Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

Blaine directed Gideon to a table in the front hall that contained only two items: a telephone, and a framed photo of Blaine himself, signed For my Miracle Daughter, with all my love . Gideon picked up the phone and called Eli Glinn’s number, the one he was instructed never to call except in the most extreme emergency.

Manuel Garza answered. Gideon cleared his throat, tried to compose his voice. “It’s Crew. I need to speak to Glinn.”

“This line is only to be used in an emergency.”

Gideon let a moment pass, and then he managed to say, quite calmly, “You don’t think this is an emergency?”

“You’ve gotten yourself into trouble, but I’m not sure I’d call it an emergency.”

Again Gideon let a beat pass. “Just get him for me, will you, please?”

“Moment.”

He was put on hold. A long minute passed. And then Garza came back on. “Sorry. Spoke to Mr. Glinn. He’s busy, can’t interface with you right now.”

Gideon took a breath. “You actually spoke to him?”

“Exactly what I said. He was very specific that you’re on your own now.”

“That’s a load of shit! You guys hired me for this job—and now you’re just hanging me out to dry? You know I’m not a goddamn terrorist!”

“There’s nothing he can do.” Gideon noted a certain suppressed satisfaction in the man’s voice.

“Pass this message on to him for me, then. I’m done. I quit. And when I get out of this mess, I’m coming looking for him. You know that nice scar he’s got on one side of his face? I’m going to accessorize the other side. And that’s just for starters. You tell him that.”

“I will.”

Gideon hung up. Garza enjoyed that, the fuck.

“Problem?” He found Alida looking at him, an expression of concern on her face.

Gideon swallowed, tried to shrug it off. “No bigger than any of my other problems.” He turned to Blaine. “I’d like to borrow your Jeep, if I may. There’s a fellow I need to visit up at the Paiute Creek Ranch.”

Blaine spread his hands. “Be my guest. Just don’t let the authorities catch you. Can I help you with anything else?”

Gideon paused. “Do you have any firearms?”

A broad smile. “I have rather a nice little collection. Care to take a look?”

The sun had set, the crescent moon was down, and a very dark midnight approached. Gideon drove Blaine’s Jeep off the Paiute Creek forest service road and into a thicket of gambel oaks. He backed it slowly into a clump of bushes, branches scratching against the paint, until the vehicle was well hidden from the road.

He got out. He had borrowed some of Blaine’s clothes—a bit loose and a bit short, but serviceable—and was dressed entirely in black, his face darkened with charcoal, a wicked Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver with a four-inch barrel—in his opinion, the scariest-looking pistol made—in one hand and an old-fashioned strop razor in his pocket. He wasn’t going to kill anyone—at least, he wasn’t planning to—but appearance would be everything.

First he had some work to do. He removed a shovel and a pick from the back of the Jeep and selected a soft, loamy portion of the forest floor as a place to dig. He broke up the ground with the pick, then shoveled out the loose dirt, keeping the edges of the hole crisp and sharp with the blade. It was soft ground and in less than an hour he had created a shallow grave, a stark rectangle, about seven feet long, two feet wide, and three feet deep.

He packed the shovel back in the Jeep, rinsed his hands from a canteen, then took a sap, some zip ties, and a few other items from the seat and stuffed them all into his pockets. Leaving the grave site, he made his way through the dark ponderosa forest. The Paiute Creek Ranch lay at roughly eight thousand feet of altitude and, despite being summer, the night air was cool to the point of chilliness. He paused frequently to listen to the night sounds of the forest: the distant yipping of a pack of coyotes, the low bassoon of a great horned owl.

In half a mile he came to the chain-link fence surrounding the ranch settlement. Through the trees he could see the yellow glow of windows. Stopping at the fence, he listened intently, but no sound came from the compound. It was as he hoped: they were apparently on “ranch time,” to bed at sunset, up before dawn.

A careful inspection indicated that there were no sophisticated alarms or sensors along the fence. Taking out a pair of fencing pliers, Gideon began to snip the chain links, creating a large flap that he pulled back and wired open. He crawled through and made his way carefully through the darkness to the rear of the main ranch house. All was quiet. A few dim yellow lights glowed in the lower windows, but—because the outfit was run on solar power and batteries—there were no bright spotlights or area lights.

He was convinced there would be some sort of night patrol: these people were paranoid and they would have posted guards. Moving with enormous care through the darkness, he drew up to the building and peered in the window. There, in a rocking chair, sat the cowboy with the squared-off beard, quietly alert, reading a book. An M16 was propped up against the sofa next to him.

Gideon was convinced Willis occupied rooms on the top floor. It was clearly the most comfortable accommodation at the ranch. One room had been his office, and he recalled seeing through an open door to a sumptuous bedroom with whorehouse-velvet walls and a canopy bed. That would be Willis’s bedroom.

So he had to do something about the man downstairs.

He watched the man for a while. The man didn’t look sleepy, he wasn’t drinking, and—what unnerved Gideon most of all—he was reading James Joyce’s Ulysses . This man was no dumb hick cowboy. The outfit was all show. This was a sophisticated and intelligent person who would not be easily fooled.

Gideon had anticipated running into some problem or other, and he realized he’d done so already. At all costs, he had to prevent the man from raising an alarm. He couldn’t just go in and bash the man over the head. That would make too much noise and had a high probability of ending in a ruckus or fight. Besides, Ulysses had an assault rifle. He began to formulate a plan. It was high-risk, but he couldn’t think of a better way.

Plucking a piece of paper from his pocket, Gideon scrawled a short note. He took a deep breath, then tapped on the window. The man looked up, saw Gideon’s black face peering in, and rose abruptly from his chair, grabbing the rifle.

Quickly, Gideon put his finger to his lips and gestured for the man to come outside. But instead the man started for the stairs. Gideon rapped again, this time louder, and shook his head, again putting his finger over his mouth. Then he held up the note he had written.

DON’T WAKE WILLIS!!

MUST TALK TO YOU

IMPORTANT!!

The man hesitated. He could not identify Gideon through the blackface and, Gideon hoped, would assume that Gideon might be a ranch insider. Who else would knock on the window like that?

Gideon gestured again, nodding and waving the man outside.

Shouldering the gun, the man headed for the door.

Gideon backed away from the house, into the edge of the trees, as the man came around the corner, looking this way and that. Gideon flashed his light, and the man approached.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“Shhhh,” Gideon whispered. “You wake Willis, we’re in big trouble. This is important— real important.”

The man frowned in suspicion. “What’s this all about?” he asked, unshouldering the rifle. “Who are you and why the hell have you blacked your face?”

Gideon backed up a little, then shut off the light and moved rapidly and silently in a lateral direction.