Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy

“Okay,” said Pine. “Is there something else you need then, because I was actually just about to head out?”

“Let’s talk about the Canyon.”

Now Pine eased forward in her cheap desk chair. It was a ratty piece of crap from a going-out-of-business office store and had no lumbar or any other sort of support. It was like sitting on Jell-O in the middle of an earthquake. She was pretty sure she’d end up just buying a new chair using Agency funds and take the heat for not filing the necessary forms. If the Bureau’s admin folks wanted to travel to Shattered Rock and smack her hand for buying something decent to sit on, so be it.

“The Canyon?” she said.

“The dead mule?”

“Right.”

“How’s it progressing?” asked Avery.

“I’m working it. Early days.”

“Right. I just wanted some more details.”

“I did forward my prelim report to you.”

“I read it. I was wondering how things are going since then.”

Pine said, “I don’t know who did it, why they did it, how they did it, or where they are now. Other than that, things are going pretty good.”

He ignored this sarcasm, which surprised her. “Benjamin Priest?”

Pine had, as yet, told no one that the man calling himself Benjamin Priest was not in fact Benjamin Priest.

“I talked to his brother late last night.”

“And what were the results of that conversation?” said Avery patiently.

I think he knows the answer and he wants me to confirm it. Or not.

“His brother knew nothing about Capricorn Consultants. No address, no contact info. His brother had never really spoken about it to him. And I can find no evidence the place even exists.” Before he could respond to this Pine decided to turn the tables. “Have you been able to confirm otherwise, sir?”

“ I’m not working the case, Pine. You are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What else?”

Pine decided to drop an H-bomb. “It seems that the National Security Branch is interested in this case. Maybe you’ve heard something?”

Avery didn’t say anything for a few seconds, which felt infinitely longer to Pine. All she could hear was her supervisor’s breathing. It seemed to have quickened a bit.

Did I just piss my whole career away?

“Keep working the case, Pine,” he finally said. “And if you need help, ask for it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And... Atlee?”

“Atlee” now? Curiouser and curiouser.

“Yes?”

“Make sure you have eyes in the back of your head.”

The line went dead.

Pine had been given that advice exactly one other time in her career.

And it had come during a case when it turned out the Bureau had been watching her .

A moment later Blum opened the door. She must have heard the phone ring and at least the distant murmurings of her conversation.

“Is everything all right, Agent Pine?”

Pine looked up at her.

“Everything’s just fine, Ms. Blum.”

The choo-choo train. Or the Hooterville Express. Pick your poison.

Pine was staring at the front of the train depot in Williams, Arizona. It was from here that the Grand Canyon train made the trek up and back each day. The trip to the Canyon’s South Rim covered sixty-five miles each way and took a leisurely two hours and fifteen minutes. She could have flown from Phoenix to Seattle in less time.

Pine had just spoken to various train personnel, showing them a picture of the real Benjamin Priest. No one remembered seeing him on the train. She then gave a description of the fake Priest but was told that quite a few gentlemen fit that description.

A round-trip train ticket had been issued to a Benjamin Priest, and that ticket had been used on the way up to the South Rim. So one of the men had to have been on the train. The return ticket to Williams had not been used, though. The ticket had been bought with cash, so there was no credit card record. That was interesting, thought Pine, because the ticket hadn’t been cheap. Had it been done to hide someone’s identity? Probably.

Next, Pine trudged over to the Railway Hotel and went inside. There was a fireplace with a stone surround, carpet your feet sank into, polished wood balconies and columns, and a general air of upscale hospitality. Its livelihood depended on the folks who took the train, Pine imagined. And they had apparently done all they could to present an appealing look to encourage folks to stay here before heading out.

She checked in at the front desk and showed the young woman there the picture of the real Priest and told her when the man had likely stayed there. Then she gave the description of the imposter as well. The woman shook her head.

“I don’t recognize either of them.”

“Were you on duty at that time?”

“I was, actually. I do the day shift.”

“Anyone else working the front desk then?”

“No, just me.”

“Okay, did you have a guest named Benjamin Priest check in on the day I gave you?”

She clicked some computer keys and shook her head. “No, no one by that name. So, I guess he didn’t stay here.”

That was not necessarily true, Pine knew. He could have used an alias, had a fake ID, and worn a disguise. She thanked the woman, walked outside, and concluded that her trip here had been largely worthless.

She got back into her truck and started it up.

Then her phone buzzed. It was Carol Blum.

“I’m sending you a news article I found from the Arizona Gazette ,” said Blum.

“What about?”

“An exploration that allegedly took place in the Grand Canyon.”

“When did it allegedly take place?”

“In 1909.”

“And why does that have relevance to my case over a century later?”

“Just read the article. And I’m also sending you a more recent article that sort of dissects the 1909 one. Together they will show you the relevance.”

“Okay. But can you give me a hint?”

“The letters j and k have apparently been carved in the Grand Canyon before.”

“What?”

“Just read the articles and then we can talk.”

Pine sat there for a few moments with the AC blowing directly on her because it was nearly ninety outside. And though the heat was mostly a dry one, ninety degrees was still hot, dry or not.

Her phone dinged and she opened the email. Blum had apparently enlarged the article so that it could be easily read. It took Pine a few minutes to go through it.

Back in 1909, two Smithsonian Institution — backed explorers named Jordan and Kinkaid had supposedly stumbled upon a remote cave high up on a sheer cliff in the Canyon.

Jordan and Kinkaid? J and K .

She read on.

On entering the cave, they had found evidence of an ancient civilization that might be, as the article said, using a long-discarded derogatory term, “Oriental” in origin, or even Egyptian. Supposedly, the pair found everything from urns to mummies and a Buddha-like statue in what was described as an underground multiroom citadel.

The second article was from only a few years ago, and it had gone into great detail. It took Pine about ten minutes to read through it. The author of this article was clearly as skeptical as Pine was about the supposed expedition. The Smithsonian had no record of any explorers named Jordan and Kinkaid. And Kinkaid, who the old article had said possessed a camera of the first order, hadn’t managed to take a single picture of any of his supposed discovery of the century. The author did go on to try to pinpoint the location of the cave. He thought a likely possibility was around Ninety-Four Mile Creek and Trinity Creek.

Pine knew that there were sites along there with Egyptian names: Tower of Set, Isis Temple, and Osiris Temple. According to the more recent article, around the time these areas were named, there were major expeditions going on in Egypt, and such names were often in the news back then. In the so-called Haunted Canyon area were Asian-inspired names such as the Cheops Pyramid and Buddha Cloister and the Shiva Temple. The Canyon was also filled with spots named after ancient mythological gods and goddesses from Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Chinese, and Nordic legends.