Bloodletting

by Michael McBride

  And it was only a matter of time before she did.

  VIII

  Denver, Colorado

  A black, unmarked Caprice had pulled to the curb in front of Carver's townhouse at the precise moment Hawthorne had said it would. He had been packed and ready, but had been watching the crime scene unit separating molecules into atoms when he had heard the horn. The driver, who had introduced himself only as Travis, was perhaps a couple years older than Carver. Through the Plexiglas shield separating them, Carver could see little more than the man's right shoulder and the side of his face, except for his green eyes in the rear view mirror, which made an effort to purvey the disinterest of a chauffeur, but Carver could feel the weight of their reflected stare upon him.

  Carver had tried to ask questions of the driver, but Travis either hadn't heard him or had done a remarkable job of pretending, so he had leaned back in the seat and watched the town retreat through the side window. He had recognized the route to Denver International Airport right away, though now that they had left the city behind in favor of the sunflowers and wild grasses of the eastern plains, there was no disguising their destination. Thus it came as something of a surprise when the sedan turned from the two-lane highway onto an unmarked gravel road and drove to the south until they reached the ruins of an old farmhouse. Little remained of the structure apart from a haphazard mound of broken timber through which the crumbled concrete of the foundation peered. Two rusted metal "T"s marked its passing like twin tombstones, the laundry wires formerly stretched between now long gone, or perhaps consumed by the wild growth of brambles and tumbleweeds.

  The car ground to a halt and Travis came around to open Carver's door. He left it standing ajar, climbed back into the driver's seat, and closed his door. Carver eased out and rapped on the driver's window.

  "What are we doing here?" he asked, but Travis only favored him with a look of indifference before turning back to the wheel. "I know you can hear--"

  Carver was cut off by the sound of a ringing phone. He glanced at Travis curiously, then followed the sound toward the mound of rubble. It rang twice more while he heaved aside weathered boards embedded with rusted nails before he found the cell phone tucked into a crack in the concrete foundation beneath.

  He flipped back the cover to reveal a touch screen. In the center of the display was a green thumbprint, which he covered with his own, unlocking a row of hidden icons. He brought it to his ear.

  "Carver," he said.

  "Hang up and walk twenty yards due south. You will find a circle of bare earth in a cluster of sunflowers. Stand in the very center."

  There was a faint click as the call was ended.

  Carver looked back at the car. Travis hadn't moved an inch, his hands at ten and two, his eyes staring somewhere between.

  What in the world was going on here? None of this was standard protocol, and he'd never seen a cellular device operated by fingerprint. He was growing increasingly unnerved by all of the secrecy and the cryptic nature of the assignment. Who was this Hawthorne and had he really run this new assignment past Moorehead?

  He walked to the south through briars that grabbed at his slacks, nettles knitting into his socks and shoelaces, and pondered what he knew about Hawthorne. If he was going to demand answers, then he had better formulate the right questions. Moorehead had introduced Hawthorne as a Special Agent, yet had made no mention of which branch or division, and hadn't deferred to Hawthorne per se, but had been visibly uncomfortable in the scarred man's presence. They had pulled Carver from a high-profile case with techs still swabbing blood from his study and unanswered questions regarding the enigma that was Tobin Schwartz. There were only a few reasons for such an abrupt reassignment. Either he had stepped on some important toes through the course of his investigation, the FBI was preparing to make him the scapegoat, or perhaps he hadn't been reassigned at all, but rather...

  "It isn't over," he said to himself, pushing through a wall of sunflowers that towered over him with blossoms the size of platters, and into a small clearing no more than four feet in diameter. The soil had been recently turned. It was flat beneath his feet, but raised slightly in a ring around the circumference. The ground vibrated ever so slightly. They were scrambling the cellular signal, he realized. Possibly electromagnets or--

  The phone rang again and he answered it.

  "I'm here."

  "On the ground to the west you will find a small gray stone. Beneath it is a data cable. Plug it into the jack on your phone." The voice was computer enhanced, not muffled or garbled with distortion, but changing from one real voice to another entirely mid-sentence. The first had been a man, then a woman, and now he was talking to a child.

  Carver knelt, removed the rock, and exposed the cord. He rose and stretched it to reach. Standing on his toes to see over the sunflowers, he found only what he expected: vast fields of nothingness.

  "Who is this?" Carver asked. "Why all the cloak-and-dagger--?"

  "You are now downloading all of the information you currently require," a husky woman's voice interrupted. "A private Westwind light jet will be awaiting your arrival on the tarmac. The pilot will not be informed of his flight plan until after takeoff. We trust you not to share any of this information with anyone, without exception. You are to trust no one." The voice changed to that of a man with a British accent. "An agent will meet you when you land."

  "I don't understand what you want me to do. Where am I going and why--?"

  "You disappoint me, Special Agent Carver. Don't let it happen again."

  The call was terminated, leaving Carver to stare blankly at the silent phone. The screen registered the download was complete, so he unplugged the cable, dropped it on the ground, and kicked dirt over it.

  This entire situation was maddening, but what options did he have? Perhaps after viewing the data file things would begin to make some sort of sense, but still, why the need for so much secrecy? You are to trust no one. How melodramatic.

  He pushed through the tangle of greenery and headed toward the car, where Travis waited by the open rear door. The man had to be more than he appeared for whoever pulled his strings to trust him with as many details as they did. And from whom were they trying to disguise their plans?

  Travis climbed back into the car when Carver neared and was already pulling forward when he closed his door. As they drove back to the highway, Carver glanced back at the abandoned house in time to see a miniature mushroom cloud of dirt and tatters of vegetation rise into the air beyond.

  He felt the weight of the phone in his palm and pondered what kind of information it might contain.

  What in the name of God had he gotten himself into?

  IX

  Sinagua Ruins

  36 Miles Northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona

  After a couple false starts and some sharp prodding, the desert finally gave up its ghosts. Elliot had uncovered a swatch of dirty fabric no more than ten yards from the tent, leaving just enough exposed for the two undergrads to make themselves useful. They were now cordoning off the grid around it while she continued her pursuit of more. She felt like a human divining rod, attuned to the faint vibrations with which the earth spoke. There was a spiritual element to her search, as though the dead cried out in whispers to be found, eager to share the mysteries of long lost lives. They called to her from everywhere at once, urging her to slice through the ground to release them like so much spilled blood. It was her imagination, she knew, a product of her education, experience, and desires. She had learned enough about various cultures and their burial rites to have a fundamental understanding of their trends and patterns, and had exhumed enough bodies through the years to recognize the type of ground a grieving family would select for interment. People didn't randomly bury their dead. Much thought was invested into finding the proper location, possibly near loved ones, or in a precise spot favored by either the deceased or their gods. Did the two bundles contain young lovers? Siblings? Did they know each other in lif
e or were they only now acquainted in death? Were there whole families together in the ground beneath her feet, an entire culture?

  She knelt on the sand before a clump of sage. Its roots pointed back out of the sand as if trying to free itself to scuttle away. The rational part of her suspected that the growth of the roots had perhaps been obstructed, forcing them to seek another route, while the irrational part reached down and slid her hand into the fine grains, feeling for the land's pulse.

  After a moment, she stood and gently shoveled away small amounts of sand until she met with resistance no more than eight inches down. She fell to her knees and brushed away the dirt to reveal another patch of filthy, putrid blanket.

  "Here's another!" she called back over her shoulder. While she wanted nothing more than to attack the ground with the shovel and tear open the bundle like a Christmas gift, she summoned her patience and waited for proper excavation.

  "We're going to need a few more hands if you keep finding bodies," Mondragon said.

  "A few? If they're anything like Mary-Kate and Ashley over there, we're going to need hundreds."

  "You were just like them once."

  "Take that back."

  Mondragon smiled. "You turned out well enough."

  "I had some excellent instructors along the way."

  "You give me too much credit. It's easy when you have such an amazing student." He placed his hand on her shoulder and allowed it to linger just long enough to become uncomfortable. Elliot waited a heartbeat longer before extricating herself from beneath it. She tried to maintain an amicable smile.

  "Any news on the carbon dating?" she asked, breaking the awkward silence.

  "Not yet, which is odd considering they usually fast-track the results for me. I just called again about fifteen minutes ago and all I could get out of them was that they were having some sort of computer troubles that didn't allow them to access the data. If they can't recover the results, they worry they'll have to start all over again."

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "They promised we'd have our answers in under twenty-four hours. That's something, right?"

  "I suppose."

  "You just have to learn to relax a little. These things have been in the ground for how many hundreds of years? It's not like they're just going to walk away now."

  "You're right, of course...."

  "But?"

  Elliot bit her lip and contemplated how to formulate her thoughts well enough to express what was troubling her. If the devil was in the details, then there had to be the faded, windblown impressions of cloven hooves everywhere.

  "But there are just a lot of little things, inconsistencies, nothing I can put a finger on."

  "Well... If there's something to be found, I'm sure you'll find it," Mondragon said. "I have faith in you. After all, you learned from the master."

  He winked at her and walked back to where the two girls crouched over the grid. Kneeling between them, he demonstrated the proper way to excavate by level rather than by working outward from the blanket, which appeared to have taken on the rounded shape of the crown of a skull. Heaven forbid they tear the bundle or crack the cranium--

  Elliot's brow furrowed.

  She pictured the first mummy inside the tent. Was it possible?

  Striking off toward the tent, she passed the others without a backwards glance. Her walk turned to a jog, and the next thing she knew she was bursting through the flaps and sliding down into the hole. She leaned forward until her face was only inches from the mummy's head and began combing through the hair with her fingertips.

  "Jesus," she whispered, jerking her hands back and wiping them on her pants.

  The long strands were a uniform jet black, with the exception of roughly a quarter inch at the base of each hair, which was just a subtle shade lighter.

  X

  Denver International Airport

  Denver, Colorado

  The small white jet had been fueled and ready when Carver arrived, the pilot and copilot prepared to taxi the moment he was seated. He'd never traveled by private plane before and felt somewhat out of place in the richly appointed cabin. The seats were upholstered with butter-soft brown leather with a lacquered table before each, satellite phones on the walls, and windows large enough to easily climb through, all in all more reminiscent of an executive lounge than the cramped cattle-steerage of coach to which he was accustomed. The copilot had made sure he was comfortable, pointed him in the direction of the stocked bar and the lavatory, and without a word regarding their destination, had locked himself behind the steel-reinforced door in the cockpit. Now Carver was alone in the cabin, the plane screaming down the runway, at the mercy of his fate.

  He produced the cell phone from his jacket pocket and stared at the display. The screen was roughly the size of a credit card, the downloaded icon no larger than the nail of his pinkie, yet the enormity of the information contained within seemed so much larger. The time had come to determine what kind of nightmare he had stumbled into, but first, he needed some answers, and there was only one person whom he could call without drawing undue attention to his inquiries. And if anyone might be privy to the facts he sought, it was Jack Warren.

  Carver removed his personal cell phone from the opposite jacket pocket, scrolled through the digital phone book until he found Jack's number, and dialed. He was certain that he was being watched even now, and if his cryptic new superiors were as paranoid as he thought, his phone was surely bugged. He would have to be careful what he said.

  "Hello?" The voice was aged yet firm, and Carver felt a swell of relief just hearing it.

  "Hi Jack."

  "Paxton, my boy, it's been too long. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

  "I need your help."

  "Official help?"

  Carver remained silent.

  "I've been following the Schwartz case," Jack said. "He wouldn't have come after you if you hadn't been nipping at his heels. And the girl's death was a foregone conclusion. Don't beat yourself up over it."

  "Easier said than done. What else do you know about it?"

  Jack Warren was not only his mother's oldest and dearest friend, but something of a surrogate father to Carver, who had never known his biological father. Stephen Carver had died in a car accident when his mother had been six months pregnant. Jack, who had never married, had always been there for both of them, visiting over the holidays, attending the important games and graduations, and generally just making himself available when Carver needed a sounding board or some guidance, despite the rigors of his job. Jack had even been there to recruit him into the Bureau when Carver had felt as though his life was floundering without direction. And most importantly, as the recently retired Deputy Director of the FBI, he knew just about everything about everyone, and if he didn't, there were still plenty of people who owed him favors.

  "I know you've drawn the interest of some powerful players. I suspect that's why you're calling. Who made the contact?"

  "Hawthorne."

  Jack whistled. "You're in the big leagues now, Paxton."

  "What do you know about him?"

  "Truthfully? Not a whole lot. Hawthorne is one intense individual. Weaned in the Marines, cut his teeth in Special Ops. He's as smart as he is dangerous, and unaccustomed to failure. Remember Charles Grady, the guy who killed twenty-two transients across the Midwest and dumped them in the bathrooms at rest stops? Hawthorne was the one who nailed him. Most recently, he brought down Edgar Ross, who cannibalized his victims prior to their deaths. If I remember correctly, they found the partially consumed remains of two families reported missing from campsites in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in his basement."

  "Neither of them made it to trial."

  "A bullet to the brainpan can do that."

  "Both? Isn't that a little odd?"

  "Ask me again after Schwartz's trial."

  "Touché," Carver said. "Who does he answer to?"

  "That's the million dollar question,
isn't it? Last I heard, I believe he was a field operative for the Combined DNA Index System Unit, but I can find out who's currently pulling his strings if you give me a little time."

  "Thanks, Jack. I knew I could count on you."

  "You know I'm here whenever you need me. But now you owe me. When things settle down you're going to have to humor an old man and come down to Baltimore. You still haven't been out on my boat."

  "Looking forward to it," Carver said. He was about to hit the "END" button when Jack spoke.

  "I'm proud of you, Pax."

  Carver nodded and hung up, feeling better already. At least until he set aside his personal phone in favor of the other.

  He glanced out the window. The plane banked around the northern suburbs of Thornton and Westminster before aligning with the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and heading south.

  Turning his attention to the screen, he tapped the file icon. There were two separate folders. The first contained the file he had already viewed on Tobin Schwartz, confirming his suspicion that his prior investigation was far from over, and that hopefully he would get a chance to answer some of the questions that had been plaguing him. The second file was something altogether different. At first its contents appeared disjointed and incoherent, and he questioned their relevancy, but as he perused the limited amount of information, he felt a sinking sensation in his gut as though they had just passed through heavy turbulence. There was a report containing lab data detailing the isotopic degradation of a series of biological samples, a bioinformatics chart comparing chromosomal DNA from different sources, and the strangest thing of all: a picture of a desiccated corpse that appeared to be hundreds of years old, bound by ropes in fetal position, and partially wrapped in a filthy blanket against a background of sand.