The Narrows Page 7

  "You all right? This is the exit."

  Rachel looked up at a passing green freeway sign.

  ZZYZX ROAD

  I 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.

  "FromQuantico?"

  "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'samorph."

  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 Vies.

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

  Dei didn't answer.

  "You ready for this?" she asked Rachel instead.

  "'Absolutely. I've been waiting four years for another shot at him. This is where it starts."

  She cracked the door and stepped out into the bright desert sun. She felt at home.

  CHAPTER 10

  Backus followed them down the exit ramp. He was a safe distance behind. He crossed over the freeway and put on his blinker to get back on in the opposite direction. If they were watching him in the mirror he would simply look like someone turning around to head back to Vegas.

  Before turning back onto the freeway he watched the FBI car go off the paved road and head across the desert to the site. His site. A white cloud of dust kicked up behind the car. He could see the white tents in the distance. He felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. The crime scene was a city he had built. A city of bones. The agents were like ants between pieces of glass. They lived and worked in the world of his creation, unknowingly doing his bidding.

  He wished he could get closer to that glass, to take it all in and see the horror he etched on their faces, but he knew the risk was too great.

  And he had other things to do. He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator and headed back toward the city of sin. He had to make sure everything was ready and things were set.

  As he drove he felt a slight sense of melancholy slide in beneath his ribs. He guessed that this came with the letdown of leaving Rachel behind in the desert. He took a deep breath and tried to exorcize the feeling. He knew it would not be long before he was close to her again.

  After a moment he smiled at the memory of seeing his name on the sign held by the woman who had met Rachel at the airport. An inside joke between agents. Backus recognized the greeter. Agent Cherie Dei. Rachel had mentored her just as he had mentored Rachel. That meant some of his special insights had been passed on through Rachel to this new generation. He liked that. He wondered what Cherie Dei's reaction would have been if he had stepped up to her and her stupid sign at the bottom of the escalator and said, "Thanks for meeting me."

  He looked out through the car's windows at the flat, barren plain of the desert floor. He believed it was truly beautiful, made even more so by the things he had planted in the sand and rock out there.

  He thought about that and soon the pressure in his chest eased and he felt wonderful again. He checked the rearview for trailers and saw nothing that was suspicious. He checked himself then and admired the surgeon's work once more. He smiled at himself.

  CHAPTER 11

  As they got close to the tents Rachel Walling began to smell the scene. The unmistakable odor of decaying flesh was carried on the wind as it worked through the encampment, billowed the tents and moved out again. She switched her
breathing to her mouth, haunted by knowledge she wished she didn't have, that the sensation of smell occurred when tiny particles rstruck sensory receptors in the nasal passages. It meant if you smelled decaying flesh that was because you were breathing decaying flesh.

  There were three small square tents in the approach to the site. These were not the kind for camping. They were field command tents with straight sides to eight feet. Behind these three was a larger rectangular tent. Rachel noticed that all of the tents had open vent flaps on top. She knew that there were body excavations taking place in each. The vents were to let some of the heat and stink escape.

  Overlapping everything was the noise. There were at least two gasoline-powered generators providing electricity to the scene. There were also two full-size RVs parked to the left of the tents and their rooftop air handlers were rumbling.

  "Let's go in here first," Cherie Dei said, pointing to one of the RVs. "Randal is usually in here."

  The RV looked like any supercamper Rachel had seen on the freeway. This one was called the "Open Road

  " and it had an Arizona plate on the back. Dei knocked on the door and then pulled it open without waiting for a response. They stepped up and in. The vehicle wasn't set up on the inside for camping on the open road. Partitions and the comforts of home had been removed. It was one long room set up with four folding tables and many chairs. Along the rear wall was a counter with all the usual office machinery-computer, fax, copier and coffeemaker. Two of the tables were covered with paperwork. On the third, incongruous to the purpose and setting, was a large bowl of fruit. The lunch table, Rachel guessed. Even at a mass burial site you have to have lunch. At the fourth table was a man on a cell phone, an open laptop computer in front of him.

  "Have a seat," Dei said. "I'll introduce you as soon as he is off."

  Rachel sat at the lunch table and took a precautionary sniff of the air. The RVs air handler was on recycle. The odor from the excavation wasn't noticeable. No wonder the man in charge stayed in here. She looked at the bowl of fruit and thought about taking a handful of grapes, just to keep her energy up, but decided not to.

  "You want some fruit, go ahead," Dei said.

  "No, thanks, I'm fine." "Suit yourself."

  Dei reached over and picked off some grapes and Rachel felt foolish because she had painted herself into a corner with the fruit. The man on the cell, who she assumed was Agent Alpert, was talking too low to be heard-probably by the person he was talking to as well. Rachel noticed that the long wall along the left side of the RV was covered with photographs of the excavations. She looked away. She didn't want to study the photographs until after she had been in the tents. She turned and looked out the window next to the table. This RV had the premiere view of the desert. She could see down into the basin and the entire ridgeline. She wondered for a moment if the view meant anything. If Backus had chosen the spot because of the view and if so, what was the significance of it.

  When Dei turned her back Rachel grabbed some grapes and put three in her mouth at once. At the same moment, the man snapped his phone closed and got up from his table and approached her with his hand out.

  "Randal Alpert, special agent in charge. We're glad you are here."

  Rachel shook his hand but had to wait to get the grapes down before speaking.

  "Nice to meet you. Not such nice circumstances."

  "Yeah, but look at that view. Sure beats the brick wall I've got back in Quantico. And at least we're out here the end of April and not August. That would have been a killer."

  He was the new Bob Backus. Running the shop at Quantico, coming out on the big ones and of course this was a big one. Rachel decided she didn't like him and that Cherie Dei was right about him being a morph.

  Rachel had always found that agents in Behavioral were of two kinds. The first type she called "morphs." These agents were much like the men and women they hunted. Able to keep it all from getting to them. They could move on like a serial killer from case to case without being dragged down by all the horror and guilt and knowledge of the true nature of evil. Rachel called them morphs because these agents could take that burden and somehow morph it into something else. The site of a multiple body excavation became a beautiful view better than anything at Quantico.

  The second type Rachel called "empaths" because they took all the horror in and kept it in. It became the campfire they warmed themselves by. They used it to connect and motivate, to get the job done. To Rachel, these were the better agents because they would go to the limit and beyond to catch the bad guy and solve the case.

  It was certainly healthier to be a morph. To be able to move on without any baggage. The halls of Behavioral were haunted by the ghosts of the empaths, the agents who couldn't go the distance, for whom the burden became too much. Agents like Janet Newcomb, who put her gun in her mouth, and Jon Fenton, who drove into a bridge abutment, and Terry McCaleb, who literally gave his heart to the job. Rachel remembered them all and above all she remembered Bob Backus, the ultimate morph, the agent who was both hunter and prey.

  "That was Brass Doran on the phone," Alpert said. "She said to say hello." "She's back at Quantico?"

  "Yes, she's agoraphobic about that place. Never wants to leave. She's heading up things on that end for us. Now, Agent Walling, I know you know the score. We've got a delicate situation here. We're glad you are here but you are here strictly as an observer and possibly a witness."

  She didn't like him being so formal with her. It was a way of keeping her outside the circle.

  "A witness?" she asked.

  "You might be able to give us some ideas. You knew this guy. Most of us were on the street chasing bank robbers when the whole thing with Backus went down. I came into the unit right after your thing went down. After OPR went through the place. Cherie here is one of the few still around from then."

  "My thing?"

  "You know what I mean. You and Backus going at St."

  "Can I go look at the excavation now? I'd like to see what you've got."

  "Well, Cherie will take you out in a second. We don't have a lot to look at but today's carcass."

  Spoken like a true morph, Rachel thought. She glanced at Dei and their eyes met in confirmation.

  "But there is something I want to talk about first."

  Rachel knew what was coming but let Alpert have his say. He moved toward the front of the RV and pointed vthrough the windshield out into the desert. Rachel followed his line but couldn't see anything but the mountain ridge.

  "Well, you can't really see it from this angle," Alpert said, "but out there lying on the ground we've got a great big sign. It says in big letters, filming-no flyovers, no noise. That's for anybody up there who might get curious about all these tents and vehicles. Pretty good idea, huh? They think it's a movie set. Helps keep them away from us."

  "And your point?"

  "My point? My point is we have thrown a real thick blanket over all of this. Nobody knows and we want to keep it that way."

  "And you are suggesting I am a media leak?"

  "No, I am not suggesting that. I am giving you the same talk I give everybody that comes out here. I don't want this in the media. I want to control it this time. Is that understood?"

  More like bureau command or the Office of Professional Responsibility wants to control it this time, she thought. The Backus revelations almost decimated the ranks and reputation of the Behavioral Sciences unit last time, not to mention the colossal public relations fiasco it was for the bureau as a whole. Now with the failings of 9/11 and the bureau's competition with Homeland Security for budget dollars as well as headlines, media focus on a mad killer agent was not what bureau command or the OPR had in mind. Especially when the general public had been led to believe that the mad killer agent was long since dead.

  "I understand," Rachel said coolly. "You won't have to worry about me. Can I go out now?"

  "One other thing."

  He hesitated for a moment. Whatever it was, i
t was delicate. "Not everyone involved in this investigation is aware of the connection to Robert Backus. It's 'need to know' and I want to keep it that way."

  "What do you mean? The people working out there don't know it was Backus who did this? They should be-"

  "Agent Walling, this is not your investigation. Don't try to make it yours. You were brought here to observe and help, leave it at that. We don't know for sure it was Backus and until we do-"

  "Right. His fingerprints were only all over the GPS and his MO all over everything else."

  Alpert glanced at Dei, throwing her a look of annoyance.