Page 62 of Dead Mountain

“That peak’s our destination,” said O’Hara, checking his phone again. “Two miles. The Kirtland fence goes across the summit.”

“Right,” said Bellamy, panting. “And what exactly are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Caves, overhangs, rocks, any places where the final victim might have tried to shelter.”

“Needle in a haystack,” Bellamy said. “The body could be anywhere in these mountains—or nowhere at all if the coyotes and bears got to it. It’s been fifteen years, for fuck’s sake.”

O’Hara was getting fed up with Bellamy’s complaining, which had been going on since the drive up. “It’s a four-mile round-trip hike—two hours. No big deal.”

“Can you believe they gave a mentee the number two slot on this case?” Bellamy said, as they found their hiking rhythm.

“You mean Agent Swanson?”

“Yeah. Why her? This is a huge case.”

O’Hara didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like engaging with Bellamy on the subject.

“I’ll tell you ‘why her,’” Bellamy went on. “Affirmative action at work. I mean, they’re always making a big deal about getting more female agents, so they take a girl like her and leapfrog her over the rest of us with seniority. She’s, like, barely out of the Academy.”

O’Hara didn’t like this talk at all. It was the kind that could get him and Bellamy in deep shit. He paused and lifted his binoculars, scouring the slopes and looking for any sign of a cave or shelter. The wind was blowing lightly, and the air was bracing. While the ridgetops were bare, snow cornices were piling up on the eastern slopes. The nine hikers had all gone north, but he couldn’t imagine why. There was nothing he could see ahead but more mountains.

“I just don’t think it’s fair, that’s all,” Bellamy grumbled.

It seemed Bellamy just had to have a response, so O’Hara said, “She found the cave with the two bodies, so I don’t think it’s so unusual she was given second slot.”

“Not if she were a guy.”

“Why are you so sure she’s lucky, anyway? If they don’t solve it, she’s screwed. Look what happened to Gold.”

“That was before my time.”

“Dead Mountain ruined his career. He took early retirement.”

“Sharp’s a smart guy, but in my opinion, Swanson’s going to be a drag on him. She has no experience.”

At this, O’Hara glanced back at the two ERT technicians, who were engaged in their own conversation, too far away to hear. Then he looked at Bellamy, keeping his voice low. “You need to be more careful with what you say—you know that?”

“Who’s gonna hear?”

“I am.”

“Don’t tell me you’re offended.”

“I’m getting there.”

Bellamy shook his head. “Sorry. She’s a friend?”

“No.”

“So why the bent nose? I was at the range with her, and she can’t shoot worth shit. This is a serious issue, O’Hara. The FBI’s lowering its standards. It’s a risk to all of us.”

O’Hara knew that career advancement in the FBI was highly dependent on collegiality and maintaining your fellow agents’ regard. For that reason it would not be a good idea to tell Bellamy he was a first-class dickwad. He just wished that up there in the mountains, the guy would shut his trap long enough to allow him some peace and quiet to enjoy the views. The solution, he decided, was to pick up his pace—dramatically.

It worked. Bellamy struggled to keep up, thankfully falling silent as he got too out of breath to engage in small talk. O’Hara stopped from time to time to examine the slopes with his binocs and check his GPS. The ninth victim, if he really got this far north, really didn’t have a choice but to follow the mountain spine, as the slopes fell off so steeply on either side—except a ridge ahead that branched off to the right, curving eastward, that was fairly level. It disappeared behind Lagarto Peak. He took out his phone and looked at the GPS, displaying a USGS topo map of where he was. The ridge sloped downward slightly and went behind the Kirtland AFB property before ending in a warren of savage and impassable canyons, marked on the map as the Knot. If the ninth victim had gone that way, he’d certainly have gotten lost and died in that labyrinth.

He wondered about the ninth victim. It was at night in a blizzard. He must have had a headlamp, otherwise he’d never have gotten anywhere . . . But a headlamp wouldn’t see very far in the snowstorm, which meant that unless there was shelter close to the ridgeline, number nine would not have found it.

He tried to recall the name. Rodney O’Connell—that was it. Irish, like himself. The victim’s family hadn’t been on his interview list, and he wondered if they were still around. He and his wife had just started trying to have a baby, and the thought of their child vanishing into thin air seemed like the worst nightmare in the world.

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