“You still are,” the man—Eileen’s father—said in a calm voice. Joe looked at him and saw the resemblance, the feeling that he knew this man suddenly understood. Alan Baxter had Eileen’s cheekbones and the way her eyes were placed, although his eyes were a disconcerting yellowish-brown color and hers were blue. The height, the long and sensitive hands, all were hers as well.
Eileen stared at the man—Alan Baxter—levelly. “I know,” she said coolly.
“How did you meet—wait, is this Krista Lewis’s friend? The one who wanted to talk to Jim Leetsdale?”
“Yeah,” Eileen said, and grimaced. “I should have told you then, but I couldn’t believe it myself. I’m sorry, Joe.”
“It’s okay,” Joe said automatically, squeezing her hand. That’s what one said, anyway, when someone apologized. It’s okay, even if it’s not. Even if it means that the person you love with all your heart doesn’t love you enough to seek your consolation, your understanding, your help. It’s okay, but it’s not. It hurts like hell.
“So Mr. Baxter and I found ourselves involved in different sides of the same case,” Eileen continued with a rush, obviously relieved to move to safer ground. “He’s been visiting friends in the San Luis Valley and we’ve been working our case up here.”
“Then someone tried to kill you?” Alan Baxter asked. “My God, what happened?”
Rosen slid the glass door open and observed the grouping at the table. He nodded at the plate of brauts Joe had set on the kitchen counter.
“Brauts,” he said.
“Someone tried to shoot me when I went home last night,” Eileen said, standing and fetching the plate. She gave it to Rosen who disappeared toward the grill. Joe also stood and moved to the refrigerator. He started pulling out condiments and side dishes.
“They must have been waiting for you,” he said. “You left here late.”
“I think they were,” Eileen said. She started collecting plates and napkins and flatware with the easy movements of a person who knew where everything was stored. Joe glanced at Alan Baxter and saw a flat, speculative look in his eyes. Alan was looking directly at him. For a moment he felt absurdly like flushing.
“Anyway,” Eileen continued. “A man came along like he was just out for a walk, which would have worked at ten or so but not at two a.m. I think he was going to shoot me with a silenced gun, then they were going to bundle me into the car they had waiting and drive off. But I saw his gun and startled him enough to outdraw him, and shot him right in the chest.”
She set her dishes down at the table with a clatter and looked down at her hands. “So I spent the next second or two wondering how it was I ended up shooting two men inside of two months, and then his friends came roaring down the block in a car. I jumped a fence near me and circled the block, and by the time I worked my way back to my Jeep, the whole crew was gone, including the guy I shot. There had to be two, I know that. I don’t know how many more there were.”
The sliding glass door opened, sending in a gust of grilling braut that sent the juice into Joe’s mouth in an instant.
“Captain Harben thinks someone put a hit on Eileen because she tied together Jim Leetsdale and Krista Lewis,” Rosen said, sliding the door shut behind him. “So if they wanted to hit her, they might want to hit me too, and maybe Mr. Baxter, here.”
Joe set a pot of potato salad down on the table.
“But nobody wants to hit me?” he asked. “No, of course not. Nobody knows about me, do they?” He looked at Eileen. Something heavy suddenly went rolling off his chest.
“I didn’t want—” she said, then stopped abruptly. She didn’t have to say anything. For once his Eileen’s face was as open as the sky. He would bet his life, that moment, that she loved him.
“Could someone have followed us?” Alan Baxter asked. Eileen’s expression closed like a set of blinds rattling down.
“That’s why we’re in a division car,” she said. “Rosen and I left our cars at the motor pool. We’re having your Bronco towed there, too. Harben is having all three swept for bugs.”
Alan flinched and his eyebrows drew together.
“They’re going to search my car?” he asked. “I didn’t give permission—I mean, I don’t want them to do that!”
“Drugs?” Rosen asked. “Should we have asked?”
“No drugs, for godssake, just my shotgun and my .357,” Alan Baxter said. “Is that illegal in Colorado? Do I have to have permits, or something?”
“We have reciprocity with Wyoming,” Eileen said easily. “I know they have Vermont-style carry there. You don’t have the .357 in a spring-loaded clip or anything, do you?”
“No, but it’s loaded,” Alan said miserably. “And I have hundreds of flies—for my fishing, you know. Thousands, probably. They’re all sorted and I tied them all and if you open any of my boxes in a breeze, they’ll blow away.”
Joe started laughing. He couldn’t help it. Sometimes one thing or another just struck him as funny and not a thing on earth could keep him from laughing. Alan, Eileen, and Rosen all turned to look at him. He struggled for a moment, trying to stop.
“They’re going to sweep his car for bugs,” he explained, and then he was off, laughing like a fool. Nobody laughed with him. They looked at him like a panel of solemn judges, and that made him laugh harder. “Let me check the brauts,” he offered, and ducked out the sliding glass door before he really lost control.
Outside, in the still afternoon air, he kept on laughing. The brauts sizzled and popped on the grill. Rosen had placed them neatly in a row, too close together for Joe’s taste. He took the fork and moved them apart, checking to make sure the fat juices didn’t start a fire and char the food. Suddenly, he wanted a dozen ears of butter and sugar corn, still in their green jackets, to lay on the grill. That would have made a perfect addition to his little feast. The door slid open behind him and he didn’t need to turn around to know it was Eileen.
“They smell delicious,” Eileen said awkwardly.
“Of course they do, they are my specialty,” Joe said grandly, turning around and waving his barbecue fork in the air. Eileen shut the door behind her and stepped towards him on the deck.
“I have more to tell you about, well, me,” she said.
“Okay,” Joe said evenly. “I wish you trusted me enough to tell me.”
“I couldn’t,” she whispered thickly, not looking at him. “I will now, I promise. But not now, and not here. Can you wait for me?”
Her words hung in the air, as still and moveless as the barbecue smoke. Eileen’s face reddened and then paled again. She looked tired and unhappy and grim. Joe lowered the barbecue fork and held his free arm out to her. She came into his arms as neatly and quickly as a nesting bird.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said, holding her and keeping the tines of the barbecue fork out of her hair. “Don’t worry about me, my love. Never worry about me.” For a moment her shoulders trembled under his hands and then she was still.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his neck. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”
“Not a chance, woman,” Joe said, with mock ferociousness. “I would make love to you right here, but people would talk. The neighbors. Your partner. Your dad. And the weenies would burn.”
Eileen loosened her arms and let him go. He turned to check on the brauts with his barbecue fork. She stood next to him, and he stole a quick glance. She looked tired still, but her color was high and her eyes were bright. Joe Tanner magic, he thought smugly, and flipped a braut so exuberantly he nearly tossed it onto the deck.
“Wanna make a salad while I finish these?” he asked. “I bought the ingredients but I haven’t had time today.”
“I will,” Eileen said. “We’ve still got a lot to talk about. So hurry in.”
Joe turned his brauts and contemplated the depths of his grill and listened as the door slid open and shut behind him. Things would be well, he thought to himself, all manner of things would be well. A man should always qu
ote Robert Burns while grilling weenies. He began to whistle.
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Jacob Mitchell sat quietly, words and figures on pieces of paper in front of him. He sat with his hands on them, his face turned dreamily to the open window where the stillness of late afternoon made the sky look like a depthless lake of blue. Everything was ready. Everything was prepared.
“Martial law,” he said to himself, relishing the sound of his own voice in his ears. He had an incredible speaking voice, as smooth and rich as butter. He’d need every talent he possessed in the coming days.
He’d been working to this day, this coming moment, all his life. He understood the joke in the phrase public service as soon as he started reading history at the age of seven. Politics in this country, America, was the only path to real power. Some of the smarter Presidents had shown quite clearly that laws did not apply to them, even the most ordinary ones.
All of the Presidents, however, bent their necks to the Constitution and meekly walked out of office after their time of service, leaving the country to flounder through an election and a new administration. Mitchell knew an administration with twenty years of experience would achieve remarkable prosperity. All it took was for one man, one President, to provide stable leadership. The country desperately needed it.
Mitchell was the man to help his country, and he knew it. His staff knew it. The media seemed to know it, too. He consistently received favorable, even fawning, press. Yet America persisted in their silly bread-and-circuses elections, where the stupid electorate voted again and again for the wrong men.
“Martial law,” he said to himself. That was the answer, of course. There was no voting during martial law. There was no Constitution. There was no court system, no due process, no free press. During martial law, there was something as good as a king in America, a man whose very word was law. That man was the FEMA director. And the Western District FEMA director was Jacob Mitchell. All he needed was a disaster. A disaster large enough to require martial law. Once imposed, there would be no turning back.
His hands moved on the papers. Here, under his hands, was the plan that would catapult him into the highest office in the world. He knew it would work. And nothing on earth could stop him.
Briargate Subdivision, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“They didn’t open anything in your Bronco,” Rosen said, pressing the off button on his cell phone. “They did an electronics search only. Jean says thanks for the warning about the guns. No bugs in any of the cars. No bugs in our apartments.”
“These guys are very careful,” Eileen mused.
They were all seated in Joe’s living room. Eileen was stuffed full of brauts and potato salad and sauerkraut and now all she wanted to do was take a nap. She was on the short couch leaning back into Joe’s shoulder. The other couch, the longer one, held Rosen and Alan Baxter. They too had the look of serious food overload. The beer hadn’t helped. The sun was nearly at the edge of the Front Range and rays flooded the kitchen and laid bars of gold on the living room carpet. The weather hadn’t broken yet; if anything, it was even more still and breathless than an hour ago. Eileen struggled to keep her eyes open.
“I’m going to make coffee,” Joe announced. “Then, when we all wake up, I think you guys should see my simulation. I’ve been doing some reading too. Maybe everything will start fitting together.”
Eileen sat back into the couch cushions as Joe went to the kitchen. Joe selected his furniture the same way he chose his clothing, with regard for maximum comfort. Eileen had glanced at the tag on the sofa once, a long time ago, and noticed a very expensive brand. The side tables were junk, though, wood veneer over particleboard and already peeling up at the edges. No need for coasters in Joe’s house.
The sharp whir of the coffee grinder made Alan Baxter jump. Eileen looked at him, and for a moment his image wavered. She lost her grip on Alan Baxter, interesting subject in a homicide investigation, and saw her father sitting on a couch not five feet from her, looking back at her. Something filled her mouth like water, a taste that felt exactly like fear. But it couldn’t be fear. What did she have to fear from this man?
“I’m staying at Sam and Beth Williams’s ranch this week,” Alan said. “I might have something interesting to add to Joe’s simulation. I talked to a local—no wait, I don’t think she’s local. She’s a schoolteacher like me, retired, and she told me the local opinion is that Krista was murdered by someone inside the dunes.”
“Raped and murdered,” Rosen said. “Got the preliminary coroner report today. No semen, bastard wore a condom. Maybe he thought that would save him, but they found a couple strands of hair that weren’t hers, and she showed rape injury. So if we find the guy, we might be able to nail him.”
“Raped,” Alan said, in a lost and horrified voice. “Oh, Krista.” He put his face into his hands and bent over his knees. Joe’s coffee maker gurgled in the kitchen and Joe walked back into the room, looking cheerful.
“Coffee soon,” he promised, then looked at Alan in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry,” Rosen said to Alan. “I forgot you knew her.”
“Krista Lewis was raped before she was murdered,” Eileen said flatly.
Joe bent next to Alan and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said. “Hang on.”
“I’m okay,” Alan said, his voice muffled. “It’s just a shock, that’s all.”
Eventually he sat up and took his hands from his face. His eyes were reddened and looked tired. He nodded at Joe, who patted his shoulder and moved back to the kitchen. Eileen sat on the couch and felt both awkward and cruel. But she simply could not get up and go to this man and give him a hug or even Joe’s reassuring pat.
“Coffee,” Joe announced. “Hot as hell and loaded with caffeine.”
“That’s the wrap,” Joe said, borrowing an Eileen phrase. He drained the last swallow of coffee from his cup. “The New Madrid fault line, a subject in which I am swiftly becoming an expert. Did you know the Mississippi actually ran backward for a period of hours, right near the fault?”
“That’s hard to believe,” Alan Baxter said, his cup held carefully in both hands. He and Rosen sat in kitchen chairs. It occurred to Eileen that since Joe’s laptop was portable they could view his simulation anywhere, but she didn’t suggest moving. Joe’s study contained his Web machine as well as what seemed like an endless array of other machines, mostly computers. Books lined the walls in every direction and stood in stacks on the floor. If a house had a heart, this was it.
“There’s lots more, stuff I can hardly believe myself,” Joe said. “I got a bunch of books from the library today. Let’s take the San Andreas, for example. Everybody knows about Los Angeles and San Francisco, right?”
“Right,” Eileen murmured.
“Well, turns out San Andreas is a less dangerous fault than the New Madrid. The San Andreas is fractured, like a plate with cracks all the way through it. The fractures of the San Andreas fault run right under downtown L.A., it’s true, but they also act as an absorber for earthquakes.”
“An absorber?” Rosen asked.
“A buffer, I guess I should say. The earthquake breaks up into the fault lines and doesn’t continue its large-scale waveform. Like a wave hitting a series of rocks. It breaks up the power so the wave that moves through the rocks is disorganized and weak.”
“There’s no break in the New Madrid?” Alan Baxter asked.
“No small fractures. When the New Madrid went off in 1812, people in Boston lost china from their shelves. In Denver, water sloshed out of those pitchers everyone used to have in their room. You know.” Joe made curving motions with his hands, trying to trace a shape.
“A pitcher and basin for washing, like in the Old West movies,” Alan said. “In Denver?”
“Denver. At the fault line, in New Madrid and Little Prairie, entire homes dropped into cracks that opened up in the ground. T
he river boiled and turned dark in seconds from all the silt and mud. Trees that had sunk to the bottom of the river shot up into the air like they’d been wired with explosives.” Joe pushed the button that made the New Madrid happen in bright cheerful colors on his little laptop screen.
“Trees fell. Lots of people scrambled onto the trees since they were large enough to span the cracks that were opening in the earth. There was a groaning sound, and shrieks, and sulfur fumes filled the air. What an incredible night that must have been, right? No television, no radio, just townspeople running away from the riverbanks and trying to hold on to trees. People were sucked into quicksand that opened up near the river, and all sorts of small boats were pulled into whirlpools or buried by collapsing riverbanks.
“Hey,” he continued, still staring at the laptop screen. “I could probably figure out how many people would die today, just the way we figure deaths from nuclear blasts. There were only three thousand people living in the Mississippi Valley in 1811. I don’t know how many today. Millions, though. I need to program in the intensity at ground zero, and decreasing rings of intensity as the distance from the quake increases. This could tell us where the worst damage would be . . .” Joe trailed off and tucked his bare feet under him.
“Wait a minute,” Alan said. “Let’s get back to the topic, here. How does this affect Krista Lewis?”
“Leetsdale was going to expose the earthquake prediction project, that’s what we think,” Eileen said. “And somehow Krista was a part of that.”
“Krista and the Great Sand Dunes,” Rosen said.
“Hey, Joe, was there anything in Leetsdale’s files about the Great Sand Dunes?”
Joe, staring raptly at his laptop screen, started in his chair.
“What?”
“Leetsdale’s files. Great Sand Dunes,” Eileen said, with amusement. Joe would be gone for hours if they let him, and when he came back he’d have programmed the computer to show damage in three-dimensional color.
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