Authors: Douglas Preston
He drifted along the aisle of fiction, starting with Z and going on down the shelves in reverse alphabetical order, plucking out a book here and there, Vincent Zandri, Stuart Woods, James Rollins… He riffled through books at random, looking for notes or papers, or—he smiled to himself—rough sketches of atomic weapons perhaps, but finding nothing. In the background, he could hear Fordyce questioning the librarian with a gentle but persistent thoroughness. Gideon couldn’t help but be struck by the man’s competence. Fordyce was a strange combination of methodical, by-the-book determination and impatience with rules and red tape.
Anne Rice, Tom Piccirilli… He pawed through book after book with a rising irritation.
And then he paused. Here was a signed book, a copy of a David Morrell novel,
The Shimmer
, with the author’s signature under a scribbled
Best wishes.
Nothing telling there. He flipped through the pages but there was nothing else. He shoved it back. A little farther on, he encountered another signed book, this one by Tess Gerritsen, titled
The Bone Garden
. Another generic dedication:
To Reed, Best Regards
. And another,
Killing Floor
, signed by Lee Child,
To Reed, My Best
. Chalker had good taste, at least.
Fordyce droned on in the background, extracting every last drop of information from the librarian.
Gideon worked his way down to the B’s.
The Abbey in the Oakwood
by Simon Blaine was personalized:
To Reed, with affectionate regards
. And it was signed
Simon
.
He paused before putting it back on the shelf. Did Simon Blaine sign all his books just
Simon
? There was another Blaine novel next to it,
The Sea of Ice
.
To Reed, with my best, Simon B.
Fordyce appeared at his side. “Dead end,” he murmured.
“Maybe not.” Gideon showed the two books to Fordyce.
Fordyce took them, flipped through them. “I don’t get it.”
“
With affectionate regards
? And signed by first name only? Sounds like Blaine knew him.”
“I doubt it.”
Gideon thought for a moment, then turned to the librarian. “I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Yes?” She hurried over, glad to have a chance to talk again.
“You seem to have a lot of books by Simon Blaine.”
“We have all of his books. And come to think of it, most of them came from Mr. Chalker.”
“Ah,” said Fordyce. “You didn’t tell me that.”
She gave an embarrassed smile. “I just now thought of it.”
“Did Chalker know Blaine?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps. After all, Blaine lives in Santa Fe.”
Bingo
, thought Gideon. He cast a triumphant eye on Fordyce. “There you have it. They
did
know each other.”
Fordyce frowned. “A man like Blaine, a bestselling author—National Book Award winner, it says here—isn’t likely to have had much of a friendship with a geek from Los Alamos.”
“I resemble that remark,” said Gideon, in his best Groucho Marx imitation.
Fordyce rolled his eyes. “Did you see the date on that book? It was published two years before Chalker converted. And the fact that he gave away Blaine’s books along with the others does not exactly indicate a deep friendship. Frankly, I don’t see a lead here.” He paused. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder whether or not this whole trip west has done nothing but cost us crucial time.”
Gideon pretended not to hear this last remark. “It’s worth visiting Blaine. Just in case.”
Fordyce shook his head. “Waste of time.”
“You never know.”
Fordyce laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s true—in this business sometimes the craziest idea pans out. I don’t mean to dismiss it out of hand. But you’ll have to do this one alone—you’re forgetting I’ve got a meeting in Albuquerque later today.”
“Oh yeah. Do I need to be there?”
“Better if you’re not. I plan to kick ass. I want access to the house, to the mosque, to the lab, to his colleagues—I want to make sure we’re a real part of this investigation.
That’s
how we’re going to make a difference.”
Gideon grinned. “You go, girl.”
S
IMON BLAINE LIVED
in a large house about half a mile from the plaza, along the Old Santa Fe Trail. With the car gone with Fordyce to Albuquerque, Gideon walked from the plaza to the house. The weather was glorious, a warm, high-altitude summer’s day, not too hot, the sky a royal blue, just a few thunderheads forming over the distant Sandia Mountains. He wondered if Blaine would still be around. The damn town was now half empty.
Eight days to N-Day. The clock was ticking. Still, he was glad to be in Santa Fe instead of New York, which was a total mess. Most of the Financial District, Wall Street, the World Trade Center site, and the area of Midtown around the Empire State Building had been abandoned—followed inevitably by looting, fires, and National Guard deployments. In the past day a political furor had erupted, with hysterical political attacks on the president. Certain divisive media figures and radio personalities had leapt into the fray, exploiting the situation to their own gain, whipping up public sentiment. America was not handling the crisis well at all.
He shook off these thoughts as he arrived at Blaine’s address. The house was hidden behind an eight-foot adobe wall that ran alongside the road. The only things visible beyond the wall were the tops of aspen trees growing in profusion, rustling in a steady wind. The gate itself was solid wrought iron and weathered barnwood, and Gideon was unable to find even a crack to peer through. He eyed the intercom set into the adobe next to the gate, pressed the buzzer, and waited.
Nothing.
He pressed again. Nobody home? Only one way to tell.
He strolled along the wall until he came to the corner of the property. He was used to scaling walls and had little trouble leaping up, grasping the top, and pulling himself over the rough adobe. In a moment he had dropped down the other side, landing in a grove of aspen trees hidden from the house. Nearby, an artificial waterfall splashed over a pile of stones into a small pond. Beyond it, across a billiard-green lawn, lay a low, sprawling adobe house with many portals and verandas and at least a dozen chimneys.
Through the windows he saw a figure moving. Someone
was
home. He was irritated that they hadn’t responded to his ring. Fingering the ID he’d finally been issued—and which, it had seemed, Fordyce gave him with a certain reluctance—he followed the wall back to the gate, pressed the button to open it, so it would appear he’d entered this way. As it swung open, he walked out into the driveway and strode up to the front door of the house. He rang the bell.
A long wait. He rang again and—finally—heard hollow footsteps in the entrance hall. The door swung open to reveal a skinny young woman in her mid-twenties, with a long swaying cascade of hair, wearing jeans, a tight white shirt, cowboy boots, and a fierce scowl. She had that quite unusual combination of dark brown eyes and golden hair.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, hands on her hips, tossing her hair out of her face, “and how’d you get in?”
Gideon had already been considering what the best approach might be, and her defiant demeanor settled the question. With an easy smile, he reached with insolent slowness into his pocket, brought out the ID, and did a Fordyce, extending his hand deep into her personal space. “Gideon Crew, FBI liaison.”
“Get that thing out of my face.”
Continuing to smile, Gideon said, “You probably should take a look at it. Last chance you’ll get.”
With a cold, answering smile, she reached out but, instead of taking the ID, swatted his hand out of her face.
For a moment, Gideon stood surprised. Her face was defiant, her eyes flashing, the pulse of her heart in her slender neck—this was a tiger. As he pulled out his cell phone, he felt almost sorry about having to do this to such a woman. He dialed the police and spoke to a dispatcher he and Fordyce had previously chatted up—or rather “liaised with,” to use Fordyce’s jargon. “This is Gideon Crew. I need backup at Nine Ninety Old Santa Fe Trail. I’m on scene, and I’ve been assaulted by a resident on the premises.”
“I didn’t assault you, jerkoff!”
What a mouth.
“Your action, knocking my hand away, meets the definition of assault.” He gave the woman a grin. “The shit just hit the fan. And I don’t even know your name yet.”
She glared back with her fierce brown eyes and—after a long staredown—finally wavered, her face loosening. She wasn’t so tough after all. “You’re really FBI?” Her glance raked his clothes—black jeans, lavender shirt, Keds. “You sure as hell don’t look it.”
“FBI
liaison
. Investigating the terrorist incident in New York. I’m here on a friendly little call to ask Mr. Simon Blaine some questions.”
“He’s not here.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
Gideon could hear faint sirens. Damn, the police were quick around here. He saw her eyes dart toward the sound.
“You should’ve called,” she said. “You had no right to trespass!”
“My right to enter the premises extends to the door. You’ve got about five seconds to decide whether you want to escalate this into something really ugly or cooperate one hundred percent. Like I said, this was a friendly visit and it doesn’t have to turn into a felony charge.”
“A felony charge?” The sirens got louder as the cars approached the gate. He could tell from the frightened look that she was crumbling fast. “All right. All right, I’ll cooperate. But this is blackmail, pure and simple. I won’t forget it.”
The first squad car came through the open gate, followed by others. Gideon met the lead car in front of the house. He showed ID, leaned in. “Officers? Everything’s under control—total cooperation now from the occupants of the house. Your quick response did the trick. Thank you so much.”
The police were reluctant to leave—they were excited to be involved, even peripherally, in the investigation, and it wasn’t often that they were called to a famous writer’s house—but Gideon coolly persuaded them that it was a misunderstanding. After the cops left, he turned and smiled at the woman, gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”
She stepped into the house, then turned. “This is a no-shoe house. Take ’em off.”
Gideon pulled off the Keds. Quite pointedly she, herself, did not remove her cowboy boots, on which Gideon could spy what looked like dried horseshit. She walked across the entrance hall’s Persian rug into the living room. It was a spectacular space, with white leather sofas, a vast fireplace, and what Gideon recognized as prehistoric Mimbres pots in various display cases.
She sat down, still saying nothing.
Gideon took out a notebook and settled into a chair opposite her. He couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was—downright beautiful, in fact. He was starting to feel bad about bullying her. Nevertheless, he tried to maintain a stern, unforgiving demeanor. “Your name, please?”
“Alida Blaine.” She answered in a flat monotone. “Should I be calling the family lawyer?”
“You promised to cooperate,” he said sternly. There was a long silence and then he softened. “Look, Alida, I just want to ask some simple questions.”
She smirked. “Are Keds the new FBI uniform?”
“It’s a temporary assignment.”
“Temporary? So what do you do normally? Play in a rock band?”
Maybe Fordyce had been right about his dress. “I’m a physicist.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Gideon didn’t like how she kept turning the conversation on him as a subject, and he quickly followed with a question. “Can you tell me what your relationship is to Simon Blaine?”
“Daughter.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Where’s your father now?”
“At the movie set.”
“Movie set?”
“They’re making a film of one of his books, shooting it at the Circle Y Movie Ranch south of town.”
“When will he be home?”
She looked at her watch. “Any time now. So what’s this about?”
Gideon made an effort to relax, smile. Guilt was starting to creep over him. He just wasn’t cut out to be a cop. “We’re trying to find out more about Reed Chalker, the man involved in the terrorist plot.”
“Oh, so
that’s
it. Wow. But what in the world does that have to do with us?” He sensed her anger starting to morph into curiosity. She crossed her arms, slid open a drawer in a side table, removed a pack of cigarettes. She lit one, exhaled.
Gideon thought of bumming, decided that would not be a cool move. She really was beautiful, and he was having trouble maintaining the cool demeanor. He forced himself back to the business at hand. “We think your father knew Reed Chalker.”
“I doubt it. I keep my father’s schedule. I’d never heard that man’s name until I read it in the newspaper.”
“Chalker had a complete collection of your father’s books. All signed.”
“So?”
“It was the way they were signed.
To Reed, with affectionate regards. Simon.
The wording suggested they might know each other.”
At this, Alida leaned back and laughed harshly, exhaling smoke. “Oh man, are you guys barking up the wrong tree! He signs all his books like that. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”
“With his first name?”
“It saves time. It’s also why he only uses the first names of the people he’s signing for. When you’ve got five hundred people in line, each with several books in hand, you can’t be signing your full name. This guy Chalker, he worked up at Los Alamos, right? That’s what the papers are saying.”
“That’s right.”
“So it wouldn’t have been a big deal for him to get to my father’s signings.”
Gideon felt a creeping sense of failure. Fordyce had been right: this was a dead end, and he was making a royal fool of himself.
“Do you have evidence of that?” he asked as gamely as he could.
“Go ask down at the bookstore. He does a local signing there every year, they’ll confirm it. He signs all his books
Simon
or
Simon B.
and writes either
With Affection
or
Warmest Regards.
To every Tom, Dick, and Harry in line. It has nothing to do with friendship.”