Page 4 of Dead Mountain

Sharp nodded slowly. He glanced at the file in Corrie’s hand, to which an address had been clipped. Then he turned toward her. “Shall we get started, Agent Swanson?”

“Yes. Of course.” As she headed toward the door, she stopped momentarily and looked back at SAC Garcia. “Thank you, sir.”

The head of the field office looked back at her, one hand rubbing his chin speculatively. “Good hunting,” he said.

3

WHAT DO YOU know of the Manzano Mountains?” Agent Sharp asked as they drove south on Highway 337, followed by the FBI’s Evidence Response Team van.

“Beyond seeing them from far off, not much,” Corrie replied. “I haven’t been in New Mexico very long.” She’d felt guarded and nervous when she first met Sharp, and the feeling had yet to go away. He was a difficult person to read, with his slow manner of speech and inscrutable demeanor. Her previous mentor, Agent Morwood, had also been reserved, but she’d managed to connect with him. She was trying not to compare the two men and let that comparison color her perception—but she wished her new mentor wasn’t quite so reticent. At least now he was talking.

“Your file indicates you’ve been pretty busy. And there’s a part of the file that’s classified . . . even I don’t have clearance to see it. Intriguing.”

Corrie had taken a look at his file, too—at least, what she could glean from it without raising eyebrows. Sharp had been with the FBI almost sixteen years and, unlike Morwood, who’d been sidelined into the mentoring position by an injury, had risen through the ranks as a lone wolf. Before joining the FBI, Sharp had been military, in positions of such high security that only the countries were identified: Yemen, Iraq, and Turkey.

“The Manzanos are part of the Rio Grande Rift—layers of rock that got fractured and heaved upward starting twenty million years ago. There’s a steep western face along the Rio Grande, and a more gradual eastern face. The highest peaks of the range are over ten thousand feet.”

“I see, sir,” Corrie said.

“The Kirtland Air Force Base occupies the entire northern part of the mountains. Largest storage facility for nuclear weapons in the world, overseen by the Air Force Global Strike Command.”

“The largest?” Corrie had had no idea.

Sharp nodded. “South of Kirtland lies a strip of Indian land: part of the Pueblo of Isleta. And south of that is a quarter million acres of national forest and wilderness, one of the least visited areas in the Southwest.”

Corrie wasn’t sure what to say. Sharp seemed to enjoy imparting this information. Asking a few questions, Corrie thought, would probably make a good impression. “What will they do with all those nuclear weapons? Don’t they have enough already deployed?”

“Most of them are intended to replace weapons that have been fired after a missile and bomber exchange—in a war.”

“You mean, to reload the bombers after the world has been destroyed?” Corrie immediately regretted the comment and wondered how Sharp would take it. She found Sharp looking at her curiously. His eyes, which she’d noticed rarely blinked, blinked now—with the slow deliberation of a lizard. Then he issued a low chuckle. “That’s the idea, Agent Swanson, illogical as it may sound.”

They drove in silence while Corrie got up the nerve to ask the question she’d been wondering about ever since the meeting with Garcia. “Sir, just to be clear: Am I officially the agent in charge of the investigation, or are you? Just so I know who’s taking the lead,” she added, stammering.

He looked at her with those sleepy eyes. “Why, you, Agent Swanson. I thought that was understood.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope to earn your approval.”

God, did she sound like too much of a toady? She wished she could get a better handle on this guy.

Sharp took a right on Route 55, and soon they had passed through the tiny hamlet of Tajique in the foothills and were climbing up a series of dirt Forest Service roads. In the investigation folder was a paper map, and now Sharp asked Corrie to navigate, which she did using her cell phone GPS and the map. On the map someone had drawn in pencil the spot where the car went off the road and the location of the cave. Fresh snow had fallen in the high mountains overnight, but the storm had blown over and it was a cold late fall day with a cloudless sky. Soon they were above the snowline, bumping along a terrible road made worse by melting slush. The Tahoe was handling it well, but the ERT van was struggling, which slowed them down.

The piñon and juniper trees had given way to ponderosas, which in turn were replaced by fir and spruce. There were so many branching roads, and so many turns, and it was taking so long, that Corrie began to worry she might have taken a wrong fork somewhere. But she kept her doubts to herself. At least she could see fresh muddy tracks of previous vehicles, which was encouraging.

Finally, they arrived at a spot where the road had been blocked with a berm of earth but with vehicle tracks working their way around it. This had to be the closed road the two subjects had taken. Sharp worked the Tahoe around the berm as well, then waited for the van. In another half mile they arrived at the scene of the crash, where several vehicles were parked: two green National Forest Law Enforcement pickups, the Torrance County sheriff’s truck, and a flatbed wrecker on which sat the crashed Jeep.

Corrie got out of the passenger side, carrying her FBI cell phone and a notepad. She had found the FBI-issued iPad awkward, and she preferred the solidity and permanence of pen and ink. It seemed paper notes were coming back into favor at the FBI, since electronic records could be altered and juries were increasingly suspicious of them.

Sharp shut the driver’s door while the van pulled up. The ERT piled out and started unloading their gear. A man in a sheriff’s uniform came over, hand outstretched to Sharp. “Welcome,” he said. “Deputy Sheriff Baca, Torrance County.”

“Special Agent Clay Sharp.” He shook the deputy’s hand.

“Special Agent Corrine Swanson,” Corrie said, trying to sound crisp and professional. Baca was wearing a cowboy hat, had a big black mustache, and was about forty years old with a genial smile. She looked around to see where the sheriff himself was. This, in turn, reminded Corrie of her friend Sheriff Homer Watts, and she wondered what he was up to. Watts’s county, Socorro, was adjacent to Torrance—they were no doubt all acquainted.

“Glad to meet you both,” said Baca. “And welcome.”

The ERT leader, a big guy named Nate Findlay, came over. Corrie had met him a few times in the office: a wisecracker, but one with a reputation for competence. “Agent Sharp, we’re ready to roll,” he said.

Sharp raised his eyebrows and gestured toward Corrie.

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