Free Fall (48 page)

Beamon checked his speed again and forced himself to ease off the gas and let Darby's old truck coast to just under the speed limit. He'd been driving nonstop since he'd sneaked without incident from the Middle-of-Nowhere, Wyoming, hospital Darby'd taken him to. What he didn't need was for some state trooper to pull them over and shine a flashlight in Darby's face. That story was getting too long to go into.

With his right arm in a sling, he had to steer with his knees in order to reach the half-full beer balanced on the dashboard. Swallowing was almost more trouble than it was worth due to the inexplicable lump swelling from the inside of his cheek. He wasn't sure how the washing machine action of the avalanche had left that particular injury, but it was becoming increasingly clear that no part of his body had been left unbattered. Miraculously, most of the damage looked like it would heal.

Darby had offered--insisted--that he climb into the makeshift bed in the back of the truck and let her drive, but he'd declined. Driving always calmed him down and helped him think.

It had been an unusual couple of days, to say the least. His night in the Wyoming mountains had been an experience he hoped never to repeat.

Bitter cold, dizzying darkness, the wind's constant scream as it blew across the entrance to the tiny cave Darby had dug out for him.

He had tried to sleep, but found it impossible. In the end, his exhaustion might have actually been able to overcome his body's busy little pain receptors, but it had refused to overcome the drop in temperature. All he could do was lay there, huddled in the sleeping bag, adjusting his position at least once every five seconds to ease his shivering and keep his circulation going.

He'd spent the first few hours of sleeplessness creating elaborate scenarios that would prevent Darby from coming back for him: another slide, her freezing to death, the interference of Vili Marcek, alien abduction. It hadn't taken long for that to get depressing, though, so he'd forced himself to focus on what he was going to do now that the Prodigy file was undoubtedly making its way into David Hallorin's capable hands.

As it turned out, dwelling on the fact that he'd allowed himself to be stripped of the one thing that could keep him and Darby alive was even more depressing.

When the black cold surrounding him started to glow yellow with the coming dawn, he'd crawled outside the snow cave, leaned his back against a rock outcropping, and let the light of the rising sun soak into his chest. He could still feel the sunburn he'd suffered through the bruises and swelling on his face.

When the sound of a snowmobile engine had started to reflect off the silent mountains around him, he still hadn't the faintest idea what they were going to do. And despite the fact that he'd been hurtling toward Washington, D. C." at just under the speed limit for nine hours now, he still didn't.

Beamon looked over at Darby and saw that she had slumped down in the passenger seat and wrapped herself in her sleeping bag. He reached over and gently slid the empty beer bottle from her hand and propped it next to the small cooler at her feet. She stirred and then settled even deeper into the bag.

He was getting kind of worried about her. The dark circles under her eyes were taking on a noticeably green hue against the tan of her skin, and she'd been through at least a six-pack in the last two hours. She seemed to have learned to cope with Tristan's death, but the memory of her friends Lori and Sam was much fresher. Guilt was tearing her apart.

One problem at a time, Beamon reminded himself.

Steering with his knees again, he dialed the number of Gerald Reys's office into his cell phone for the tenth time that night. And for the tenth time, he turned the phone off before it started ringing.

His deadline to take Reys's deal and do some jail time in return for his pension had expired the day before. Reys was undoubtedly delighted, and Beamon doubted there was anything he could do or say to stop a full criminal prosecution at this point. The best he'd been able to come up with was a half-assed bluff that involved subtly mentioning Tom Sherman's offer of unlimited legal defense funds. The problems with that were twofold: first, he'd never take a dime from a friend though Reys didn't know that. And second, it felt too much like begging. Maybe being trapped in a snow cave and then in a hospital was the gods' way of telling him not to take the deal.

"Karma," he said quietly to himself, and then shook his head. Five days with Darby Moore and he was already using words like "karma."

"What?" Darby's groggy voice.

"Did you say something?" She adjusted herself to a position that allowed her to see the side of his face, but didn't fully emerge from the sleeping bag.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

"How do you feel, Mark?" she said, immediately reaching into the cooler at her feet and pulling out a fresh beer.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live."

She dug a bottle of ibuprofen out of the glove box and poured four into her hand.

"Climber's candy. Open up." He did, and she dropped them in his mouth, then held her beer up so that he could wash them down without taking his good hand off the wheel.

"Have you figured out what we're going to do yet?"

"Still working on it."

She nodded silently and started in on her beer.

"Have you figured out what they're going to do?"

Beamon didn't look over at her, but continued to concentrate on the section of road cut from the darkness by the truck's headlights.

"If I'm right about there being something on Taylor in that file, it isn't real hard to guess."

"You think David Hallorin's going to release it to the press?"

Beamon started to reach for his beer, but Darby beat him to it and held it for him while he took a gulp.

"Thanks. I doubt it. Notice how Hallorin's been so respectful to the Republicans during the campaign and how that's forced them not to go heavily negative on him?"

Darby shrugged and shook her head.

"Take my word for it. No, I'm guessing that he'll get Taylor to drop out and endorse him. There are only four days till the election the Republicans will still be fighting with each other about what to do when Hallorin's picking out a color scheme for the Oval Office."

"What about the other people in the file? Tristan said there were lots of them."

Beamon shrugged.

"If there's anybody else worth blackmailing in it, I imagine Hallorin'll contact them as he needs them."

She thought about that while she finished her beer and reached for another.

"Where does that leave us?"

"I don't know." That was a lie. It left them screwed. It left Darby a young woman whose corpse was necessary to end the investigation into Tristan Newberry's death and Beamon a man who, if left alive, might find a way to continue his recent success at toppling America's political elite.

Darby sat staring out the side window of the truck for a long time, concentrating on the darkness as if there was something to find there.

"How could you kill for this?" she said finally.

Beamon took his eyes off the road for moment and looked over at her.

"For what?"

"Power... money ..."

He let out a short laugh that the swelling in his mouth turned into a snort.

"If you were to throw in love, you've pretty much covered all the reasons people kill."

Beamon glanced over at her again and could see from her expression that she was giving his words more thought than they probably deserved.

"I guess I'll just never understand," she said.

"If you're right about all this, three of my friends three human beings are gone because of David Hallorin. They were happy, they had families, they never hurt any body. What could possibly make him think that he had the right to take away the rest of their lives? For nothing."

"I don't know if I'd call becoming the leader of the free world nothing, Darby."

"Really? What if he does win? In a few years, he'll just be one of the presidents between Washington and whoever's in office that kids can't remember on their history tests. When he dies, people will get up in the morning and have breakfast, and go to work, and watch their children play baseball just like they did the day before. I mean, look at me. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I may be the best woman climber who ever lived. But someday, not very long from now, I'll just be a footnote in a few guidebooks there'll be girls warming up on the hardest things I ever did. But that's good. Life moves on. That's the way it's supposed to be." Beamon sighed quietly, wondering what Darby would think of the way he'd lived his own life. Probably better that he didn't know.

"I under stand what you're saying, but I think most people see it differently. There are a lot of people out there who would consider becoming the president of the United States a fair shot at immortality."

She took a thoughtful sip of her beer.

"I know you're right. Do you ever watch TV when people trying to get elected make speeches?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Have you ever noticed the people in the audience? How they cheer and wave their signs like this man or woman cares about them individually?

Like their lives are going to be changed by this person?" She turned fully to face him, lifting her feet onto the seat and propping them against his leg.

"I mean, come on. When's the last time the government actually did something that really made a difference in your life?"

"I might be a bad example, but I get your point."

"Everyone is responsible for their own happiness, Mark. No one can give it to you."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she dropped her empty beer bottle onto the floorboard and went for another one. Her voice was starting to lose the bitterness it had earlier in favor of a mellow monotone. Even though he knew it was purely alcohol induced, he decided that it suited her much better.

"You're not married, are you, Mark?" she said after a long silence.

"Married? No. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

"Actually, there's a woman back home that probably would marry me, though, if I was smart enough to ask her. Near as I can tell, it's her only character flaw."

"Is that a joke?"

"Nope. You probably think I'm here hiding out with you because of the ten guys with machine guns you've got waiting for me at my house.

Not true. It's because I dumped my girlfriend and now I'm afraid of her."

"How long had you been together?"

"Long time."

She concentrated on the side of his face for a few moments.

"You love her, don't you?"

He didn't answer immediately.

"I guess I do."

"Then why did you dump her?"

He shrugged.

"She just ... didn't seem to fit into my life right now, you know what I mean?"

Darby nodded slowly.

"I'm sorry to say that I do."

In his peripheral vision, Beamon could see a mellow smile spreading across her face the first real one since he'd met her.

"Would you like some advice?"

"Relationship advice from the only person I've ever met who's more career-obsessed than I am?"

She pursed her lips and affected an exaggerated frown.

"A piece of timeless wisdom that I found carved into the wall of a forgotten monastery in southern Cambodia. I'm probably the only white person on the planet that has this knowledge, you know."

"What knowledge is that?"

She tilted her bottle up and drained the rest of it, looking more than a little unsteady when she tossed the empty on the floor.

"A foolproof test to see if you've found your soul mate."

"Don't keep me hanging."

"People have spent their entire lives searching for this one fundamental truth."

"You're killing me, here."

"You need only answer one simple question to ensure that you've found the right person."

"Yeah?"

"If she were a guy, would you still hang out with her?"

Beamon looked over at her and rolled his eyes.

"Southern Cambodia, huh."

"As far as you know."

Mark Beamon took a seat against the wall, as ordered, and studied the scene around him. The level of activity was more controlled than he'd expected, more dignified. Two days before the general election, the people staffing Senator Robert Taylor's campaign headquarters looked like they'd already won, blissfully unaware that David Hallorin still had one last trick up his sleeve.

Beamon still couldn't believe that this was the best plan his mind could concoct. He'd wasted too much time focusing on the all-important file--and more specifically how to get it back. That had been a dead end, though. After all the pain Hallorin had inflicted to get it, he wasn't going to leave it on his kitchen table next to a glass of warm milk and cookies.

He was going to shove it in a concrete-and-steel safe and bury it fifty feet underground.