Long Road to Mercy

by David Baldacci

“I’ll call the support services folks in Flagstaff straightaway. They’ll send somebody up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Does this have to do with the website I showed you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Blum closed the door behind her as she left.

  Pine took out her phone and studied it. Was this compromised, too?

  She looked at the landline on her desk. To bug that they would have had to break into her office, or at least the telecommunications box. But that was in the underground garage in a locked room with video surveillance, courtesy of ICE’s presence here. She doubted they had accomplished that.

  When the IT people came from Flagstaff she would have them check everything. Until then, Pine decided to just not call or email or text anybody from her office or her personal phone.

  She left her coffee sitting on her desk and exited her office, rushing past Blum so fast the woman could only say, “Agent Pi—” before she was out the door.

  She took the steps two at a time to the garage, got into her truck, and sped out into the sunshine.

  There was a convenience store about three blocks away. It had something she really needed, something that was almost impossible to find anymore.

  Pine pulled into a free space in front, hopped out, and made a beeline for the pay phone hanging on the outside wall next to the machine containing bags of ice. Shattered Rock actually had several public pay phones for two reasons: As hard as it was to believe, not everyone here had a mobile phone. And cell reception here could be really crappy.

  She dropped in some coins and made the call.

  Park Ranger Lambert picked up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Colson, it’s Atlee.”

  “What number are you calling from?”

  “Never mind. Look, has anything weird been happening on your end with respect to the Priest disappearance?”

  Pine had still not told Lambert, or anyone else, that the man calling himself Benjamin Priest was not, in fact, Benjamin Priest.

  “What do you mean ‘weird’?”

  “Out of the ordinary. Like have you gotten any inquiries from further up the food chain?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “So, any progress on the case?”

  “Cadavers turned up nothing, like I already reported. We’ve searched everywhere we can think to.”

  “Will agents from your Investigative Services Branch become involved now?”

  “Above my pay grade.”

  Pine frowned into the phone receiver. This did not sound like the Colson Lambert she knew.

  “Did Edward Priest ever send you a picture of his brother?”

  “Look, Atlee, I don’t mean to be rude, but I gotta go. Stuff at the office. Talk soon.”

  And he clicked off.

  Pine slowly hung up the receiver. Well, he had indirectly answered her question. There was weird stuff going on, on his end.

  She stuffed more change into the machine and punched in the numbers.

  The phone rang and rang and then Edward Priest’s voice mail came on. The mailbox was full, so she was unable to leave a message.

  Frustrated, she hung up the phone, got back into her truck, and drove off. She checked her rear and side mirrors to see if any stealth vehicle was taking an overt interest in her SUV.

  On the way back to the office, she pondered what to do.

  Lambert was obviously stonewalling her. Edward Priest’s mailbox was full. Her computer and possibly her phone had been compromised. The Bureau’s National Security Branch was in the loop. Her supervisor’s boss had called her, made inquiries about only this case, and then gave her a not-so-subtle warning to watch her back.

  And on top of that she had a missing man who was supposed to be someone else, only wasn’t. And where was he? And where was Benjamin Priest?

  And who had killed and mutilated the damn mule and why? And what did an over-a-century-old, probably bogus story of Egyptians in the Grand Canyon have to do with any of it?

  She ran a hand through her still-damp hair and decided now would be a good time to return to the scene of the crime.

  She turned in the opposite direction, heading west.

  Thirty-five minutes later she was at the South Rim of the Canyon. Her federal badge gained her free admission to the park. She slid into an empty space near Park Headquarters in a section reserved for the Park Police. Her ride had federal plates, so she didn’t expect that to be a problem.

  She got out and looked around. The place was filled with tourists. Most would simply walk along the South Rim path admiring the views and taking pictures. Some would stay overnight at the various lodgings. Others would head back to wherever they had come from. Still others had taken mules down or would hike down into the Canyon.

  Though a popular tourist destination, the Canyon was an extreme environment. People died here every year. The causes were many and included heart attacks, falls, animal encounters, dehydration, and hyponatremia, an electrolyte disorder where your brain swelled with an excess of fluids. In addition, some rafters drowned in the punishing rapids of the Colorado River.

  As she was standing there, Pine saw a man dressed in athletic shorts, a tank top, and running shoes jogging down the pavement toward the parking lot. He stopped, stretched, and then headed toward a muddy Jeep with its canvas top down. It also had a power winch on the front bumper.

  An ARMY STRONG sticker was on the rear fender.

  “Hey, Sam.”

  Sam Kettler turned around as Pine called out.

  She walked over to him. “Don’t you work nights here?”

  “Usually, but not last night.”

  She looked him over. The tank top and shorts revealed what his uniform had not. The man was ripped. Each muscle melded perfectly into its neighbor. And unlike some guys who had inflated chests and swollen arms, matched with an underdeveloped lower body, his thighs, hammies, and calves were the most defined part of his musculature.

  “So what are you doing here now?”

  “Running the trails. Just finished.”

  Pine looked over his shoulder. “Which one did you do? It’s already pretty hot.”

  “South to North and then back.”

  “You did rim-to-rim-to-rim?”

  He nodded, reached inside his Jeep, and grabbed a towel to wipe down.

  “How long did it take you?” she asked.

  “Six hours and fifty-eight minutes. I started really early.”

  Her jaw slackened. “To run forty-two miles with twenty-two thousand feet of vertical change including five thousand feet on the run back up to the South Rim?”

  He finished wiping off and took a bottle of water out of the fanny pack around his waist. “I guess that sounds right, yeah. It’s still way off the record. I’ll never beat it.”

  “But there isn’t one person in a million who could run it as fast as you did.”

  He finished the bottle of water. “What are you doing up here?” he asked.

  “Came to check in.”

  “Find out what happened to the mule?”

  “Not yet, working on it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get there.” He looked away and seemed to tense, his gaze averted.

  She waited a few moments, but when he didn’t say anything, she said, “Well, see you around.”

  She started to walk away.

  “Hey, Atlee?”

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  “You got time for a beer and maybe some dinner tonight?”

  “You’re not working tonight either?”

  “Other reason I ran today.” He grinned impishly. “I’m not twenty anymore. I need some time to recover.”

  She considered his offer. “Sounds good.”

  “There’s a place in Shattered Rock.”

  She smiled. “Let me guess—Tony’s Pizza.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “It’s pretty much the only place in Shattered Rock to ge
t a beer.”

  “Seven o’clock work?”

  “See you then.”

  Pine walked into the headquarters and asked for not Colson Lambert but the other park ranger, Harry Rice.

  Rice, as it turned out, was over at the mule barn, she was told, so Pine headed there. She found Rice with the mules and also the mule wrangler, Mark Brennan.

  “You’re not wrangling a group today?” said Pine to Brennan, while Rice watched her with a look that Pine thought was unnecessarily wary.

  But maybe not, considering what he might have been told by his superiors.

  Brennan was rubbing salve on a mule’s forelegs. “We got a shipment of supplies coming in today. I’m handling it. Two other wranglers are leading the group down.”

  Pine nodded and looked at Rice. “I spoke to your buddy, Colson. Doesn’t look like the investigation is getting much traction.”

  “We looked everywhere for the guy,” said Rice, keeping his attention on a point to the left of Pine’s shoulder. “Never found anything.”

  They all fell silent for about a half minute.

  “Colson didn’t seem very interested in doing any more work on the case. That your position too, Harry?”

  Rice again wouldn’t meet her eye. “I’m a Park Ranger, not a cop.”

  “But what about ISB? Are they taking up the case? I asked Colson, but he blew me off.”

  Rice shrugged. “Above my pay grade.”

  “Seems to be the standard response these days,” replied Pine, wondering if he and Lambert had been scripted.

  Brennan looked from one to the other. “Something going on here I don’t know about?”

  “Probably,” said Pine. “Mark, you saw this guy Priest. I want you to talk to a sketch artist I use and give that description to her.”

  Rice said, “Why? You use a sketch artist if you’re trying to ID somebody. We already know who the missing guy is.”

  “Do we?” asked Pine.

  Rice looked taken aback. “His brother told us. He’s Benjamin Priest.”

  “I asked Colson if he got a photo of Priest from his brother. He wouldn’t answer me.”

  Brennan said, “Wait a minute, are you saying this guy wasn’t Ben Priest?”

  “I like to confirm everything. Not just assume.” Pine glanced at Rice. “Did you guys just assume, or did you confirm?”

  “I don’t like your tone, Atlee,” replied Rice.

  “And I don’t like getting played, Harry.”

  Brennan kept looking between the two feds, the confusion on his features growing.

  “So, Mark, I need you to come with me for the sketch artist.”

  “But I got stuff to do here.”

  “Find somebody else to do it.”

  As they walked out into the daylight, Brennan said quietly, “What’s going on here, Agent Pine. I mean, you guys are both with the federal government, right?”

  “Right. But the federal government is a big, unwieldy beast at times. And I go my own way.” She pulled out her phone and brought up the photo that Edward Priest had sent of his brother. “See the tall guy in this photo? You recognize him? Could he have also been in the group of ten with Priest?”

  “No, no way. Nobody that tall was in the group. And nobody who looked close to that guy.”

  “Did you take a group photo? Did anyone take photos of each other?”

  “People could have taken shots of each other. But there wasn’t any group photo that I know of.”

  Pine put her phone away. “Okay, let’s go see that sketch artist.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  Jennifer Yazzie was married to Joe Yazzie Sr., who was an officer with the Navajo Nation Police. He was one of about two hundred sworn cops and pulled patrol duty working out of the Tuba City Police District on the western side of the Navajo reservation. Riding in his department-issued Chevy Blazer, Yazzie alone was responsible for about seventy square miles of territory. Pine knew he performed his duties with a Glock 22 sidearm, pepper spray, an AR-15, a shotgun, body armor, an expandable baton, and his most important tools: a calm demeanor and an understanding of the area and the people that inhabited it that came only from having grown up there.

  Jennifer Yazzie worked as one of about three hundred support staff at the Nation Police. Although her main duties were in the IT department, she was an accomplished artist, having sold her pieces throughout the Southwest and having her works shown in numerous regional exhibitions. She was the police force’s unofficial sketch artist in residence.

  Yazzie also worked in the Tuba City Police District, and that was where Pine drove to with Brennan.

  Though she had a child who was twenty-four, Yazzie was only forty-five. She was a lean five five with long, dark hair and finely etched lines around her eyes and mouth. She possessed an easy smile, as though whatever she was doing brought her great joy.

  Pine had met her within a month of moving to the Shattered Rock RA. Along with working hard to meet with all the local law enforcement agencies, she had provided them resources and assistance over many cases. Pine also had sat on her share of bar stools drinking with them, getting to know them and the policing realities here. The Bureau actually graded an agent on her ability to strike up good relationships with the locals, and would even speak directly to these other agencies, to find out whether the FBI agent in question was doing a good job at that or not.

  During one of those times, Yazzie had joked with Pine that women in law enforcement were still rare enough that they all needed to keep up the professional sisterhood. Pine had agreed. The representation of women in law enforcement was still appallingly low in most parts of the country. Here, in the wild and wooly Southwest, Pine thought it was negligible.

  After Pine had introduced Brennan and discussed what she needed, Yazzie led them to a small conference room, where she had not paper and brushes or pens but a laptop computer.

  Yazzie smiled and said, “Like just about everything else, sketch art has gone digital.”

  Pine and Brennan sat down across from her while Yazzie punched in some keys and brought up a computer program. She looked over at Brennan.

  “You ready?”

  He nodded. To Pine, the man looked nervous and uncertain, as though he were about to undergo a painful medical exam or polygraph instead of feeding a memory of a certain person to Yazzie, so she could recreate the image on the computer screen.

  Yazzie asked a series of questions, each one a little more detailed than the last. From the basic, male or female, to the shape of a nose, the curve of a chin, the wrinkles on a neck and around the eyes, to the texture of the person’s hair, along with the color.

  After about an hour of this back and forth, Yazzie swung the computer around so they could see the finished results.

  “How’d I do?” she asked.

  Pine watched as Brennan’s jaw dropped. “Damn, ma’am, that’s him.”

  “Nice to get positive feedback,” said a smiling Yazzie.

  “Jen, can you print that image out for me and also email it to me?” said Pine.

  “You got it.”

  As they were leaving, Pine drew Yazzie aside after telling Brennan she would meet him at the truck.

  “Ran into your son the other night outside my apartment building.”

  Yazzie’s easy smile devolved to a frown. “Joe Jr.?”

  Pine nodded. “He was with some sunburned jerk who has a beef with the feds. I had to take him down a peg.”

  “Tim Mallory. He got kicked out of the Army for drinking and drugs. He moved here last year from Philadelphia. Joe’s been hanging out with him.”

  “He’s not a good influence. And Joe said he was there to meet up with Kyle Chavez. Also not a good influence.”

  Yazzie said, “I didn’t know he’d been messing around with Kyle.”

  “They were also smoking weed and drinking. Look, I know that’s not unusual with young guys, but I don’t want to see Joe get into trouble that he can’t ge
t out of.”

  “His father’s been trying to get him to try out for the police, but he has no interest.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “Not much. He works odd jobs. He comes home sometimes. I cook him meals, try to get him motivated about his future. But not much seems to work with him.”

  “His brothers?”

  “Thomas is in college in Portland, Oregon. Matt’s a senior. He’s going to West Point.”

  “That’s great, very impressive.”

  “But not Joe. His father isn’t happy. It’s all he thinks about. His namesake. You know.”

  “I don’t know because I’ve never had kids. But I imagine it can really mess with you.”

  “Joe’s at his wit’s end. Nothing he says seems to get through.” She shrugged and smiled sadly. “My son’s Navajo name is Ahiga. Do you know what that means?”

  Pine shook her head.

  Yazzie sighed resignedly and said, “It translates to ‘he fights.’ And Joe Jr. has lived up to that name. At least when it comes to his parents.”

  “I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “Thanks, Atlee. I’ll let my husband know too. And good luck with your missing person case.”

  Pine walked out into the heat and sun thinking that she would need something a lot stronger than luck. And she was also thinking that motherhood was not for her.

  She dropped Brennan off at the park, turned around, and drove straight back to Shattered Rock.

  Carol Blum rose from her desk when Pine entered the office.

  “The IT folks have been over our computers. They actually did it remotely. They found some things on there that shouldn’t have been and removed them.”

  “So the computers had been compromised?”

  “Yes. They’re checking to see where it might have come from. I’m thinking it might have happened when I went on that website. If so, I’m very sorry, Agent Pine.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Pine. “I think it might have happened regardless.”

  “They also checked out our phones. Both our cell and landlines. They’re fine.”

  “Good. Because I’m out of quarters.”

  “You did have a message from the forensics lab at Flagstaff. They wanted you to call. I have the number.”

  Pine took this information into her office and closed the door.