Blasphemy

occupied another chair, while the president’s secretary, Jean, was ensconced in the third, ready to take notes the old-fashioned way, with a steno pad.

A heavy man in a dark blue suit entered and settled himself in the nearest chair without invitation. He was Gordon Galdone, chairman of the president’s reelection campaign. Lockwood couldn’t abide the man. He was everywhere these days, in every meeting, ubiquitous. Nothing was decided, nothing happened, without his blessing.

The president resumed his own seat behind the desk. “All right, Stan, you begin.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Lockwood took out a folder. “Are you familiar with a televangelist by the name of Don T. Spates? He runs an operation out of Virginia Beach called God’s Prime Time Ministry.”

“You mean the fellow caught cornholing those two prostitutes?”

A gentlemanly chuckle rippled through the room. The president, a former trial lawyer from the South, was well known for his colorful vocabulary.

“Yes sir, that’s the one. He brought up the subject of the Isabella project in his Sunday sermon on the Christian Cable Service. He went on a real tear. His line was that the government has spent forty billion taxpayer dollars trying to disprove Genesis.”

“The Isabella project has nothing to do with Genesis.”

“Of course. The problem is, he seems to have touched a nerve. I understand a number of senators and congressmen are getting e-mails and phone calls. Now our office is, too. It’s big enough that it may require some kind of response.”

The president turned to his chief of staff. “Is it showing up on your radar, Roger?”

“Almost twenty thousand e-mails logged so far, ninety-six percent opposed.”

“Twenty thousand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lockwood glanced at Galdone. The man’s slab of a face betrayed nothing. Galdone’s game was to wait and speak last. Lockwood hated people who did that.

“It’s worth pointing out,” said Lockwood, “that fifty-two percent of Americans don’t believe in evolution—and among self-identified Republicans, it’s sixty-eight percent. This attack on Isabella is an extension of that. It could get partisan—and ugly.”

“Where’d you get those figures?”

“A Gallup poll.”

The president shook his head. “We stay on message. The Isabella project is a crucial part of keeping American science and technology competitive in the world. After years of lagging, we’ve pulled ahead of the Europeans and Japanese. The Isabella project is good for the economy, good for R and D, good for business. It may solve our energy needs, free us from dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Stan, issue a press release to that effect, organize a press conference, make some noise. Stay on message.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Galdone’s turn had come. He heaved his bulk about in the chair. “If good news were flowing from the Isabella project, we wouldn’t be so vulnerable.” He turned to Lockwood. “Can you tell us, Dr. Lockwood, when the problems out there will be fixed?”

“In a week or less,” he said. “We’ve got a good handle on it.”

“A week is a long time,” Galdone said, “when you’ve got a man like Spates beating his tom-toms and oiling his guns.”

Lockwood winced at the mixed metaphor. “Mr. Galdone, let me assure you we’re doing everything we can.”

Galdone’s suetlike face moved as he spoke. “One week,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval.

Lockwood heard a voice at the door to the Oval Office, and his heart just about stopped to see his own assistant being ushered in. It would have to be something big to interrupt him in a meeting with the president. She came ducking along with almost comic obsequiousness, handed Lockwood a note, and exited swiftly. With a feeling of dread, he unfolded the note.

He tried to swallow and couldn’t. For a moment he contemplated saying nothing, then changed his mind: better now than later. “Mr. President, I’ve received word that one of the Isabella project scientists has just been found dead in a ravine on Red Mesa. It got called into the FBI about thirty minutes ago. Agents are on their way to the scene.”

“Dead? How?”

“Shot—in the head.”

The president stared at him without speaking. Lockwood had never seen his face flush so deeply, and it frightened him.

16

BY THE TIME THE NAVAJO TRIBAL Police arrived, Ford had watched the sun disappear in a swirl of bourbon-colored clouds. Four squad cars and a van came humming down the shimmering asphalt, lights flashing, and pulled up, each with a perfectly calibrated squeal of rubber.

A barrel-chested Navajo detective got out of the lead car. He was gaunt, about sixty, with a grizzled crew cut, followed by a cadre of Navajo Nation policemen. Wearing a pair of dusty cowboy boots, he walked with bow legs down the tire tracks toward the rim of the arroyo, followed by his people, and they began setting up the perimeter of the crime scene and stringing tape.

Hazelius and Wardlaw arrived in a Jeep, pulling it off the road and getting out. They watched the police work in silence, and then Wardlaw turned to Ford. “You say he was shot?”

“Point-blank to the left temple.”

“How do you know?”

“Significant powder tattooing.”

Wardlaw regarded him, his eyes hard and narrow with suspicion. “You watch a lot of CSI on television, Mr. Ford? Or you just make a hobby of crime-scene investigation?”

The Navajo detective, having secured the site, creaked toward them, voice recorder in hand. He walked with great deliberation, as if every movement hurt. His badge read BIA, and his rank was lieutenant. He wore mirrored wraparound sunglasses that made him look dopey. Ford sensed that he was anything but dumb.

“Who discovered the victim?” Bia asked.

“I did.”

The glasses turned toward him. “Your name?”

“Wyman Ford.” He heard suspicion in the man’s tone, as if the lies had already begun.

“How’d you find him?”

Ford described the circumstances.

“So you saw the buzzards, saw the tracks, just decided to get out and walk a quarter mile across the desert in the hundred-degree heat to investigate—just like that?”

Ford nodded.

“Hmm.” Bia scribbled some notes, his lips pursed. Then the glasses turned toward Hazelius. “And you are —?”

“Gregory North Hazelius, director of the Isabella project, and this is Senior Intelligence Officer Wardlaw. Will you be in charge of the investigation?”

“Only on the tribal side. The FBI will lead on this one.”

“The FBI? When will they be here?”

Bia nodded toward the sky. “Now.”

A chopper materialized in the southwest, the thwap of its rotors growing steadily louder. A few hundred yards away, it came into a hover in a storm of dust, then settled down on the road. Two men stepped out. Both wore sunglasses, open-necked short-sleeved shirts, and baseball caps with FBI stitched across the front. Despite their differing skin color and heights, they could almost have been twins.

They marched over, and the tall one pulled out his shield. “Special Agent in Charge Dan Greer,” he said, “Flagstaff Field Office. Special Agent Franklin Alvarez.” He slipped the shield back into his pocket and nodded at Bia. “Lieutenant.”

Bia nodded back.