“I’m afraid you’ll have to spare the time.”
Hazelius waved his hand. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“I’d like to take a scientist with me today, too.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Kate Mercer.”
Hazelius looked around. “Kate? You don’t have anything going today, do you?”
Kate’s face flushed. “I’m busy.”
“If Kate can’t, I’ll go,” said Melissa Corcoran, tossing her hair with a smile. “I’d love to get the hell off this godforsaken mesa for a few hours.”
Ford glanced at Kate and back at Corcoran. He felt reluctant to tell them he’d rather not show up at Blue Gap with a six-foot, blue-eyed, blond Anglo bombshell. At least Kate, with her black hair and half-Asian face, looked almost Indian.
“Are you really all that busy, Kate?” Hazelius asked. “You said you’d almost completed the new black hole calculations. This is important—and you are, after all, the assistant director.”
Kate glanced at Corcoran with an inscrutable expression. Corcoran returned the glance coldly.
“I suppose I could finish the black hole stuff later,” said Kate.
“Great,” Ford said. “I’ll swing by your place with the Jeep in an hour.” He headed for the door, feeling strangely elated.
As he passed Corcoran, she cast him a sideways smirk. “Next time,” she said.
BACK IN THE CASITA, FORD LOCKED the door, took the briefcase into the bedroom, drew the curtains, removed the sat phone, and dialed Lockwood.
“Hello, Wyman. Got any news?”
“You know the scientist, Peter Volkonsky, the software engineer?”
“Yes.”
“He disappeared last night. His car’s gone, and they say he packed up his clothes. Can you find out if he’s showed up or contacted anyone?”
“We’ll try.”
“I need to know ASAP.”
“I’ll call you right back.”
“A couple of other things.”
“Shoot.”
“Michael Cecchini—his dossier says he joined a religious cult as a teenager. I’d like to know more about that.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Rae Chen. She seems . . . How can I put it? Too normal.”
“That’s not much to go on.”
“Look into her background, see if there’s something odd there.”
Ten minutes later the ring light blinked. Ford pushed the RECEIVE button and Lockwood’s voice came on, considerably more tense. “Regarding Volkonsky, we called his wife, his colleagues at Brookhaven—nobody’s heard from him. You say he left last night? At what time?”
“I’m guessing sometime about nine.”
“We’re putting out an APB on his car and plate. It’s a forty-hour drive back to his home in New York State. If he’s headed that way, we’ll find him. Did something happen?”
“I ran into him yesterday. He’d spent the entire night at Isabella and he’d been drinking. He was full of forced hilarity. He said to me, ‘Before, I worry. Now I am fine.’ But he looked the opposite of fine.”
“Any idea what he meant by that?”
“None.”
“I want you to search his quarters.”
A hesitation. “I’ll do it tonight.”
Ford cradled the receiver and looked at the cottonwood trees outside the window. Lying, spying, deceiving, and now breaking and entering. A fine way to launch his first year out of the monastery.
14
FORD TOOK IN BLUE GAP, ARIZONA, with a single sweep of his eyes. It lay in a dusty basin surrounded by rimrock and the gray skeletons of dead pinons. The town was little more than a pair of intersecting dirt roads, asphalted a hundred yards from their point of intersection. There was a gas station of adobe-colored cinder block and a convenience store with a cracked window. Plastic grocery bags flapped like banners from the barbed-wire fence behind the gas station. Next to the convenience store stood a small middle school building surrounded by a chain-link fence. To the east and north, two grids of HUD housing had been laid out in rigid symmetry in the red dirt.
In the near distance, the purple silhouette of Red Mesa formed a towering backdrop.
“So,” said Kate as the Jeep reached the pavement, “what’s your plan?”
“Get gas.”
“Gas? The tank’s half-full, and we get all the free gas we need back at Isabella.”
“Just follow my lead, will you?”
He pulled into the gas station, got out, and filled up. Then he tapped on Kate’s window. “Got any money?” he asked.
She looked at him with alarm. “I didn’t bring my purse.”
“Good.”
They went in. A large Navajo woman stood behind the counter. A few other customers—all Navajo—were browsing in the store.
Ford picked out a pack of gum, a Coke, a bag of chips, and the
Ford dipped into his pocket, and his expression changed. He made a show of looking through his pockets.
“Damn. Forgot my wallet.” He glanced at Mercer. “You got any money?”
She glared. “You know I don’t.”
Ford spread his hands and smiled sheepishly at the lady behind the counter. “I forgot my wallet.”
She returned the gaze, unmoved. “You have to pay. At least for the gas.”
“How much is it?”
“Eighteen fifty.”
Again he made a great show of searching his pockets. The other customers had stopped to listen.
“Can you believe it? I don’t have a dime on me. I’m really sorry.”
A heavy silence followed. “I
“I’m sorry. I really am. Listen, I’ll go home and get my wallet and come straight back. I promise. Gosh, I feel like such an idiot.”
“I can’t let you go without collecting the money,” said the woman. “It’s my job.”
A small, skinny, restless-looking man in a dun cowboy hat, motorcycle boots, and shoulder-length jet-black hair strode forward and slid out a battered wallet on a chain from his jean’s pocket. “Doris? This’ll take care of it.” He spoke grandly and handed her a twenty.
Ford turned to the man. “That’s damn nice of you. I’ll pay you back.”
“ ‘Course you will, don’t worry about it. Next time you come, just give Doris the money. Someday you’ll return the favor, right?” He cocked his hand, winked, and pointed a finger at Ford.
“You bet.” Ford held out his hand. “Wyman Ford.”
“Willy Becenti.” Willy grasped his hand.
“You’re a good man, Willy.”
“Damn right about that! Isn’t that so, Doris? Best man in Blue Gap.”
Doris rolled her eyes.
“This is Kate Mercer,” said Ford.
“Hey, Kate, how’s it going?” Becenti grasped her hand, bowed, and kissed it like a lord.
