“Thank you, Dr. Mason.”
“You’re welcome, Agent Swanson.”
As they left the office, Corrie was relieved Lime didn’t bring up her getting sick. Instead, she herself brought up Nora’s call the previous morning about the missing scientist, Bitan. She’d intended to mention it during their initial meeting, but with everything else going on it had fallen between the cracks.
“Missing?” Lime said. “Did she mention the circumstances?”
“He was about five miles north of their camp, looking for an outlying site, and vanished into the desert.”
“And they’re concerned?”
“Not concerned so much as angry. From what I can tell, they suspect he was working for some other group or possibly Israeli intelligence—and once he had what he wanted, he’d arranged to be picked up far from camp.”
“Anything else I should know?”
Corrie hesitated. “I spoke to Sheriff Homer Watts of Socorro County. I’ve worked with him before, and he seemed the right person to contact. He said he’d talk to the sheriff of Chaves County, where the dig’s located—one Randall Buford.” She didn’t think Lime needed to know she’d had breakfast with Watts a few hours earlier—as it was, he already knew more than he probably wanted to about that meal.
“And how would you like to proceed?”
“I’d like to talk to Dr. Kelly again,” Corrie said. “Get more information. Maybe we need to go back out there ourselves.”
She found Lime contemplating her with amused skepticism. “You sure that’s the right course of action?”
Corrie looked back at him.
“Do you really think a recent disappearance could be connected to a homicide from the forties? If so, I’d like to hear your theory how.”
She paused. “I see your point.”
“And what is my point?”
“That not everything is connected to everything else. This disappearance probably has nothing to do with the double homicide.”
He smiled. “I’ll never be the mentor Agent Morwood was, but I’m trying. That’s exactly right: since the disappearance of this Bitan is almost certainly not connected to your case, and because it’s merely a missing-persons issue, it’s been turned over to the rightful investigative body: the Chaves County Sheriff’s Office. Turned over by you.” He looked at her, still smiling. “Very good work, Agent Swanson.”
“Thank you, sir.” And as they waited for the elevator, she tried to remember if Morwood had ever smiled at her.
40
CORRIE HAD NEVER been to Los Alamos before, and she was curious to see the once-secret city that had built the first atomic bomb. But when she finally got there, she found it just another generic government town—albeit one wedged into a fabulous setting of mountain peaks, ponderosa forests, and deep canyons.
She stopped at a checkpoint and showed her credentials to the guard. She was given a special visitor’s pass for one of the tech areas, where Dr. Eastchester had his office, along with directions on how to get there.
The area lay outside of town, occupying a long mesa extending from the Jemez Mountains, surrounded by two sets of chain-link fences topped with concertina wire. She pulled up at another security station and showed her pass to the guard, who told her where to park and how to find Eastchester’s office.
The building had yet another guard at the entrance who checked her pass and ID again, then asked for her sidearm, which she surrendered. He escorted her down a long, cool hallway to an office at the end, door open.
“Dr. Eastchester?” the guard said. “Your visitor.”
Corrie entered a spacious and rather austere office overlooking a stand of pines, with views to snowy mountains beyond. A large blackboard dominated one wall, covered with scribbled equations.
“You must be Special Agent Swanson,” said an old man who rose somewhat creakily from a plush chair behind an old oaken desk piled with journals and papers.
“Please don’t get up, Dr. Eastchester,” Corrie said.
But he did anyway and took her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Have a seat.”
The scientist eased himself back down and she took a seat before the desk. He looked at her, a grave expression on his face. “I’m so awfully sorry to hear about Hale’s death. I suspect you must have been quite close to him. I, too, felt close to him. This is a terrible shock.”
Corrie nodded, trying to keep her face from registering emotion at the man’s sympathetic tone.