“We should get to the airport,” Barlow murmured without turning. “We leave in an hour.”
Alex opened her mouth to question him, then thought better of it. She’d know soon enough where they were going. All she’d have to do was read her boarding pass.
Except they didn’t fly commercial. Barlow had his very own plane.
They also didn’t leave in an hour. Something needed to be adjusted, and when dealing with planes Alex was all for adjusting it, however long that might take. She sat in a hard plastic chair and watched Barlow pace. He seemed more like a w
ild animal now than when he’d been one.
At last the pilot motioned for them to board. Alex reached for her ID, then remembered she’d left her license on the table in the hotel when she’d gone into the shower, then she’d never seen it again. The scent of burning waste in the room suddenly made a lot more sense.
“You burned my ID?” she whispered furiously.
“You won’t need it where we’re going.”
“Just because you have your own plane doesn’t mean we don’t have to show ID.”
He smiled. “It does on my plane.”
“But—”
“If you have enough money you can buy anything. Especially anonymity. I’d think you would have learned that from Mandenauer.”
Barlow got on board, leaving Alex to follow or not. Though she had no doubt that if she chose not, he’d make her.
They flew away from the sun, out over the Pacific. Just when Alex had begun to obsess about landing in China or Russia or some Stan country with a lot of caves and disappearing forever, the pilot turned toward land, then tilted the nose north.
“You’ll see Fairbanks before you know it,” he announced through the headphones they’d all donned along with their seat belts.
Alaska?
No wonder Edward had never found them.
Several hours later they flew over Fairbanks. The pilot couldn’t help playing tour guide.
“Fairbanks has one of the largest population centers this far north in the world. About thirty thousand in the town, and another eighty-four thousand in there.” He pointed to the acres upon acres of trees. “Place is surrounded by hundreds of miles of subarctic bush.”
“How cold does it get?” Alex asked.
The guy grinned, enjoying himself. “In January down to sixty-six below; in July it can hit ninety-nine.”
“What about right now?”
“September is a strange one. We’ve had snow, temps in the teens. Today it’s probably forty.” He waved at the western horizon where the sun was falling down. “But it’s gonna cool off soon.”
“Kind of early to be getting dark.”
“You’re near the Arctic Circle. In December they only see the sun for a few hours.”
Alex definitely needed to be out of here before December.
The plane banked over the city, which appeared fairly modern, full of paved streets, concrete and steel buildings. She even caught the bright flare of golden arches; then they sailed past, headed toward some pretty thick timber. The trees were so tall, the belly seemed to skim the branches.
“Where’s the airport?” Alex asked, and her voice shook just a little.
Barlow lifted a brow and mouthed, Scared?
She turned away.