Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

“What decision is that?”

“On whether or not to allow this project to continue.”

Carson was silent. Somehow, he couldn’t imagine Scopes allowing the project to be terminated. Teece was getting up, wrapping his towel tighter.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Carson said.

“Advise what?”

“Leaving tomorrow. There’s a big dust storm coming up.”

“I didn’t hear anything about it on the radio,” Teece frowned.

“They don’t broadcast the weather for the Jornada del Muerto desert on the radio, Mr. Teece. Didn’t you notice the peculiar orange pall in the southern sky when we came out of the Fever Tank this evening? I’ve seen that before and it means trouble.”

“Dr. Singer’s lending me a Hummer. Those things are built like articulated lorries.”

For the first time, Carson thought he saw a look of uncertainty in Teece’s face. He shrugged. “I’m not going to stop you. But if I were you, I’d wait.”

Teece shook his head. “What I’ve got to do can’t wait.”

The front had gathered its energy in the Gulf of Mexico, then moved northwestward, striking the Mexican coastline of Tamaulipas State. Once over land, the front was forced to rise above the Sierra Madre Oriental, where the moist air of the higher altitudes condensed in great thunderheads over the mountains. Vast quantities of rain fell as the front moved westward. By the time it descended on the Chihuahua desert, all moisture had been wrung from it. The front veered northward, moving laterally through the basin and range provinces of northern Mexico. At six o’clock in the morning it entered the Jornada del Muerto desert.

The front was now bone dry. No clouds or rain marked its arrival. All that remained of the Gulf storm was an enormous energy differential between the hundred-degree air mass over the desert and the sixty-five-degree air mass of the front.

All this energy manifested itself in wind.

As it moved into the Jornada, the front became visible as a mile-high wall of orange dust. It bore down across the land with the speed of an express train, carrying shredded tumble-weeds, clay, dry silt, and powdered salt picked up from playas to the south. At a height of four feet above the ground, the wind also included twigs, coarse sand, pieces of dry cactus, and bark stripped from trees. At a height of six inches, the wind was full of cutting shards of gravel, small stones, and pieces of wood.

Such desert storms, though rare enough to occur only once every few years, had the power to sandblast a car windshield opaque, strip the paint off a curved surface, blow roofs off trailer homes, and run horses into barbed-wire fences.

The storm reached the middle Jornada desert and Mount Dragon at seven o’clock in the morning, fifty minutes after Gilbert Teece, senior OSHA investigator, had driven off in a Hummer with his fat briefcase, heading for Radium Springs.

Scopes sat at his pianoforte, fingers motionless on the black rosewood keys. He appeared to be in deep thought. Lying beside the hand-shaped lid prop was a tabloid newspaper, torn and mangled, as if angry hands had crumpled it, then smoothed it again. The paper was open to an article entitled “Harvard Doc Accuses Gene Firm of Horror Accident.”

Suddenly, Scopes stood up, walked into the circle of light, and flounced down on the couch. He pulled the keyboard onto his lap and typed a brief series of instructions, initiating a vidéoconférence call. Before him, the enormous screen winked into focus. A swirl of computer code ran up along one edge, then gave way to the huge, grainy image of a man’s face. His thick neck lapped over a collar at least two sizes too tight. He was staring into the camera with the bare-toothed grimace of a man unused to smiling.

“ Guten tag ,” said Scopes in halting German.

“Perhaps you would be more comfortable speaking in English, Mr. Scopes?” the man on the screen asked, tilting his head ingratiatingly.

“ Nein ,” Scopes continued in bad German. “I want to practice the German. Speak slowly and clearly. Repeat twice.”

“Very good,” the man said.

“ Twice .”

“ Sehr gut, sehr gut ,” the man said.

“Now, Herr Saltzmann, our friend tells me you have clear access to the old Nazi files at Leipzig.”

“ Das ist richtig. Das ist richtig .”

“This is where the Lodz Ghetto files currently reside, is it not?”

“ Ja. Ja .”

“Excellent. I have a small problem, an—how does one say it?—an archival problem. The kind of problem you specialize in. I pay very well, Herr Saltzmann. One hundred thousand Deutschmarks.“

The smile broadened.

Scopes continued to talk in pidgin German, outlining his problem. The man on the screen listened intently, the smile slowly fading from his face.

Later, when the screen was blank once again, a soft chime, almost inaudible, sounded from one of the devices on the end table.

Scopes, who was still sitting on the decrepit sofa, keyboard in lap, leaned toward the end table and pressed a button. “Yes?”

“Your lunch is ready.”

“Very well.”

Spencer Fairley entered, the foam slippers on his feet in ludicrous contrast to the somber gray suit. He made no noise as he crossed the carpet and set a pizza and a can of Coca-Cola on the far end table.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” Fairley asked.

“Did you read the Herald this morning?”

Fairley shook his head. “I’m a Globe reader,” he said.

“Of course you are,” said Scopes. “You should try the Herald once in a while. It’s much more lively than the Globe .”

“No, thank you,” said Fairley.

“It’s over there,” Scopes said, pointing to the pianoforte.

Fairley went over and returned, holding the rumpled tabloid. “Unpleasant piece of journalism,” he said, scanning the page.

Scopes grinned. “Nah. It’s perfect. The crazy son of a bitch has put the knife to his own throat. All I need to do is give his arm a little nudge.”

He pulled a rumpled computer printout from his shirt pocket. “Here’s my charity list for the week. It’s short, only one item: a million to the Holocaust Memorial Fund.”

Fairley looked up. “Levine’s organization?”

“Of course. I want it done publicly, but in a quiet, dignified way.”

“May I ask ...?” Fairley raised an eyebrow.

“... Why?” Scopes finished the sentence. “Because, Spencer, you old Brahmin, it’s a worthy cause. And between you and me, they’re shortly going to lose their most effective fundraiser.”

Fairley nodded.

“Besides, if you thought about it, you would realize there are also strategic reasons to free Levine’s pet charity from excessive dependence on him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Fairley, look, my jacket has a hole in the elbow. Would you like to go shopping with me again?”

A look of extreme distaste passed quickly across Fairley’s face, then disappeared again. “No, thank you, sir,” he said firmly.

Scopes waited until the door hissed shut. Then he laid the keyboard aside and lifted a slice of pizza from the box. It was almost cold, exactly the way he liked it. His eyes closed in enjoyment as his teeth met in the gooey interior of the pizza crust.

“ Auf wiedersehen , Charles,” he mumbled.

Carson emerged from the administration building at five o’clock and stopped in amazement. All around him, the buildings of Mount Dragon stood in the dim aftermath of the dust storm, dark shapes emerging from an orange pall. The landscape was deathly still. Carson breathed in gingerly, testing the air. It was arid, like brick dust, and strangely cold. As he stepped forward, his boot sank an inch into powdery dirt.