Chapter Twenty-Five
The Santa Fe Municipal Police Department had its headquarters on the Caiuino Entrada, out on the western edge of the city — not far from the county jail, and next to the city courthouse. Half an hour after first setting foot in the building, Jon Smith found himself sitting in the office of the ranking policeman on duty. Several photographs showing a pretty wife and three young children were hung on two of the plain white walls. A watercolor depicting one of the nearby pueblos took up part of another. Case files in manila folders were neatly organized on one corner of a plain desk, right next to a computer. A background buzz of ringing phones, conversations, and busy keyboards drifted in through an open door to the adjoining squad room.
Lieutenant Carl Zarate looked down at Smith's U.S. Army identity card and then back up with a puzzled frown. “Now what is it exactly that I'm supposed to do for you, Colonel?”
Smith kept his tone casual. He'd been bucked up to Zarate by a profusely sweating desk sergeant who had been made very uneasy by his questions. “I'm looking for some information, Lieutenant,” he said calmly. “A few facts about the gun battle somebody fought in the Plaza late last night.”
Zarate's narrow, bony face went blank. “What gun battle was that?” he asked carefully. His dark brown eyes were wary.
Smith cocked his head to one side. “You know,” he said, at last. “I was sort of surprised when the press didn't run wild with speculation about all the shooting going on right in the heart of the city. Then I thought that maybe someone leaned on the local papers and the TV and radio stations to keep the lid on — just for a while, just while an investigation was going on. With things so tense after the Teller disaster, that'd be natural, I guess. But I'd be very surprised to learn that you folks at the Santa Fe police department were playing the same game.”
The police officer eyed him for a moment longer. Then he shrugged. “If there were a gag order in effect, Colonel Smith, I'm damned if I know why I'd break the rules for you.”
“Maybe because these rules don't apply to me, Lieutenant Zarate?” Jon suggested easily. He handed the police officer the sheaf of investigative authorizations Fred Klein had arranged for him. He nodded toward them. “Those orders require me to observe and report on every aspect of the Teller investigation. Every aspect. And if you look at the last page there, you'll see the signature of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, do you really want to get caught in a pissing match between the Pentagon and the FBI, especially since we're all supposed to be on the same side in this mess?”
Zarate flipped rapidly through the papers, with his frown growing even deeper. He slid them back across the desk with a snort of disgust. “There are times, Colonel, when I damned well wish the federal government would keep its big, fumbling paws out of my jurisdiction.”
Smith nodded sympathetically. 'There are people in D.C. with all the grace and tact of a five-hundred-pound gorilla and the common sense of your average two-year-old.'
Zarate grinned suddenly. “Strong words, Colonel. Maybe you'd better watch your mouth around the red-tape boys and girls. I hear they don't much care for soldiers who won't toe the line.”
“I'm a doctor and scientist first and foremost and an Army officer second,” Smith said. He shrugged. “I doubt I'm on anybody's short list to make general.”
“Uh-huh,” the police lieutenant said skeptically. “That's why you're running around with personal orders signed by the head of the JCS.” He spread his hands. “Unfortunately, there's really not much I can tell you. Yeah, there was some kind of shoot-out in the Plaza last night. One guy got himself killed. There may have been others who were hit. We were still checking blood trails when my forensics team was called off.”
Smith pounced on that. “Your team was called off?”
“Yeah,” Zarate said flatly. “The FBI swooped in and took over. Said it was a matter of national security and that it fell within their jurisdiction.”
“When was that?” Jon asked.
“Maybe an hour after we first arrived on the scene,” the police officer told him. “But they didn't just kick us off the ground, they also confiscated every spent shell casing, every piece of paperwork, and every crime scene photo. They even took the tapes of dispatcher calls to and from units responding to the scene!”
Smith whistled softly in surprise. This was more than a simple dispute over jurisdiction. The FBI had made a clean sweep of every scrap of official evidence. “On whose authority?” he asked quietly.
“Deputy Assistant Director Katherine Pierson signed the orders,” Zarate answered. His mouth tightened. “I won't pretend I'm happy about tucking my tail in and complying, but nobody in the mayor's office or on the city council wants to rock the boat with the Feds right now.”
Jon nodded his understanding. With a major disaster right on its doorstep, Santa Fe would be depending heavily on federal aid money and assistance. And local pride and turf consciousness would naturally take a backseat to urgent necessity.
“Just one more question,” he promised Zarate. “You said there was a corpse. Do you know what happened to the body? Or who's handling the autopsy?”
The police lieutenant shook his head in confusion. “That's where this whole screwy situation gets very weird.” He scowled. “I made a few phone calls to the various coroners and hospitals, just checking around for my own edification. And as far as I can tell nobody did anything at all to try to identify the stiff. Instead, it looks like the FBI slid the dead guy right into an ambulance and shipped him off to a mortuary way down in Albuquerque for immediate cremation.” He looked straight at Smith. “Now what the hell do you make of that, Colonel?”
Jon fought for control over his face and won, maintaining a stony, impassive expression. Exactly what was Kit Pierson doing out here in Santa Fe? he wondered. Who was she covering up for?
It was a little before noon when Smith left the Santa Fe police department and walked out onto the Camino Entrada. His eyes flickered briefly to the left and right, checking the street in both directions, but otherwise he revealed no great interest in his surroundings. Instead, still apparently deep in thought, he climbed into his rented dark gray Mustang coupe and drove away. A few quick turns on surface streets led him into the crowded parking lot surrounding the city's indoor shopping center, the Villa Linda Mall. Once there, he threaded through several rows of parked cars, acting as though he was simply looking for an open space. Finally, he drove away from the mall, crossed the encircling Wagon Road, and parked under the shade of some trees growing next to a shallow ravine marked on his map as the Arroyo de las Chamisos.
Two minutes later, another car, this one a white four-door Buick, turned in right behind him. Peter Howell got out and stretched while carefully checking the environment. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he sauntered up, pulled open the Mustang's passenger-side door, and then slid into the bucket seat next to Smith.
In the hours since they had met for breakfast, the Englishman had found time to have his hair cut fashionably short. He had also changed his clothes, abandoning the faded denims and heavy flannel shirt he had worn as Malachi MacNamara in favor of a pair of khaki slacks, a solid blue button-down shirt, and a herringbone sports coat. The fiery Lazarus Movement fanatic was gone, replaced by a lean, sun-browned British expatriate apparently out for an afternoon's shopping.
“Spot anything?” Jon asked him.
Peter shook his head. “Not so much as a suspiciously turned head. You're clean.”
Smith relaxed slightly. The other man had been operating as his distant cover, hanging back while he went into the police headquarters and then keeping an eye on his tail to spot anyone following him when he came out.
“Were you able to learn anything yourself?” Peter asked. “Or did your pointed questions fall on stony ground?”
“Oh, I learned a fair amount,” Jon said grimly. “Maybe even more than I bargained for.”
Peter raised an inquiring eyebrow but otherwise stayed quiet, listening carefully while Smith filled him in on what he had learned. When he heard that Dolan's body had been cremated, he shook his head, sourly amused. “Well, well, well… ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And no fingerprints or inconvenient dental impressions left for anyone to match up with any embarrassing personnel files. I suppose no matter how thoroughly the CIA and FBI databases were scrubbed, somebody, somewhere, would have been bound to recognize the fellow.”
“Yep.” Jon's fingers drummed on the steering wheel of his car. “Nifty, isn't it?”
“It does raise a number of intriguing questions,” Peter agreed. He ticked them off on his own fingers. “Who
