Линкольн Чайлд - Bloodless

“Agreed.”

“And second — Oregon isn’t all that far away from Colorado. I can’t promise you that, once I’m out west, I won’t get a hankering to head for Denver. Where my real job is waiting.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“In that case, I’d better start packing.” And Coldmoon stood up.

“Armstrong?”

At the sound of his first name, Coldmoon glanced back. “Yeah?”

“ Pilámaya .”

“No problem.” And Coldmoon vanished into the hotel.

For Coldmoon, the next twelve hours passed in a blur. There was some frantic packing; then an Uber to the Savannah/Hilton Head airport; then a bumpy but mercifully short ride in a prop plane to Atlanta — and then they were moving briskly through the big airport, Pendergast’s badge perpetually clearing the way, and onto the flight to Portland with minutes to spare. Once again in the air, Coldmoon — against his better judgment — ordered two vodka tonics. He woke up in Oregon with a headache, and followed Pendergast to an airport rental agency. He took the passenger seat while Pendergast got behind the wheel of a Jeep Wrangler. Coldmoon took notice of how rare this arrangement was: Pendergast behind the wheel, playing chauffeur. He realized the senior agent had mapped everything out in advance, handling logistics effortlessly, batting aside impediments.

At four o’clock in the morning, as they were driving north out of Portland in a drizzling rain, Coldmoon fell asleep again.

He woke up, cramped and sore, to a leaden sky. He checked his watch, compensating for the time change, and found it was six in the morning, local time. Pendergast was guiding the vehicle up a twisty road that hugged the side of a mountain. Coldmoon sat up and wiped the drizzle away from the window as best he could. Outside he could see a wild landscape: mountain after mountain, many with their peaks cloaked by lowering clouds. The forest was endless, Sitka spruce, western white pine, mountain hemlock, and a dozen other shaggy specimens he couldn’t identify. At least, he thought, they were in the west. He cracked the window and breathed deep of the fresh mountain air. He was heartily sick of the east.

Pendergast, not taking his eyes off the road, offered him a large insulated cup of black coffee. Mumbling his thanks, Coldmoon took it, figuring that Pendergast must have stopped for gas while he was asleep. It tasted about like he expected, but at least it was lukewarm.

They rode in silence for another twenty minutes, weaving through a labyrinth of hills and low mountains. The road was narrow and potholed. Only two or three cars went by the other way. Now and then they passed a house or a trailer huddled at the end of dirt driveways; once they passed a lake and a small dairy farm carved out of the forest; but otherwise there was only mist, and looming mountains, and an unrelieved dark green.

Pendergast turned off whatever road they’d been on and started north on a road with a sign marking it as State Route 21. As they continued, Coldmoon felt the coffee warming his insides, and he found a feeling of claustrophobia stealing over him. He’d grown up in the Dakotas, where trees such as these were rare enough to have individual names. But he’d seen a lot of the world since then. During the last two cases with Pendergast alone, he’d experienced the deep snows of Maine, the beaches of Miami, and the swampy bayous of the Everglades. But those places felt different. Here... here there were too many damn trees. And they grew thickly, leaning over the vehicle so it was like traveling in a tunnel. Where the hell were they? Coldmoon pulled out his cell phone and tried to fire up the GPS, but there was no signal. On impulse, he reached into the glove compartment and retrieved the Washington-Oregon map he found inside. He turned it this way and that, looking for Route 21. He saw Mount St. Helens — Christ, he hoped they weren’t headed that way — but the roads were like strands of vermicelli scattered here and there randomly across the folded paper, and he couldn’t find Route 21. At last, he gave up.

Pendergast pulled the vehicle off the road and into a small parking lot with a wooden sign that read GOAT MOUNTAIN TRAILHEAD. He glanced at Coldmoon.

“Where are we?” Coldmoon asked.

“Washington State. Roughly twenty miles north of the Mount Adams Wilderness.”

Coldmoon digested this a moment. “Great. Wonderful. And that is... where?”

“Close to the man I told you about, the one we came all this way to see. Dr. Zephraim Quincy.”

“Anybody who lives out in this wilderness doesn’t need to be a doctor. He should get a doctor.”

In response, the FBI agent continued north on 21. In about two miles they passed a small, battered road sign that read WALUPT LAKE, and Pendergast slowed again. Blinking against the mist, Coldmoon could make out the lake: its water almost black, surrounded by deep forest among the omnipresent mountains. On the far side, beyond a stand of trees, was a small farm, with a shed and a barn and just enough flat acreage to grow something. Beyond, the mountains rose again.

Pendergast remained still for a moment. Then, reaching into the back seat, he brought out a padded duffel he’d brought along. To Coldmoon’s surprise, he pulled out a DSLR camera body. Coldmoon knew something about fine cameras, and he noticed the senior agent was holding the latest Leica S3. Reaching into the duffel once more, Pendergast pulled out a lens: an aspheric Leica Summicron-S, naturally. That piece of glass alone had to go for eight or nine grand — if you could find one.

“Couldn’t you have found a more expensive camera?” he asked. “What’s wrong with your cell phone, anyway?”

“For my purposes, quality is key. Now, please be silent: I want to achieve just the right degree of bokeh.”

“Are you trying to win a photography award?”

“Only indirectly. My primary aim is to produce a maximal amount of nostalgia.”

Pendergast fitted the lens to the camera, aimed it at the farm across the lake, took his time focusing, and then shot several careful exposures at various focal lengths. Then he put the camera back into its duffel, crossed a bridge over one end of the lake, killed the engine, and let the car coast off the highway and down the grade onto the approach to the farm. They came to a stop behind the barn. Pendergast got out — quietly — and Coldmoon did the same. They eased their doors shut, Coldmoon taking his cues from Pendergast.

Beyond the barn stood an old two-story farmhouse. It had been handsome once, in a colonial “five over four with a door” style that seemed out of place here, with a variety of sheds and other outbuildings attached to its flanks. But time had been unkind to it: the outbuildings had fallen into disrepair, and the house itself hadn’t been painted in at least a decade. A few of the shutters on the second story were leaning away from their windows.

The entire place was cloaked in the silence of early morning, mist rising from the lake beyond the farmstead.

Pendergast motioned, and they crept into the barn. In the gloom, Coldmoon could make out various machinery, most of which was unfamiliar to him. There was also a hayloft and what looked like cow stalls and a milking apparatus, long abandoned.

“So what’re we looking for in here?”

“What’s the term? Fishing expedition. This will be our only chance to investigate.”

But there appeared to be nothing of interest. They exited the open barn door on the far side of the structure. Pendergast stopped a moment, pausing to take in the surroundings. Then he approached the farmhouse, Coldmoon at his side. Together they mounted the steps, and Coldmoon instinctively put his back to one side of the door while Pendergast rang the bell.