David Dun: At The Edge

"I can't believe you did that. We could have lost them." Denny had looked tense and completely distracted since the shooting. "I'm not going down for this."

"Relax."

Denny was a cheap grunt. He was spineless, and she knew she would need to do something about it. And soon. Other than having the hots for her and his willingness to "help," he was unsuited for everything they did.

She pulled down the mirror over the visor. Even without makeup, which she almost never wore anymore, she looked good. She had clear skin, a small and slightly narrow-lipped mouth, but great cheekbones and good symmetry. Not that it meant anything to her. She flipped the mirror closed as if disgusted that she'd even looked.

"What's this?" Denny said.

A chopper had swooped low over the car and dropped something in a small parachute.

"Chopper's unmarked. Must be somebody who doesn't want to be recognized," she said. They were on a ridge covered mostly by grassland and oaks. "Pull over."

When they were opposite the spot where the chute had fallen, the chopper hovered in the distance. Attached to the chute was a small plastic cylinder, and inside a rolled-up map. On the map an X marked the place where she was to meet the mysterious voices on the phone.

Beside the X it simply read "no." At another spot very near their current location was a second X marked "yes." Now it all made sense. They were almost twenty miles from the originally designated point. They knew her route, could follow with the chopper, see everything for miles around, including someone following. They had picked a different location so that she could not plan a trap. They were in complete control.

"We're going just up the ridge and stopping. I suspect that helicopter will come to us."

"What's in that briefcase? Drugs?"

"Nothing illegal."

"I don't think I'm getting paid enough for this."

"We'll fix that. But for the moment just shut up and do your job."

When they had moved up the ridge, the helicopter approached.

"Stay here," she told Denny, and went to the car trunk. She set the briefcase inside and rapidly began counting out ten packets of $10,000 dollars each. The money was all in $100 bills. It took her only a couple of minutes. She paid no attention to the leather pocket in the lid of the briefcase nor the bulge at its center. In a rush she closed the lid the instant she put her portion in a nylon bag in the trunk.

A man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask stepped from the copter. Since he made no move to approach her, she ran to him, wanting at this point to make the transfer and get out of the area. As she approached, she saw an automatic weapon with a silencer clutched in the man's hand. She handed him the briefcase, and with a quick nod he jumped in the chopper. Immediately it pulled up steeply and was gone over the hill, leaving nothing but the mountain quiet.

It was midafternoon and Dan hadn't found anything. They were parked on an old log-landing dark with stirred earth and woody debris, green with naturally sprouting redwood and Douglas fir. The fir loved the bare mineral soil and the sunlight in the man-made clearing. Above them, perhaps 1,000 feet, the hilltop loomed lush with spring grasses and dark with black oak. Below them the hillside fell away in a sea of young redwoods and mixed conifers interspersed with black oak, tan oak, and madrona.

The mountainside redwoods below them, about three years old, had sprung from stumps left from recent logging. Now mere babies, they eventually would obscure everything around them. Stretching below them in a giant bowl grew an old-growth redwood forest-the Highlands.

Dan's receiver had five channels and spindly fold-out antennae. The channel selected had been correct for the animal collar in the briefcase when he experimented with it. There was no reason to try the other channels, but he did so anyway. With the first click on another channel, the receiver gave a very faint beep. The needle barely registered. He switched it back to the briefcase channel.

At that moment they heard the whine of a jet helicopter, then saw it flying low over the trees. The receiver picked up a stronger signal apparently emanating from the copter; then after perhaps thirty seconds, and as the copter was still coming closer, the signal died.

"Damn," he said aloud. "I'm sure I got a signal from that helicopter, but as it got closer, it disappeared."

"It looked to me like it might be coming down," Maria said. "But where would it land over there?"

"It's hard to believe they could land. Maybe the signal was coming from something else."

Dan switched back to the other channel and once again got a faint signal.

"There," she said.

"It's not even the right channel," he said. "You stay here. I'll go down and check things out."

"Wait a minute. I heard your call with Hutchin. If you got a signal, that was it. You were supposed to call him."

"Do you see a phone booth? Besides, this probably isn't the signal. I told you I changed channels."

"That helicopter was the right channel?"

"Yeah, but it could be long gone."

"I think we should let Hutchin know what's happening."

Privately, Dan had thought the helicopter was landing. "We can't do that from here."

"Then we'll drive back."

"You drive. I'm going down that hill."

White particles of dust and pollen hung in the rays of the sun. Heavy forest scents of musty humus and the sweeter odor of jasmine permeated the air. There was a barely visible animal trail leading into the woods.

"I'm going with you" Maria said.

"No way. You'd slow me down. Stay right here in the car."

"It's a free country. I can walk where I want. As far as slowing you down…" She looked him up and down. "That's ridiculous."

"All right." He paused to search for words. "But don't complain and don't ask me to turn around every five minutes."

"You're a boor." Her expression said "asshole." Tension stretched the air as she stood with her hands on her hips. After a time of silence she let out amp; deep breath.''We're overdoing it here. Let me be the first to apologize. I'm… well… sorry for being so… whatever."

"Stubborn. You're sorry for being so irrationally stubborn. And for tagging along."

He grinned and she allowed a small smile.

"If I were a man, would I be 'tagging along'? I said I would be the first to apologize."

"And you did it very well, very well indeed. With a little coaching."

She shook her head. "You are really something else."

"Try to overlook it."

"If we're going to go chasing into these woods, wouldn't it make sense if I knew what you know?"

"Yeah, well, I've got this little problem known as attorney-client privilege."

Strangely, though, he found himself wishing he could tell her exactly what had happened, and why.

At the turn of the last century, the wealthiest man in Nolo County was William Carson. Across the street from his mansion, he built a bank to contain his fortune. A hundred years later, William Carson's bank had become the Hutchin Office Building, home to the law firm that employed Dan Young. The front entry of the two-story building was flanked by whitewashed wooden pillars; a balustrade surrounded the lip of the flat roof. Inside, the building looked like a Victorian library. Beautifully restored paneling, crown molding, plinth blocks, ornate cast-iron doors, and heavy wooden window-frames completed the traditional look. With walls made of heavy stone blocks, the building had a cathedrallike sense of integrity and permanence.

On that evening a week ago, Dan had arrived at the office a full fifty minutes early, wondering what could be so incredibly important that Jeb Otran would summon him and Hutchin to a 10:00 p.m. meeting. Not that Dan was about to complain. The intrigue alone was worth it.