Gideon's Corpse

by Douglas Preston

  “What’s going on?” Fordyce asked.

  “They escaped, sir,” said the one Chu assumed was the team leader. “Into the side canyons leading down to the river.”

  “I want the choppers deployed over the canyons,” Fordyce said. “Especially those with infrared capability. I want men deployed along the river, with teams going up every single one of those side canyons. And get me up in a bird, pronto.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fordyce turned back to Chu. “You stay here. I may have more questions for you.” And he was gone.

  45

  AS GIDEON AND ALIDA bulled their way through the brush down the narrow canyon, the air above filled with choppers, the thwap of their rotors echoing up and down the stone walls, along with the drone of small planes and, perhaps, unmanned aerial vehicles. Spotlights flashed downward through the dusty air, columns of light roaming over the canyon walls. But the narrow canyons were choked with brush, with many overhanging rocks and alcoves, and so far they had found ample places to hide as the aircraft passed overhead.

  Their progress was slow, interrupted frequently by the need to press themselves against the rock walls or cram under brush as spotlights passed them by. It was a warm night. Even though it was well after midnight, the rocks still held some heat of the intense sun, but the temperature was dropping fast. Gideon knew that, as the environment cooled, their presence would begin to show up better in the infrared sensing devices their pursuers had surely deployed.

  Slowly they worked their way down toward the river.

  A chopper suddenly passed very close overhead, its backwash whipping the bushes and raising furious clouds of dust. As the spotlight swept toward them, Gideon pushed Alida flat against the canyon wall. The blinding light passed over, then wobbled and came back, the chopper banking hard. The light fixed on them.

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered.

  No point in hiding now. Gideon pulled Alida along and they scrambled down the canyon while the chopper went into a hover, the light following them. They climbed over fallen rocks, slid down pour-overs. The canyon was dry, and it was hard to tell how far ahead the river lay.

  More choppers appeared, taking positions in the sky. “Cease moving,” a voice boomed over the rotor noise. “Raise your hands.”

  Gideon slid over a boulder, helped Alida down. Ahead, the canyon plunged even more steeply.

  “Halt! Or we fire!”

  Gideon recognized Fordyce’s voice. He was furiously angry: this was personal.

  They came to the edge of another pour-over. This time, the drop was some ten feet to a muddy pool.

  “Your final warning!”

  They jumped just as a burst of automatic weapons fire sounded, hurtled downward, and landed heavily in water-covered mud. They struggled up out of the pool and staggered into a thicket of salt cedars, gunfire ripping and shredding the branches around them and smacking into the rock walls on either side. The searchlights temporarily lost them, roving widely through the heavy vegetation.

  They came to a final pour-over, with nothing but blackness below. The searchlights hit them again.

  “Jump!” Gideon cried.

  “But I can’t see a damn—”

  “It’s either that or get shot. Jump!”

  They jumped—a sickening, terrifying plunge into blackness—and then landed in icy whitewater. Gideon felt himself tumbling head over heels in the torrent, racing and thundering along. They had reached the rapids of the Rio Grande, boiling through White Rock Canyon.

  “Alida!” he cried, thrashing around. He got a glimpse of a white face to his left. “Alida!” He tried to swim, the strong current sweeping them both downstream among roaring cataracts and huge standing waves.

  “Gideon!” he heard her cry. He reached out, contacted her body, then grasped her hand. There was nothing to do but ride it out.

  The choppers had spread out, the spotlights sweeping wildly across the river; apparently they had misjudged, because they were focusing on a stretch of the river upstream of them. The canyon was narrow and deep here, and rules of separation seemed to be limiting the number of helicopters, as only three now were taking part in the search.

  They continued to be swept helplessly along in the frigid waters at terrifying speed, clinging to each other as best they could. Gideon could barely keep his face above the churning, roiling river. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark again, he could see farther—a terrifying descent of whitewater, huge haystacks, and standing waves. They flew over one haystack, tumbled and fought to right themselves, almost losing grip on each other. Gideon thrashed to the surface, took a huge breath, then was forced under again by the powerful current. Now they were both completely underwater, caught like leaves in the immense turbulence. He struck violently against an underwater boulder and Alida’s grasp was jarred loose.

  He fought his way back to the surface, coughing and gasping. He tried to call out, breathed in water, and began choking instead. He fought to stay on the surface, to orient himself in the current. The current was slowing just slightly, but still moving at a terrible pace. He managed to get his head up and gulped air, trying to get his breath back.

  “Alida!”

  No answer. He peered around but saw nothing besides whitewater and dark canyon walls. The three choppers were now quite a way upstream, but there were two others coming in below them, lights playing over the roiling surface of the river. As the first approached, Gideon held his breath and went under, keeping his eyes open. The big blue glow passed by; he rose, took another breath, and submerged until the second glow was behind him.

  He came back up. “Alida!”

  Still no answer. And now he could see and hear, up ahead, more whitewater. As it approached and the roar grew to fill the air, drowning out the choppers, he realized it was worse—far worse—than what they had passed through.

  And there was no sign, none whatsoever, of Alida.

  46

  STONE FORDYCE PEERED down through the open door of the chopper, manipulating the control stick of the “night sun,” the chopper’s powerful spotlight. As the pool of light played over the boiling surface of the river, he felt an unexpected catharsis, a certain sense of mingled relief and sadness—there didn’t seem to be any way a person could survive those horrible rapids. It was over.

  “What’s beyond this whitewater?” Fordyce asked the pilot through his headset.

  “More whitewater.”

  “And then?”

  “The river eventually comes out into Cochiti Lake,” said the pilot, “about five miles downstream.”

  “So there’s five miles of this whitewater?”

  “Off and on. There’s one really bad stretch just downstream.”

  “Follow the river to Cochiti Lake, then, but take it slow.”

  The pilot wended his way down the river while Fordyce searched the surface with the spotlight. They passed what was obviously the violent whitewater: a bottleneck stretch between vertical walls with a rock in the middle the size of an apartment building, the water boiling up against it and sweeping around in two vicious currents, creating massive downstream whirlpools and eddies. Beyond that the river leveled out, flowing between sandbars and talus slopes. With no floating reference point, it was hard to judge how fast the water was moving. He wondered if the bodies would rise or sink, or perhaps get caught up on underwater rocks.

  “What’s the water temperature?” he asked the pilot.

  “Let me ask.” A moment later the pilot said, “About fifty-five degrees.”

  That’ll kill them even if the rapids don’t, thought Fordyce.

  Still he searched, more out of a sense of professional thoroughness than anything else. The river finally broadened, the water growing sluggish. He could see a small cluster of lights downstream.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  The pilot banked slowly as the river made a turn. “The town of Cochiti Lake.”

  Now the top of the lake came into view. It was
a long, narrow lake, evidently formed from damming up the river.

  “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do along here,” said Fordyce. “The others can continue their search for the bodies. Take me back to Los Alamos.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The chopper banked again and rose, gaining altitude and accelerating as it headed northward. Fordyce felt in his gut that Gideon and the woman must be dead. No one could have survived those rapids.

  He wondered if it was even necessary to interview Chu or the other security officers. The idea that someone had planted those emails to frame Crew was ridiculous and well-nigh impossible. It would have to have been an inside job, involving at least one top security officer—and to what end? Why even frame him?

  But still he felt uneasy. Leaving a bunch of incriminating emails on a classified work computer was not the most intelligent move a terrorist could make. It was, in fact, stupid. And Crew had been anything but stupid.

  47

  GIDEON CREW CRAWLED up onto the sandbar, numb with cold, bruised and bleeding and aching from the ride through the rapids and his long struggle to reach the shore.

  He sat up and clasped his hands around his knees, coughing and shivering and fighting to regain his breath. He’d lost both the stage gun and the real gun somewhere in the rapids. Upstream, he could hear the faint roar of rapids, and he made out the dull line of whitewater where the canyon opened up. He was sitting on a low sandbar that curved for hundreds of yards along an inside bend of the river. Before him the river ran sluggishly, the moon dimpling its moving surface.

  Both upstream and downstream he could see the lights of helicopters, see the downward play of spotlights in the darkness. He had to get out of the open and under cover.

  He managed to rise unsteadily to his feet. Where was Alida? Had she survived? This was too terrible—this was never part of the plan. He’d sucked an innocent woman into his problem, just as he had with Orchid, back in New York. And now, thanks to him, Alida might be dead.

  “Alida!” he practically screamed.

  His eye roamed the sweep of sand, shining in the moonlight. Then he saw a dark shape lying partway out of the water, one hand held crookedly over its head, frozen in place.

  “Oh no!” he cried, stumbling forward. But as he approached he saw it was twisted, misshapen—a driftwood log.

  He sank down on it, gasping for breath, immeasurably relieved.

  The closest chopper was working its way down the river toward him—and he abruptly realized he was leaving telltale footprints in the sand. With a muffled curse, he picked up a branch and worked his way back, erasing his prints with it. The effort warmed him a little. He crossed the sandbar, still sweeping, waded across a side channel, reached the far side, and dove into a thicket of salt cedars just as the chopper roared overhead, its blinding searchlight moving back and forth.

  Even after it had passed by he lay in the darkness, thinking. He couldn’t leave this stretch of river until he found Alida. This was where the fast water slowed into a broad, sluggish flow, and this was where—if she were still alive—she would probably reach shore.

  Another chopper roared overhead, shaking the bushes he was hiding in, and he covered his face from the flying sand.

  He crawled out and peered up and down the river again, but could see nothing. There was a cutbank on the far side: if she was anywhere, she’d have to be on this side of the river. He began creeping through the heavy brush, trying to stay silent.

  Suddenly he heard crackling behind him, and a heavy hand clapped onto his shoulder. With a shout he turned.

  “Quiet!” came the whispered reply.

  “Alida! Oh my God, I thought—”

  “Shhhh!” She seized his hand and dragged him deeper into the bushes as another chopper swept toward them. They lay low as the backwash rattled the scrub.

  “We’ve got to get away from the river,” she whispered, pulling him to his feet and scooting through the brush up a dry creek. Gideon was disconcerted to find her in better shape than he was. He gasped for breath as they climbed a boulder-strewn wash, which grew progressively narrower and steeper.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  He looked up. In the dim moonlight he could see the jagged remains of an old basaltic flow, and at the base of it the dark opening of a cave.

  They struggled up a scree slope, Alida pulling him along when he faltered, and in a few minutes they were inside. It wasn’t a true cave—more like a broad overhang—but it shielded them from above and below. And it had a smooth floor of hard-packed sand.

  She stretched out. “God, does that feel good,” she said. There was a brief silence before she continued. “A really crazy thing happened back there. I saw this log lying on the shore, could’ve sworn it was your dead body. It really…well, really shocked me.”

  Gideon groaned. “I saw it, too, and thought it was you.”

  Alida gave a low laugh, which gradually trailed off into silence. In the darkness, she reached out and took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I want to tell you something, Gideon. When I saw that log, the first thing that came into my mind was that, now, I wouldn’t ever get the chance to say it. So here goes. I believe you. I know you’re not a terrorist. I want to help you find out who did it—and why.”

  Gideon was momentarily speechless. He tried to come back with a wiseass response, but could think of nothing. After all that had happened—after being framed, attacked by his partner, shot at, chased across the mountains, pursued through the tunnels, run into the river, and almost drowned—he felt a surge of emotion at this sudden expression of trust. “What changed your mind?” he managed.

  “I know you now,” she went on. “You’re sincere. You’ve got a kind heart. There’s just no way you could be a terrorist.”

  She squeezed his hand again; and at that, with all the stress, the disbelief, the exhaustion, the inner loneliness, hearing a sympathetic word did something to Gideon. He began to choke up. Entirely against his will, he felt tears springing into his eyes and leaking down his face—and then he found himself sobbing like a baby.

  48

  AFTER A WHILE he managed to get himself under control. He wiped his eyes with his damp sleeve, then raised his head. He felt his face growing scarlet with shame.

  “Well, well,” Alida said. “A man who can cry.” She smiled at him in the darkness, but it was a gentle smile, with no trace of irony.

  “How embarrassing,” he muttered. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. He hadn’t even cried on his mother’s deathbed. It might have been on that terrible day in 1988, on the blazing green grass outside Arlington Hall Station, when he’d realized that his father wasn’t still alive, after all, but had been shot dead by a sniper.

  “I don’t know what got into me,” he said. He felt mortified to have broken down in front of Alida, of all people. But at the same time, a part of him felt relief. She seemed to sense his embarrassment and did not pursue the subject. For a long time they lay side by side, in silence.

  Gideon propped himself up on an elbow. “I’ve been thinking. When Fordyce and I arrived in New Mexico, we interviewed just three people. We must’ve scored a direct hit and never realized it. One of those people was so frightened by that interview that he tried to kill us. First he sabotaged our plane, and when that didn’t work, he did a frame job on me.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The imam of the local mosque. A cult leader named Willis Lockhart. And then…of course, your father.”

  Alida snorted. “My father is no terrorist.”

  “Granted, it seems unlikely, but I can’t rule out anyone. Sorry.” A pause. “Why does he call you ‘Miracle Daughter,’ anyway?”

  “My mother died giving birth to me. Since then, we’ve only had each other. And he’s always looked on me as some kind of miracle.” She smiled again despite herself. “So tell me about the other two.”

  “Lockhart runs a doomsday cult at a place called the Pa
iute Creek Ranch, in the southern Jemez Mountains. Chalker’s wife had an affair with him and joined the cult, and it could very well be that Chalker was drawn into it, too. They’re looking forward to apocalypse. They’re no slouches when it comes to technology. They’ve got incredibly sophisticated communications and computing facilities, all run on solar power.”

  “And?”

  “And, well, maybe—just maybe—they’re trying to hasten along the apocalypse. You know, give it a little nudge by detonating a bomb.”

  “Are they Muslim?”

  “Not at all. But it occurred to me that the cult might be planning to set off a nuke and see it blamed on the Muslims. Great way to start World War Three. It’s the Charles Manson strategy.”

  “The Manson strategy?”

  “Manson and his followers tried to start a race war by murdering a bunch of people and making it look like it was done by black radicals.”

  She nodded slowly.

  There was a long silence before Gideon spoke again. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel in my bones that Lockhart and his cult are behind this. The imam and the members of his mosque seem like nice, rational people. But I get really bad vibes from Lockhart.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to confront Lockhart.” Gideon inhaled deeply. “It means crossing the mountains again to get to the Paiute Creek Ranch. We’re going to head parallel to the river until we reach—”

  “I’ve got a better plan,” Alida interrupted.

  He fell silent.

  She held up a finger. “First, we take these wet clothes off, build a fire, and dry them out. Because it’s cold and getting colder.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Second, we sleep.”

  Another beat.

  “Third, we need help. And I know just the person: my father.”

  “You’re forgetting he’s on my short list of suspects.”

  “Knock it off, for God’s sake. He can hide us up at the ranch he has out of town. We’ll use that as a base while we figure out who framed you.”