Authors: Douglas Preston
“Novak. Chief of security for Tech Area Thirty-three. He’s dirty. Take him in, sweat him, do what it takes.”
A long silence. “Perhaps you’d better explain.”
“Novak’s living a lifestyle way beyond his means. Luxury cars, a big house, Persian rugs, all on a hundred and ten thousand a year. His wife doesn’t work, and there’s no family money.”
Millard looked at him sideways. “And why is this significant?”
“Because there’s only one person who could’ve planted those emails in Crew’s account, and it’s Novak.”
“And how do you know all this?”
Fordyce took a breath. He had to say it. “I interviewed him.”
Millard stared at him. “I’m aware of that.”
“How?”
“Novak complained. You barged into his house after midnight, no authorization, didn’t follow any interview protocols—what did you expect?”
“I had no choice. We’re out of time. The fact is, the guy lied to investigators, told them it was impossible to plant those emails. He forgot to mention
he’s
the only one who could have done it.”
Millard stared at him long and hard, his lips compressed. “Are you saying Novak framed Crew? For money?”
“All I’m saying is, the guy’s dirty. Take him in now, sweat the bastard—”
Millard’s lips became almost invisible. The man’s skin seemed to tighten across his face, as if he were drying out. “You are out of line, mister. Your behavior is unacceptable, and these demands are improper and, frankly, outrageous.”
Fordyce couldn’t take it anymore. “Improper? Millard, N-Day is tomorrow.
Tomorrow!
And you want me to—”
A loud commotion erupted at the main door. A man was shouting, his shrill manic voice echoing in the warehouse space, rising above the hubbub of voices swirling around him. He had apparently just been brought in, and as his outrage rang out, Fordyce heard disjointed accusations of police brutality and government conspiracies. Clearly a nut case.
And then Fordyce heard Gideon’s shouted name mingling with the incoherent mix.
“What the hell?” Millard flashed him another look. “Don’t you go anywhere. I’ll get back to you in a moment.”
Fordyce followed Millard to the front, where the man was haranguing a large group of agents. He was shocked to see it was Willis Lockhart, the cult leader. He hadn’t been brought in, it seemed—he had come in on his own. But what a change: he was wild, his face haggard, spittle on his lips. From the outraged, furious rant, Fordyce gathered that Gideon Crew had showed up at the ranch the previous night, kidnapped Willis at gunpoint, brought him to a grave he’d dug in the woods, brutalized him, tortured him, threatened to kill him, all the while demanding answers to questions about nukes and terrorism and God knows what else.
So Gideon was still alive.
Willis screeched about how it was all a plan, a plot, a conspiracy, before his rantings dissolved into incoherency.
At that moment, Fordyce was suddenly and utterly convinced: Gideon Crew was innocent. There was no other explanation—none—for why he would have gone to the Paiute Creek Ranch and done what he did to Willis. He had been framed. Those emails had been planted. And just as clearly, it meant that Novak was in on the terrorist plot. Even though he already half believed it, now the conclusion was inescapable.
“Hey! Hey, you!”
Lockhart’s scream interrupted this epiphany. Fordyce looked up to see the cult leader staring at him, extending a shaking finger. “It’s him! There he is! It’s the other guy who came up to the ranch last week! They started a fight, trashed the place, left my people hurt! You son of a bitch!”
Fordyce glanced left and right. Everyone was staring at him, Millard included.
“Fordyce,” Millard said in a strange voice, “is this another man you interviewed?”
“Interviewed?” Lockhart shouted. “You mean brutalized! He attacked half a dozen of my people with a chain saw! He’s a maniac! Arrest him! Or are all of you part of it as well?”
Fordyce glanced at Millard, glanced at the exit. “The man’s crazy,” he said in a calm voice. “Look at him.”
He saw on everyone’s faces a certain relaxation, a certain relief that these accusations were as crazy as all the others. Everyone’s face, that is, except Millard’s.
Suddenly Lockhart lunged at Fordyce, and there was an eruption of chaos as a dozen agents rushed in to intervene.
“Let me at him!” Willis yelled, clawing at the air. “He’s the devil! He and that man Gideon Crew!” He swung a powerful forearm, connecting with an agent, slammed into another. In the resulting confusion, the pushing and hollering and shoving, Fordyce managed to duck down, dart through the crowd, and slip out the door. He headed straight for his car, got in, started the engine, and took off.
A
S DAWN BROKE
, Gideon stood by the leather sofa, his head pounding, pulling on his clothes while Alida lay nude on the bearskin rug before the fireplace, still asleep, her blond hair in a wild tangle, her smooth skin glowing against the coarse dark nap of the rug. Out the windows of the cabin, dark clouds smeared across half the sky, and a humid wind lashed the pines. A storm was brewing.
Confused memories of the night before knocked about in his head: too many drinks, more spectacular sex, and God only knew what unwise things said or promised. Gideon felt awful. What had he done? He was a complete asshole. To allow himself to be drawn into that, when he suspected her father of being a terrorist and all the while plotting how to stop him, bring him down…it was monstrous.
What should he do? Should he take Alida into his confidence? No, that wouldn’t work—she would never, ever believe that her father, Simon Blaine, bestselling author, ex-spy, was the ringleader of—or at least involved in—a nuclear terrorism plot. Who would? He had to keep lying to her, and he had to do this alone. He had to go to Maryland, find Blaine, and stop him. And he couldn’t get on a plane, couldn’t do anything requiring an ID. His only way of getting back east was to drive—in Alida’s Jeep.
It seemed impossible. Why would a man like Blaine be involved in a terrorist plot like this? But he was. Gideon was sure of it now. There was simply no other answer.
As he thought about his position, once again he felt overcome with self-loathing. Yet what choice did he have? This was about more than clearing his own name. Countless lives were at stake. Nobody would believe him; he was a wanted man; and so he was compelled to act alone. There was no escaping it.
As he pulled on his shirt, his eye once again fell on the curves of Alida’s body, her face, her lucent hair… Was it possible he was actually in love with her?
Of course it was.
Enough,
enough
. But even as he was trying to pull his eyes away, she opened her own. And winced.
“Ouch,” she said. “Hangover.”
He tried to force a grin onto his face. “Yeah. Me too.”
She sat up. “You look like hell. I hope I didn’t break you.” She gave a wicked smile.
He hid his face by bending down to tie his shoes.
“And where are you so all fired up to go this morning?”
He forced himself to look up. “Paiute Creek Ranch. I’m going to confront Willis.”
“Good. It’s him, I just know it. Let me come along.”
“No, no. Could be dangerous. And your presence might detract from getting the truth out of him.”
She hesitated. “I get it. But I’m worried. Be careful.”
Gideon tried to arrange his face into a semblance of normality. “I’ll need to borrow the Jeep.”
“No problem. Just stick to the back mountain roads.”
He nodded.
She stood up and before he could escape she put her arms around him, pressed her lips to his, and sidled her naked body up against him. A long, lingering kiss followed, the warmth of her body creeping through his clothing. Gideon surrendered to it. Finally, she released him.
“That was for luck,” she said.
Gideon could only nod dumbly. She went to a drawer, plucked out the keys, tossed them to him.
He caught them. “Um, just in case—gas, whatever—do you have any money?”
“Sure.” She picked her pants off the floor, rummaged in the pockets, extracted a wallet. “How much?”
“Whatever you can spare, I guess.”
She pulled out a bunch of twenties, and without counting handed them over with a radiant smile.
He tried to move but felt as if frozen. He couldn’t do this—not to her. And yet here he was, about to do it. Stealing her car, taking her money, lying to her, going after her own father. But, damn it, what choice did he have? His position was impossible. If he stayed here with Alida, countless people would die and he might still end up in jail. If he left…
“I may not be back for a while,” he told her. “I have a few other things to do. Don’t wait up for me tonight.”
She looked at him with real concern. “All right. But stay away from people—any people. My father mentioned roadblocks on the main routes going in and out of the mountains, Los Alamos, and Santa Fe. Watch yourself.”
“I will.”
He stuffed the money in his pocket, dodged another kiss, and rushed to the Jeep. He jumped inside, started the engine, and peeled out, leaving a cloud of dust. He tried not to look back but couldn’t help himself—and saw her standing in the doorway, still naked, one leg slightly cocked, her blond hair cascading down her shoulders, waving.
“Fuck, fuck,
fuck
!” He pounded on the steering wheel as he headed down the ranch road. Rounding a bend, he came to Blaine’s writing hut, surrounded by trees and out of view of the main ranch. On impulse, he drove up to it and got out. Using the Jeep’s tire iron, he smashed a window, climbed in, took Blaine’s laptop computer, tossed it and a charger into the back, and then continued on.
G
IDEON’S FIRST STOP
was the Goodwill Industries Thrift Store out on Cerrillos Road. He parked the expensive, late-model Jeep far from the entrance and walked through a Walgreens, where he bought a disposable cell phone before going into the thrift store. Heading for the racks, he pulled off a hasty selection of sports jackets, shirts, pants, suits, and various pairs of shoes in his approximate size. He also found some sunglasses, a toupee, some cheesy man-jewelry, and a large suitcase.
Paying for it with some of Alida’s cash, he drove down the block to a theatrical supply store and bought spirit gum, sealers, face paints, pencils and crayons, scabs, effects gels, nose and scar wax, a bald-cap, some hairpieces, a lace beard, a prosthetic paunch, and a few cheek pieces and inserts. He had no idea how he might use anything or even what he might need, so he bought everything.
Back to the Jeep, and then he drove farther south on Cerrillos to the edge of town, where he found an anonymous motel that looked like it might cater to the trade. With a quick-and-dirty makeup job, he transformed himself into a low-life pimp, which went well with the black Jeep Unlimited he was driving. The clerk didn’t bat an eye when Gideon paid cash for an hourly rate, claimed to have lost his ID, and tipped the man a twenty, telling him to keep an eye out for a “classy young lady” who, of course, would never arrive.
Loading all the theatrical supplies into the suitcase, along with Blaine’s computer, he went into his rented room, spread the clothes out on the bed, and began mixing and matching them into various disguises. It was a process he had undertaken many times before.
In his days as an art thief, he usually robbed small private museums and historical societies during daylight hours, when they were open but almost deserted. After the first few heists, he always went in disguise, and as the years went by he got better and better at it. A good disguise was far more than mere appearance; it was about assuming a new character, walking differently, talking in a new way, even thinking differently. It was the purest, most refined form of Method Acting.
But creating the actual new persona was never easy. It had to be subtle, believable, not over the top, and yet with a few telling details that the average person would remember and which would be key to misleading investigators. A totally forgettable character would be a waste of time, but on the other hand, a too eccentric character would be dangerous. The process took time, thought, and imagination.
As he sorted through the clothes, laying out one shirt, then another, mixing and matching them with various pants and shoes, a character began to take shape in his mind—a mid-forty-ish man, out of shape, recently divorced, kids gone, laid off from his job, looking to rediscover and renew himself with a car trip cross-country. A
Blue Highways
sort of odyssey. He’d be a writer—no, make that an
aspiring
writer. He’d be keeping notes of his journey, ready to share his observations about America with anyone he ran into. His wallet had been stolen first day out—no ID now but that was cool in a way, a kind of freedom, a welcome release from the enslaving bonds of society.
Now that he had it, he quickly assembled the outfit: loafers, black jeans, L.L. Bean oxford pin-striped shirt, Bill Blass sport jacket, bald-cap with a fringe of hair on the longish side, skin with the slightly raddled look that marked the drinking man, Ray-Bans, a Pendleton “Indy” hat with a broad brim. A small but memorable diamond-shaped scar on his right cheek and a modest paunch completed the picture.
Going through the familiar process of creating a new persona, and a disguise to go with it, felt good. And—for at least a few minutes—he was able to forget Alida.
Now that he was done, he turned to the computer and fired it up. It was, just as he’d expected, password-protected, and his few feeble attempts to guess the password failed. Even if he broke the password, no doubt there would be other layers of security. Blaine’s plan might be on that computer, but it might as well be on the moon for all the good it would do him, if he couldn’t get through that password.
No time for that now. He shoved it in the suitcase with the other stuff, exited the motel room, tossed everything in the back of the Jeep, and took off. The vehicle had a GPS and when he plugged in the address for Fort Detrick, Maryland, it informed him the distance was eighteen hundred seventy-seven miles and would take thirty hours. By driving at five miles over the speed limit, stopping only for gas, he might shave it down to twenty-five, twenty-six hours. He didn’t dare push it any faster—without a driver’s license he couldn’t risk a traffic stop.