The Narrows

CHAPTER 9

Rachel Walling rode the escalator down into the cavernous baggage pickup area at McCarran International. She had carried her luggage during the journey from South Dakota but the airport was designed so that every passenger had to go this way. The escalator landing area was crowded with people waiting. Limo drivers held signs with the names of their clients, others just held up signs that announced the names of hotels or casinos or tour companies. The cacophony rising from the room assaulted her as she descended. It was nothing like the airport where she had started her travels that morning.

Cherie Dei was going to meet her. Rachel had not seen the fellow FBI agent in four years and that was only a brief interaction in Amsterdam. It had been eight years since she had really spent any kind of time with her and she wasn't sure she would recognize her or that she would be recognized herself.

It didn't matter. As she searched the sea of faces and signs it was a sign that caught her eye. BOB BACKUS

The woman holding it was smiling at her. Her idea of a joke. Rachel approached, without returning the smile.

Cherie Dei had reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was attractive and trim with a good smile, her eyes still with a lot of light in them. Rachel thought she looked more like the mother of a couple of Catholic school kids than a serial killer hunter.

Dei extended her hand. They shook and Dei proffered the sign.

"I know, bad joke, but I knew it would get your attention."

"Yes, it did."

"Did you have a long layover in Chicago?"

"A few hours. Not much choice flying out of Rapid City. Denver or Chicago. I like the food better at O'Hare."

"Do you have bags?"

"No, just this. We can go."

Rachel was carrying one bag-a midsize duffel. She had packed only a few changes of clothing. Dei pointed toward one of the banks of glass doors and they headed that way.

"We got you in at the Embassy Suites where the rest of us are staying. We almost didn't but they had a cancellation. The town is crowded because of the fight."

"What fight?"

"I don't know. Some super heavyweight or junior middleweight boxing match at one of the casinos. I didn't pay attention. I just know it's the reason this place gets so crowded." Rachel knew that Cherie was talking because she was nervous. She didn't know the reason for this, whether anything had happened or it was simply because Rachel had to be handled carefully in this situation.

"If you want we can go to the hotel, get you settled in there. You could even take some time to rest if you want. There's a meeting later at the FO. You could start there if-"

"No. I'd like to go to the scene."

They stepped through the automatic glass doors and Rachel felt the dry Nevada air. It wasn't at all as hot as she'd expected and packed for. It was cool and crisp, even in the direct sun. She took out her sunglasses and decided the jacket she had worn to the airport in South Dakota would be needed here. It was stuffed into her bag.

"Rachel, the scene is two hours from here. Are you sure you-"

"Yes. Take me there. I'd like to start there."

"Start what?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is that he wants me to start."

This seemed to give Dei pause. She didn't respond. They walked into the parking garage and found her car-a government Crown Vic so dirty that it looked like it was in desert camouflage.

Once they were driving, Dei took out a cell phone and made a call. Rachel heard her tell someone-probably her boss or partner or the scene supervisor-that she had picked up the package and would be taking it to the scene. There was a long pause as the person she'd called responded at length. Then she said good-bye and hung up. "You are cleared to the scene, Rachel, but you have to step back. You're here as an observer, okay?"

"What are you talking about? I'm an FBI agent, same as you."

"But you're not in Behavioral anymore. This is not your case."

"You're saying I am here because Backus wants me here, not you people."

"Rachel, let's try to get off to a better start than we did in Am-"

"Anything new come up so far today?"

"We're up to ten bodies now. They think that's going to be it At least for this location."

"IDs?"

"They're getting there. What they have is tentative but they're putting it all together."

"Is Brass Doran at the scene?"

"No, she is in Quantico. She's work-"

"She should be here. Don't you people know what you've got here? She-"

"Whoa, Rachel, slow down, okay? Let's get something straight here. I'm the case agent on this, okay? You are not running this investigation. This is not going to work if you confuse that."

"But Backus is talking to me. He called me out"

"And that's why you are here. But you aren't calling the shots, Rachel. You have to stand to the side and watch. And I have to tell you I don't like how this is starting out. This isn't Driving Miss Rachel. You mentored me but that was ten years ago. I've now been in Behavioral longer than you ever were and I've booked more cases than you ever did. So don't talk down to me and don't act like my mentor or my mother."

Rachel didn't respond at first and then she simply asked Dei to pull over so she could get her jacket out of her bag, which was in the trunk. Dei pulled into the Travel America on Blue Diamond Road and popped the trunk.

When Rachel got back into the car she was wearing a baggy black all-weather coat that looked like it might have been designed for a man. Dei didn't say anything about it.

"Thanks," Rachel said. "And you're right. I apologize. I guess you get like me when it turns out your boss-your mentor-is the same evil thing you've been hunting all your life. And they punish you for it."

"I understand that, Rachel. But it wasn't just Backus. It was a lot of things. The reporter, some of the choices you made. Some people say you were lucky you still had a job at the end of it"

Rachel's face grew hot. She was being reminded that she was one of the bureau's embarrassments. Even within the ranks. Even with the agent she had mentored. She had slept with a reporter working on her case. That was the shorthand version. It didn't matter that it was a reporter who was actually a part of the case, who was working with Rachel side by side and hour by hour. The shorthand version would always be the story that agents heard and whispered about. A reporter. Was there a lower breach in agent behavior and etiquette? Maybe a mobster or a spy, but nothing else.

"Five years in North Dakota followed by a promotion to South Dakota," she said weakly. "Yeah, I was lucky all right." "Look, I know you paid the price. My point is that you have to know your place here. Use some finesse. A lot of people are watching this case. If you play it right it could be your ticket back in."

"Got it."

"Good."

Rachel reached down to the side of her seat and adjusted it so she could lean back.

"How long did you say?" she asked.

"About two hours. We've been using choppers from Nellis mostly, saves a lot of time."

"Hasn't drawn attention?"

She was asking about the media, whether news of the investigation in the desert had leaked yet.

"We've had a few fires to put out but so far it is holding up. The scene is in California and we're working it out of Nevada. I think that has somehow kept the lid on. To be honest, there are some people worried about you now."

Rachel thought about Jack McEvoy, the reporter, for a moment.

"Nobody has to worry," she said. "I don't even know where he is."

"Well, if this thing finally hits the radar, you can expect to see him. He wrote a bestselling book on the first go-round. I guarantee he'll be back for the sequel."

Rachel thought about the book she had been reading on the plane and that was now in her bag. She wasn't sure whether it was the subject or the author that had drawn her to read it so many times.

"Probably."

She left it at that and pulled her jacket around her shoulders and folded her arms. She was tired, not having slept since getting the call from Dei.

She leaned her head against the side window and pretty soon she was out. Her dream of darkness returned. But this time she was not alone. She could not see anyone because she could only see blackness. But she sensed another presence. Someone close but not necessarily someone with her. She moved and turned in the darkness, trying to see who it was. She reached out but her hands touched nothing.

She heard a moaning sound and then realized it was her own voice from deep in her throat. Then she was grabbed. Something had her and shook her very hard.

Rachel opened her eyes. She saw the freeway rushing at her through the windshield. Cherie Dei let go of her jacket.

"You all right? This is the exit."

Rachel looked up at a passing green freeway sign.

ZZYZX ROAD

I MILE

She straightened up in the seat. She checked her watch and realized she had slept for over ninety minutes. Her neck was stiff and painful on the right side from leaning so long against the window. She started working it with her fingers, digging deeply into the muscle.

"You all right?" Dei asked again. "Sounded like you were having a bad one."

"I'm fine. What did I say?" "Nothing. You just sort of moaned. I think you were running from something or something had you."

Dei hit the blinker and turned into the exit lane. Zzyzx Road appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. At the top of the exit there was nothing, not even a gas station or even an abandoned structure. There was no visible reason for the exit or the road.

"We're over here."

Dei turned left and took the overpass across the freeway. Once off the overpass the road disintegrated into an unpaved trail that wound south and down into the flat basin of the Mojave. The landscape was stark. The white soda on the surface of the flats looked like snow in the distance. Joshua trees reached their bony fingers toward the sky and smaller plants wedged themselves between the rocks. It was a still life. Rachel had no idea what sort of animal might be able to subsist in such a barren place.

They passed a sign that said they were headed toward Soda Springs and then the road curved and Rachel could suddenly see the white tents and RVs and vans and other vehicles ahead. She could see a military green helicopter, its blades still, parked to the left of the encampment Further past the encampment there was a complex of small buildings set at the base of the hills. It looked like a roadside motel but there were no signs and no road.

"What is this place?" Rachel asked.

"This is Zzyzx," Dei said, pronouncing it zie-zix. "As far as I can tell, it is the asshole of the universe. Some radio preacher named it and built it sixty years ago. He got control of the land by promising the government he would be prospecting. He paid winos from skid row in L.A. to do that while he went on the radio and called on the faithful to come here to bathe in the spring waters and guzzle the mineral waters he bottled. It took the Bureau of Land Management twenty-five years to get rid of him. The place was then turned over to the state university system for desert studies."

"Why here? Why did Backus bury them here?"

"Far as we can guess is because it is federal land. He wanted to make sure we-meaning you, probably- worked the case. If that's what he wanted, he got it. It's a major excavation. We've had to bring in our own power, shelter, food, water, everything."

Rachel said nothing. She was studying everything, from the crime scene to the distant horizon of gray mountain ridges that enclosed the basin. She didn't agree with Dei's take on the place. She had heard the coastline of Ireland described as a terrible beauty. She thought that the desert with its barren lunar landscape was in its own way beautiful, too. There was a harsh beauty to it. A dangerous beauty. She had never spent much time in the desert, but her years in the Dakotas had given her an appreciation for harsh places, the empty landscapes where people were the intruders. That was her secret. She had what the bureau called a "hardship posting." It was designed to wear her down and make her quit. But she had beaten them at this game. She could last forever there. She would not quit.

Dei slowed as they approached a checkpoint set up about a hundred yards before the tents. A man in a blue jumpsuit with the white letters FBI on the breast pocket stood beneath a beach-type tent with open sides. The desert winds were threatening to tear it from its moorings, just as they had already played havoc with the agent's hair.

Dei lowered the window. She didn't bother to give her own name or identification. She was a given. She gave the man Rachel's name and identified her as a "visiting agent," whatever that meant.

"Is she cleared with Agent Alpert?" he asked, his voice as dry and flat as the desert basin behind him.

"Yes, she's cleared."

"Okay, then. I just need her credentials."

Rachel handed over her ID wallet. The agent wrote down her serial number and handed it back.

"FromQuantico?"

"No, South Dakota."

He gave her a look, the kind that said he knew she was a fuckup.

"Have fun," he said as he turned to go back to his tent.

Dei moved the car forward, raising her window, leaving the agent in a cloud of dust.

"He's from the Vegas FO," she said. "They're not too happy about things, playing second string."

"So what's new?"

"Exactly."

"Is Alpert the SAC?'

"That's him."

"What's he like?"

"Well, remember your theory about agents being either morphs or empaths?"

"Yes."

"He'samorph."

Rachel nodded.

They came to a little cardboard sign taped to a branch of a Joshua tree. It said vehicles and had an arrow pointing to the right. Dei turned and they parked last in a row of four equally dirty Crown Vies.

"What about you?" Rachel asked. "Which did you turn out to be?"

Dei didn't answer.

"You ready for this?" she asked Rachel instead.

"'Absolutely. I've been waiting four years for another shot at him. This is where it starts."

She cracked the door and stepped out into the bright desert sun. She felt at home.