Free Doing Hard Time by Stuart Woods

stills to help orient himself in the search for Ivan and Yevgeny in their Lincoln Navigator, but first, he thought that speaking to a few human beings might be useful. He started at the gas station.
    A teenaged boy ran out of the building and asked what would be his pleasure.
    “Actually, I just rented the car, so I don’t need any gas yet,” Igor replied. “What I could use is a little information.”
    “What kind of information, sir?”
    “A couple of friends of mine passed through here last week, and I’m trying to find them. They were driving a black Lincoln Navigator. Have you seen anybody like that?”
    “No, sir, but I only work after school. If they came by here before that, I wouldn’t have seen them.”
    “Who would have been working here while you were in school?”
    “Last week? That would be Billy Burnett.”
    “May I speak with him?”
    “I’m afraid he moved on at the end of last week. He was only here for, I don’t know, two or three weeks. He was helping us out while my uncle, Tom Fields, the owner of the place, was taking care of his wife.”
    “Do you know where Billy Burnett moved on to?”
    “I don’t know. Uncle Tom said he just got in his airplane and flew away.”
    “What kind of airplane did he fly?”
    “When he got here he had a nice Cessna 182 RG, but he swapped it with a feller for a like-new Piper Malibu that had a turboprop conversion.”
    “You remember his tail number?”
    “November one, two, three, tango, foxtrot.”
    “What’s your name, son?”
    “Bobby.”
    “You’re a bright boy, Bobby, and I appreciate your help. Where’d Billy take off from? Gallup?”
    “No, sir, we got an airstrip behind the buildings, here.”
    “Do you mind showing me?”
    “No, sir. Come on.” The boy led him through a workshop, and Igor saw a backhoe and a forklift through a door leading to the next building.
    Out back there was, in fact, an airstrip, with a windsock and a fuel tank marked 100LL. An old Stearman biplane was tied down at one end. “You mind if I take a stroll around?” Igor asked the boy.
    “No, sir, but I gotta get back out front, in case somebody wants gas.”
    “You go ahead,” Igor said. “I won’t get lost.” The boy ran back through the shop, and Igor unfolded the printouts of the GPS tracking. He located his position behind the buildings, then he began walking, checking the printout now and then, following the dotted line that led, first east, then north into what appeared to be a solid forest of piñon trees, none of them more than about six or eight feet high. But they weren’t all that close together, and there was room for a big car to drive among them.
    He checked his bearings and walked into the trees on a path approximating the dotted line, and a couple hundred yards later, he came to a clearing. He looked around for tire tracks but saw none. There had been a big line of thunderstorms through here last week, he remembered, because they had come through Phoenix, too, then gone on into Texas. A hard rain would have obliterated tire tracks. Then he saw something that interested him.
    A few yards into the clearing he came to a slight indentation in the earth, and it was rectangular—about eight feet wide and twenty feet long. It was as if a large hole had been dug, then filled in again, then the dirt had settled. He thought about what that might mean, and he wished he had a metal detector.
    “Something I can help you with?” a voice behind him said. Igor turned to find a man of about sixty standing behind him.
    “Good day to you,” Igor said. “You must be Mr. Tom Fields.”
    “I am.”
    “Your nephew was showing me your airstrip, and I just took a little stroll.”
    Fields nodded at the papers in his hand. “You looking for something out here?”
    “I’m looking for a couple of friends of mine who passed through here last week, driving a black Lincoln Navigator. Did you by any chance see or talk to them?”
    Fields shook his head.