Mount Dragon

desert floor was an endless carpet of black. The helicopter’s blades were of a noise-baffled military design, and the engine was equipped with pink-noise generators to minimize the aircraft’s sound signature. The running lights and tail beacon were off, the pilot using downward-pointing radar to search for its target.

The target was a small transmitter, placed in the center of a reflective sheet of Mylar held down by a circle of stones. Next to the transmitter sat a Hummer, its engine and headlights off.

The helicopter eased down near the Mylar, the rotor wash tearing and shredding the material into confetti. As the runners settled on the desert floor, the dark figure of a man stepped out of the Hummer and ran toward the helicopter’s hatch, an oddly shaped metal suitcase imprinted with the GeneDyne logo in one hand. The hatch opened, and a pair of hands reached out for the case. As soon as the hatch was secured, the helicopter lifted off, banked, and disappeared again into the blackness. The Hummer drove away, its shielded lights following the two tire tracks that had brought it. A single shred of Mylar, borne aloft in an updraft, curled and drifted away. Within moments, a bottomless silence had once again settled on the desert.

That Sunday, the sun rose to a flawless sky. At Mount Dragon, the Fever Tank was closed as usual for decontamination, and until the obligatory evening emergency drill, the science staff would be left to their own devices.

As his coffee brewed, Carson looked out his window at the black cone of Mount Dragon, just becoming visible in the predawn light. Usually, he spent his Sundays like the rest of the staff: isolated in his room, laptop for company, catching up on background work. But today, he would climb Mount Dragon. He’d been promising himself he’d do just that since first arriving at the site. Besides, the balcony session with Singer had whetted his appetite to play again, and he knew the sharp nasal sounds of the banjo strings echoing through the quiet residency compound would incite half a dozen irate e-mail messages through the lab net.

Dumping the coffee and grounds into a thermos, he slung his banjo over his shoulder and headed to the cafeteria to pick up some sandwiches. The kitchen staff, usually almost unbearably chipper, were morose and silent. They couldn’t still be upset about what had happened to Vanderwagon. Must be the early hour, Carson thought. Everyone seemed to be in a bad mood these days.

Checking out with the perimeter guard, he set off down the dirt road that wound northeastward toward Mount Dragon. Reaching the base, he began the climb toward the summit, leaving the road in favor of a steep, narrow trail. The instrument felt heavy on his back, and the cinders slid under his feet as he climbed. Half an hour of hard work brought him to the top.

It was a classic cinder cone, its center scooped out by the ancient eruption. A few mesquite bushes grew along the rim. On the far side, Carson could see a cluster of microwave and radio towers, and a small white shed surrounded by a chain-link fence.

He turned around, breathing hard, ready to enjoy the view he’d worked hard for. The desert floor, at the precise instant of dawn, was like a pool of light, shimmering and swirling as if there were no surface at all, but merely a play of light and color. As the sun climbed fully over the horizon and flung a sheet of golden light across the ground, each solitary mesquite and creosotebush attached itself to shadows that ran endlessly toward the horizon. Carson could see the edge of light race across the desert, from east to west, etching the hills in light and the washes in darkness, until it rushed away over the curve of the earth, leaving a blanket of light in its wake.

Several miles away, he could see the wrecked outline of the old Anasazi pueblo—he now knew it was called Kin Klizhini—throwing shadows like black slashes across the dusty plain. Still farther away, the desert floor became black and mottled: the Malpais lava flow.

He chose a comfortable spot behind a large block of tufa. Putting the banjo beside him, he stretched out and shut his eyes, enjoying the delicious solitude.

“Shit,” came a familiar voice several minutes later.

Startled, Carson looked up and saw de Vaca standing over him, hands on her hips.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Carson grabbed the handle of his banjo case. His day was already ruined. “What does it look like?” he asked.

“You’re in my spot,” she said. “I always come up here on Sundays.”

Without another word, Carson heaved himself to his feet and started to walk away. This was one day he was going to avoid an argument with his lab assistant. He’d take Roscoe out a good ten miles, do his playing out there.

He halted when he saw the expression on her face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

Carson looked at her. His instincts told him not to strike up a conversation, not to ask, just to get the hell out of there.

“You look a little upset,” he said.

“Why should I trust you?” de Vaca asked abruptly.

“Trust me about what?”

“You’re one of them,” she said. “A company man.” Beneath the accusatory tones, Carson sensed genuine fright.

“What is it?” he asked.

De Vaca remained silent for a long time. “Teece disappeared,” she said at last.

Carson relaxed. “Of course he did. I talked to him the night before last. He was taking a Hummer to Radium Springs. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

She shook her head angrily. “You don’t understand. After the storm, his Hummer was found out in the desert. Empty.”

Shit. Not Teece. “He must have gotten lost in the sandstorm.”

“That’s what they’re saying.”

He turned toward her sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

De Vaca wouldn’t look at him. “I overheard Nye. He was talking to Singer, saying that Teece was still missing. They were arguing.”

Carson was silent. Nye ... A vision came into his head: a vision of a man emerging from the sandstorm, encased in dust, his horse nearly dead from exhaustion.

“What, you think he was murdered?” he asked.

De Vaca did not reply.

“How far from Mount Dragon was the Hummer?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because I saw Nye return with his horse after the dust storm. He’d probably been out searching for Teece.” He told her the story of what he’d seen in the stables two evenings before.

De Vaca listened intently. “You think he’d be out searching in a dust storm? Returning from burying the body, more likely. He and that asshole, Mike Marr.”

Carson scoffed. “That’s ludicrous. Nye may be a son of a bitch, but he’s not a murderer.”

“Marr is a murderer.”

“Marr? He’s as dumb as a lump of busted sod. He doesn’t have the brains to commit murder.”

“Yeah? Mike Marr was an intelligence officer in Vietnam. A tunnel rat. He worked in the Iron Triangle, probing all those hundreds of miles of secret tunnels, looking for Viet-cong and their weapons caches and frying anybody they found down there. That’s where he got his limp. He was down a hole, following a sniper. He triggered a booby trap and the tunnel collapsed on his legs.”

“How do you know this?”

“He told me.”

Carson laughed. “So you’re friends, are you? Was this before or after he planted the butt of his shotgun in your gut?”

De Vaca frowned. “I told you, the scumbag tried to pick me up when I first got here. He cornered me in the gym and told me his life story, trying to impress me with what a bad dude he was. When that didn’t work, he grabbed my ass. He thought I was just some kind of easy Hispana whore.”

“He did? What happened?”