Fordyce was now at one twenty. The car rocked back and forth, the sound of the engine and the rush of air almost drowning out the music. “Hobbies? Interests?”
“He talked a lot about wanting to be a writer. Nothing else that I can think of.”
“Ever write anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“His religious views? I mean, prior to his conversion.”
“I never knew of any.”
“How did he convert?”
“He told me about it once. He rented a powerboat and went out on Abiquiu Lake, north of Los Alamos. I sort of got the impression he was depressed and considering suicide. Anyway, he somehow fell out or jumped out of the boat and found himself drifting away, his heavy clothes dragging him down. He went under a few times. But then, just as he was about to go under for the last time, he says he felt strong arms pulling him out. And he heard a voice in his head. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, I think those were the words.”
“I believe that’s the first line of the Qur’an.”
“He managed to climb back into the boat, which he said had suddenly drifted back toward him as if blown by an unseen wind. It was, in his view, a miracle. As he was driving home, he passed the Al-Dahab Mosque, which is a few miles from Abiquiu Lake. It was a Friday and services were being held. He stopped on a whim, got out, and went into the mosque, where he was welcomed very warmly by the Muslims. He experienced a powerful conversion right on the spot.”
“That’s quite a story.”
Gideon nodded. “He gave away his stuff and started living a very ascetic life. He would pray five times a day. But he did it quietly, he was never in your face about it.”
“Gave away what stuff?”
“Fancy clothes, books, liquor, stereo equipment, CDs and DVDs.”
“Did he evince any other changes?”
“The conversion seemed to do him a world of good. He became a much more adjusted person. Better at work, more focused, no longer depressed. It was a relief to me—he stopped clinging. He really seemed to have found some sort of meaning in his life.”
“Did he ever try to convert you, proselytize?”
“Never.”
“Any problems with his security clearance after he became a Muslim?”
“No. Your religion isn’t supposed to have anything to do with your security clearance. He continued on as before. He’d already lost his top clearance, anyway.”
“Any signs of radicalism?”
“The guy was apolitical, as far as I could tell. No talk of oppression, no tirades against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He shied away from controversy.”
“That’s typical. Don’t draw attention to your views.”
Gideon shrugged. “If you say so.”
“What about the disappearance?”
“Very sudden. He just vanished. Nobody knew where he’d gone.”
“Any changes just before that point?”
“None that I could see.”
“He really fits the pattern,” murmured Fordyce, shaking his head. “It’s almost textbook.”
They came over the rise of La Bajada and Santa Fe lay spread out before them, nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“So that’s it?” said Fordyce, squinting. “I thought it would be bigger.”
“It’s too big already,” said Gideon. “So what’s the next step?”
“A triple espresso. Piping hot.”
Gideon shuddered. He was an inveterate coffee drinker himself, but Fordyce was something else. “You keep guzzling that stuff, you’re going to need a catheter and urine bag.”
“Nah, I’ll just piss on your leg,” Fordyce replied.
15
That evening found them in the Collected Works bookstore on Galisteo Street, their third coffee shop, following Fordyce’s incessant complaints about the quality of coffee in the city. It had been a long afternoon, and Gideon had lost track of how many espressos Fordyce had run through his renal system.
Fordyce drained yet another cup in a single swallow. “Okay, now that’s a coffee. But I gotta tell you, I’m sick of this shit,” he said, smacking the cup down in irritation. “New Mexico’s no better than New York. All we do is stand in line with fifty investigators in front of us picking their noses. We’re twenty-four hours into the investigation and we haven’t done shit. Did you get a good look at that mosque?”
“It couldn’t have been more overrun if bin Laden appeared there, raised from the dead with his seventy-two virgins.”
Their first stop had been a detour past Chalker’s mosque, for which they were still awaiting official access. The large golden dome had been a quarter mile deep in official vehicles, countless lightbars flashing. Their request to gain access, like all their requests, had disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole.
After the chaos of New York City, Gideon was disturbed to find Santa Fe also in an uproar. While there wasn’t quite the naked panic here that was gripping New York City, there was a strong sense of impending doom lying over a city in turmoil.
New York, Gideon had to admit, had been on another scale. They had barely escaped La Guardia early that morning. The airport was packed with panicked people, most of whom had arrived even without tickets, trying to get out, anywhere would do. It was a scene of hideous chaos. Fordyce had only managed to get them seats on a plane by ramming his FBI credentials down everyone’s throats and, on top of that, finagling sky marshal duty on the flight to Albuquerque.
Gideon sipped his coffee as Fordyce groused. The “liaising” in Albuquerque hadn’t helped at all. In addition to being frozen out of the mosque, they were unable to access Chalker’s house, his office up at Los Alamos, his colleagues, or any other person or place of interest. Investigative gridlock had taken hold even out here, with NEST and its cronies given first crack at everything, all the other government agencies jockeying into position in the queue behind. Even the regular FBI was making little headway against the bureaucratic headwind—only those agents detailed to NEST. On top of that, their little escapade back in Queens—getting into Chalker’s apartment—had evidently come to Dart’s attention. Fordyce had gotten a frosty message from the man’s office.
As Fordyce got up to visit the men’s room, the red-haired waitress came back around and offered Gideon a refill. “Does he want one?” she asked.
“Nah, better not, he’s wired enough. You can lay one on me, though.” He gave her his most winning smile and pushed his cup forward.
She refilled his cup with a smile of her own.
“More cream?”
“Only if you recommend cream.”
“Well, I like cream in my coffee.”
“Then I do, too. And sugar. Lots of it.”
Her smile deepened. “How much do you want?”
“Don’t stop until I say so.”
Fordyce came back to the table. He looked from Gideon to the waitress and back again. And then, as he seated himself, he asked Gideon: “Those antibiotic shots doing anything for your chancres?”
The waitress hurried off. Gideon turned on him. “What the hell?”
“We’re working. You can chat up waitresses on your own time.”
Gideon sighed. “You’re cramping my style.”
“Style?” Fordyce snorted. “And another thing: You need to lose the black jeans and sneakers. You look like a damn over-the-hill punk rocker. It’s unprofessional and it’s part of our problem.”
“You forget, we didn’t bring luggage.”
“Well, tomorrow I hope you’ll dress properly. If you don’t mind me saying.”
“I do mind, in fact,” Gideon said. “Better than looking like Mr. Quantico.”
“What’s wrong with Mr. Quantico?”
“You think looking like a hard-ass FBI agent is going to open doors, get people to relax, talk to you? I don’t think so.”