Fire Eye Read Free

else?”
    “I know a retired airline pilot who bought the whole collection of slides and photographs and gave them to me. He knows I’m interested in finding out more about the period. It looks like they came from a deceased estate. If you want to help I can let you have them. That is, if you think you are up to the task!”
    She sure knows how to throw out a challenge! Holding his tongue, Jed looks down at the photograph. She misreads his lack of response as indecisiveness, continuing to talk, knowing enough about his life to tease him with a few confidential details.
    “I know about Burma and what you did for Roman. You like a challenge, especially to do with lost aircraft from World War II. That’s just what I need if you’re up for it!”
    Snapping his head up, Jed looks into her direct and piercing gaze. Now she has his attention! He studies her with his best poker face. Burma was a long time ago, an adventure from the wild days of youth—a prison break to pay back more than one favour to a good man whose son had been held for ransom. And Roman? Roman was an adventure in Irian Jaya he really couldn’t resist. Roman needed parts for a World War II aircraft rebuild he was funding. Even if corroded, the parts they recovered would serve as templates for the manufacture of new components. They did that in fifty-four hours on the ground, in and out, before things became difficult. Alexander seems to know all about it.
    “I don’t know it all,” she adds with the confidence of the well-informed, “but Chelavenki recommended you.”
    Chelavenki
! Now she really grabs his attention, like a hand gripped tightly around his throat! What can he say? She has the most revealing source of information about him. To deny it would be a lie. He doesn’t want to lie to this woman, but there is information he has never even shared with his family.
    Chelavenki
! Ex-American helicopter pilot shot down three times in Vietnam, later a chopper pilot flying deer cullers, including Jed, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, a mercenary organiser and later a business consultant back in the States. He looks straight back into her brown eyes and chooses to say nothing about all that. He can always find out later what has gone on there.
    “If you want me to help, I’ll need everything you have. I’ll have to do some research and get back to you in a few weeks,” he announces decisively. Now he doesn’t have to work hard to keep his eyes level with hers. Adventure is calling.
    “That’s fine. I’m heading off to Sydney for a while but can meet when you are ready.”
    “Bear in mind Alexander, this will cost you. Allowing for airfares, vehicle, fuel, supplies and incidentals, you could be up for at least ten thousand dollars with no guarantee of success.”
    “I don’t care. I’m willing to have a go. It’s the only lead I have. I want to at least try. I expect to cover expenses and will pay you ten thousand on top for your efforts.” Her tone makes it plain she has already thought things through.
    The lady has time and money to burn
, Jed assesses. He acknowledges the urge to locate her grandfather. He’d come across other families searching for closure over relatives missing in action over the vast expanse of Northern Australia, New Guinea and the waters in between. The reasons were their own, but important to them.
    Jed hesitates, but not out of doubt. He doesn’t want to seem too eager. After exploring twenty-six crash sites from World War II, here is a chance at an unrecorded site, a war grave. He is keen.
    “It would mean a lot to me to find him,” she says. “My mother cut her father out of her life totally and said little about him. Grandma always blamed my mother for his death in a weird, convoluted way. I copped the effects all through my childhood. From what I know, I think I’m a bit like him. Maybe I can settle some ghosts for her and also for me.”
    Her voice has taken on a soft quality and Jed senses an