David Dun - At The Edge

"Exactly, and it's bullshit. Some now-departed yew-tree scientist was interested in bats? We stole photos pertaining to the guy's hobby? And this is rich-the vaultlike file room with the microfiche is really a break room that previously was a storage area."

"Well, if we can find out what those equations mean, we may wipe the smirk off their faces."

"Will we ever meet these professors that Patty's lining up?"

"We will, but we have to do it carefully. You know we could be jeopardizing whoever talks to us." She pointed at the ground. ''We're over the Highlands, the back end. Why'd we fly the long way around?"

Dan shrugged and tapped the pilot on the shoulder rather than switch the headset. Jason pulled off one side of his headphone.

"Can we go lower?" Dan shouted above the drone. Jason nodded and began to descend.

Below, they could see the long, winding access road, and a small, unimproved clearing next to a natural pond, complete with helicopter. Barely visible amongst the trees was a tiny portion of what looked like the main building.

"Unless you knew right where to look, and you have this angled view, you wouldn't see the building," Maria said.

"Doesn't that look like the helicopter we saw, except for the colors? I'm thinking it's the same bird."

"The one we saw was all white."

"I think they masked the numbers and the colored trim by spraying it with wash-off paint. Yeah. Accident-reconstruction people, car thieves, movie makers, they all have a water-soluble paint that can change the color of a car or truck temporarily."

"I guess it could be the one we saw," Maria said.

"It's the same." I'll be darned. They gave half the money and have all of it back, Dan thought. What would Otran think of this? From an altitude of 600 feet, Dan shot photos with a large-bore 300mm lens.

Clearly visible was a clearing with a large, round structure that looked like a swimming pool. A pipe ran from it to the side of the mountain. On the steep rock hillside there were boards, like a shack. Dan snapped pictures furiously and marked the spot on a handheld sat-nav global positioning system (GPS) device.

After a couple of passes Jason motioned to Dan. Dan switched the intercom to the pilot position.

"Somebody on the ground has a Unicom radio for the copter pad and they're telling us we're too low. Technically, you have to maintain one thousand feet over a populated area. I guess they consider their pad and their buildings a development."

"Nervous, aren't they?" Maria said. "Let's fly back over the lower part of the forest."

She tapped Jason.

"Let's go back that way. I'd like to look at the rest of the Highlands."

David Dun

At The Edge

Jason looked at Dan, and Maria followed his gaze.

"What's going on?" Maria asked.

"Nothing. Jason, do you want to go back that way?"

"Tell me where to go, Dan," Jason said.

Dan groaned to himself at Jason's show of reluctance. The situation was deteriorating. "Go just where Maria wants," Dan said, hoping that somehow Jason would still be able to miss Otran's area or that the harvesting wouldn't be obvious.

"More that way," Maria said with uncanny accuracy.

"Your boyfriend is a state biologist, isn't he?" Dan had planned this topic for a completely different occasion, but hoped it would bring her mind and her eyes back inside the plane.

"Why?"

"I need to get into that compound and snoop around."

"What does that have to do with Ross?"

"He might be able to create a diversion. Make it so they can't have the dogs running around eating people."

"And when might that be?"

"When representatives of the Department of Fish and Game inspect timber-harvesting areas to determine effects on wildlife."

"What are you talking about?"

"We know that the wildlife guys let people like you tag along with them on private property when they are doing an inspection of timber-harvesting activity. They dress your kind up in green uniforms, or at least let you come with them in your civvies."

"Where did you get this idea?"

"Save your breath. I know it's a closely guarded secret. With the right story you could get the state to go looking around and you could even go with them if they were sure you wouldn't be recognized."

"OK. Just hypothetically, what if we could do that?"

"You would never have to admit anything to me. Just tell me when you're going and that's when I'll go through the fence. You know they won't have those guard dogs loose with state inspectors in there."

"It's too dangerous."

"The state can demand to look at the fence, the fallen trees."

"It's legal to cut trees if they are not sold for commercial purposes. You said so yourself."

"You know they'll let the state inspect. We've got to do something. They took the money. They shot at us. They broke into my house. They may have killed that senator's wife and made it look like rape."

"And they'll kill you too. This is not some B movie. This is real life, Dan. And real death. You have a little boy to think about. So just for once, don't listen to your testosterone. Let's do the research. Talk to the professors. Do all that we can do without getting killed in the process."

Her eyes went back to the window.

"Hey, over there," she said. "Fly over there."

Dan looked. Anderson was clearing a large log landing. They had felled an amazing number of trees for so early in the morning. There were cars back on the county road. Lots of them. Protesters.

''They're cutting right at the edge of the Highlands. God, they're cutting in the old growth!" She whipped around to Dan.

Dan opened his mouth but didn't speak.

"You knew," she said. "You knew. Well, answer me. You didn't want me to go. You didn't want to fly over here. You were hiding it."

"Now, let's just talk about this and-"

"Don't talk to me in that insipid tone of voice. You are treacherously deceitful."

"I can't disclose client confidences," Dan said.

He knew he shouldn't have said it the instant the words came out. Rage filled Maria's eyes and she looked away from him. Then she took off her headset and threw it on the seat, meaning that to communicate he would be reduced to talking in an unnaturally loud voice. Other than tapping Jason on the shoulder and asking him to circle the log landing that was being cleared by Anderson logging, no more words were spoken until they landed. Dan waited until they had thanked Jason and then walked her to her car before trying to redeem himself.

"I still think we should talk about this," Dan said.

She stopped and turned to him.

"So you can feed me more bullshit."

"It's obvious your people found it anyway."

"No thanks to you."

Dan knew that whatever he said next could affect his relationship with Maria for a long time to come.

"Answer me this," she continued. "Given what's happened in the last few days, the sort of trust that I thought maybe we were building, weren't you being deceitful this morning? Lying actually?"

Instantly he knew she was right. He knew it without analysis. But for some reason he felt compelled to analyze it. So he hesitated.

"Well?"

"You're probably right."

"You have insect-sized morals. You thought up every word you said this morning, hoping I wouldn't come, making it sound like it would interfere with my meetings. And if that wasn't enough, you schemed with the pilot behind my back."

"There are times when a lawyer has to-"

"That's it. I'm outta here."

While she angrily fumbled with her keys, he tried to think of something to keep her there. Nothing came.

"Damn it," he said under his breath as she pulled away.

When Dan called his cell-phone message center, there was a 6:00 a.m. message from Otran's vice president of natural resources.