Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

He drifted along the aisle of fiction, starting with Z and going on down the shelves in reverse alphabetical order, plucking out a book here and there, Vincent Zandri, Stuart Woods, James Rollins… He riffled through books at random, looking for notes or papers, or—he smiled to himself—rough sketches of atomic weapons perhaps, but finding nothing. In the background, he could hear Fordyce questioning the librarian with a gentle but persistent thoroughness. Gideon couldn’t help but be struck by the man’s competence. Fordyce was a strange combination of methodical, by-the-book determination and impatience with rules and red tape.

Anne Rice, Tom Piccirilli… He pawed through book after book with a rising irritation.

And then he paused. Here was a signed book, a copy of a David Morrell novel, The Shimmer , with the author’s signature under a scribbled Best wishes.

Nothing telling there. He flipped through the pages but there was nothing else. He shoved it back. A little farther on, he encountered another signed book, this one by Tess Gerritsen, titled The Bone Garden . Another generic dedication: To Reed, Best Regards . And another, Killing Floor , signed by Lee Child, To Reed, My Best . Chalker had good taste, at least.

Fordyce droned on in the background, extracting every last drop of information from the librarian.

Gideon worked his way down to the B’s. The Abbey in the Oakwood by Simon Blaine was personalized: To Reed, with affectionate regards . And it was signed Simon .

He paused before putting it back on the shelf. Did Simon Blaine sign all his books just Simon ? There was another Blaine novel next to it, The Sea of Ice . To Reed, with my best, Simon B.

Fordyce appeared at his side. “Dead end,” he murmured.

“Maybe not.” Gideon showed the two books to Fordyce.

Fordyce took them, flipped through them. “I don’t get it.”

“ With affectionate regards ? And signed by first name only? Sounds like Blaine knew him.”

“I doubt it.”

Gideon thought for a moment, then turned to the librarian. “I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Yes?” She hurried over, glad to have a chance to talk again.

“You seem to have a lot of books by Simon Blaine.”

“We have all of his books. And come to think of it, most of them came from Mr. Chalker.”

“Ah,” said Fordyce. “You didn’t tell me that.”

She gave an embarrassed smile. “I just now thought of it.”

“Did Chalker know Blaine?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps. After all, Blaine lives in Santa Fe.”

Bingo , thought Gideon. He cast a triumphant eye on Fordyce. “There you have it. They did know each other.”

Fordyce frowned. “A man like Blaine, a bestselling author—National Book Award winner, it says here—isn’t likely to have had much of a friendship with a geek from Los Alamos.”

“I resemble that remark,” said Gideon, in his best Groucho Marx imitation.

Fordyce rolled his eyes. “Did you see the date on that book? It was published two years before Chalker converted. And the fact that he gave away Blaine’s books along with the others does not exactly indicate a deep friendship. Frankly, I don’t see a lead here.” He paused. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder whether or not this whole trip west has done nothing but cost us crucial time.”

Gideon pretended not to hear this last remark. “It’s worth visiting Blaine. Just in case.”

Fordyce shook his head. “Waste of time.”

“You never know.”

Fordyce laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s true—in this business sometimes the craziest idea pans out. I don’t mean to dismiss it out of hand. But you’ll have to do this one alone—you’re forgetting I’ve got a meeting in Albuquerque later today.”

“Oh yeah. Do I need to be there?”

“Better if you’re not. I plan to kick ass. I want access to the house, to the mosque, to the lab, to his colleagues—I want to make sure we’re a real part of this investigation. That’s how we’re going to make a difference.”

Gideon grinned. “You go, girl.”

Simon Blaine lived in a large house about half a mile from the plaza, along the Old Santa Fe Trail. With the car gone with Fordyce to Albuquerque, Gideon walked from the plaza to the house. The weather was glorious, a warm, high-altitude summer’s day, not too hot, the sky a royal blue, just a few thunderheads forming over the distant Sandia Mountains. He wondered if Blaine would still be around. The damn town was now half empty.

Eight days to N-Day. The clock was ticking. Still, he was glad to be in Santa Fe instead of New York, which was a total mess. Most of the Financial District, Wall Street, the World Trade Center site, and the area of Midtown around the Empire State Building had been abandoned—followed inevitably by looting, fires, and National Guard deployments. In the past day a political furor had erupted, with hysterical political attacks on the president. Certain divisive media figures and radio personalities had leapt into the fray, exploiting the situation to their own gain, whipping up public sentiment. America was not handling the crisis well at all.

He shook off these thoughts as he arrived at Blaine’s address. The house was hidden behind an eight-foot adobe wall that ran alongside the road. The only things visible beyond the wall were the tops of aspen trees growing in profusion, rustling in a steady wind. The gate itself was solid wrought iron and weathered barnwood, and Gideon was unable to find even a crack to peer through. He eyed the intercom set into the adobe next to the gate, pressed the buzzer, and waited.

Nothing.

He pressed again. Nobody home? Only one way to tell.

He strolled along the wall until he came to the corner of the property. He was used to scaling walls and had little trouble leaping up, grasping the top, and pulling himself over the rough adobe. In a moment he had dropped down the other side, landing in a grove of aspen trees hidden from the house. Nearby, an artificial waterfall splashed over a pile of stones into a small pond. Beyond it, across a billiard-green lawn, lay a low, sprawling adobe house with many portals and verandas and at least a dozen chimneys.

Through the windows he saw a figure moving. Someone was home. He was irritated that they hadn’t responded to his ring. Fingering the ID he’d finally been issued—and which, it had seemed, Fordyce gave him with a certain reluctance—he followed the wall back to the gate, pressed the button to open it, so it would appear he’d entered this way. As it swung open, he walked out into the driveway and strode up to the front door of the house. He rang the bell.

A long wait. He rang again and—finally—heard hollow footsteps in the entrance hall. The door swung open to reveal a skinny young woman in her mid-twenties, with a long swaying cascade of hair, wearing jeans, a tight white shirt, cowboy boots, and a fierce scowl. She had that quite unusual combination of dark brown eyes and golden hair.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, hands on her hips, tossing her hair out of her face, “and how’d you get in?”

Gideon had already been considering what the best approach might be, and her defiant demeanor settled the question. With an easy smile, he reached with insolent slowness into his pocket, brought out the ID, and did a Fordyce, extending his hand deep into her personal space. “Gideon Crew, FBI liaison.”

“Get that thing out of my face.”

Continuing to smile, Gideon said, “You probably should take a look at it. Last chance you’ll get.”