Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

“A hit, a very palpable hit!” Gideon cried.

The flesh wound just served to make the bearded man even angrier. He rushed forward, swinging the chain saw above his head as if it were a mace, then bringing it crashing down on Gideon’s own saw. There was a moment of grinding, sparks flying, and then with a mighty wrenching sound the saw was jerked from Gideon’s hands. This was followed immediately by a sharp crack! as the chain of the man’s saw snapped. It was an old saw, without a chain catcher, and the chain whipped around like a lash, laying open the man’s face from mouth to ear. Blood sprayed everywhere, coating Gideon, as the man fell back with a scream, dropping the saw and clutching at his face.

“Behind you!” Fordyce roared.

Gideon scrambled up, seizing his own chain saw by its kickback protector, and swung around just in time to meet a group of cowboys rushing him with cattle prods; his saw blistered an arc through them, cutting the prods off at the hilts and scattering the men in terror.

And then Gideon heard the sound of shots.

“Gotta go!” Fordyce yelled, hauling Connie Rust to her feet and throwing her over his shoulder. They ran toward the fence. Gideon sank the chain saw blade into the links and chewed open a ragged hole, which they tumbled through, bullets kicking up dirt around them.

A moment later they’d reached the Suburban; Gideon tossed aside the chain saw and leapt into the driver’s seat while Fordyce threw Rust into the backseat, climbing in on top of her and keeping her down.

Tunk tunk! A pair of rounds turned the windshield into an opaque web of cracks.

Gideon punched a hole through the sagging glass with his fist, ripped out the dangling pieces, then threw the Suburban into gear and fishtailed out, leaving behind a huge cloud of dust.

As the sound of the shots became more distant, Gideon heard Fordyce groan from the backseat.

“You all right?” he asked.

“I’m just thinking of the paperwork.”

Gideon finally relaxed as they left the maze of dirt roads behind and exited onto Highway 4 near Jemez Springs. They had not, to his relief, been chased or followed from the Paiute Creek Ranch. He slowed the Suburban as they eased through town, the streets thronging with tourists down from Santa Fe.

During the wild drive out of the mountains, Connie Rust—in the backseat with Fordyce—had fallen quiet. Now she began to whimper, over and over again. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing bad,” said Fordyce, his voice calm, reassuring. “We’re here to help you. I’m sure you’ve heard about what your ex-husband was involved in.”

This brought another bout of sobbing.

“We just want to ask you some questions, that’s all.” Gideon listened as Fordyce explained—with infinite patience, as if speaking to a child—that they had a subpoena, which required her to answer all their questions truthfully, but that she had nothing to worry about, that she was not a suspect, that she would not be locked up, and that in fact she was a very important person whose help they were depending on. He continued on in a deep-voiced murmur, gently overriding Rust’s self-pitying outbursts, until she appeared to calm down.

A final sniffle. “What do you want to know?”

“My colleague,” said Fordyce, “Gideon Crew, used to work with your ex-husband up in Los Alamos. He’ll be asking the questions.”

Gideon heard this with surprise.

“Meanwhile,” Fordyce went on, “we’re going to switch drivers so he can talk to you undistracted.” He turned to Gideon. “Right, partner?”

Gideon pulled over.

Outside the car, Fordyce took him aside. “You knew Chalker,” he murmured. “You know what to ask.”

“But you’re the interrogation expert,” Gideon protested in a whisper.

“She’s ready to talk now.”

Gideon got into the backseat next to her. She was still sniffling, dabbing at her nose with a Kleenex but otherwise calm. She even looked a little pleased at the attention. Gideon felt at a loss. Interrogations were not his thing.

Fordyce started up the car and pulled back out onto the road, driving slowly.

“Um,” said Gideon, wondering where the hell to start. “Like Agent Fordyce said, I was a colleague of your ex-husband’s up on the Hill.”

She nodded dumbly.

“We were friends. I think you and I met once.” He thought it better not to remind her it was at the Christmas party where she got drunk.

She looked at him again, and he was shocked at the depth of disorientation in those eyes. “Sorry, I just don’t remember you.”

What to ask? He racked his brains. “During your marriage, did Reed ever show an interest in Islam?”

She shook her head.

“What about his work? Did he ever express any negative views about what he was doing up at the lab, with bombs and such?”

“He was gung ho about his work. Proud of it. Disgusting.” She blew her nose. Talking about Chalker seemed to clear her mind—somewhat.

“Why disgusting?”

“He was a tool of the military-industrial complex and never realized it.”

“Did he ever express any views against the United States? Express sympathy for any terrorist organizations?”

“No. He was a flag waver from way back. You should’ve seen him after 9/11. ‘Nuke the bastards.’ Little did he know Bush and Cheney organized the whole thing.”

Gideon did not venture a comment on this opinion. “Didn’t it then seem strange to you that he converted to Islam?”

“Not at all. When we were married, he used to drag me to the Zen center for meditations, to these pseudo-Indian Native American Church meetings, EST, Scientology, the Moonies—you name it, he tried it.”

“So he was sort of a spiritual seeker.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it. He was a pain in the ass.”

“Why did you divorce?”

She sniffled. “Just what I said: he was a pain in the ass.”

“Did you remain in contact with him after your divorce?”

“He tried to. I was sick and tired of him. When I joined the ranch, he finally left me alone. Willis read him the riot act.”

“Riot act?”

“Yes. Willis told him he would beat the crap out of him if he contacted me again. So he didn’t. He was a coward.”

Fordyce suddenly spoke from the front seat. “Do you and Willis have a relationship?”

“We did. Then he dedicated himself to celibacy.”

Yeah, right , thought Gideon, recalling the young woman he had glimpsed lolling in a bed next to Willis’s office.

“So what’s the idea behind the ranch, the purpose of it?” asked Fordyce.

“We’ve seceded from this bogus country. We’re off the grid, self-sufficient. We grow all our own food, we take care of each other. We’re the harbingers of a new age.”

“And why is this necessary?”

“You people are prisoners of your government. You have no idea. Your politicians are suffering from the disease of power. It’s totally corrupt and yet you don’t see it.”

“What do you mean by ‘the disease of power’?” Fordyce asked.

“All power structures, by their very nature, eventually get taken over by psychopaths. Almost all governments in the world have been taken over by gifted psychopaths who have a great command of human psychology and use normal people to their advantage. This race of pathological deviants can’t feel compassion, they have no conscience. They have an insatiable need for power—and they rule the world.”

It was a recited speech and it had a shopworn air, although it was not without interest, at least to Gideon. He had occasionally felt that way himself.

“So what do you plan to do about it?” Fordyce asked.