Snowblind Read Online Free PDF

first."
    "Twenty feet to your left."
    "I need some help."
    "Something wrong with that cane?"
    Kris could smell the Cheetos on her breath.
    "You don't look like no cripple to me. Get off your lily ass and get into that bathroom. And I mean now!"
    The shout drove Kris up from her seat. Angered, she tapped her way noisily toward the bathroom. "If you had any idea..."
    "If I had any idea what? Girl, I'm as blind as you are, so get your sorry-ass in there already!"
    Kris pushed her way hurriedly through the door.
    *  *  *
    The Fairbanks Psychiatric Hospital lay forty miles east of the airport on the northern shore of the frozen Chena River. Dr. Raoul Katukan, a dwarfish but burly black-haired man of Inuit descent, left the red-brick building shortly after he'd made his afternoon rounds, within minutes of receiving the call from Chief Adashek. "We've lost contact," was all the Chief had told him.
    Katukan drove his twenty-year-old Mercedes as fast as he dared down the icy stretch of Richardson Highway. Staring into the cold glare of the ebbing sun, he thought of the last words he'd heard his homicidal patient speak. Bound in a strait-jacket, melting into a narcotic haze, the killer had asked an unanswerable question. "Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in?" The doctor had watched the light of consciousness fade from the frightening eyes. How could one with such a mind, so intimate with the Word of God, have strayed so very, very far? A question perhaps equally unanswerable. The madman was a paradox of the sacred and profane.
    The windshield had just begun to thaw when Katukan reached the exit for Fairbanks International. He parked near the Tower and realized that in the rush he'd forgotten his boots. He climbed out and hurried across the lot, tip-toeing through the snow in his wingtips.
    Adashek was waiting for him in the glass-walled tower.
    "Any word?" the doctor asked him.
    "Not a peep," the Chief replied. "Lost radio contact over an hour ago. They were still on the ground."
    "The patient?"
    Adashek shook his head. "We don't know."
    They started toward Dean Stanton's post. Dr. Katukan scanned the room, grimacing at the smoke. He waved the air from his face. "Is this allowed?"
    "Federal jurisdiction. They could be smoking pot for all I can say about it."
    Dean Stanton swiveled from his console, cigarette dangling. The Chief introduced him to the doctor. They shook hands.
    Stanton turned and gestured toward the radar screen. "We've got another problem. Winds have shifted. The storm that was supposed to head east is moving south."
    "How close?" Adashek asked.
    The air traffic controller studied the radar screen. A splatter of green light edged the top of the glass. "If they're still on the North Slope, they're probably okay. But if they're in the air, and they've managed to cross the Gates, they could be in real trouble."
    "They're in real trouble either way, Mr. Stanton."
    Stanton turned around. It was the doctor who had spoken.
    "Whether they're lost in the storm," he explained, "or just waiting it out, either way it will take time. Time in which the drugs may wear off."
    Stanton continued looking at him. "Just how crazy is this patient of yours, Doc?"
    Katukan glanced at the Police Chief, then looked grimly back at the controller. "Do you have a wife, Mr. Stanton?"
    "Fifteen years."
    "Children?"
    "Yes. Two girls."
    "Do you love them?"
    "Yeah... of course I do. Why're you asking?"
    "Because, Mr. Stanton, if you ever want to sleep soundly again, you'll do everything in your power to bring those two pilots back."
    Stanton stared blankly at the doctor. "Right," he said after a moment. He swiveled around in his chair, flipped a switch on his radio, and picked up the microphone.
    "Whiskey Four-O-Three, this is Fairbanks Tower, do you copy, over."
    The three men listened, staring into the black void of the radio's speaker. After a few moments, Stanton spoke again.
    "Whiskey Four-O-Three do you read