knew of Moore and his beliefs but didn’t tell Klamath he vehemently disagreed with him. Instead, he shared tales of the Kentucky woods and helped Moore set up a campsite on the shore of a lake. Keeping his inclinations to himself, he stayed around for a small firelight rally where Moore spoke. Once Gordon felt he’d gained Moore’s trust, he visited the FBI office in Lexington and offered to become their informant in exchange for travel expenses and enough compensation to buy a small cabin he had his eye on next to a fine trout stream. The FBI, flush with Homeland Security cash and a new emphasis on domestic counterterrorism, thought it was a good deal all around.
The file contained Gordon’s reports from rallies across the United States and trips to Bath, England, and Tours, France. Joe closed the file, planning on reading later.
“Can you please let Bill Gordon know I’ll be contacting him?” Joe asked the agent, who answered by looking over his shoulder toward the corner office where Portenson sat with his door closed and the blinds half-drawn, trying unsuccessfully to ignore Joe and Stella.
“I’ll have to get permission to do that,” the agent said.
“I’ll need it before I can leave,” Joe said.
The agent got up and approached Portenson’s office and rapped on the door. Portenson signaled him in and Joe could overhear a sharp exchange.
When the agent came out, he looked chastened. “We’ll do it, but we have to wait until Gordon checks in. We can’t just call him on his cell phone in case he’s in a meeting with Klamath Moore or something.”
“How often does he call in?”
“Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. He calls during working hours.”
“Did he call in today?”
“I didn’t take the call, but he must have.”
“So you won’t hear from him for three days, until next Thursday?” Joe asked.
The agent nodded.
“I hate to wait that long,” Joe said, mostly to himself.
The agent shrugged. “Nothing I can do.”
“There’s something else,” the agent said. “Agent Portenson asked me to tell you they’re bringing up the accused and the paperwork assigning him to your custody. He said Ms. Ennis needs to sign as well on behalf of the governor’s office.”
Joe and Stella exchanged glances.
“Don’t screw this up, Joe,” she said. “If my name’s on the document you better make sure you bring him back.”
Joe shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”
“I hope you’ll do better than that.”
Joe’s phone burred in his pocket and he drew it out. It was Pope.
“You need to keep me apprised, Joe,” Pope said, “every single step of the way.
“I don’t work for you,” Joe said.
“You don’t understand,” Pope said, his voice cracking. “This means everything to me. My agency, my career —”
Joe snapped his phone shut as the heavy doors opened and Nate Romanowski was led into the room in an orange jumpsuit, his cuffs and leg irons clanking.
But it wasn’t the Nate he knew, Joe thought. The man who shuffled forward with the crew cut, sallow complexion, slumping shoulders, and haunted blue eyes just looked like the container that used to house Nate.
18
THEY DROVE NORTH on I-25 under a wide-open dusk sky striped with vermilion cloud slashes stacked on the western horizon. The lights of Cheyenne were an hour behind them. Mule deer and pronghorn antelope raised their heads as the Escalade passed by, the tires sizzling on the highway, acknowledging the fact that Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski were reunited. Or at least to Joe it seemed like it was what they were doing.
Nate had a smell about him that hung in the closed space of the state Escalade. Sterile, institutional, vapid. A jail smell. He wore his orange prison jumpsuit and a pair of blue boat shoes without laces.
“Nice sunset,” Nate said in a whisper so low Joe asked him to repeat it.
When he did, Joe said, “Yup.”
“They’ve got nice sunsets down here on the high plains,” Nate said. “I know this because I’ve watched three- hundred-and-five of ’em straight through a little gap in the window of my cell. This makes three-hundred-and- six.”
NATE SEEMED to relax as they hurtled into the night, Joe thought, as if his friend were shedding bits of defensive armor that had formed on his body over the past year, leaving them to skitter across the highway behind them like chunks of ice from the undercarriage of a car. Nate said, “It’s no fun to be in prison, I don’t care what anyone says.”
Joe grunted.
“Can you pull over here?” Nate said, gesturing to an exit off the highway that led to a ranch a mile away whose blue pole lights twinkled in the darkness.
Nate was out of the vehicle before Joe fully stopped it. Joe watched Nate stumble out and walk briskly into the
