The Narrows (5 page)

The highway sign stood against a barren desert landscape. It said

ZZYZX ROAD
1 MILE

I knew the road. Or, more accurately, I knew the sign. Anybody from L.A. who made the road trip to and from Las Vegas as often as I had in the last year would have known it. At just about the halfway point on the 15 freeway was the Zzyzx Road exit, recognizable by its unique name if nothing else. It was in the Mojave and it appeared to be a road to nowhere. No gas station, no rest stop. At the end of the alphabet at the end of the world.

The last photo was equally puzzling. I enlarged it and saw that it was a strange still life. At center in the frame was an old boat—the rivets of its wooden planks sprung and its yellowed paint peeling back under the blistering sun. It sat on the rocky terrain of the desert, seemingly miles from any water on which to float. A boat adrift on a sea of sand. If there was any specific meaning at all to it, I did not readily see it.

Following the procedure I had watched Lockridge use, I printed the two desert photos and then went back to review the other photos to choose a sampling of shots to print. I sent two photos from the ferry and two photos from the mall to the printer. While I waited I enlarged several of the mall shots on the screen in hopes of seeing something in the background that would identify what mall Graciela and the children were in. I knew I could simply ask her. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

In the photos I was able to identify bags carried by various shoppers as coming from Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barnes & Noble. In one of the photos the family walked through a food court that included the concessions Cinnabon and Hot Dog on a Stick. I wrote all of these down in my notebook and knew that with these five locations I would probably be able to determine in which mall the photos had been taken, if I decided it was necessary to know this information and I did not want to ask Graciela about it. That was still an open question. I did not want to alarm her if it was not necessary. Telling her she may have been stalked while with her family—and possibly by someone with a strange connection to her husband—might not be the best avenue to take. At least at first.

That connection turned stranger and more alarming when the printer finally spit out one of the photos I had chosen from the mall sequence. In the picture the family was walking in front of the Barnes & Noble bookstore. The shot had been taken from the other side of the mall but the angle was almost perpendicular to the storefront. The front display window of the bookstore caught a dim reflection of the photographer. I had not seen it on the computer screen but there it was in the print.

The image of the photographer was too small and too whispery against the display behind the window—a full-size stand-up photo of a man in a kilt that was surrounded by stacks of books and a sign that said IAN RANKIN HERE TONIGHT! I realized then that I could use the display to place the exact day that the photos of Graciela and her children were taken. All I had to do was call the store and find out when Ian Rankin had been there. But the display also helped hide the photographer from me.

I went back to the computer and found the photo among the miniatures and enlarged it. I stared at it, realizing I didn’t know what to do.

Buddy was in the cockpit using a hose attached to a gunwale faucet to spray the eight rods and reels leaning against the stern. I told him to turn the water off and to come back down to the office. He did so without a word. When we were back in the office I signaled him to the stool and then leaned over him and outlined the area of the photographer’s reflection on the screen.

“Can this be enlarged here? I want to see this area better.”

“It can be enlarged but you lose a lot of definition. It’s digital, you know? You get what you get.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. I just told him to do it. He played with some of the square buttons that ran along the top of the frame and started enlarging the photograph and then repositioning it so the area of the reflection stayed on the screen. Soon he said that he had maximized the enlargement. I leaned in close. The image was even murkier. Not even the lines on the author’s kilt were crisp.

“You can’t tighten it up any?”

“You mean make it smaller again. Sure, I —”

“No, I mean like bring it more into focus.”

“No, man, that is it. What you see is what you get.”

“Okay, print it. It came out better before when I printed it. Maybe this will, too.”

Lockridge put in the commands and I spent an uneasy minute waiting.

“What is this, anyway?” Buddy asked.

“A reflection of the photographer.”

“Oh. You mean it wasn’t Terry?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think somebody took pictures of his family and sent them to him. It was some sort of message. Did he ever mention this?”

“No.”

I took a shot at seeing if Buddy might let something slip.

“When did you first notice this file on the computer?”

“I don’t know. It must’ve been . . . actually, I just saw them for the first time with you here.”

“Buddy, don’t bullshit me. This could be important. I’ve watched you work this thing like it was yours since high school. I know you went into that machine when Terry wasn’t around. He probably knew, too. He didn’t care and neither do I. Just tell me, when did you first see this file?”

He let a few moments pass while he thought about it.

“I first saw them about a month before he died. But if your real question is when did Terry see them, then all you have to do is look at the file archive and see when it was created.”

“Then do it, Buddy.”

Lockridge took over the keyboard again and went into the photo file’s history. In a few seconds he had the answer.

“February twenty-seventh,” he said. “That was when that file was created.”

“Okay, good,” I said. “Now, assuming that Terry didn’t take these, how would they end up on his computer?”

“Well, there’s a few ways. One is that he got them in an e-mail and downloaded them. Another is that somebody borrowed his camera and shot them. He then found them and downloaded them. The third way is maybe somebody just sent him a photo chip right out of the camera or a CD with the pictures already on it. That would probably be the most untraceable way.”

“Could Terry do e-mail from here?”

“No, up at the house. There is no hard line on the boat. I told him he ought to get one of those cellular modems, go wireless like that commercial where the guy’s sitting at his desk in the middle of a field. But he never got around to it.”

The printer kicked out the photo and I grabbed it ahead of Buddy’s reach. But then I placed it down on the desk so we could both view it. The reflection was blurred and dim but still more recognizable on the print than it was on the computer screen. I could now see that the photographer was holding the camera in front of his face, obscuring it completely. But then I was able to identify the overlapping L and A configuration of the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. The photographer was wearing a baseball cap.

On any given day there might be fifty thousand people wearing Dodgers caps in this city. I don’t know for sure. But what I do know is that I don’t believe in coincidences. I never have and I never will. I looked at the murky reflection of the photographer and my sudden guess was that it was the mystery man. Jordan Shandy.

Lockridge saw it, too.

“Goddamn,” he said. “That’s the guy, right? I think that’s the charter. Shandy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

I put the print of Shandy holding up the Spanish mackerel next to the enlargement. There was no way to make a match but there was nothing that made me think the other way. There was no way to be sure but I was sure. I knew that the same man who had showed up unannounced for a private charter with Terry McCaleb had also stalked and photographed his family.

What I didn’t know was where McCaleb had gotten these photos and whether he had made the same jump as I had just made.

I started stacking all of the photos I had printed. All the time I was trying to put something together, some connection of logic. But it wasn’t there. I didn’t have enough of the picture. Only a few pieces. My instincts told me that McCaleb had been baited in some way. Photos of his family came to him in the form of an e-mail or a photo chip or a CD. And the last two photos were the key. The first thirty-four were the bait. The last two were the hook hidden inside that bait.

I believed the message was obvious. The photographer wanted to draw McCaleb out to the desert. Out to Zzyzx Road.

9

R
ACHEL WALLING RODE THE ESCALATOR down into the cavernous baggage pickup area at McCarran International. She had carried her luggage during the journey from South Dakota but the airport was designed so that every passenger had to go this way. The escalator landing area was crowded with people waiting. Limo drivers held signs with the names of their clients, others just held up signs that announced the names of hotels or casinos or tour companies. The cacophony rising from the room assaulted her as she descended. It was nothing like the airport where she had started her travels that morning.

Cherie Dei was going to meet her. Rachel had not seen the fellow FBI agent in four years and that was only a brief interaction in Amsterdam. It had been eight years since she had really spent any kind of time with her and she wasn’t sure she would recognize her or that she would be recognized herself.

It didn’t matter. As she searched the sea of faces and signs it was a sign that caught her eye.

BOB BACKUS

The woman holding it was smiling at her. Her idea of a joke. Rachel approached, without returning the smile.

Cherie Dei had reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was attractive and trim with a good smile, her eyes still with a lot of light in them. Rachel thought she looked more like the mother of a couple of Catholic school kids than a serial killer hunter.

Dei extended her hand. They shook and Dei proffered the sign.

“I know, bad joke, but I knew it would get your attention.”

“Yes, it did.”

“Did you have a long layover in Chicago?”

“A few hours. Not much choice flying out of Rapid City. Denver or Chicago. I like the food better at O’Hare.”

“Do you have bags?”

“No, just this. We can go.”

Rachel was carrying one bag—a midsize duffel. She had packed only a few changes of clothing. Dei pointed toward one of the banks of glass doors and they headed that way.

“We got you in at the Embassy Suites where the rest of us are staying. We almost didn’t but they had a cancellation. The town is crowded because of the fight.”

“What fight?”

“I don’t know. Some super heavyweight or junior middleweight boxing match at one of the casinos. I didn’t pay attention. I just know it’s the reason this place gets so crowded.”

Rachel knew that Cherie was talking because she was nervous. She didn’t know the reason for this, whether anything had happened or it was simply because Rachel had to be handled carefully in this situation.

“If you want we can go to the hotel, get you settled in there. You could even take some time to rest if you want. There’s a meeting later at the FO. You could start there if —”

“No. I’d like to go to the scene.”

They stepped through the automatic glass doors and Rachel felt the dry Nevada air. It wasn’t at all as hot as she’d expected and packed for. It was cool and crisp, even in the direct sun. She took out her sunglasses and decided the jacket she had worn to the airport in South Dakota would be needed here. It was stuffed into her bag.

“Rachel, the scene is two hours from here. Are you sure you —”

“Yes. Take me there. I’d like to start there.”

“Start what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is that he wants me to start.”

This seemed to give Dei pause. She didn’t respond. They walked into the parking garage and found her car—a government Crown Vic so dirty that it looked like it was in desert camouflage.

Once they were driving, Dei took out a cell phone and made a call. Rachel heard her tell someone—probably her boss or partner or the scene supervisor—that she had picked up the package and would be taking it to the scene. There was a long pause as the person she’d called responded at length. Then she said good-bye and hung up.

“You are cleared to the scene, Rachel, but you have to step back. You’re here as an observer, okay?”

“What are you talking about? I’m an FBI agent, same as you.”

“But you’re not in Behavioral anymore. This is not your case.”

“You’re saying I am here because Backus wants me here, not you people.”

“Rachel, let’s try to get off to a better start than we did in Am —”

“Anything new come up so far today?”

“We’re up to ten bodies now. They think that’s going to be it. At least for this location.”

“IDs?”

“They’re getting there. What they have is tentative but they’re putting it all together.”

“Is Brass Doran at the scene?”

“No, she is in Quantico. She’s work —”

“She should be here. Don’t you people know what you’ve got here? She —”

“Whoa, Rachel, slow down, okay? Let’s get something straight here. I’m the case agent on this, okay? You are not running this investigation. This is not going to work if you confuse that.”

“But Backus is talking to me. He called me out.”

“And that’s why you are here. But you aren’t calling the shots, Rachel. You have to stand to the side and watch. And I have to tell you I don’t like how this is starting out. This isn’t Driving Miss Rachel. You mentored me but that was ten years ago. I’ve now been in Behavioral longer than you ever were and I’ve booked more cases than you ever did. So don’t talk down to me and don’t act like my mentor or my mother.”

Rachel didn’t respond at first and then she simply asked Dei to pull over so she could get her jacket out of her bag, which was in the trunk. Dei pulled into the Travel America on Blue Diamond Road and popped the trunk.

When Rachel got back into the car she was wearing a baggy black all-weather coat that looked like it might have been designed for a man. Dei didn’t say anything about it.

“Thanks,” Rachel said. “And you’re right. I apologize. I guess you get like me when it turns out your boss—your mentor—is the same evil thing you’ve been hunting all your life. And they punish
you
for it.”

“I understand that, Rachel. But it wasn’t just Backus. It was a lot of things. The reporter, some of the choices you made. Some people say you were lucky you still had a job at the end of it.”

Rachel’s face grew hot. She was being reminded that she was one of the bureau’s embarrassments. Even within the ranks. Even with the agent she had mentored. She had slept with a reporter working on her case. That was the shorthand version. It didn’t matter that it was a reporter who was actually a part of the case, who was working with Rachel side by side and hour by hour. The shorthand version would always be the story that agents heard and whispered about. A reporter. Was there a lower breach in agent behavior and etiquette? Maybe a mobster or a spy, but nothing else.

“Five years in North Dakota followed by a promotion to South Dakota,” she said weakly. “Yeah, I was lucky all right.”

“Look, I know you paid the price. My point is that you have to know your place here. Use some finesse. A lot of people are watching this case. If you play it right it could be your ticket back in.”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Rachel reached down to the side of her seat and adjusted it so she could lean back.

“How long did you say?” she asked.

“About two hours. We’ve been using choppers from Nellis mostly, saves a lot of time.”

“Hasn’t drawn attention?”

She was asking about the media, whether news of the investigation in the desert had leaked yet.

“We’ve had a few fires to put out but so far it is holding up. The scene is in California and we’re working it out of Nevada. I think that has somehow kept the lid on. To be honest, there are some people worried about you now.”

Rachel thought about Jack McEvoy, the reporter, for a moment.

“Nobody has to worry,” she said. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“Well, if this thing finally hits the radar, you can expect to see him. He wrote a bestselling book on the first go-round. I guarantee he’ll be back for the sequel.”

Rachel thought about the book she had been reading on the plane and that was now in her bag. She wasn’t sure whether it was the subject or the author that had drawn her to read it so many times.

“Probably.”

She left it at that and pulled her jacket around her shoulders and folded her arms. She was tired, not having slept since getting the call from Dei.

She leaned her head against the side window and pretty soon she was out. Her dream of darkness returned. But this time she was not alone. She could not see anyone because she could only see blackness. But she sensed another presence. Someone close but not necessarily someone with her. She moved and turned in the darkness, trying to see who it was. She reached out but her hands touched nothing.

She heard a moaning sound and then realized it was her own voice from deep in her throat. Then she was grabbed. Something had her and shook her very hard.

Rachel opened her eyes. She saw the freeway rushing at her through the windshield. Cherie Dei let go of her jacket.

“You all right? This is the exit.”

Rachel looked up at a passing green freeway sign.

ZZYZX ROAD
1 MILE

She straightened up in the seat. She checked her watch and realized she had slept for over ninety minutes. Her neck was stiff and painful on the right side from leaning so long against the window. She started working it with her fingers, digging deeply into the muscle.

“You all right?” Dei asked again. “Sounded like you were having a bad one.”

“I’m fine. What did I say?”

“Nothing. You just sort of moaned. I think you were running from something or something had you.”

Dei hit the blinker and turned into the exit lane. Zzyzx Road appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. At the top of the exit there was nothing, not even a gas station or even an abandoned structure. There was no visible reason for the exit or the road.

“We’re over here.”

Dei turned left and took the overpass across the freeway. Once off the overpass the road disintegrated into an unpaved trail that wound south and down into the flat basin of the Mojave. The landscape was stark. The white soda on the surface of the flats looked like snow in the distance. Joshua trees reached their bony fingers toward the sky and smaller plants wedged themselves between the rocks. It was a still life. Rachel had no idea what sort of animal might be able to subsist in such a barren place.

They passed a sign that said they were headed toward Soda Springs and then the road curved and Rachel could suddenly see the white tents and RVs and vans and other vehicles ahead. She could see a military green helicopter, its blades still, parked to the left of the encampment. Further past the encampment there was a complex of small buildings set at the base of the hills. It looked like a roadside motel but there were no signs and no road.

“What is this place?” Rachel asked.

“This is Zzyzx,” Dei said, pronouncing it
zie-zix
. “As far as I can tell, it is the asshole of the universe. Some radio preacher named it and built it sixty years ago. He got control of the land by promising the government he would be prospecting. He paid winos from skid row in L.A. to do that while he went on the radio and called on the faithful to come here to bathe in the spring waters and guzzle the mineral waters he bottled. It took the Bureau of Land Management twenty-five years to get rid of him. The place was then turned over to the state university system for desert studies.”

“Why here? Why did Backus bury them here?”

“Far as we can guess is because it is federal land. He wanted to make sure we—meaning you, probably—worked the case. If that’s what he wanted, he got it. It’s a major excavation. We’ve had to bring in our own power, shelter, food, water, everything.”

Rachel said nothing. She was studying everything, from the crime scene to the distant horizon of gray mountain ridges that enclosed the basin. She didn’t agree with Dei’s take on the place. She had heard the coastline of Ireland described as a terrible beauty. She thought that the desert with its barren lunar landscape was in its own way beautiful, too. There was a harsh beauty to it. A dangerous beauty. She had never spent much time in the desert, but her years in the Dakotas had given her an appreciation for harsh places, the empty landscapes where people were the intruders. That was her secret. She had what the bureau called a “hardship posting.” It was designed to wear her down and make her quit. But she had beaten them at this game. She could last forever there. She would not quit.

Dei slowed as they approached a checkpoint set up about a hundred yards before the tents. A man in a blue jumpsuit with the white letters FBI on the breast pocket stood beneath a beach-type tent with open sides. The desert winds were threatening to tear it from its moorings, just as they had already played havoc with the agent’s hair.

Dei lowered the window. She didn’t bother to give her own name or identification. She was a given. She gave the man Rachel’s name and identified her as a “visiting agent,” whatever that meant.

“Is she cleared with Agent Alpert?” he asked, his voice as dry and flat as the desert basin behind him.

“Yes, she’s cleared.”

“Okay, then. I just need her credentials.”

Rachel handed over her ID wallet. The agent wrote down her serial number and handed it back.

“From Quantico?”

“No, South Dakota.”

He gave her a look, the kind that said he knew she was a fuckup.

“Have fun,” he said as he turned to go back to his tent.

Dei moved the car forward, raising her window, leaving the agent in a cloud of dust.

“He’s from the Vegas FO,” she said. “They’re not too happy about things, playing second string.”

“So what’s new?”

“Exactly.”

“Is Alpert the SAC?”

“That’s him.”

“What’s he like?”

“Well, remember your theory about agents being either morphs or empaths?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a morph.”

Rachel nodded.

They came to a little cardboard sign taped to a branch of a Joshua tree. It said VEHICLES and had an arrow pointing to the right. Dei turned and they parked last in a row of four equally dirty Crown Vics.

“What about you?” Rachel asked. “Which did you turn out to be?”