"Lie on your back," Sam said. "Put your legs around my waist." The man did it. "Now you do the backstroke." When the man complied, Sam did the breaststroke and they moved together, with Sam on his stomach and the man on his back, held together by the man's legs. It wasn't clear who was sav ing whom, but they made steady progress toward the dock. Another couple of men jumped in and helped them the last fifty feet to the ladder, where there were several hands to help them up. Sam lay on the dock, staring at the sky, wondering whose body was floating in the river, but knowing in his gut it wasn't Devan Gaudet's.
Sam sat down for just a moment to escape the frenetic phone calls of the last few hours. Resting was not, however, what it was cracked up to be. It was all too easy to sink back into the gloom he felt over Anna, when he wasn't obsessed with Gaudet and Benoit. Anna remained in a coma, no real changes.
Jill had come to New York, to their temporary offices, and had moved from her table over to his and he welcomed the company.
Harry lay in the middle of Sam's table, looking generally depressed despite their reunion.
"I swear, if I wanna know what you're thinking, all I have to do is look at Harry."
For the first time he noticed Jill watching him.
"I found out today that when Anna recovers, we won't have a baby. How do you think about anything, even saving the lives of millions, when you find out your baby died? I know it was a fetus, but to me, in my mind, it was a baby that I was ready to welcome into the world. I guess I was already planning trips to the zoo and wondering what it would be like to be a regular person with an identity and a child in a stroller. It's like I've been holding her on my knee. For some reason I thought it was a girl. Isn't that insane?" Sam got up from his desk, feeling that he was going to weep.
"I'll be back. I have to use the restroom."
He had lost Bud, and now this. After about fifteen minutes he called his mother.
"As we feared, we have lost our baby."
"It is a great loss for all of us. I am sorry that now is not a time for you to make your peace with this."
"No, it isn't. I don't know if I can go on."
"I wish your grandfather were here."
"What would he say?"
"Catching his mind is like trying to take a handful of wind. I'm afraid I don't know. Besides, words were different when he said them."
"That is so true."
"There might be another child, but the other can never make up for the loss of the one. We love the one, even though it was a soul that we never knew. Perhaps our love is both our pain and our consolation. When next you come home, we will express our love for this one. I will think about that and I will put flowers at Universe Rock and tell this child of my love."
"I will too."
It took thirty minutes before he felt ready to go back. He knew that Jill would say nothing. She understood him. In order to enable himself to function, he imagined how many children might die if he didn't get Gaudet; he imagined then- parents and their trips to the zoo. It was sobering and it allowed him to give himself permission to put off grieving. It was even more effective than the other emotion that he felt-anger and the desire for revenge.
There was nothing to do but swing back into action on all fronts. Grogg and the government people were still trying to pry something out of Gaudet's laptop or get into his main server. Now that Gaudet had driven a truck off a pier and damaged the pier, the cops were looking for him. They would have had a better chance finding Jimmy Hoffa. The Feds were examining every helicopter in the pertinent cities, looking for atomizer equipment.
"You remember that new program for homeland security, where we screen the incoming passengers on the interna tional flights?" Jill asked. It was a kindness that she went on with business as usual.
"Uh-huh."
"I think we've got something."
"Great. What is it?"
"Well, we struck out on the rental-car front."
"Too bad. It was a guess. So where are you now?"
"We performed a query on flight reservations, national and international, using a certain mileage-plus number."
"What number?"
"The number once assigned to one Benoit Moreau."
"So?"
"Well, everyone who worked for Chellis had a lot of mileage-plus miles. Benoit used some of hers to fly one Gustave Flaubert to Malaysia."
"Author of Madame Bovary? Obviously, somebody play ing a game with an alias."
"Obviously. That's dangerous. Talk about a name that doesn't blend. By itself it wouldn't mean much, but Jean Valjean is using the same mileage number now. I still can't imagine Gaudet would risk the connection with Grace."
"Could be Gaudet. Could be one of his henchmen using the names and number," Sam speculated. "Gaudet using the name offends me. Jean Valjean epitomized a man of great character and I was moved when I read the story."
"This morning Jean Valjean left New York for Eureka, California. Bought his ticket at the gate."
"Oh, crap. I knew I shouldn't have let Grady go."
"Remember, we don't know that Valjean is Gaudet himself. Could be an accomplice."
"No point in thinking that way. I gotta get there fast!" Harry looked startled. Sam petted him. "Tell Grogg and the investigators good work."
"How would Gaudet know where Michael Bowden is?" Jill wondered.
"I don't know. But consider this. The French government is in this up to their eyeballs. If Gaudet didn't have Raval followed, or didn't have Bowden followed, then maybe the French did or maybe Gaudet found him by getting a tip and then calling the realtors in five counties. Right now the French need Raval, and telling Gaudet where to get him wouldn't be beyond belief."
"You're right," she said. "Shit."
"Devan Gaudet is beyond any redemption in this life."
"Sam," she called behind him as he walked out.
"Yeah?"
"Take the part of you that is your grandfather and let it loose. See what happens."
"Yeah, well, while I'm getting in touch with my spiritual side, you move heaven and earth to find Benoit Moreau. She could be in one of those warehouses along the waterfront."
The canyon descent had been difficult, to say the least. It had appeared so formidable late the first afternoon that she slept in the car to get an early start in the morning. Near the highway the trail had begun fairly benignly in a mixed conifer forest with oaks and madrona under the evergreen canopy. From there it quickly changed into steep, rocky ter rain. In places Grady found sheer faces, but most of it was slightly less than vertical, with rock protrusions, manzanita, and scrub oak passing for handholds. Every step of the way the wind rushed through the canyon, making a background murmur like the sound in a seashell, the river with its tumul tuous stepladder falls adding its own ghostly rush.
Nothing looked touched by the hand of man and most of it looked like the work of a furiously creative God who loved drama and vast plunges and steep pinnacled rises interrupted by vibrant splashes trailing down mountains. It had a kind of awe that glass and steel could never put in human imagina tion. But it was also a foreign and inhospitable place. Even a frightening place.
The trail had been narrow and full of switchbacks and had traversed cliffs, where the drop-offs were deadly. Halfway down the slope to the river, occasional, light snow flurries started in and Grady began to chill. Here the trail became less steep and she could walk upright most of the time. The next major obstacle was a steep stretch, where she had to turn and crawl facing the hillside while grabbing exposed roots. She noticed hoofprints and couldn't imagine someone taking a horse down this trail. She'd have to ask Michael about that. Below her the river roared, mostly churning white water with occasional pools. Wind-whipped sleet pounded her poncho and soaked her pant legs from the thighs down. It was cold, but the vigorous climb, even going down, kept her from chilling completely through.