Page 65 of Dead Mountain

Sharp had been so quiet during the drive that as they were about to get back in, Corrie turned to him. “Why don’t we switch places so you can talk to Colonel Abecassis for the rest of the trip?” She lowered her voice. “In case you have questions . . .”

She let the sentence trail off as Sharp nodded. “Glad to.”

They got back in, Sharp in the front and Corrie in the rear with the sergeant. Master Sergeant Brickell was an older man, bald with a fringe of gray hair around the sides, cut very short. He had intense blue eyes, a thin mouth, and a taciturn expression—the very image of a soldier.

As the Jeep continued down the road, Sharp and Abecassis chatting in front, Corrie wondered what to say to this old man. “So, you’ve been at Kirtland a long time?”

“All my career,” he said, in a gruff voice that discouraged further questioning.

“What’s your role here?”

“Security.”

“When the Dead Mountain tragedy happened, was there much talk at the base about it?”

“There was talk all over.”

“What do you think happened?” Corrie asked.

At this, Sergeant Brickell seemed to hesitate. “I’ve no idea.”

“But everyone’s got a theory, right?”

“I think they were high.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Kids were always taking drugs back then.”

“Were there rumors at the base about the incident? Is that what people were saying—drugs?”

“There was talk about everything—ignorant talk. Like you said, everyone had their theory.”

They came to the fence corner. The land fell away steeply beyond into a horrific maze of canyons, ravines, arroyos, and knife-edged ridges.

“Whose land is that?” Corrie asked, looking down into it.

“That’s part of the Manzano Wilderness,” Brickell told her. “The colonel mentioned it. Called the Knot, because it’s so twisted up.”

“But what about that valley down there, way on the other side? I can see buildings and a road in.” Her heart leapt: maybe that was where O’Connell was headed.

“Rancho Bonito. A new luxury dude ranch.”

“How new?”

“Four, five years. Built on a private land inholding in the national forest.”

“So it wasn’t there at the time of the tragedy?”

“No.”

Corrie, disappointed, breathed deeply of the cool evergreen air. The sun glistened on the snow, the fir trees sighed in a faint wind, and the eastward plains were etched crisply against the blue sky. Beautiful—but the trip had been a bust. There was no way victim number nine would have been able to navigate those canyons or get up Lagarto Peak. It was now quite evident O’Connell hadn’t come into Kirtland at all. He must have disappeared somewhere in the mountains south of the fence.

Corrie leaned forward to speak with Abecassis. “One other thing—did you hear about the guy who got murdered down in Socorro a couple of days ago?”

The vice commander furrowed her brow. “It’s not ringing a bell.”

“There was a guy killed execution-style, and the papers said he was a longtime civilian employee of Kirtland.”

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