Stone Cold by Dean Crawford Page A

‘They’re letting us sweat on it, waiting until the last minute. Then they’ll call in, ask for a reasonable amount of money, something that maybe the McKenzie’s can afford, and bingo…’
    ‘They walk away with a couple of million,’ Griffin finished her sentence as they walked out into the cold air, but he frowned. ‘Seems kind of elaborate though, doesn’t it? Like all ransoms they’re risking identification when the money’s brought out.’
    ‘Well,’ Maietta said, ‘we’re pissing into the wind until they make contact. Let’s get back and hand over to the night shift, okay?’
    Griffin nodded, still thinking about Dale McKenzie and the alarm system in the pilot’s house.
    ***

11
    ‘Ventura four–one–nine–six, downwind for finals to stop, runway two–seven.’
    Captain Dale McKenzie held the control column of the Dash–8 tightly in his hands, trying to let the aircraft ride the air currents as the bottom of the cloud layer skimmed past just above him. But he couldn’t loosen his grip and the Dash–8 felt twitchy and awkward in his grasp as he squinted into the sunset through ragged bands of turbulent cloud, the past hour of flying consumed by concern for his wife.
    On one of the glass screens before him, a digital clock read 16.52 . Twelve hours ago, as near as anybody could figure, Sheila had been abducted. Dale had no knowledge of whether there had been contact from her abductors while he had been airborne, or if her cold corpse had been found dumped in some lonely woods somewhere out on the plains.
    The aircraft had just descended out of its cruise, the darkening clouds parting to reveal a gloomy evening below, a stark difference to the brilliant blue sky and burning deserts of Las Vegas from where his flight had just returned. The lights of Great Falls twinkled like a galaxy nearby as Dale watched the runway of the airport passing by off the port wing, following the standard approach pattern into the airport.
    ‘Landing checks,’ his first officer said.
    Elaine Kingsley was a first–year graduate pilot, fresh out of flight school and eager to impress. She already had the checklist in her lap and was calling out each check for Dale’s benefit as she ran through them.
    ‘De–ice on…, flaps retracted…, landing lights on…, fuel as planned plus ten per cent reserve…’
    Dale listened to her until she completed the list, then he made his own call.
    ‘Flaps stage one, landing gear down.’
    Elaine repeated the calls, the flaps whining into position as the undercarriage dropped out into the airstream. Dale tweaked the trim and throttles to compensate, watching the airspeed decrease steadily.
    ‘Flaps stage two, trim her out in advance.’
    Elaine obeyed, trimming the nose down slightly and then deploying the flaps again as Dale held the aircraft steady. Dale felt the Dash settle into its new configuration as Elaine advanced the throttles to arrest the descent, the extra lift generated by the flaps causing the airplane to bob about on the wind more vigorously than before.
    ‘You got anything planned now that the shift’s over?’ Elaine asked.
    Dale shook his head, monitoring the instruments as he replied. ‘Nothing special, just relaxing at home.’
    ‘How’s the wife?’
    Dale opened his mouth to reply, but his brain momentarily froze as he pictured Sheila alone somewhere, maybe in pain or terrible fear, suffering. His grip tightened on the control column as he heard Elaine reply to a call from air traffic control, and he realised that he was breathing more heavily, hot and uncomfortable.
    ‘You okay?’
    Elaine was watching him with some concern.
    ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Dale blinked himself out of his torpor. ‘Just feeling a little under the weather.’
    ‘You want me to land?’
    ‘No, I’m good, really.’
    Dale checked his instruments one last time as he turned the descending aircraft to the left, the streetlights and rivers of headlights of Great Falls’