Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

“What’s beyond this whitewater?” Fordyce asked the pilot through his headset.

“More whitewater.”

“And then?”

“The river eventually comes out into Cochiti Lake,” said the pilot, “about five miles downstream.”

“So there’s five miles of this whitewater?”

“Off and on. There’s one really bad stretch just downstream.”

“Follow the river to Cochiti Lake, then, but take it slow.”

The pilot wended his way down the river while Fordyce searched the surface with the spotlight. They passed what was obviously the violent whitewater: a bottleneck stretch between vertical walls with a rock in the middle the size of an apartment building, the water boiling up against it and sweeping around in two vicious currents, creating massive downstream whirlpools and eddies. Beyond that the river leveled out, flowing between sandbars and talus slopes. With no floating reference point, it was hard to judge how fast the water was moving. He wondered if the bodies would rise or sink, or perhaps get caught up on underwater rocks.

“What’s the water temperature?” he asked the pilot.

“Let me ask.” A moment later the pilot said, “About fifty-five degrees.”

That’ll kill them even if the rapids don’t , thought Fordyce.

Still he searched, more out of a sense of professional thoroughness than anything else. The river finally broadened, the water growing sluggish. He could see a small cluster of lights downstream.

“What’s that?” he asked.

The pilot banked slowly as the river made a turn. “The town of Cochiti Lake.”

Now the top of the lake came into view. It was a long, narrow lake, evidently formed from damming up the river.

“I don’t think there’s anything more we can do along here,” said Fordyce. “The others can continue their search for the bodies. Take me back to Los Alamos.”

“Yes, sir.”

The chopper banked again and rose, gaining altitude and accelerating as it headed northward. Fordyce felt in his gut that Gideon and the woman must be dead. No one could have survived those rapids.

He wondered if it was even necessary to interview Chu or the other security officers. The idea that someone had planted those emails to frame Crew was ridiculous and well-nigh impossible. It would have to have been an inside job, involving at least one top security officer—and to what end? Why even frame him?

But still he felt uneasy. Leaving a bunch of incriminating emails on a classified work computer was not the most intelligent move a terrorist could make. It was, in fact, stupid. And Crew had been anything but stupid.

Gideon Crew crawled up onto the sandbar, numb with cold, bruised and bleeding and aching from the ride through the rapids and his long struggle to reach the shore.

He sat up and clasped his hands around his knees, coughing and shivering and fighting to regain his breath. He’d lost both the stage gun and the real gun somewhere in the rapids. Upstream, he could hear the faint roar of rapids, and he made out the dull line of whitewater where the canyon opened up. He was sitting on a low sandbar that curved for hundreds of yards along an inside bend of the river. Before him the river ran sluggishly, the moon dimpling its moving surface.

Both upstream and downstream he could see the lights of helicopters, see the downward play of spotlights in the darkness. He had to get out of the open and under cover.

He managed to rise unsteadily to his feet. Where was Alida? Had she survived? This was too terrible—this was never part of the plan. He’d sucked an innocent woman into his problem, just as he had with Orchid, back in New York. And now, thanks to him, Alida might be dead.

“Alida!” he practically screamed.

His eye roamed the sweep of sand, shining in the moonlight. Then he saw a dark shape lying partway out of the water, one hand held crookedly over its head, frozen in place.

“Oh no!” he cried, stumbling forward. But as he approached he saw it was twisted, misshapen—a driftwood log.

He sank down on it, gasping for breath, immeasurably relieved.

The closest chopper was working its way down the river toward him—and he abruptly realized he was leaving telltale footprints in the sand. With a muffled curse, he picked up a branch and worked his way back, erasing his prints with it. The effort warmed him a little. He crossed the sandbar, still sweeping, waded across a side channel, reached the far side, and dove into a thicket of salt cedars just as the chopper roared overhead, its blinding searchlight moving back and forth.

Even after it had passed by he lay in the darkness, thinking. He couldn’t leave this stretch of river until he found Alida. This was where the fast water slowed into a broad, sluggish flow, and this was where—if she were still alive—she would probably reach shore.

Another chopper roared overhead, shaking the bushes he was hiding in, and he covered his face from the flying sand.

He crawled out and peered up and down the river again, but could see nothing. There was a cutbank on the far side: if she was anywhere, she’d have to be on this side of the river. He began creeping through the heavy brush, trying to stay silent.

Suddenly he heard crackling behind him, and a heavy hand clapped onto his shoulder. With a shout he turned.

“Quiet!” came the whispered reply.

“Alida! Oh my God, I thought—”

“ Shhhh! ” She seized his hand and dragged him deeper into the bushes as another chopper swept toward them. They lay low as the backwash rattled the scrub.

“We’ve got to get away from the river,” she whispered, pulling him to his feet and scooting through the brush up a dry creek. Gideon was disconcerted to find her in better shape than he was. He gasped for breath as they climbed a boulder-strewn wash, which grew progressively narrower and steeper.

“There,” she said, pointing.

He looked up. In the dim moonlight he could see the jagged remains of an old basaltic flow, and at the base of it the dark opening of a cave.

They struggled up a scree slope, Alida pulling him along when he faltered, and in a few minutes they were inside. It wasn’t a true cave—more like a broad overhang—but it shielded them from above and below. And it had a smooth floor of hard-packed sand.

She stretched out. “God, does that feel good,” she said. There was a brief silence before she continued. “A really crazy thing happened back there. I saw this log lying on the shore, could’ve sworn it was your dead body. It really…well, really shocked me.”

Gideon groaned. “I saw it, too, and thought it was you.”

Alida gave a low laugh, which gradually trailed off into silence. In the darkness, she reached out and took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I want to tell you something, Gideon. When I saw that log, the first thing that came into my mind was that, now, I wouldn’t ever get the chance to say it. So here goes. I believe you. I know you’re not a terrorist. I want to help you find out who did it—and why.”

Gideon was momentarily speechless. He tried to come back with a wiseass response, but could think of nothing. After all that had happened—after being framed, attacked by his partner, shot at, chased across the mountains, pursued through the tunnels, run into the river, and almost drowned—he felt a surge of emotion at this sudden expression of trust. “What changed your mind?” he managed.

“I know you now,” she went on. “You’re sincere. You’ve got a kind heart. There’s just no way you could be a terrorist.”

She squeezed his hand again; and at that, with all the stress, the disbelief, the exhaustion, the inner loneliness, hearing a sympathetic word did something to Gideon. He began to choke up. Entirely against his will, he felt tears springing into his eyes and leaking down his face—and then he found himself sobbing like a baby.