алистер Маклин - Athabasca

“That won’t take long. Jay?”

Shore said: “Yes. I was the last person to see them, apart from these two” – he pointed at Brinckman and Jorgensen. “They left in one of Sanmobil’s minibuses, with Bill Reynolds driving.”

Mackenzie cut in: “Were there any phone calls before they left?”

“I wouldn’t know. Why?”

“Let me ask another question.” Mackenzie looked at Brinckman. “How did the kidnappers stop your bus?”

“They had a truck slewed across the road. Blocked it completely.”

“It couldn’t have been there long. There’s a fair bit of traffic on that road, and drivers wouldn’t take kindly to being held up. Was there, in fact, any other traffic at the time?”

“I don’t think so. No.”

Willoughby said: “Your point, Mr Mackenzie?”

“Plain as a pikestaff. The kidnappers were tipped off. They knew the precise time when Reynolds’s bus left and when it could be expected at the interception point. Phone or short-wave radio – even a CB would have been enough. Two things are for sure: there was a tip-off, and it came from Sanmobil.”

“Impossible!” Shore sounded shocked.

“Nothing else makes sense,” said Brady. “Mackenzie’s right.”

“Good God!” Shore sounded outraged. “You make Sanmobil sound like a den of thieves.”

“It’s not a Sunday School,” said Brady heavily.

Dermott turned back to Brinckman. “So Reynolds pulled up when he saw this truck across the road? Then?”

“It was all so quick. There were two men lying in the road. One was face-down and very still, as if he were hurt real bad. The other was moving – he’d both hands clutching at the small of his back and was rolling from side to side. He seemed to be in agony. Two other men came running towards us – well, hardly running, more staggering. One was limping badly, and he had an arm stuck inside his mackinaw jacket as if he was trying to support it. Both of them had a hand up in front of their faces, covering their eyes.”

Dermott said: “Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Not at all. It was dark, and we had our headlights on. It seemed natural they should shield their eyes from the glare.”

There was a pause. Then Brinckman went on: “Well – this guy with the damaged arm – as I thought – came weaving up to my side of the bus. I grabbed the first-aid box and jumped out. I slipped on the ice, and by the time I had my balance I saw the man had dropped his hand and was wearing a stocking mask. Then I saw his left arm coming up. It was almost a blur, but I could see he had some kind of a sap in his hand. I had no time to react.” He fingered his forehead gingerly. “That’s all, I guess.”

Dermott crossed to him and examined the contusion on the side of his forehead. “Nasty. Could have been worse, though. An inch or so further back and you’d likely have had a fractured temple. Looks as if your friend was using lead shot. A leather cosh wouldn’t have done that.”

Brinckman stared at him in an odd fashion. “Lead, you reckon?”

“I should think so.” Dermott turned to Jorgensen. “I take it you hadn’t much better luck?”

“At least I wasn’t blackjacked. I just thought my jaw had been broken. The other guy was either a heavyweight champion, or he was clutching something heavy in his fist. I couldn’t see. He jerked open Mr Reynolds’s door, flung in some kind of smoke-bomb, then banged the door shut again.”

“Tear gas,” said Willoughby. “You can see his eyes are still inflamed.”

“I got out,” Jorgensen went on. “I waved my gun around, but it might have been a water pistol, the use it was. I was blind. Next thing I remember, Pete Johnson was trying to shake some sense into us.”

“So, of course, you don’t know how Reynolds and his passengers made out.” Brady looked round. He was taking over. “Where’s Carmody?”

“Down at the station,” said Shore. “Still making his report. Pete Johnson’s with him. They’ll be here presently.”

“Good.” Brady turned back to Brinckman. “The man who attacked you – was he wearing gloves?”

“I’m not sure.” Brinckman thought and then said: “Once he’d passed out of the beam of the headlights, he was in pretty deep shadow, and, as I said, it all happened so damn quickly. But I don’t think so.”

“Your man, Mr Jorgensen?”

“I could see his hand pretty clearly as he threw the tear-gas canister. No – no glove.”

“Thank you, gentlemen. Mr Willoughby, a few questions if I may.”

“Go ahead.” Willoughby cleared his throat.

“This truck the kidnappers used – you say it was stolen?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s been identified?”

“Belongs to a local garage proprietor. It was known he was off on a couple of days’ hunting trip.”

“At this time of year?”

“Your true enthusiast goes hunting any time. At all events, it was seen passing through the streets yesterday afternoon, and we assumed the owner was taking it along for his trip.”

“Which argues a fairly intimate local knowledge?”

“Sure, but no help to us.” Willoughby smoothed his dark moustache. “Fort McMurray’s no longer a village.”

“Have you fingerprinted the truck, inside and out?”

“Being done now. It’s a long job – there are hundreds of prints.”

“May we see them?”

“Of course. I’ll have them Photostatted. But, with respect, Mr Brady, what do you hope to achieve that we, the police, can’t?”

“You never know.” Brady smiled enigmatically. “Mr Dermott here is an international expert in fingerprinting.”

“I didn’t know!” Willoughby smiled at Dennott, who smiled back. He hadn’t known either.

Brady changed his tack. “Any chance of identifying the helicopter from the measurements of the ski-marks that Carmody took?”

Willoughby shook his head. “It was a good idea to record them, but no – the chances of identifying any one machine from its ski-prints are extremely remote, because there will almost certainly be dozens of its particular type around. This is helicopter country, Mr Brady, like Alaska. Here in Northern Alberta our communications are still very primitive. We have no divided highways – freeways – in this part of the world. In fact, north of Edmonton there only two paved roads that reach up north. Between them – nothing. Apart from ourselves, and Peace River and Fort Chipewyan, there are no commercial airports in an area of 200,000 square miles.”

“So,” Brady nodded. “You use choppers.”

“The preferred form of transport at all times. In winter, the only form.”

“It’s a good bet that an intensive air search wouldn’t have a hope in hell of locating the getaway machine?”

“None. I’ve made a bit of a study of kidnapping, and I can answer you best by a comparison. The world’s most kidnap-happy place is Sardinia. It’s a kind of national pastime there. Whenever a millionaire is snatched, all the resources of the law and the Italian armed forces are brought into play. The Navy blockades harbours and virtually every fishing village on the coast. The Army sets up road-blocks, and specially-trained troops sweep the hills. The Air Force carries out exhaustive reconnaissance by plane and helicopter. In all the years these searches have been carried out, they’ve never yet located a single kidnapper’s hideout. Alberta is twenty-seven times larger than Sardinia. Our resources are a fraction of theirs. Answer your question?”

“One begins to feel the first faint twinges of despair. But tell me, Mr Willoughby: if you had four kidnapped people on your hands, where would you hide them?”

“Edmonton or Calgary.”

“But those are towns. Surely…”