Dead Soul (23 page)

“There’s no place like the Columbine.”

“Indeed. I have not been here in years. And I have a feeling today is going to be different—a quite memorable juncture in my busy life.”

The Ute slowed for a particularly rutty section of road.
Need to get the big tractor out here, blade this thing off.
“You have a really good time, say nice things about Dolly Bushman’s barbecue, maybe I’ll invite you over again.”

“I will hold you to that.” The senator sighed. “Charlie, I may look like a certified idiot in this baseball cap, but I am a seasoned player and I know the score. There is something you want to tell me. I expect it is about what the FBI geeks found in my home.”

“That can wait.”

“I assure you, I will enjoy my megacalorie meal much more if you tell me now.”

“You expecting bad news?”

“Well, of course I am. It is a matter of the most elementary logic. If the FBI technicians had found nothing amiss in the BoxCar headquarters, you could have informed me of that good news inside my home—perhaps in the now-verified security of the conference room where I have conducted so many sensitive meetings. But instead of breaking the news inside my house, you have craftily arranged to get me alone. You could have brought your spacious, comfortable Expedition, but instead you have shoehorned me into this rattletrap pickup.”

Moon pretended to be hurt. “I thought you’d appreciate a ride in a real cowboy truck.”

“Bah! Save your baloney for white-bread sandwiches. You have made sure there was no room for additional passengers. I have no doubt this was so you could make a confidential report on the results of the Bureau’s investigation. Ergo, I may safely conclude that there is precious little security inside the supposed privacy of my walls. I have no doubt that you are about to tell me that my conference room has as many bugs as a Mississippi back porch on a humid night in June. Whatever the FBI has found, I imagine they wish to leave in place for a period of time.”

Moon smiled at his reflection in the pitted windshield. “For providing misleading information to the enemy state?”

“Of course. I have read my share of spy thrillers.”

The Ute drove on. The lane, now paralleling an irrigation ditch, neatly divided an eighty-acre alfalfa field that had been harvested a week before. Several dozen fat Herefords, switching their tails at buzzing flies, munched contentedly at the green stubble. Not one of the serene bovines gave the passing automobiles a glance.

Finally, the white man could stand the silence no longer. “Well?”

Moon kept his eye on the lane, which twisted around a lumpy clump of piñon-studded knobs. “FBI technicians didn’t find anything. Not in the conference room. Or anywhere else inside your house.”

Patch Davidson gaped openmouthed at the lovely pastoral scene, magnificently framed by the large windshield. “But…that is just absolutely wonderful news.” He gave the Ute a doubtful look. “Isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

“Charlie Moon, you are a hard fellow to gauge. You pass on good news like it was a report of a death in the family.”

Moon started to respond, hesitated.

The politician’s sensitive antenna went up another notch. “What?”

“Somehow, I know I’m going to regret sticking my nose into your business.”

“Undoubtedly. But I cannot stand the suspense. So go ahead, tell me.”

“First, I’ll ask you a couple of questions.”

“You may certainly ask. But I may not choose to respond to questions that are, let us say…of a sensitive nature.”

“Fair enough. If you don’t want to talk about the matter, I’ll let the whole thing drop.”
And I’ll feel a hundred percent better.

They passed a small house on the right. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here—isn’t that the foreman’s quarters?”

“Yeah. But today, Pete and Dolly are up the road at the Columbine headquarters. I expect lunch will be on the table by the time we get there.”

There was a full minute of tense silence between them. Then another. “Go ahead, Charlie—ask your damn questions.”

“You have any idea when these leaks of sensitive information started?”

“
Alleged
leaks. But to answer your question, no, I do not know. I am reasonably certain that the
suspicions
of a security problem at the BoxCar surfaced fairly recently. I got wind of it…well, I would not want to mention a precise date.”

“But it was after the murder of Billy Smoke.”

The senator thought hard about this enigmatic observation. His brow wrinkled. “Excuse me, but I am unable see any connection between the tragic death of your fellow tribesman and the rumors of a security problem at the BoxCar.”

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.
“There probably isn’t any connection.”

Davidson seemed mildly amused; his tone was almost mocking. “Then, Mr. Detective, where are you going with this mystifying exercise?”

Ten to one, to hell in a hand basket.
“Let’s make an assumption.”

“Name it.”

“Let’s assume that the people who work at DIA and CIA and those other government spook shops know how to do their jobs.”

“Though such a sweeping assumption is highly questionable, I will nevertheless go along with your proposition. But only for the sake of good manners.”

“Let’s also assume that they have credible evidence that somehow a foreign government is able to eavesdrop on conversations inside the BoxCar headquarters. Even inside your
allegedly
secure conference room.”

“You wound me. But very well, let us presume that this is so. But if someone is listening, tell me this—why did the FBI counterespionage geniuses proclaim my home to be free of electronic eavesdropping gadgetry?”

“They did not.”

“Pardon me. But I distinctly heard you say that—”

“What I said was that they didn’t find anything. Negative results prove nothing.”

“I heartily disapprove of such pessimism.” The senator looked away toward the beautiful mountains. “I regret that you take an unduly dim perspective on what is unalloyed good news. You would do well to practice a bit of positive thinking.” A fat insect splattered on the windshield.

“That sounds like good advice.” The creek was coming up. The tribal investigator lifted his foot off the accelerator, allowed the old pickup to slow. “So I’ll focus my thoughts on Dolly Bushman’s West Texas-style barbecued beef. Heaps of mustard potato salad. Pork and beans baked in brown sugar. Homemade rye bread, still warm from the oven.” There was a rumble of loose boards under the pickup wheels. A glimpse of crystalline water spilling over black stones.

“Excellent.” The senator’s lips were firm. “I quite agree. Let us shun all negative talk. It is unhealthy to search for troubles where there are none—snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as it were.”

But alas, they had already crossed over Too Late Bridge.

The F-150 bumped along the road.

The invisible tether between the pickup and the trailing Lincoln had stretched while Henry Buford eased the big car over the plank bridge.

“This is a hundred-dollar day,” the Ute said. “Warm sunshine. Bluebirds singing. Not a trouble in sight.”

“Okay, Charlie, get it over with.” Patch Davidson gnawed at a blue-tinged lip. “Go ahead, have your say. Depress me beyond words.”

Moon frowned at his passenger. “What’re you talking about?”

“Do not be the sharp stone in my shoe—get the thing over with.”

“Okay. Think about this. If the bad guys are listening to your private conversations at the BoxCar—and the FBI experts can’t turn up anything in your house—maybe the bug ain’t in your house.”

The senator did not like the undertone of this statement. It was like a glimpse of cloud shadow a few minutes before the boom of thunder shakes a man’s castle to the very foundation. “But if there is no electronic eavesdropping gadget in my home, where could it possibly be?”

“I been doing a lot of thinking about that. So I put myself in the foreign spook’s place. If it was my job to record your private conversations, where would I hide the bug? Well, a man can think of all kinds of things. Your private conference room is the obvious spot. Getting it in there would be a problem, but it wouldn’t be impossible.” He shook his head. “But the FBI couldn’t find it, so most likely it ain’t there. And then I thought, maybe Senator Davidson should carry the bug around with him.”

This time it was the white man who held his tongue.

“But where would I put it—maybe in your shoe heel?”

“I had no idea you had such a fertile imagination.”

“Thank you. The bug-in-the-shoe-heel sounds pretty cool, but it don’t really suit me. Rich man like you probably owns ten dozen pairs of shoes. Do I have to plant something in all of ’em? And then there’s the problem of power for my electronic gadget. Tiny batteries are okay for a little while, but sooner or later they run down. I don’t think I want to be sneaking into your shoe closet every few weeks to replace ten dozen batteries. No, I’d much rather put my gadget where there’s already some electricity to operate it. And then I have this inspiration. I don’t know how it happens. Maybe I see somebody in a supermarket, or on the street. It’s a person who always has plenty of electrical energy close at hand, wherever they go. At home, at work, on the street—they’ve got kilowatt hours to spare.”

“Excuse me, Charlie, but I do not share this vision. What is it that you see—the Wichita Lineman attached to a ten-mile lamp cord?”

“Better than that. I see a fella attached to a motorized scooter. Like an electric GroundHog.”

As the inner light illuminated his mind, the senator’s ruddy face paled. “Oh my God.” His hands clenched into fists. “You’re suggesting that someone has taken advantage of the fact that I’m an invalid—to commit espionage?”

“In a way.”

“But that is absolutely…” Davidson searched for the word. Found it. “Absolutely
damnable.
” He shot an accusative look at the driver. “So your ploy today was not so much to separate me from my home as from my high-tech electric conveyance.”

“Yeah.”

Senator Patch Davidson shook his head in a dazed manner. “Forgive me, but this is an absolutely fantastic theory.”

“Tell me why.”

“The GroundHog is always in my home. Or, on a couple of occasions, in my Georgetown residence.”

“Or in your airplane. Or your Senate office. Or the Senate Chamber.”

“Well, yes. But the point is, what possible opportunity would a foreign agent have to implant a surreptitious device in it?”

“I’ve been doing some serious thinking about that.”

“And?”

“Haven’t come to a conclusion. Still thinking on it.”

“I suggest that your expectations are overly optimistic.”

“Few minutes ago, you said I was a pessimist.”

“A truly first-rate intellect—such as my own—is able to simultaneously entertain contradictory concepts.”

“How about the concept that somebody has wired your GroundHog for sound?”

“Haven’t come to a conclusion. Still thinking on it.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“The hell it is.” His useless legs were aching. “Charlie, I would like to raise an issue that is of some importance to me.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Granted, you are gifted with a spectacular—one might even say bizarre—imagination. Even so, I admit that your speculation is not totally without merit. But to put the matter quite bluntly, you have raised an ugly issue that I would just as soon not have heard about. I merely wanted you to act as a watchdog over the FBI snoops while they sniffed about my home. You have gone rather beyond the bounds of your assignment.”

“Thank you. I try to give this job all I got.”

“The way I see it, a member of my staff who presents me with a problem—”

“A part-time member of your staff.”

“Very well, nitpick if you will. A part-time member of my staff who presents me with a problem that I did not previously perceive—that person introduces trouble into my life. The offending person, therefore, has a sacred obligation.”

“A part-time member of your staff who has not yet been paid.”

“Let us not discuss money—it is crass and vulgar on a social occasion such as this. As I was saying, the person who troubles my mind has an obligation to present a solution to the problem—which will otherwise keep me awake into the wee hours.”

“You’re a tough guy to work for.”

“I suspect that you know what I have in mind.”

“Let me make a haphazard guess. Even though I got a king-sized ranch to run—and an investigative assignment from my tribal chairman—you want me to work with the FBI counterespionage hotshots for a while longer. Talk them into checking out your Electric GroundHog. So before the rumors about espionage hit the newspapers, you’ll have it on record that the Bureau experts didn’t find a single bug. Not in your senate office. Not in the BoxCar headquarters. Not in your electric scooter.”

“As you raised the issue of bugs in my faithful little GroundHog, such a service on your part seems both appropriate and eminently fair. And do not suggest that I find someone else to perform this small task—you are on my payroll as security consultant for my western headquarters.”

“Seeing as how you bring up the issue of payroll, there’s still the matter of a check and—”

The senator raised a hand to interrupt the protest. “I will hear no more. You are my official liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If they must poke and pry about the innards of my Electric GroundHog, then so be it. But it is up to Mr. Moon to make the necessary arrangements. And see that they do no damage to my wonderful machine.”

Moon grinned at his passenger. “I’m glad you see it that way.”

Davidson’s face mirrored his astonishment. “Do not tell me—you have already discussed this wild notion with the FBI?”

“Okay. I won’t tell you.”

“And what did they say?”

“The Bureau experts think it’s a pretty long shot. And they’re concerned about depriving you of your four-wheel-drive transportation.”

“Well, perhaps I have misjudged Mr. Hoover’s operatives—evidently a few of them must have a grain of compassion. But there is no cause for concern. I can do without the GroundHog overnight. If need be, even for a full day.”