Authors: Douglas Preston
Gideon remained silent.
“Oh my God,” Alida whispered at last. “There’s really nothing that can be done?”
After a moment, Gideon responded. “The thing is, I was told all this by a man back in New York. The one who hired me for this job. He’s…a manipulator. There’s a chance he might be making it all up. To find out one way or another, I got an MRI in Santa Fe a few days ago, but of course I haven’t had a chance to get the results.”
“So it’s just hanging over your head, a potential death sentence.”
“More or less.”
“How awful.”
Instead of answering, Gideon tossed a twig onto the fire.
“And you’ve been carrying this around with you, not sharing it with anyone?”
“I’ve told one or two others. Not in this much detail.”
She was still holding his hand. “I can’t imagine what that would be like. Wondering if your days are numbered. Or whether it’s just some cruel joke.” She raised her other hand, stroked his fingers, caressed the hair of his wrist. “How awful it must be.”
“Yes.” He looked up at her. “But you know what? At this particular moment, I feel pretty good. More than good, in fact.”
She returned the look. Without a word, she took his hand and placed it on her naked breast. He traced its contours, feeling her warm skin, her nipple growing erect. Then she placed her own hand on his chest and slowly pushed him back, onto the sand. As he lay there, she knelt next to him and caressed his chest, his flat stomach. Then she swung over and straddled him, lowering herself and leaning close to kiss him, her breasts softly caressing his chest. And then she began easing him into her: gently at first, then with the pressure of swiftly increasing passion.
“Oh my God,” he gasped. “What…are we doing?”
“We may have a lot less time than I thought,” she answered huskily.
G
IDEON AWOKE SUDDENLY
. The sun was shining brightly into the mouth of the cave. Alida was gone. Something had woken him up.
And then he heard voices outside.
He sat up, immediately wide awake. He could hear the murmur of a man’s voice and the crunch of footfalls coming up the scree slope to the overhang. Had Alida betrayed him again—after everything? It wasn’t possible…or was it? Pulling on his pants, he grasped a heavy branch lying next to the dead fire and rose silently, tense, ready to fight.
The crunching drew closer and a silhouette appeared in the mouth of the cave: the outline of a man. Gideon could see nothing else in the glare. He readied himself for a lunge.
“Gideon?” came the man’s voice—a voice he recognized. “Easy now, it’s just us, Alida and Simon Blaine.”
“Gideon?” It was Alida’s voice. “It’s okay.”
Panic ebbing, he lowered the branch.
Blaine entered cautiously. “I’m here to help,” he said in his Liverpudlian accent. “Is that all right with you?”
Alida followed her father into the cave.
Gideon tossed the branch aside and sat back. “What time is it?”
“About noon.”
“How did you get here?” he asked.
It was Alida who answered. “I hiked toward Cochiti Lake, talked some guy in a trailer into using his phone. Called my dad.”
Blaine stood in front of him, smiling and leprechaunish, in pressed jeans, a workshirt, and a silly looking leather cowboy vest, his white beard trimmed, his blue eyes piercing. Alida stood beside him.
Gideon rubbed his face. He had slept for so long, it was hard to collect his thoughts. Vivid memories of the previous night came flooding back.
“Dad’s going to help us,” she said. “Just like I promised.”
“That’s right,” Blaine added. “My daughter tells me you’ve been framed and that you’re no terrorist—and her word’s certainly good enough for me.”
“Thank you,” said Gideon, feeling enormous relief. “Sorry I trashed your movie set.”
“That’s what insurance is for. Besides, we got a few takes anyway. Now, here’s the plan. I’ve got my Jeep parked on a dirt road about four miles from here. The canyon and river are swarming with FBI and police and God knows who else. But it’s rough, big country, and if we stick to the small side canyons we’ll avoid them. They’re mostly down by the lake, looking for your bodies.”
Gideon looked carefully at Blaine. Concern and anxiety were written all over his face.
“I’m going to bring you both up to the ranch. It’s isolated. They’re all convinced you’re a terrorist, Gideon, and they think my daughter’s in on it. With the crazy atmosphere of terror and fear out there—the whole country is gripped with it—I’m not sure you’d survive being apprehended. You would not believe the panic out there, the
irrational
panic, and it’s only getting worse. So we’ve got to work fast. We’ve got to figure out for ourselves who framed you, and why. That’s the only way we can save you—and my daughter.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s that cult up at the Paiute Creek Ranch—”
“Maybe. Alida says you might suspect me, as well.” Blaine looked at him with a peculiar expression.
Gideon blushed. “It doesn’t seem likely. But someone Fordyce and I talked to was so alarmed that they tried to kill us…and framed me.”
Blaine nodded. “You need to trust me. And I need to trust you. That’s fundamental.”
Gideon looked at the man. He didn’t really know what to say.
Blaine smiled suddenly, gripped his shoulder. “You’re a skeptic at heart. Fine. Let my actions speak for themselves, then. But let’s get going.”
It was a big Jeep Unlimited and they lay in the back, under blankets, while Blaine kept to remote forest roads and abandoned Jeep trails as he worked his way along the foothills of the mountains to his ranch. The roundabout route took several hours, and they finally reached the ranch in midafternoon. Blaine drove into the barn and Gideon and Alida got out. They stood in the fragrant, hay-scented dimness, talking.
“I’ll need to use a phone,” said Gideon. “I have to call my handlers.”
“Handlers?” Blaine asked.
Gideon didn’t respond. Instead, he followed Blaine and his daughter out of the barn, past Blaine’s isolated writing studio, and down to the ranch house: a rustic, two-story, batten-board building dating from the nineteenth century, with a spacious front porch and a row of dormer windows.
Blaine directed Gideon to a table in the front hall that contained only two items: a telephone, and a framed photo of Blaine himself, signed
For my Miracle Daughter, with all my love
. Gideon picked up the phone and called Eli Glinn’s number, the one he was instructed never to call except in the most extreme emergency.
Manuel Garza answered. Gideon cleared his throat, tried to compose his voice. “It’s Crew. I need to speak to Glinn.”
“This line is only to be used in an emergency.”
Gideon let a moment pass, and then he managed to say, quite calmly, “You don’t think this is an emergency?”
“You’ve gotten yourself into trouble, but I’m not sure I’d call it an emergency.”
Again Gideon let a beat pass. “Just get him for me, will you, please?”
“Moment.”
He was put on hold. A long minute passed. And then Garza came back on. “Sorry. Spoke to Mr. Glinn. He’s busy, can’t interface with you right now.”
Gideon took a breath. “You actually spoke to him?”
“Exactly what I said. He was very specific that you’re on your own now.”
“That’s a load of shit! You guys hired me for this job—and now you’re just hanging me out to dry? You know I’m not a goddamn terrorist!”
“There’s nothing he can do.” Gideon noted a certain suppressed satisfaction in the man’s voice.
“Pass this message on to him for me, then. I’m done. I quit. And when I get out of this mess, I’m coming looking for him. You know that nice scar he’s got on one side of his face? I’m going to accessorize the other side. And that’s just for starters. You tell him that.”
“I will.”
Gideon hung up.
Garza enjoyed that, the fuck.
“Problem?” He found Alida looking at him, an expression of concern on her face.
Gideon swallowed, tried to shrug it off. “No bigger than any of my other problems.” He turned to Blaine. “I’d like to borrow your Jeep, if I may. There’s a fellow I need to visit up at the Paiute Creek Ranch.”
Blaine spread his hands. “Be my guest. Just don’t let the authorities catch you. Can I help you with anything else?”
Gideon paused. “Do you have any firearms?”
A broad smile. “I have rather a nice little collection. Care to take a look?”
T
HE SUN HAD
set, the crescent moon was down, and a very dark midnight approached. Gideon drove Blaine’s Jeep off the Paiute Creek forest service road and into a thicket of gambel oaks. He backed it slowly into a clump of bushes, branches scratching against the paint, until the vehicle was well hidden from the road.
He got out. He had borrowed some of Blaine’s clothes—a bit loose and a bit short, but serviceable—and was dressed entirely in black, his face darkened with charcoal, a wicked Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver with a four-inch barrel—in his opinion, the scariest-looking pistol made—in one hand and an old-fashioned strop razor in his pocket. He wasn’t going to kill anyone—at least, he wasn’t planning to—but appearance would be everything.
First he had some work to do. He removed a shovel and a pick from the back of the Jeep and selected a soft, loamy portion of the forest floor as a place to dig. He broke up the ground with the pick, then shoveled out the loose dirt, keeping the edges of the hole crisp and sharp with the blade. It was soft ground and in less than an hour he had created a shallow grave, a stark rectangle, about seven feet long, two feet wide, and three feet deep.
He packed the shovel back in the Jeep, rinsed his hands from a canteen, then took a sap, some zip ties, and a few other items from the seat and stuffed them all into his pockets. Leaving the grave site, he made his way through the dark ponderosa forest. The Paiute Creek Ranch lay at roughly eight thousand feet of altitude and, despite being summer, the night air was cool to the point of chilliness. He paused frequently to listen to the night sounds of the forest: the distant yipping of a pack of coyotes, the low bassoon of a great horned owl.
In half a mile he came to the chain-link fence surrounding the ranch settlement. Through the trees he could see the yellow glow of windows. Stopping at the fence, he listened intently, but no sound came from the compound. It was as he hoped: they were apparently on “ranch time,” to bed at sunset, up before dawn.
A careful inspection indicated that there were no sophisticated alarms or sensors along the fence. Taking out a pair of fencing pliers, Gideon began to snip the chain links, creating a large flap that he pulled back and wired open. He crawled through and made his way carefully through the darkness to the rear of the main ranch house. All was quiet. A few dim yellow lights glowed in the lower windows, but—because the outfit was run on solar power and batteries—there were no bright spotlights or area lights.
He was convinced there would be some sort of night patrol: these people were paranoid and they would have posted guards. Moving with enormous care through the darkness, he drew up to the building and peered in the window. There, in a rocking chair, sat the cowboy with the squared-off beard, quietly alert, reading a book. An M16 was propped up against the sofa next to him.
Gideon was convinced Willis occupied rooms on the top floor. It was clearly the most comfortable accommodation at the ranch. One room had been his office, and he recalled seeing through an open door to a sumptuous bedroom with whorehouse-velvet walls and a canopy bed. That would be Willis’s bedroom.
So he had to do something about the man downstairs.
He watched the man for a while. The man didn’t look sleepy, he wasn’t drinking, and—what unnerved Gideon most of all—he was reading James Joyce’s
Ulysses
. This man was no dumb hick cowboy. The outfit was all show. This was a sophisticated and intelligent person who would not be easily fooled.
Gideon had anticipated running into some problem or other, and he realized he’d done so already. At all costs, he had to prevent the man from raising an alarm. He couldn’t just go in and bash the man over the head. That would make too much noise and had a high probability of ending in a ruckus or fight. Besides, Ulysses had an assault rifle. He began to formulate a plan. It was high-risk, but he couldn’t think of a better way.
Plucking a piece of paper from his pocket, Gideon scrawled a short note. He took a deep breath, then tapped on the window. The man looked up, saw Gideon’s black face peering in, and rose abruptly from his chair, grabbing the rifle.
Quickly, Gideon put his finger to his lips and gestured for the man to come outside. But instead the man started for the stairs. Gideon rapped again, this time louder, and shook his head, again putting his finger over his mouth. Then he held up the note he had written.
DON’T WAKE WILLIS!!
MUST TALK TO YOU
IMPORTANT!!
The man hesitated. He could not identify Gideon through the blackface and, Gideon hoped, would assume that Gideon might be a ranch insider. Who else would knock on the window like that?
Gideon gestured again, nodding and waving the man outside.
Shouldering the gun, the man headed for the door.
Gideon backed away from the house, into the edge of the trees, as the man came around the corner, looking this way and that. Gideon flashed his light, and the man approached.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“Shhhh,” Gideon whispered. “You wake Willis, we’re in big trouble. This is important—
real
important.”
The man frowned in suspicion. “What’s this all about?” he asked, unshouldering the rifle. “Who are you and why the hell have you blacked your face?”
Gideon backed up a little, then shut off the light and moved rapidly and silently in a lateral direction.
The man stopped at the edge of the trees. “Lane, is that you?” He was looking around, still pointing the gun at where Gideon was no longer standing. “What do you want? Come out.”