Page 3 of Dead Mountain

“Enough of that shit,” said Purdue. “I don’t want to be buried alive.”

Kottke kept laughing. Purdue settled back and took another swig of rum. The bottle was almost empty. God, how much had he drunk? For a moment he forgot where he was, lying on the ground looking up at the firelight on the ceiling, unable to organize his spinning thoughts. He heard more hysterical laughter—was that him or Kottke? The laughter turned into the sound of vomiting, but now he was so tired he didn’t care. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. But he was cold. He managed to crawl nearer to the fire and lay down again in the sand, trying to get comfortable, but the sandy floor had some lumps in it, and he twitched and wriggled. Something was digging into his back, right where he wanted to sleep.

He vaguely heard more retching—Kottke puking again. He flopped over onto his stomach and dug his hand into the sand to move the thing poking his back. As he scraped and dug, he saw that it wasn’t the rock he’d assumed, but something smooth and light brown, like a dome. Even with his head spinning and his eyes barely able to focus, as he brushed and fumbled he saw two dark hollows appear, followed by grinning teeth and a clump of braided hair attached to a dried patch of flesh.

“Holy shit!” Purdue screamed. “There’s a dead motherfucker in here!” He pushed himself backward with his feet and hands, trying to get away from the thing that stared at him out of the sand, black eye sockets and gleaming teeth. “Mike! Mike!”

But Kottke was lying sprawled on the other side of the fire, unconscious, his shirt covered in vomit.

Purdue tried to get up, but, unable to maintain his balance, crawled backward instead, pushing with his feet. Finally, when he had gotten as far away from the thing as the cave would allow, he eased onto his side and curled himself up into a ball, shutting his eyes tight, hoping this would all go away, that it was just a nightmare, while his drunken brain sank into unconsciousness.

2

SPECIAL AGENT CORINNE Swanson stopped at the secretary’s desk outside the door—the closed door—of the SAC’s office. The young man glanced up at her.

“You can go in,” he said, pressing a button on a terminal on his desk.

Corrie grasped the doorknob of the corner office with more than a little apprehension. It had been almost four months since her last big case: a case involving, among other things, the murder of Hale Morwood, the senior agent who’d been mentoring her since her arrival at the Albuquerque Field Office a year ago. She was still traumatized by his death. Not a day passed without something reminding her of Agent Morwood, a dull, stubborn ache that never went away. Corrie was slow to respect people, and even slower to trust them . . . but Morwood had earned both from her before his death.

Her last big case. For the past four months she’d attended the various boards of inquiry, sat for lengthy debriefings, and submitted to several lie detector tests. Given the craziness of that case, the blowback was not surprising. She’d brought the investigation to a successful conclusion, if unconventionally . . . But as soon as it was over, almost the entire project had been classified, which, she realized belatedly, meant she wasn’t going to get much public recognition or the chance of a commendation. Even more troubling was that Special Agent in Charge Garcia had not yet assigned her a new mentor—technically, she was still an agent in training—or even given her a new case of any note. She wasn’t being punished—she would have been told that—but Garcia had kept her on low-profile, low-risk tasks like surveillance, and she couldn’t help wondering if she was under some kind of clandestine evaluation.

Shoving these thoughts aside, she entered the office.

SAC Julio Garcia rose from behind his desk and stretched out his hand to shake hers. Although it was some time since she’d been in his office, it looked exactly the same. The only thing that seemed to vary was the amount of traffic on the freeway beyond the windows.

“Agent Swanson,” he said, “thank you for coming. Please take a seat.”

As always, she was surprised by how such a brawny guy could be so soft-spoken. As she took a seat opposite the desk, he sat down again, pulled a folder close, opened and scanned it.

“So, Corinne,” he said without looking up. “Ready to get your hands dirty again?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, the words almost tumbling out. She felt a rush of gratitude.

He nodded, then looked up at her, neither smiling nor frowning, as was his way, his brown eyes taking her measure. “In that case, I’d like you to meet your new mentor.”

“My new mentor? Yes, sir.” Was the head of the field office going to ghost her himself? But no—Garcia pressed the button on his desk comm and the door opened. A lean, middle-aged man stepped in.

“Agent Swanson, this is Supervisory Special Agent Clay Sharp.”

She rose. The man extended his hand and she shook it briefly. His skin was cool, his grip firm but not ridiculously so—not like some agents who seemed to enjoy crushing knuckles. Agent Sharp was of average height, late forties, with sleepy-looking eyes. He had a handsome, even delicate face, and was dressed impeccably: although his suit was standard-issue FBI blue, it was of a sharper cut than usual and well tailored to a trim and athletic body, complemented by a tightly knotted, expensive silk tie. Rather than a military buzz or the standard side-part, Sharp’s long brown hair was combed back in a smooth coif, completing the picture of a man attentive of his personal appearance but not a slave to FBI style. Corrie couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or not.

She had seen Sharp around the office from time to time but had never interacted with him. He was quiet and somewhat enigmatic, and the other agents seemed to treat him with a combination of respect and wariness. She’d gotten the sense he was what was called a “brick agent”: terse, no bullshit, impatient, and capable.

“Agent Sharp has agreed to guide you through the rest of the mentoring period,” Garcia said briskly. “Since he’s never mentored before—and since you need to get your feet wet again, Swanson—I’ve given you an easy one.” He closed the folder and held it out to them both, ambiguously. Sharp indicated she was to take it, not him—and she did, appreciating the gesture.

“Last night,” said Garcia, “two frat boys from South Valley Tech got stuck in a snowstorm up in the Manzano Mountains. They took shelter in a cave—and found some human remains.”

“Prehistoric or historic?” Corrie asked.

“That’s what you’re going to find out. The information we got from the boys was not very coherent.”

“So it might be a Native American burial,” Sharp said, speaking for the first time in a quiet voice, with an accent Corrie couldn’t quite place. “Or—” he paused— “something more . . . interesting?”

“Exactly,” Garcia said.

It seemed to Corrie there was a hint in Sharp’s comment that Garcia had picked up but she had not. She glanced at Sharp. His pale hazel eyes—more amber than green in the slanting sunlight—looked even sleepier than before. She had the feeling that the sleepier he looked, the more alert he actually was.

“Seems they might have vandalized the site, too,” Garcia added. “Charges might be filed—but that’s not our problem, thankfully.”

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