Diablo Mesa(51)

“Well, just this morning, I got the report back on the four stainless steel crowns.”

At this his eyebrows rose. “You’ll have to forgive me—as I implied, I’m not yet up to speed on all the details.”

“They were from the male victim. Given their unusual nature, I had them sent off to Quantico for analysis. It turns out they were Soviet made. The man was probably Russian—and, given the time and place, very likely a spy.”

At this, he nodded slowly. “And?”

“If he was a mole, he was undoubtably interested in the nuclear weapons program in the secret city of Los Alamos, which the Soviets knew all about in 1947. Most of those Soviet agents, I’ve been told, were based in Santa Fe.”

“Very interesting.”

“While it’s a long shot, it might just be that dental records are still sitting in some dusty archive in Santa Fe that would help me ID the person. I plan to go to Santa Fe—if only because this is one of the very few bits of evidence we do have.”

“A good plan,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

He put the file aside and leaned toward her slightly. “I would, of course, like to be kept in the loop. In fact, the best way to get me up to speed would be for you to assemble all the leads and evidence you’ve accumulated to date. Then we can decide together where we stand, and how you should best move forward—given what’s happened.”

Corrie, reminded again of the fire and Morwood’s death, felt a stab of pain.

Her new mentor must have guessed what she was thinking, because he lowered his voice. “Listen to me, Agent Swanson. I’ve heard the imputation made against you, and I’ve also heard quite a bit about this guy Lathrop. You aren’t accused of anything; you’re not under investigation. For what it’s worth, I think the fire investigation will clear you one hundred percent. So I would suggest—I’ll even make it an order—that you do not beat yourself up about all this.” He paused. “I’ve read Agent Morwood’s reports about you, and—although he didn’t say it in so many words—I got the sense he thought you the best rookie he ever ghosted.”

This was so unexpected that it shattered all of Corrie’s defenses. Something inside her crumpled; it was all she could do to keep back the tears.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, fighting to maintain her composure.

“Okay, so here’s my second, and last, order for this meeting.” A faint smile now returned to his face. “Please don’t call me ‘sir.’ ‘Agent Lime’ will do just fine. And I’ll call you ‘Swanson.’ Deal?”

“Deal,” Corrie replied once she was confident she could keep the tremor from her voice.

“Deal, what?”

“Deal, Agent Lime.”

“That’s better. Thank you, Swanson. Now, go see what you can assemble for us to review.” And with that, he nodded his dismissal. Corrie rose, left the office, and headed back to her desk.





32



GREG BANKS, AT the wheel of a jeep, pulled up beside Tappan and the third jeep, driven by Cecilia Toth. A cloud of white dust settled around them as they got out and stood looking across the flat white landscape to a range of hills beyond. It was frightening in its emptiness, Banks thought, but beautiful in spite of that. He had seen nothing like this before, outside the science fiction films he’d devoured as a kid.

“This was Bitan’s rendezvous point,” Tappan said, consulting his GPS. “We’ll start the search here.”

The sun was well above the horizon and the heat was coming up. A distant dust devil twisted across their field of view like a pale vertical snake.

“Note the footprints,” said Tappan.

It wasn’t hard to see them in the light raking the soft alkali crust of the lake bed. One set went off to the left, the other to the right. As Banks scanned the vast empty lake bed, he could see no sign of Bitan.

“Greg,” said Tappan, “you follow the left-hand tracks, and we’ll follow the right. Cecilia, you go up the middle. We’ll head to those hills.”

They all climbed back into their respective vehicles. Banks eased the jeep into drive and slowly cruised along the dry flats, the trail of prints he was following doubling back and forth in what was evidently a search pattern before it entered the first of the hills. He stopped the jeep where the foothills rose—it was too rough to continue by vehicle. He got out to inspect the ground on foot, but it was impossible to see any tracks on the grassy slopes.

His radio crackled. “Banks?”

It was Tappan. “Let’s proceed through the hills on foot, keeping a half-mile distance between us.”

“Got it.”

“Keep your GPS tracker on at all times.”

Banks shrugged into his day pack, which contained water and lunch. As he trudged up the hill, his mind drifted to Bitan and his eccentricities. He’d been suspicious of the bugger from the start. He wasn’t sure why, but he always had the feeling Bitan had some sort of hidden agenda. Also, there was a certain aloofness, or possibly a feeling of arrogance, about the astronomer that put him off.

He arrived at the top of the first hill and scanned the landscape ahead with binoculars. A thousand yards to his right, he could see somebody else doing the same. Somehow it felt even more like an alien landscape here: all these little hills crowded together, carpeted with tall grass waving in the wind, dotted with oaks as twisted as bonsai. The hills were separated by small ravines. This was the kind of a place where, if you had an accident and your body was lying at the bottom of one of those ravines, you might never be found.