Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

The man stopped at the edge of the trees. “Lane, is that you?” He was looking around, still pointing the gun at where Gideon was no longer standing. “What do you want? Come out.”

Gideon darted out and whacked the man across the side of the head with the cosh. With a moan, he sagged heavily to the ground. Fortunately, the rifle did not fire.

Seizing the man under the arms, Gideon dragged him deeper into the forest, tied him to a tree, blindfolded and gagged him, and then—with a certain hesitation—whacked him a second time.

Picking up the M16, he returned to the house, snuck inside, and carefully propped it back against the sofa. He quickly wrote a second note, just in case anyone came by, and left it on the rocking chair:

BACK IN A MOMENT

DON’T WAKE WILLIS!!

That might not fool anyone for long, but it would at least delay things. It had always amazed Gideon how most people chose to obey as a default reaction, even if the command was illogical or stupid. It was a reaction he had relied on many times, to good effect.

He snuck up the stairs. Now he faced the second problem: what to do if Willis had a woman in his room? He didn’t believe for a moment the man was celibate.

He crept softly through Willis’s dark, empty office. The door to the bedroom was locked. Gideon knelt, took out his tools, and—with infinite care and excruciating slowness—unlocked the door.

The room had a night-light—cute—and Gideon saw, to his enormous relief, that Willis was alone.

He walked silently over to the bed, a piece of gaffing tape already unrolled and ready to go. He leaned over Willis, who was sleeping on his back—and then in one smooth motion laid a knee hard across his chest, pinning him, while simultaneously pressing the blade of the straight razor against the man’s neck.

“Cut your throat if you move or make a sound,” he whispered hoarsely into the man’s ear.

He had previously dulled the blade, but Willis didn’t know that. With the razor pressed to his neck, the struggle ended. Willis lay there, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness. His eyes went even wider as he recognized Gideon through the blackface.

Keeping the razor to the throat, Gideon said: “Open your mouth. Wide.”

The man opened his mouth. Gideon placed the muzzle of the Colt Python into it, then removed the razor. “You’re going to do as I say, right? Blink yes.”

After a moment, Willis blinked.

“Stand up nice and slow. Keep the barrel between your teeth.”

He eased himself off Willis and the man stood up, exactly as told.

“Hands behind your back.”

Willis put his hands behind his back and Gideon cuffed them together with the zip ties. He removed the barrel from the man’s mouth, took the roll of gaffing tape, and sealed his mouth.

“Now you and I are going to take a walk. I’m going to keep the muzzle of this gun pressed against the back of your head and I will pull the trigger if anything happens. We will walk out of the door, down the stairs, and off the ranch. I repeat: if anyone disturbs us, I shoot you in the head. So it’s up to you to make sure no one disturbs us. Nod if you agree.”

Nod.

“Is there anyone else sleeping up here?”

Nod.

“Point to the room.”

With cuffed hands, Willis indicated the room next door, where Gideon had previously seen the woman lolling on the bed.

“Okay. She wakes up, you die. Now walk down the stairs and out the side door.”

Willis was perfectly obedient. He did everything exactly as instructed. Within a minute they were in the darkness of the trees. Gideon switched on an LED lamp and walked Willis out past the hole in the fence and through the half mile of woods to where he had dug the grave.

When they arrived, Willis saw the grave in the light of the lamp and immediately staggered with fear. Gideon had to physically hold the man up. He made a muffled moan through the tape.

Gideon reached around and ripped it from the man’s mouth. Willis gasped, staggered again. He was beyond frightened.

“Go lie down in the grave.”

“No. Oh my God. No—”

“ In the grave. ”

“Why? Why in the grave—?”

“Because I’m going to kill you and bury you. Get in there.”

Willis fell to his knees, blubbering, the tears streaming down his face. “No, please. Don’t do this. Don’t do it, don’t, don’t…” His voice choked up. He was coming apart before Gideon’s eyes.

Gideon shoved him back and he fell, slipping into the hole, scrambling quickly out again in terror. Gideon took a step forward with the gun.

“Open your mouth.”

“No. Please please please please please, no, no, no —”

“Then I’ll just shoot you and roll your body in.”

“But why, why ? I’ll do anything, anything , just tell me what you want!” His voice dissolved into a choking wail, his frame racked with sobs, a dark stain spreading from his crotch. And then he puked, once, twice, heaving and choking.

“I’ll do anything…” he managed to squeak out, heavy drool hanging from his mouth.

It was time.

“Tell me about the nuke,” Gideon said.

A silence, accompanied by a blank stare.

“The nuke,” said Gideon. “Tell me your plans for the nuke. The nuke you plan to detonate in DC. Tell me about that and I’ll let you go.”

“Nuke?” Willis looked at him with utterly uncomprehending eyes. “ What nuke? ”

“Don’t play stupid. Tell me about it and you’re a free man. Otherwise…” And Gideon gestured toward the grave with the gun.

“What…what are you talking about? Please, I don’t understand… ” Willis stared at the gun, wide-eyed, his pleas turning into incoherent babbling.

Gideon looked at him, an awful realization dawning: this man knew nothing. He might be the leader of a cult, an egocentric and paranoid man with delusions of grandeur, but he was patently innocent of nuclear terror. Gideon had made a terrible mistake.

“I’m sorry.” Gideon reached down, grasped Willis, and pulled him up. “I’m sorry. My God, I’m so sorry.”

He cut off the ties and holstered the gun. “Go.”

Willis stared blankly.

“You heard me, get out of here! Go! ”

Still the man wouldn’t run. He just stared blankly, dazed, still paralyzed with fear. With a curse of self-disgust, Gideon turned, walked into the bushes, got in the Jeep, started it up, and drove away, skidding through the dirt, slewing around, and gunning the engine, wanting nothing more than to get away as quickly as possible.

By the time Stone Fordyce arrived back at Los Alamos from an inspection of the teams dragging the lake and combing the banks of the river, it was past midnight. Midnight: it marked the turn of another day. One day to N-Day.

He was dead tired but that thought woke him up fast. As he approached the Tech Area, he was directed to the new command and control center being set up in a disused warehouse just outside the security perimeter. It amazed him how fast things had moved in his absence.

As he flashed his badge at the entrance, the guard said: “Stone Fordyce? The boss wants to see you. In the back.”

“The boss? Who’s that?”

“Millard. The new guy.”

The boss wants to see you. Fordyce didn’t like the sound of that.

He brushed past the guard, walked by the acres of cheap desks, each with its own computer and phone, to a cubicle hastily erected in the back corner, occupying one of the few areas of the warehouse with a window. The door was open, revealing a small, lean man in a suit standing behind a desk, back turned, speaking into the phone.