Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

The trucker and the driver of the oncoming car came running up. “Damn!” cried the trucker. “What happened? You guys all right?”

They were all right. Other cars began stopping, people getting out.

Gideon didn’t even notice. “How often does an engine just die like that?” he asked Fordyce.

“Not often.”

“What about both engines? In exactly the same way?”

“Never, Gideon. Never.”

A day and a half later, Gideon Crew parked the Suburban—its windshield replaced—in the field beside his log-and-adobe cabin, killed the engine, and got out. He glanced around, breathing deeply, taking in for a moment the vast sweep of early-evening scenery laid out before him: the Piedra Lumbre basin; the Jemez Mountains surrounding him, fringed with ponderosa pines. The air, the view, were like a tonic. It was the first time he’d been back to the cabin since the business on Hart Island, and it felt good. Up here, the dark feeling that was almost always with him seemed to abate. Up here, he could almost forget everything else: the frantic investigation, his medical diagnosis. And the other, deeper things, as well: his blighted childhood; the colossal, lonely mess he’d made of his life.

After a long moment, he scooped up the shopping bags from the passenger seat, pushed open the door to the cabin, and walked into the kitchen alcove. The smell of wood smoke, old leather, and Indian rugs enveloped him. With the country in an uproar, cities evacuating, and the voices of the crazies and conspiracy freaks filling the talk shows and radio, here at least was a place that remained the same. Whistling the melody to “Straight, No Chaser,” he began removing items from the shopping bags and arranging them on the counter. He took a moment to circumambulate the cabin, opening shutters and raising windowpanes, checking the solar inverter, turning on the well pump. Then he returned to the kitchen, looked over the array of ingredients, still whistling, and began pulling out pots, knives, and other equipment from various drawers.

God, it felt good to be back.

An hour later, he was opening the oven, checking the progress of his braised artichokes à la provençale , when he heard a vehicle approach. Looking out the kitchen window, he saw Stone Fordyce behind the wheel of a shabby FBI Crown Vic. In response, he threw half a stick of butter into a chafing dish and began heating it on the stove.

Fordyce stepped inside, glanced around. “This is what I call rustic charm.” He glanced over into the alcove. “What’s that, computer stuff?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of equipment to run off solar power.”

“I’ve got some serious battery storage.”

Fordyce moved into the living room, tossed his jacket on a chair. “That’s some road up here. I almost scraped off my muffler.”

“Discourages visitors.” Gideon nodded toward the kitchen table. “Bottle of Brunello open—help yourself.” He had wondered if the wine would be thrown away on the FBI agent, but decided to try anyway.

“God knows I need it.” Fordyce poured himself a generous bumper, took a sip. “Something smells good.”

“Good? This is going to be the best meal you’ve ever eaten.”

“Is that a fact?”

“I’m sick of eating airport and hotel food. Usually I only eat one meal a day, prepared by myself.”

The agent took another sip of wine, eased himself down on the leather sofa. “So—find out anything?”

They had returned to Santa Fe directly from the crash site instead of continuing to the writing center. It had seemed more important to figure out who’d sabotaged the plane—if in fact it had been sabotaged. To save time, they had divvied up this day’s investigative duties.

“Sure did.” The butter foam was subsiding in the chafing dish, and he carefully transferred the rognons de veau —rinsed and peeled of their fat—from the butcher’s paper into the dish. “I looked into that Cobre Canyon allegation. Hiked up the canyon. You won’t believe what I found.”

Fordyce rocked forward. “What?” he asked eagerly.

“A pile of rocks, some seashells, a prayer rug, a ritual ablution bowl, and a small natural spring.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s a shrine. Members of the mosque go out there to pray. No evidence of bomb making or anything other than praying.”

Fordyce grimaced.

“And I looked into why our friend the imam left the Catholic Church. Years ago, he was abused by a priest. All hushed up, there was some kind of payment involved. Nothing public. His family signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

“That’s what he wanted us to find out. But couldn’t tell us.”

“Exactly. And I was also able to get a make on those two guys you videotaped at the mosque. Get this: one of them has a commercial pilot’s license, used to fly for Pan Am.”

Fordyce put down his glass. “No shit . Well, that ties in with what I found about our accident today.”

“Lay it on me.”

“I saw the preliminary report of the NTSB investigators. This was put on a fast track. There’s no doubt about it—the plane was sabotaged. Somebody—maybe your friend the pilot—added jet fuel to the avgas in our Cessna.”

“What does that mean?”

“That Cessna runs on one hundred low-lead. It needs an octane rating of one hundred to function. Adding jet fuel lowered the octane. As a result, the mixture basically burned through both pistons, one after the other.” Fordyce took another sip of wine. “A misfueled engine can start and stop normally—up until the moment it burns up. The thing is, avgas is light blue in color. Jet fuel is clear, sometimes straw-colored. When I did that inspection, the color did look a bit off—too light—but it was still blue, so I thought we were okay. This was very deliberate, done by someone who knew exactly what he was doing.”

There was a brief silence as the implications of this sank in.

“So what time did you finish your investigations?” Fordyce asked.

“Twelve thirty. One, maybe.”

“Then where the hell were you all afternoon? I tried your cell phone like half a dozen times. You turned it off.”

The dark feeling welled up again, suddenly. He hadn’t planned to tell Fordyce anything at all, but nevertheless heard himself saying: “I had to have some tests done.”

“Tests? What kind of tests.”

“The personal kind.”

The rognons had stiffened in the butter and were turning slightly brown; Gideon carefully transferred them onto a plate he’d been warming on the stovetop. Fordyce stared at the plate, a frown coming over his features.

“What in hell are those—?”

“Kidneys. Just give me a minute or two to prepare the reduction.” Gideon added shallots, bouillon, spices, and a generous pour of the red wine to the chafing dish.

“Not eating those,” Fordyce said.

“They’re not even lamb kidneys—only veal. And Frank, my butcher in town, had beef marrow on hand—that’s why we’re eating à la Bordelaise instead of flambés .” Gideon corrected the seasoning of the reduction, then carefully cut the kidneys into crosswise slices—done perfectly, a lovely pink at the center—mixed them in the chafing dish with the sauce, folded in the beef marrow, and then arranged them on two plates along with the braised artichokes from the oven.

“Bring the wine,” he said, carrying the plates into the living area beyond the kitchen.

Fordyce followed reluctantly. “I’m telling you, ain’t eating it. I don’t do offal.”

Gideon put the plates down on a low table before the leather sofa.

Fordyce took a seat on the sofa, stared sourly at his plate.