Nora turned to see Agent Swanson poking her head in the tent flap.

“Hi, Corrie, come in. You’re just in time for the interment.”

Corrie entered, her arm still in a sling. “I want to introduce you to someone very special to me.”

Nora looked up as Corrie pulled aside the tent flap to allow the entrance of a man. He slipped in: tall, pale, dressed in black, two eyes that glittered like diamonds set into his chiseled features. For a moment Nora thought she must be hallucinating: the man was the spitting image of Special Agent Pendergast.

It was Special Agent Pendergast.

“Greetings, my dear Nora,” Pendergast said, stepping over and extending his hand.

Nora took his hand in hers. “Agent Pendergast. What…what the heck are you doing here?”

“Wait,” said Corrie, looking from one to the other in astonishment. “You two know each other?”

Pendergast turned with a mischievous smile. “Nora and I worked on several intriguing cases back in New York.”

“What?” Corrie cried. “But you never said a word. I’ve been sending you updates on this case for weeks!”

“I ask your forgiveness. When I heard you two were working together by sheer happenstance, I admit that I withheld the fact I knew both of you. I simply cannot resist a bit of drama.” He spread his hands.

Nora gathered her wits. “Sorry about my shock. It’s nice to see you again. But how do you know Corrie?”

“I am pleased to serve as a sort of Dutch uncle to her, in her previous life and now in the FBI. She helped me on an unusual case in Kansas some years ago, and we worked together on another little difficulty in Colorado. I encouraged her to go into law enforcement. What a charming coincidence that her first case would involve you.”

Nora laughed, shaking her head. “You’re full of crazy surprises. I’ll never forget the first time you visited my museum office. Almost gave me a heart attack, sneaking up like that.”

“I take exception to that characterization,” said Pendergast. “I never ‘sneak.’ I glide.” He moved toward the coffin and peered inside. “Who is the dear departed?”

“These are the restored remains of Samantha Carville, a six-year-old girl who died in the camp.” Nora took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to bury her here. Properly.”

“Really?” Corrie asked. “You’re not going to send her remains to the lab?”

“No. She’s already been positively identified, so no DNA test is necessary. It seemed the right thing to do—lay her spirit to rest, I mean.”

“Right here?”

“Yes. Right here—right now.”

“What about a clergyman?” Corrie asked.

“Samantha and her parents were Quakers. Quakers don’t bury their dead with ceremony, music, clergy, or even a grave marker. Just a plain coffin, put in the ground in the presence of friends.” She continued to transfer the bones and fragments, one by one, into the coffin. “What news on the case?”

Corrie hesitated. “I’m sorry, it’s confidential.”

“Naturally.” Nora raised her eyebrows quizzically.

Corrie grinned. “Okay, but this is for you only. Fugit flipped, trying to save her ass, and laid it all out for us. It was pretty much as we figured—an effort to weaponize the prion protein by some shadowy international organization.”

“Who?”

“The ever-present, ever-elusive ‘shadowy international organization,’” Pendergast said, arching his eyebrows. Whether he was serious or not, Nora couldn’t tell.

“The FBI doesn’t know—and may never know. The organization covered its tracks with incredible care and layers of intermediaries. Their reach and sophistication suggests a government is behind it, engaged in a search for potential weapons of mass destruction. It seems their research focused on the Donner Party cannibalism, and the interesting fact that everyone in the Lost Camp who ate Parkin went mad—with all the classic symptoms of prion disease. They concluded Parkin was probably an exceedingly rare genetic carrier of a fast-acting form of CJD. And that’s what started this whole thing.”

“So they needed to get his skull?”

Corrie nodded. “They had to sequence Parkin’s genome to find out exactly how the prion protein was made before they could start to weaponize it. In addition, they needed a sample of the prion protein itself—which is only found in brain tissue—for synthesis. So they undertook a two-pronged attack: They set out to find the Lost Camp and retrieve Parkin’s skull. And they started digging up or even killing Parkin descendants to see if they carried the genetic code. The latter didn’t work. But the former did.”

“And where did Clive come in?”

“They hired him because of his expertise in Donner history. The fact he was a descendant of the Donner Party was icing on the cake. We can’t be sure, but it appears they put him on the trail of Tamzene’s journal and dangled in front of him the possibility of a grand discovery that would both bring him renown and clear up the lingering mark on the Breen family name. They topped it off by offering Clive a massive sum of money, which they probably never intended to pay—easier to kill him instead. By the time Clive realized who he was working for, it was too late and backing out would have meant certain death. After finding Tamzene’s journal last fall, Clive tried to locate the camp on his own and failed—hence the campsite I found. He realized he needed expert archaeological help—and he turned to you.”

“And Fugit? How did she get drawn in?”

“She was insurance. They brought her on board when they grew worried Clive might have second thoughts. He’d been reluctant and hard to seduce. But Fugit, it turns out, was eager for the money and morally flexible. She was subverted last winter, while the expedition was being put together. Finding Parkin’s remains in the Lost Camp was the group’s last chance to get the necessary prion samples and DNA—and so they weren’t taking any chances.”

“And the gold?” Nora asked.

“It had nothing to do with the case. A distraction. Except that Wiggett was secretly looking for it when he happened on Clive at the tarn, where he’d hidden Parkin’s skull by sinking it into the pond in that waterproof box. That’s why Clive killed him, of course. After reclaiming the skull from Peel. Clive discovered Peel stealing the bones and took advantage of the opportunity to follow him, kill him, and throw most of the bones over the cliff while keeping the skull. In this way he hoped to confuse the issue and maybe even cover up the fact that the skull was missing. Clever man. But you put all those bones back together.”

Nora shook her head. “All those deaths, for such an awful purpose. And we didn’t even find the gold.”

“I’ll bet it’s long gone,” said Corrie.

“The investigation,” said Pendergast, “has moved up to the highest levels at the Department of Homeland Security. I doubt even I will hear of the final disposition. Parkin’s remains are now being guarded under exceptional secrecy. And, more to the point, Corrie’s career at the FBI has gotten off to a promising start.”

“That’s something, anyway.” Nora put the last bone in the coffin. “Help me with that lid.”