Fear

by Jeff Abbott

  The spectacular scenery as they drove along the winding narrow road that led toward Bridalveil Falls sickened her. Valley and rock tumbled away to their left; mountain rose on their right, studded with evergreens. The vastness of the blue sky, the sheer openness, nearly overwhelmed her. God could see her. Brian could see her. She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself. She’d made it farther than she had thought possible; she could cope. She must.

  ‘I bet a week ago you wouldn’t have thought you’d be in California, Celeste,’ Nathan said. Excited now, confident, but not quiet. Manic.

  ‘No, Nathan, I sure didn’t think so.’

  ‘The mountains, the valleys. All shaped from broken rock pushed and pulled over millions of years, under unimaginable force. Beauty out of pressure. Just like us.’

  ‘Not like us,’ Celeste said.

  ‘If you need proof Frost fixes you, look at Celeste,’ Nathan said. ‘Yosemite would be an agoraphobe’s nightmare, and she’s holding it together.’

  ‘You aren’t the guy I believed you were,’ Celeste said.

  ‘You misjudge Nathan,’ Dodd said. ‘He’s a hero.’

  ‘He wants to be one and you’ve taken advantage of him,’ she said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Nathan said. ‘Frost is going to help every soldier coming back from war, for years. No more suicides. No more broken marriages, no more inability to fit back into regular life. None of what I went through. The whole country will be grateful.’

  ‘I know, Nathan.’ Celeste kept her voice steady. ‘But kidnapping and threatening to kill Groote’s kid, is that heroic, Nathan?’

  He swallowed hard. ‘He saved your life, Celeste, so you shut up now.’

  Dodd said, ‘I never used the word kill, Mrs. Brent. I’m not a monster and I resent the implication. I have no desire to hurt you or Amanda Groote.’

  ‘You get Frost, what happens to us?’

  ‘You can be in a testing program. A legitimate one we can make public when the drug works. And I can arrange for you to reenter public life, given your disappearance from Santa Fe. We’ll say you simply checked yourself into a clinic after Allison’s death. It won’t be hard. If you can keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘And if I don’t, you kill me.’

  ‘You were much more diplomatic on TV.’ Dodd sounded amused. ‘Are you going to speak out about how Frost was born, ruin it for millions of other people?’

  Celeste ignored him. ‘Groote.’ She tapped his leg until he looked at her. ‘What’s wrong with your daughter that she needs Frost?’

  ‘Like you would care.’

  ‘I might,’ Celeste said. ‘She’s not you.’

  Groote put his eyes back to the mountains’ rise, the last slivers of snow still in shadow. Celeste could not pity him, exactly, but with his broken nose, his bruised and razor-sliced face, and his frayed gaze Groote looked as if he had gone to fight a hundred wars for his child and lost them all. Such a man did not stop. He did not quit. She was afraid Groote still had more fight in him. Or perhaps he needed Frost himself, she thought with a jolt. Dodd might have forced Groote into that hinterland of sanity where she had wandered after Brian’s death, lost, alone, with no map to guide her home.

  Groote ignored Celeste Brent’s question – he would never discuss his baby girl with these nutcases – and thought, Dodd doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Allison had both the research and the buyers’ list. He thinks she just stole the research. They don’t know about the second auction Sorenson mentioned. They haven’t put the whole picture together on what that bastard Sorenson’s doing. The two crazies didn’t seem to know, either, or seem to care.

  He had a trump card, value to trade for Amanda, and he knew he had to wait for the right second to play it. A deal of sorts was brewing between Miles and Dodd, and this was exactly the info that could change the deal in his favor, in Amanda’s favor. Dodd was nothing more than a smug bureaucrat who thought he was running the show. Dodd was dead wrong, Groote knew, if he could just keep his nerve.

  He promised himself he’d bring Amanda to this mountain paradise someday, whole and healthy. The fresh air would do her a world of good if she wouldn’t be afraid of the winding roads.

  Miles drove through the amazing Yosemite landscape with no eye for beauty. Rising, jutting mountains, clear sky, huge pines. Spectacular, but he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. Wallace sat next to him.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ Miles said.

  ‘She was… tough.’

  ‘It’s not what I expected you to say.’

  ‘It’s what comes to mind,’ Wallace said.

  Miles edged over to the right as a motorcycle drew up to them, passed them, a young man with a heavy pack mounted behind him, glancing at them as he sped past.

  Wallace said, ‘She grew up poor. Went to college on full scholarship, had med and grad schools fighting over her. Bright beyond belief. Great at reading people, telling them what they wanted to hear …’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about her helping people.’

  ‘Did she help you?’

  ‘Yes. I thought for a while she was the only one would could.’

  ‘She was good at making people think she was the cure, all right,’ Wallace said, staring out the window.

  ‘She wasn’t?’

  ‘No one doctor is the Holy Grail,’ Wallace said. ‘But patients want to believe it of their doctors, and doctors indulge the fantasy. She liked being needed.’

  A sign announced Bridalveil on their left. Miles steered the car into a parking slot.

  ‘You stick close to me,’ Miles said.

  ‘I thought you didn’t trust me.’

  ‘I don’t. But the point is to come to agreement, and all of us walk away, no problems. You included.’

  They got out of the car and started to hike toward the falls. The trail to Bridalveil led up a series of terraced steps. White water cascaded in fury down a creek, topped with froth. The roar of the falls increased as they approached; the snowmelt gave way in torrents under the early May sun. Now Miles could see the top of the falls, jetting down, the mist rising from impact, the water almost dancing with the strong wind that swept through the valley.

  They headed right, toward the falls themselves, walking along the raging creek of cascading snowmelt. There wasn’t much of a crowd this early in the season; Miles saw a trio of Japanese tourists; an elderly couple with a decided spring in their step, leaning on each other, smiling; a young couple staring up at the falls with worshipful rapture.

  He saw Nathan, smiling, jumpy, excited. Then Celeste, her lips and nose bruised, her face pale.

  A tightness grabbed his chest.

  Groote stood next to her – his face was a mess; the tourists passing stared at him, then put their eyes to the waterfall or the trail when Groote returned their looks – and an older man stood next to him. The man was built tall and wiry, balding, with a thin, intelligent face. He wore jeans, a black coat, boots.

  They waited at a widening in the trail, a juncture where visitors could observe both the falls and the swollen rivulet that surged away from the falls’ base. The roar of the falls increased and now Miles felt Bridalveil’s kiss on his face, his hands; he would be soaked if he stood in the mist for ten minutes.

  ‘Hello, Miles. It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ the man said. ‘Edward.’

  ‘Dodd,’ Edward said, ‘I don’t have Frost. I’ve told you the truth.’

  ‘There’s a clearing where it’s not so damp. I’d like to smoke a cigarette. Rocks to sit on, nature’s boardroom.’ Dodd started walking, as though assuming all would follow, and they did.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Miles murmured to Celeste. She nodded, squeezed his arm. He shot a look back at Nathan, who kept a worshipful stare locked on the back of Dodd’s head. They followed him down the soaked stone trail, retreating from the falls, Nathan bringing up the rear. Miles glanced at Groote; Groote met his eyes, gave no expression, no reaction, as though Miles weren’t there.

&nbs
p; Dodd led them across a bridge that spanned the snow-swollen creek. A flat area, covered with boulders, was to their right and Dodd found a rock about chair height. He sat, gestured for Miles and Celeste to sit next to him. Nathan, Groote, and Wallace stood. No other visitors were within hearing and the roar of the falls drowned their conversations from any passing ears.

  ‘A beautiful choice for a meeting place, Miles,’ Dodd said. He lit a cigarette. ‘Nature is so calming.’

  He talked, Miles thought, as though he held every face card. ‘Why is Groote here?’

  ‘He’s working for me now. Not Quantrill.’

  ‘He kidnapped Groote’s kid,’ Celeste said. ‘Blackmailed him into switching sides.’

  ‘Celeste is overdramatizing,’ Dodd said. ‘I made a job offer, he accepted.’

  ‘You clearly have a plan, then,’ Miles said.

  ‘Groote here goes back to Quantrill and steals Frost. I find a place for you and your friends and Doctor Wallace to lie low. When Groote’s got Frost back, then his daughter – and you and Nathan and Celeste – can be in a legitimate program to test Frost and get the help you all need.’ Dodd smiled.

  ‘No strings attached?’ Miles asked.

  ‘A few. I’d prefer you not get back in touch with other… federal authorities. And when you’re feeling better, Miles, maybe I can offer you a more rewarding life than WITSEC ever could. You’re resourceful under difficult circumstances. You could come work for me.’

  ‘What about Celeste? Her face, her name, is known. She’s on the front page of the papers today.’

  ‘I’ll help her resurface. Build a back story. Interest in her will blow over in another week. No offense, Celeste,’ Dodd said with a wink.

  ‘We left a dead man behind in her house.’

  ‘Hurley’s buried,’ Groote said suddenly. ‘I found him, I took care of him.’ He glanced at Miles – an odd look, Miles thought, full of heat.

  ‘Hey, Groote,’ Miles said. Groote looked him in the eye. ‘Dodd thinks you killed his agent. Sorenson.’

  Groote shook his head.

  ‘I don’t care about Sorenson,’ Dodd said.

  ‘You should. If Wallace doesn’t have Frost, I’m sure Sorenson does.’ Miles crossed his arms. ‘What’s he doing with it if he’s not delivering it to you?’

  ‘If you’re so concerned Sorenson’s alive and well and wishing us harm,’ Dodd said, ‘go hunt him down. I get Frost, I don’t care.’

  Miles said, ‘I’m not seeing the powers of persuasion it must have taken for you to talk Nathan into betraying us.’

  ‘I didn’t betray you.’ Nathan’s voice shook.

  ‘Shut up, Nathan. You could have been honest with us at any point. You weren’t. You delivered us to this guy.’

  Nathan said, ‘This was the only way for us to get Frost, be in legit testing, move on with our lives.’

  Miles shook his head at Nathan. ‘Are you really traumatized or you just faking?’

  ‘Everything Nathan endured in Iraq, and afterward, is true,’ Dodd said. ‘He volunteered. He wanted a chance to help his fellow soldiers.’

  ‘Don’t judge me,’ Nathan said. ‘I’m not a criminal.’

  ‘I agree,’ Dodd said. He stood. ‘Celeste, you killed a man, albeit in self-defense, but you fled the scene. Miles, I don’t even want to think about how many laws you’ve broken in pursuit of Frost. Help me and I can make sure none of your crimes haunts you.’ He crushed his cigarette under his heel.

  ‘Or you kill us. Quantrill’s not an idiot; he’ll hide Frost where we’ll never find it.’ Miles stood now, close enough to Dodd to smell the cigarette smoke on the man’s breath. ‘The question you’re dodging is, what is Sorenson going to do with Frost if he has it? Sit on it, take it himself, sell it back to you or to Quantrill or-’

  ‘He’s right,’ Groote said. ‘That would be the question.’

  ‘Answer him,’ Miles said.

  Nathan said, ‘Miles. Step back.’

  ‘What, you’re a bodyguard now?’ Miles said. ‘You were a kid too scared to know what to do in Allison’s house, crying and chained to a bed in that hospital, afraid of mirrors, too scared to be honest with me and Celeste. So shut the hell up, Nathan.’ He decided to test Dodd. ‘Sorenson wanted Nathan dead because he was afraid Nathan knew about him. I’m curious, did Sorenson go after Nathan on your order? Do necessary housecleaning once your operation fell apart?’

  The only answer was the steady roar of the falls and the delighted whoop of a hiker heading up the trail.

  Finally Dodd shook his head. ‘Of course not. I came to help Nathan. And to offer an arrangement to you. So you two can either help me or I can make one call and have you and Celeste under arrest and in jail for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘Not if we tell all we know.’

  ‘I’m talking jail in a foreign country. Shaman was highly classified. You’re in possession of knowledge of top-secret government files. If you had possession of Frost, that’s called treason, son. I can render your asses to Morocco or Pakistan and that’s all they wrote. I don’t think those are the kinds of walls you want surrounding you, Celeste.’ He shrugged and offered a negotiator’s smile. ‘Listen, I don’t want to pull out big guns. But you either cooperate or you don’t. The choice is yours.’

  Miles looked up at the boulder opposite him, and Andy and Allison both sat, as though they’d been hiking through the trails and needed to rest.

  ‘Choice is interesting. Choice helps you pull and tug apart at a theory,’ Miles said. ‘Why, I wonder, did Wallace make the choice to stay and wait for you? Let’s say he got the Frost files when Allison hid them and then covered his tracks, and he’s lying about the files being destroyed. No reason for him to stay and take the heat from you. He could run and vanish. He’s got a commodity worth millions.’

  ‘Innocent men don’t run,’ Wallace said.

  ‘I gave him an order to stay,’ Dodd said.

  ‘Yes, and to shoot me. He’s scared shitless of you. But I think someone else gave him an order to stay and to draw you close.’

  Dodd turned to Wallace, and Miles saw the blood spray first from Dodd’s chest, sudden and heart-red, then from Wallace’s throat, across Groote and Celeste as the booms broke through the rush of the falls. Another boom and a third bullet chocked through Wallace’s chest in a puff of flesh and red.

  Miles shoved Celeste, knocking her behind the boulder as two more whistling shots pierced the air inches above his head. Nathan froze in shock and then Miles barreled into him, finding cover behind a rock.

  Eight more shots. Groote lay flat, caught between two boulders, and he tried to raise his head and a bullet pinged off the stone. Tourists and hikers near them scrambled in blind panic, unsure where the shots were coming from, a woman was screaming, a man seized his young daughter and retreated behind an outcropping of boulders on the other side of the walk bridge.

  Then nothing. Miles counted to fifty, listening to sounds of frantic running, his own heart seeming to pound hard enough to crack bone. He dragged Wallace’s body behind the boulder, raised the dead man’s head.

  It didn’t get shot off. He eased Wallace to the ground.

  Dodd lay in a dead sprawl, eyes open, his chest punctured by two rounds.

  Miles grabbed Celeste. ‘Come on.’

  ‘We have to go…’ Nathan said.

  ‘Stay with your boss,’ Miles spat.

  ‘No, Miles, please… don’t leave me.’ Nathan pointed at Groote, who risked a dash, running toward Dodd’s body. ‘He’ll kill me…’

  ‘Come on, Nathan, it’s okay,’ Celeste said. But Miles watched Groote stop, search Dodd’s body…

  A gun. Dodd must have a gun.

  But what Groote was pulling from Dodd’s pocket was a cell phone.

  ‘Groote-’ Celeste started.

  ‘He knows where my kid is, he called someone to move her, I got to have his call log, I got to find her,’ Groote screamed. But he stuck his hand back in Dodd�
��s jacket.

  Gun, Miles thought. He knocked Groote down with a hard fist to the nose – the weak point – and Groote brayed in pain. Miles wrenched the gun free and he and Celeste and Nathan ran, Miles sure another bullet would zoom from the sniper’s gun. But no more shots. The sniper was gone. Or simply waiting for them to reach the parking lot.

  ‘My kid! Where’s my kid? Nathan! Where’s my kid?’ Groote roared behind them.

  They hurried down the now-empty path toward the parking lot, past cowering hikers, one of them screaming futilely into a cell phone, useless in the confines of the valley. The recent rainfall hadn’t drained well from the parking lot and they raced through ankle-high water toward Blaine’s car.

  Miles started the car, peeled it out of the parking lot, revved onto the road. ‘Get down, both of you,’ he said; they were in the backseat. One road out; he spun out onto it, heading south, the way they’d come.

  He tried to think. The gunshots had come from across the road, close to the river, where there was a stopping point to admire the grandeur of the sheer rock face of El Capitan.

  Sorenson. He’d gotten Wallace to get Dodd running to Fish Camp, probably planning to eliminate them both. And then Miles and company and Groote were pulled into the trap as well.

  A motorcycle wheeled up behind them and the back windshield exploded.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  To Miles’s left rose mountain; to his right the land fell away to valley, either precipitous rocky drops or rolling meadows down to the Merced River. The road was two lanes, one each way, and now cars on the opposite side veered to the shoulder as Miles swerved to shake the cyclist. No cars ahead of him; Miles floored the accelerator. The shooter on the motorcycle stayed close.

  Miles saw the man’s face in the rearview – not Sorenson, not a face he recognized. Raising a heavy pistol again.

  ‘Stay down!’ he screamed at Celeste and Nathan.

  He had nowhere to go. Mountain on one side, air on the other. He couldn’t shake the guy.