Chapter 8 – Chap-sticks and Tomatoes

Jo felt her head drop as she dozed off. She snapped upright disgusted with herself despite the rational part of her brain telling her that it was hardly surprising given twenty-four hours without sleep. She glanced at Don behind the steering wheel but he was focussed on the road driving as fast as he dare. His face registered no emotion but she knew that wasn't true. She had always known how much he admired Mac and that they were more than friends but it wasn't until Lindsay had told her how Mac had saved Don's life during a bomb blast that she realized just how deep that bond went. She dreaded to think what would happen if the worst came to the worst but she shook the thought away. She wasn't ready to go there just yet. Behind her Danny was talking quietly to Adam and Sheldon who were still ensconced in the AV lab. "Okay that fits with what Randall told us." He huffed in answer to an unheard question. "The way Don's driving we'll be there in less than half an hour." Jo looked at her watch. It was almost two hours since they had left and three since she had got the call. She had been sitting in Mac's chair staring out of the window when Adam had walked in with tea.

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"Can't sleep?" he asked softly. Jo shook her head smiling at him gratefully as she took the steaming mug. "Me neither." He watched her for a moment as though debating whether to say anything else. "He'll be okay Jo. You know that don't you?" Jo had looked up at the young lab tech conscious that he was trying to make her feel better. She was astonished to see a totally sincere look on his face. She realized that he believed it. Totally and absolutely. She had been sitting there imaging all the worst case scenarios, feeling utterly sorry for herself and at a loss as to what to do next and there was Adam totally confident of his boss' ability to get himself out of trouble. "You 'll see. He'll get a message to us somehow."

Jo almost shot out of her skin as her phone trilled urgently. She didn't recognize the caller. "Danville." Adam watched her equally surprised by the sudden call so early in the morning. Jo listened her face registering surprise and ... was it hope? Adam's heart leapt. "When was this?" She listened some more. "No I understand. We will be there as soon as we can. Can you text me the address? Thank you."

"What is it? Mac?" asked Adam excitedly.

Jo's face was a picture. "He left us a message. "

"He did?" asked Adam incredulous that his prediction had come true so soon. Then he grinned. "Told ya!"

Five minutes later, accompanied by Don, Danny and Sheldon they gathered around the computer table. Jo laid her phone on it in front of Adam. He tapped at the screen as Jo explained the call to the others. "Albany PD called me as soon as their officer reported it. He had been out tracking some illegal street racers. He had been checking out a abandoned garage where they were thought to meet when he found a strange message written on the bathroom wall. It gave my name and an NYPD number."

Adam pulled up a photograph and, using his thumbs and forefingers, expanded it twisting it as he did so. Jo gasped. The four men were silent as they stared at the picture of a tiled wall. Adam swallowed. "Is that …?"

"Blood." Sheldon finished for him as Don and Danny swore under their breaths.

Adam felt sick as he read the message. "Okay. That was NOT what I had in mind."

Jo could hardly bring herself to tear her eyes away from the message. "We need to get up there. Now."

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It should have taken well over two hours but thanks to light traffic and the early hour Don broke the records. The garage was easy to spot. A police cruiser was sitting outside with its lights flashing. As they pulled up a tall man with confident air pulled himself out of the driver's seat. He was what would be described as ruggedly handsome and under other circumstances Jo would have a taken a second appreciative look but she leapt from the car before Don even had time to switch off the engine. "Detective Danville?" Jo nodded as the officer stretched out a hand. "Randall Wade, ma'am." Jo made the introductions and he led them round to the back of the building. "I'm afraid the electricity has been off for some time but I had some portable lighting brought out for you." He gestured to the door and stood back.

They all wrinkled their noses at the smell but no one said anything. The tiled wall at the end of the bathroom was lit by a bright light plugged into a small generator that stood just outside the door. Jo felt sick. It looked even worse than on the photograph. The top line read 'Mac/Stacy'. It could have been a lovers' tag were it not for the words underneath. 'HELP! Blk MB Sprinter. MZV 97Y DIR N. Adirondacks? NYPD. Jo Danville.' It finished with the NYPD switchboard number and the letters SOS.

Danny pulled on gloves and stepped up to the wall. He peered closely at the writing and then swiped at it with his fingertip leaving a little smudge on the final S. Intrigued, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and then, much to Don's astonishment, he sniffed them. "Strawberry," he declared.

"Huh?"

Danny held his fingers out. "That smell like strawberry to you?" Don sniffed cautiously at the gloves then Jo did the same. They nodded. Danny looked back at the writing. "Greasy ... Shiny … Strawberry ... Chap-stick!"

"What?"

"It's blood mixed with chap-stick." Danny turned to look at them "Made it go further. Maybe he's not that badly hurt."

"That's a relief," whispered Don. "I think."

Randall Wade coughed politely. "I … er … took the liberty of putting out a BOLO on that number plate. I also contacted the Adirondacks park authority. I hope that was okay?"

Jo smiled at him warmly, a little of the tightness in her stomach easing knowing that Mac was alive and well when he wrote the message even if she didn't want to know how he got the blood to write it with. "Yes thank you. We appreciate your help."

Wade nodded to the wall. "This is for real then?"

Jo nodded. "Yes, a young girl by the name of Stacey Daley was abducted yesterday along with a colleague of ours." She gestured to the name. "Mac Taylor."

Wade's face was grim as he cut to the chase. "Why?"

"We believe that the men that took them are searching for a plane that crashed and they think that Stacy can lead them to it."

Wade's eyes opened wide. Of all the things they could have said that didn't even figure on his list. "A plane crash?" He looked at the message again. "In the Adirondacks?" He rubbed at his chin. "That's six million acres of park. Forest. Lakes. Rivers. Mountains. That's a helluva big area."

Jo, Don and Danny looked at him, their hearts sinking. They knew that already.

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Adam stared in despair at the map displayed on the screen in front of them. The Adirondack Mountains, bordered on the east by Lakes Champlain and George, by the Mohawk Valley to the South and by Tug Hill Plateau to the West. A vast area with over a thousand peaks ranging from under 1,200 feet to over 5,000. And somewhere within that a small plane.

"Okay," said Sheldon firmly. "Wright and Wong said they believed that Sam Garner and Stacy had crashed at sea." He picked up a paper. "According to this report Sam Garner hired a plane under the name of Samuel Daley from a small airfield several miles from Miami. They logged a flight plan to a small private airfield near Raleigh where they refuelled listing their final destination as Providence, Rhode Island. These are the coordinates of their position before traffic control lost them." Sheldon held up the paper and Adam glanced at it jiggling the mouse on the desk to bring up a window on the screen., He tapped in the coordinates. The map expanded as though they were in a rocket rising high above the earth, the blues and greens merging together as the map expanded to cover Vermont and Massachusetts. A blue marker flashed on the screen just east of the small town of Montauk that sat out on a promontory as though it were about to fall into the sea. "According to the traffic controller, Garner had called in saying he was experiencing engine difficulties. The weather was bad with high winds. He lost altitude and disappeared." He looked at Adam. "Let's assume he didn't crash."

Adam nodded as his fingers flew over the keyboard. "So we'll take this as a starting point, let's see if we can estimate his range." He looked over at Sheldon who was typing away at the next workstation. Adelaide. Sheldon jabbed at a key. "Treat her nicely," Adam admonished. Sheldon rolled his eyes putting his foot down at sweet-talking a piece of machinery.

"Okay he was a flying a Cessna 172 , average range eight hundred miles with a forty-five minute reserve, at fifty-five per cent power, at twelve thousand feet."

"So it's six hundred and twenty-two miles from where they refuelled which leaves us with a possible range of one hundred and seventy-eight plus the reserve assuming he was flying cautiously." Adam hit enter with a flourish and a red ring appeared on the map. "Okay that doesn't narrow it down much."

"Restrict the search zone to the Adirondacks."

Adam nodded as he typed. "Why do think Mac thought they were heading there?"

Sheldon shrugged.

"Maybe he was hoping to cross into Canada," came a voice from behind them. They turned to see Lindsay standing in the doorway with a tablet in her hand. She jiggled her head contemplating the possibilities. "If you were running from an arms dealer you'd want to get as far away as possible. Mexico would be the obvious choice but maybe Sam Garner thought Canada was a safer bet. Maybe he knew of a safe zone where he could cross the border without being noticed." They all looked at the screen and the glowing red circle. "That's still a big area."

"Well, we can narrow it down. There's a number of factors that we know." Sheldon stretched the kinks out of his neck as he turned the facts over his mind.

Adam looked a little confused. "We do?"

"Mm. Mm. First of all the crash site hasn't been found or it would have been reported therefore it's not visible from the air so we can eliminate wide open areas. The Adirondacks are a major tourist attraction so eliminate all marked trails and public sections of the park. We looking for something remote."

Lindsay stepped up behind Adam. "We also need an area with heavy tree cover including Spruce and a log cabin that is at least thirty years old."

Adam and Sheldon froze, glanced at one another before turning round incredulous. "Oh … kay! And you based this on …?" prompted Sheldon.

"A tomato." Lindsay turned the tablet to face them. It showed a photograph of the bag of groceries that Stacy had dropped in the alley. "I took another look at the evidence..." Sheldon and Adam turned to face her. So that was what she had been doing! Why were they not surprised? "... and in particular the squashed tomato." She tapped the screen to zoom in on the offending fruit. "It had been stepped on. I looked for trace and found a needle which Edna identified as Spruce and a fleck of wood that tested for high concentrates of Ammoniacal Copper Arsenate, a wood preservative that hasn't been available in the United States for over thirty years." She flashed a grin at them.

Sheldon smiled. "Nice." Adam nodded and turned back to the keyboard. His fingers hovered over the keys. "Oh and while you're at it, you need to look at the weather patterns for that day."

Adam winced. "Weather patterns?"

"Huh. Huh. Sam Garner was an experienced pilot. He was obviously intending to fake a crash blaming it on engine trouble and poor weather. But he did end up crashing. I think we can rule out engine trouble so it had to be the weather. Let's try the National Weather Service or the Meteorological Society? See if their records show any lightning strikes."

Adam shook his head in amusement. "You guys are good."

Lindsay patted him on the shoulder. "Now it's time for you to show us how good you are!"

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