Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy

“The place is closing down. I think mine was the last flight in.”

“There’s an IHOP in Flagstaff.” She gave him the address. “It’s open 24/7. Do you have a rental?”

“No, but there’s a cabstand.”

“It’s only about four miles into town. I’ll meet you there.”

Pine swiftly dressed, grabbed both her guns, and headed out.

It was a lonely drive at this time of night under a sky thick with stars and the occasional whizzing-by satellite. That was one of the main differences for Pine between the ambient-light-filled eastern U.S. and here.

The sky.

You could see every millimeter of it, the vastness, the impenetrability. It was a part of your daily life, that upward glance into the cosmos. Every night it seemed to try to show how truly insignificant you were. And eventually, you started to believe it. And a daily dose of humility wasn’t so bad.

As she roared south, Pine’s mind was going in several different directions at once. Before she had been awoken by Priest’s phone call she’d been ruminating over how to get to Ed Priest, since he was the only way she could see to get to his brother. Well, she’d gotten her wish hand-delivered to her.

She pulled into the parking lot of the IHOP and jumped out of her SUV, reaching the front entrance in two long strides. She opened the door and looked around. There were about fifteen customers seated at a variety of tables and booths, but it didn’t take her long to spot Ed Priest. He looked just like he did in the picture he’d sent her. He was all the way in the back at a booth, trying to be inconspicuous behind a large menu while at the same time looking nervously around. A rolling suitcase with straps and stickers sat next to him on the floor.

She hurried over to him, glanced at his suitcase, and slid into the seat across from him.

“Agent Pine?”

She took out her creds and shield and showed them to him.

He sat back, looking relieved.

“Call me paranoid, but can I see some ID from you?”

He took out his Maryland driver’s license and showed it to her.

“Now why did you decide to come out here?” she asked.

“Because I don’t know where Ben is. I haven’t heard from him. No one has. It’s like he’s disappeared.”

“I want to show you something,” said Pine.

She took out her phone and brought up an attachment to an email she had received earlier from Jennifer Yazzie.

She held the picture in front of Priest.

“You recognize this guy?”

“No. Should I?”

“This is a digital sketch of the man calling himself Benjamin Priest, who rode a mule to the bottom of the Canyon and then disappeared. As you can see, he doesn’t look anything like your brother. He looks a lot more like you, which is why I thought Ben was you in the picture you sent.”

Ed Priest laid down his menu and continued to stare with greater intensity at the image on the phone screen.

“I... I don’t understand. Why would this man be calling himself Benjamin Priest? And then where the hell is my brother?”

“When was the last time you actually saw your brother?”

The waitress came by and Pine ordered a coffee, while Priest ordered a full breakfast.

“I haven’t eaten all day,” he explained to Pine as the waitress walked away. “Nervous flyer. I can’t eat on planes.”

“Probably better for you. Plane food sucks. So, your brother?”

“It was maybe two weeks ago or so. He came by our house.”

“Did he have a reason?”

“Not really. He called and asked if he could come over for dinner. He said he had some free time and just wanted to see the family.”

“How did he seem?”

Priest sat back and played with the edges of his paper napkin. “You have to understand that my younger brother was the star in the family. High school valedictorian, quarterback on the football team, and he was the star shooting forward of the basketball team, even though he hated basketball. But he knew he was good at it. He graduated top of his class at Georgetown while I went to the University of Maryland.”

“Both good schools.”

“Yeah, well, Ben was on another level. I’m just glad I was older. He would’ve been a damn tough act to follow. He was successful at everything he touched. And he was tall and good-looking. You saw his picture. I missed out on all that.”

“But never married? No kids?”

“No. He dated in high school and college, but once he got out, he was fully focused on his career.”

“Which was what?”

They paused as their coffees were delivered.

Pine took a sip of hers. “Your brother’s career?”

“Right now, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is he traveled the world. Hell, I took the kids to Disney World two years ago and he called up to wish me a happy birthday. I asked where he was, and he said, ‘Oh, somewhere in the Middle East.’ Another time he was in freaking Kazakhstan. My kids would get holiday gifts from him, and the boxes would have all these foreign stickers and labels and stuff on them. I’d have to pay customs on some of it just to get them released.”

“And you never asked him what he did for a living?”

“Like I said, I did, and he made that joke. I didn’t want to push it. I just thought he had to keep it secret. He wouldn’t be the only one like that in the DC area.”

“Capricorn Consultants?”

“He brought it up one time when I asked him how things were going. He said he’d started his own company. I asked him what it was that he did, and he said he helped people who needed it.”

“I could find no record of any Beltway company called Capricorn Consultants.”

“I know. I looked, too. I’m an accountant. I work at a CPA firm in Maryland. I checked the government records. There was nothing.”

“You didn’t tell me how he seemed when he came over for dinner two weeks ago.”

“Understand, my brother can be really intense, and he’s super smart. He knows everything about everything. I used to joke with him that he’d kill it on Jeopardy . But that night he seemed relaxed and more open to talking than I’d ever seen him.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Politics. World events. Baseball. He’s a Nats fan.”

“Did he ask you for anything? Did he give you anything? Did he request that you do anything for him?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Priest’s food came, and he took a few moments to pepper and salt his eggs and douse his pancakes in syrup.

He looked up at Pine watching him. “You don’t look like you eat stuff like this,” he said.

“You might be surprised.” She took another sip of her coffee. “So, you came out here with what expectation?”

“I’m not sure I have one. But I’m really worried about my brother. Whenever I contacted him before he’d always get back to me. It might take a few hours or even a day, but he always got back to me. Not this time. I really think something’s happened to him. And now you tell me it wasn’t even him in the Grand Canyon. But this other guy was using my brother’s name. Do you think he did something to my brother? And stole his identity?”

“I don’t know,” said Pine. “But did anything specifically cause you to come out here?”

Now Priest looked uncomfortable.

“Your voice mail was full,” she said. “You’re an accountant. You strike me as a by-the-book kind of person. You don’t return phone calls, clients get pissed.” She paused. “So who was calling you so much that you didn’t want to answer?”

Priest laid down his fork and fingered his coffee cup. “I’m just a normal guy. I’ve got a wife and kids. Like I said, I go to Disney World on vacation. I coach my son’s Little League baseball team. I’m not equipped to be involved in some crazy international conspiracy thing.”