Gideon's Corpse

by Douglas Preston

  “No.”

  “Now let’s talk about your cars. How many?”

  “Two,” Novak said.

  “The Mercedes and—?”

  “A Range Rover.”

  “Their cost?”

  “The Mercedes was fifty, the Range Rover about sixty-five.”

  “Did you finance them?”

  A long silence. “No.”

  Fordyce went on. “When you bought your house, how much did you spend on new furnishings?”

  “I’m not really sure,” said Novak.

  “For example, these rugs? Did you bring them from your previous residence or purchase them?”

  Novak looked at him. “Just what are you driving at?”

  Fordyce allowed him a warm, friendly smile. “These are nothing more than routine questions, Dr. Novak. This is how the FBI starts almost any interview—with financials. You’d be amazed how quickly one can smoke out someone living beyond their means with just a few simple questions. Which is alarm number one in our business.” Another smile.

  Fordyce could see signs of tension in Novak’s face for the first time.

  “So…the rugs?”

  “We bought them for the new house,” Novak said.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “And the other furnishings? The silver collection? The wide-screen TV?”

  “Mostly bought when we purchased the house.”

  “Did you finance any of these purchases?”

  “No.”

  Another notation. “You seem to have had a lot of cash on hand. Was there a legacy involved, lottery or gambling winnings, an investment coup? Or perhaps family help?”

  “Nothing significant to speak of.”

  Fordyce would have to plug the figures into a spreadsheet, but already they were at the outer limits of what was readily explainable. A man making a hundred grand a year would be hard-pressed to buy the cars he had around the same time he was making a down payment on his house, and paying cash on top of everything else. Unless he’d made a real estate killing on his previous house.

  “Your previous house—was it nearby?”

  “It was over in White Rock.”

  “How much did you sell it for?”

  “About three hundred.”

  “How much equity did you have in that house?”

  “About fifty, sixty.”

  Only fifty or sixty. That answered that question. There was unexplained wealth.

  Fordyce gave Novak another reassuring smile. He flipped the pages of his notebook. “Now, getting to these emails that were found in Crew’s account.”

  Novak looked relieved to see the change in subject. “What about them?”

  “I know you’ve answered a lot of questions already about this.”

  “Always ready to help.”

  “Good. Could those emails have been planted?”

  The question hung in the air for a moment.

  “No,” said Novak at last. “Our security is foolproof. Crew’s computer was part of a physically isolated network. There’s no contact with the outside world, no Internet connection. It’s impossible.”

  “No contact with the outside. How about by somebody inside the network. A co-worker, say?”

  “Again, impossible. We work with highly classified material. Nobody has access to anyone else’s files. There are layers and layers of security, passwords, encryption. Trust me, there’s no way, none, that those emails could have been planted.”

  Fordyce made a notation. “And this is what you’ve been telling investigators?”

  “Certainly.”

  Fordyce looked at the man. “But you have access, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes. As the security officer I have access to everyone’s files. After all, we have to be able to track what everyone is doing—standard operating procedure.”

  “So what you just told me is false. There is a way those emails could have been planted. You could have done it.” In asking this question, Fordyce shifted his entire tone of voice, pitching it low and accusatory, emphasizing the word you in an openly disbelieving manner.

  The air froze. But Novak didn’t blink. After a moment, he said, “Yes, I could have planted them. But I didn’t. Why would I?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.” Again Fordyce employed his most skeptical tone of voice. “You just admitted you told a falsehood to me and all the other investigators.” He glanced at his notebook. “You said, and I quote: ‘There’s no way, none, that those emails could have been planted.’ That’s false.”

  Novak kept a steady eye on him. “Look, I misspoke. I wasn’t considering myself in that statement because I know I didn’t do it. Don’t try to entrap me here.”

  “Could anyone else in your department have planted those emails?”

  Another hesitation. “The three other security officers in my department might have been able to do it, but it would have taken two of them in cooperation, since they don’t have the highest level of clearance.”

  “And are there others above you who could have done it?”

  “There are those who have the authorization, but they would have had to go through me. At least, I think they would have. There are levels of security even I don’t know about. The higher-ups might have installed a back door. I really don’t know.”

  Fordyce felt a little frustrated. So far, Novak hadn’t actually said anything incriminating, hadn’t shown any cracks. His misstatement wasn’t out of the ordinary—he had seen far worse from innocent people under questioning.

  But the house, the cars, the rugs…

  “May I ask you, Agent Fordyce, what makes you think those emails were planted?”

  Fordyce decided to tip his hand a little. He fixed him with a glaring eye. “You know Dr. Crew. Would you call him stupid?”

  “No.”

  “Would you call leaving incriminating emails on your work account a smart thing to do? Without even erasing them?”

  A silence. Then Novak cleared his throat. “But he did erase them.”

  This brought Fordyce up a bit short. “Yet you recovered them. How?”

  “Through one of our many backup systems.”

  “Can anything really be erased from one of your computers?”

  “No.”

  “Does everyone know that?”

  Another hesitation. “I believe most do.”

  “So we’re back to my original question. Was Dr. Gideon Crew a stupid man?”

  Now he saw Novak’s façade just begin to crack. He had finally succeeded in raising the man’s ire. “Look, I find the entire thrust of your questioning to be offensive, all these questions about my personal finances, these insinuations about planted emails, this late-night surprise visit. I want to help the investigation, but I will not sit here and be victimized.”

  Fordyce, with his long experience in questioning suspects, knew when he had reached the probable end of what had been a very useful interview. No point in provoking Novak further. He slapped his notebook shut and rose, turning back on his warm, chummy voice.

  “Fortunately, I’m done. Thank you kindly for your time. It was all routine, no need to be concerned.”

  “I am concerned,” said Novak. “I don’t think it’s right, and I’m going to file a complaint.”

  “Naturally, you’re welcome to do so.”

  As he retreated to his car, he hoped to hell Novak wouldn’t complain about him, or would at least wait a few days. A complaint would be most inconvenient. Because he was now halfway convinced that Novak was dirty in some way. That didn’t exonerate Crew, of course, and Novak hardly looked like a terrorist.

  But still… Was it possible Gideon had been framed?

  53

  GIDEON HAD PULLED the Jeep off the dirt road ten miles from the Paiute Creek Ranch. He had to calm himself down, organize his thoughts. He felt awful about what he’d just done to Willis. He had terrified the man, brutalized him, humiliated h
im. The man was far from being the nicest person in the world, but no innocent person deserved that kind of treatment. And he was clearly innocent. Could someone else at the cult be behind it? Impossible, not without Willis knowing.

  Gideon had made a hideous mistake.

  On top of that, it was one o’clock in the morning, the day before N-Day. One day. And he had no more idea who was behind the plot than when he arrived in Santa Fe, eight days ago…

  He grasped the wheel, realizing that he was hyperventilating worse than ever. He had to get a grip on himself, clear his head, and think this through.

  He turned off the engine, threw the door open, and stumbled out of the vehicle. The night was cool, a slow sigh of air moving through the branches of the pines, the stars twinkling above. He steadied himself, tried to regulate his breathing, and started walking.

  The Paiute Creek Ranch had nothing to do with the terrorist plot. That much was clear. So he was back to Joseph Carini and the Al-Dahab Mosque. They had of course been the obvious perpetrators all along, and now it was confirmed. He had been too clever by far. The obvious answer, the simplest answer, was almost always the true answer. It was one of the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry—and criminal investigations.

  But was it so obvious? Why would the Muslims frame him as a fellow Muslim, when such a move would only increase suspicion, focus more attention on them? After all, the investigation had already come down on them like a ton of bricks. There were hundreds of investigators crawling all around the mosque, going through their most private documents, questioning their members, digging out all their secrets. He and Fordyce had been two investigators out of hundreds. They hadn’t learned anything of value, anything out of the ordinary, at least that he could see. And yet, whoever had attempted to frame him had taken huge risks, breaking into a highly classified computer system. It was someone who believed he had learned something so incriminating, so dangerous, that extraordinary measures had to be taken—

  Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. Frame him. There was something he had been overlooking, blindingly obvious only now, after it had occurred to him. These actions were being taken against him, and him alone. After all, they hadn’t framed Fordyce, too. In fact, Fordyce was hot on his ass.

  After the plane wreck, after learning about the sabotage, Gideon had always assumed whoever was doing this was trying to kill them both, to stop their line of inquiry. But the fact was, they were only trying to stop him.

  What had he done—what had he investigated, who had he talked to—on his own, without Fordyce?

  As quickly as he had posed the question, the answer came.

  He stared up at the dark sky, at the hard uncompromising points of starlight. Could it be possible? It seemed so incredibly improbable. But he’d proved it wasn’t Willis, and he felt certain it wasn’t the Muslims. As he turned around and began heading back to the Jeep, he couldn’t help but remember the oft-repeated Sherlock Holmes dictum: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

  54

  SITTING IN HIS cubicle in the 12th Street Command Center, Dart slowly replaced the telephone in its cradle. He glanced out the tiny, makeshift window. A black rectangle of night stared back at him. Then he picked up the telephone again and dialed. His hands shook slightly with a combination of exhaustion and rage. It was four o’clock in the morning but that made no difference.

  The phone was answered on the first ring. “Special Agent in Charge Millard.”

  “Millard? It’s Dart.”

  “Dr. Dart.” Millard’s voice tightened audibly.

  “What’s the status of the hunt for Crew?”

  “Well, sir, while we’ve got a full complement of personnel still combing the area, we’re nevertheless growing increasingly confident he and his accomplice drowned in—”

  Dart found anger overmastering his habitual control. “Of course you’re confident he drowned. Naturally. It’s what he wants you to think. Not only haven’t you caught him, but you let him waltz through the security perimeter of Los Alamos, run amok, and then waltz right out again.”

  “Sir, that isn’t exactly the way it happened, and at the time I wasn’t—”

  “Do you want to know what I equate that to, Agent Millard? I equate that to a wanted felon walking into police headquarters, helping himself to weapons and ammunition, flipping the police chief the bird, and then walking out again.”

  This time, there was silence on the other end of the line. Dart realized he was already beyond the edge of control, but he didn’t care.

  In the silence, Miles Cunningham, Dart’s personal assistant, stepped into the cubicle, placed a cup of coffee on the desk—hot, black—and stepped back out again. Dart had instructed him to cease his appeals for rest, instead ordering the man to bring him a fresh cup of coffee, every hour on the hour.

  Despite the scalding temperature of the coffee, Dart took a huge swig, swallowed, cleared his throat. “Understand, Agent Millard,” he continued. “I’m not holding you fully responsible. As you started to imply, your command of the New Mexico operations is new. But I am holding you responsible for everything that happens, going forward.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “N-Day is tomorrow. Every hour, every minute, the terrorist Gideon Crew continues to remain at large increases the threat to us all. I very much doubt he drowned in the Rio Grande. He’s still in the mountains somewhere. I want those mountains searched. End to end.”

  “That search is ongoing, sir, and our people are doing their best. But the area in question covers more than ten thousand square miles of wilderness, and it’s extremely rugged.”

  “Gideon Crew is on his own, without food or water. You’ve got hundreds of men and millions of dollars of high-tech equipment. I’m not interested in excuses, I’m interested in results.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re going all out. In addition to the dogs and ground search teams, we’ve deployed a large arsenal of remote sensing and monitoring equipment. Choppers with infrared and pattern-recognition computer systems. Predator drones, equipped with the latest synthetic aperture foliage-penetrating radar. But at the risk of offending, I have to report they’ve found nothing, and the evidence really does suggest that Crew and the woman drowned in the river.”

  “Have you found the bodies, Agent Millard?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Until you do, I don’t want to hear another word about drownings.”

  “No, sir.”

  Dart took another gulp of coffee. “Now, there’s another problem I want to talk to you about. Agent Fordyce. The man has demonstrated incompetence, an inability to follow orders, and a tendency to freelance. It’s come to my attention that he questioned the top Los Alamos security officer on his own, with no authorization and no required partner. He didn’t even record the interview. Do you know what that means?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “It means that whatever he learned is rendered useless in court and unreliable for investigative purposes. If Novak was involved in some way, this totally undermines our chances of prosecuting him.”

  “I’ve already taken Fordyce off active field duty and reassigned him to R and A.”

  “I want him relieved of duty. Off this investigation. It’s clear to me the man is having some kind of breakdown.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to do it in a way that doesn’t get FBI internal affairs up in arms. We’re having enough conflict with the FBI as it is. Put him on leave—paid, of course. Call it a vacation, no return date specified.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Find Crew. And the woman. And for God’s sake—bring them to me alive.” Dart hung up, took another gulp of coffee, and stared back into the darkened window.

  55

  GIDEON ARRIVED BACK at the ranch about two o’clock in the morning, having pounded the Jeep along bad forest service roads the entire way. He found Alida still up, sprawled on a big sofa
in the rustic living room before a fire, her blond hair spread across the leather.

  She jumped up when he walked in, came over and embraced him. “I was so worried about you. My God, you look destroyed.”

  Gideon felt destroyed.

  She led him to the sofa. “Drink?”

  He nodded.

  She kissed him gently, then went to the wet bar and began to mix a pitcher of martinis. From the sofa, he watched her pour gin and vermouth into a large shaker, scoop in ice, and shake the mixture vigorously, wondering the whole time just how the hell he was going to manage this. She seemed so happy, so beautiful, she practically glowed.

  “Did you find Willis?” she asked, squeezing the zest of a lemon into a pair of glasses. “Did you confront him?”

  “He…he wasn’t around,” Gideon lied. An awful feeling, a horrible feeling, settled over him. He was going to have to act with Alida. He was going to have to misdirect, pretend, lie… A flickering recollection of their magical night in the cave only made it worse.

  “Do you still think it’s Willis?”

  Gideon nodded. “Say, where’s your father?”

  “He drove back to our house in Santa Fe. He’s got to get up early tomorrow—has to catch a plane.” She brought over the martinis and he took his. Exactly the way he liked it: straight up, with a twist, little chips of ice swirling around. Gideon took a sip, felt the liquid burn his throat.

  She eased herself down next to him, leaned against him, nuzzled his face. “I’m so glad you’re back. You know, I’ve been thinking, Gideon. Thinking about us.”

  He took another sip. “Your father’s going on a trip? Where?”

  “Maryland, I think.” Her lips brushed his neck and she murmured, “I’m having a hard time keeping my wits about me, with you here. That was some evening we had in the cave—I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe this isn’t a good time to talk, but, as I said, I’ve been thinking…”

  “Right,” said Gideon, taking refuge again in his drink. “What’s he doing in Maryland?”

  “Research, I think. For his next novel.” Another nuzzle. “Are you okay?”