Akime thought briefly. “About ten minutes.”

“Was anybody else in the room with them at the time?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you hear anything unusual while the officer was inside? Raised voices, for example?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Did you hear the prisoner being questioned at all?”

A long silence. “No, sir.”

“Doesn’t eleven o’clock at night seem an odd time to be interviewing a prisoner?”

“It isn’t my job to question that sort of thing, sir.”

“And did you look in on the prisoner after the MP left?”

“Yes.” The ranger shifted his weight again. “About fifteen minutes later. Give or take.”

“And what was he doing?”

“Sleeping. Like he’d been doing before the MP arrived.”

“Don’t go anywhere.” And turning away again, Morwood walked toward the nurses’ desk.

“What are you going to do, sir?” Corrie asked from beside him.

“Do? I’m going to make sure they preserve the security video of this visit from MP Bellingame.” He gestured at a camera in the corner of the hall. “I’m going to make sure Rivers gets an even more thorough autopsy than previously envisioned. And no—not for the reasons you brought up. The request should have gone through channels, and I want to know why it didn’t. I’d also like to know what questions our MP had for the prisoner.” He hesitated, then said, rather stiffly, “I commend you, Corrie, for thinking to examine the visitor log.”

Since before she’d even gotten the call about Rivers, Corrie had been trying to figure out a way to ask Morwood something—something she worried he might not approve. Given this unexpected crumb of praise, she figured now was as good a time as any.

“There’s something else, sir,” she said.

Morwood had already pulled out his phone. “What’s that?”

Corrie took a deep breath. “Search the Gower farmhouse.”

“I thought that was you there with me, yesterday,” Morwood said, dialing.

“No, sir,” Corrie said. “I mean, I want to conduct a search of the farmhouse. A formal search.”

Morwood stopped dialing and—slowly—lowered the phone. “Now, why the hell would you want to do that?”

“Because I believe it’s the most likely place to gather additional evidence about our corpse, sir. Our radioactive corpse.”

“You saw the place. Any number of people have stayed there since the Gowers were forced out—including, I might add, J. Robert Oppenheimer himself. And you heard General McGurk say the roof has been replaced. Do you suppose that was done at the first sign of a leak? That old cabin has suffered nature’s fury, and army ownership, for three-quarters of a century.”

Corrie knew Morwood wasn’t done, so she stayed quiet and let him continue.

“But that isn’t what bothers me. What bothers me is that the army, as a pro forma rule, requires a warrant for any FBI search of its property.”

Corrie had learned this, as well—and it was the primary reason she’d been hesitant to make the request.

“We’ve talked about this before, Swanson—as recently as in the jeep, barely twelve hours ago. The general was kind enough to take us out personally, as his guests, to see the old place. How do you think he’s going to feel if we repay that courtesy by asking for a search warrant?”

“Sir, I’d think that given the unexpected death of our prisoner, and the still unknown nature of his last visitor, he would understand the need.”

“So what, specifically, are you looking for?”

“Gower must have had a powerful reason to be sneaking onto a closed military base to wander near his old family homestead. That reason may still be in that house—letters, papers, things stuck in a drawer.”

Morwood paused a moment and finally exhaled in exasperation. “I’ve got some calls to make. While I make them, I’ll consider your request. Consider it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me yet. And even if I let you file that warrant, and you file it successfully, the general might feel offended, and with good reason. I want you to bend over backward to show your gratitude by not pissing him off. WSMR’s a major presence around here.”

“I understand.”

“Now, go do some calming paperwork. I always find that soothing. I’ll get back to you.” And with that he turned away, raising his phone again.

Corrie knew better than to say anything more. After shooting a quick glance in the direction of the room recently occupied by Pick Rivers, now deceased, she made for the elevator that would take her to the hospital lobby.

27

CORRIE SAT IN the jeep’s passenger seat, feeling the wind whip her hair as they sped across the grasslands. It was the following afternoon, and everything was going as well as could be hoped. Morwood had approved her request for a search warrant—despite his bluster, maybe he’d planned on doing so all along—and General McGurk had apparently raised no objection, because she’d been admitted through the White Sands main post gate with barely a glance at her paperwork. Corrie had hoped to show her gratitude to the general, but she never even caught a glimpse of him in the brief time she spent at the headquarters area. Within minutes of her arrival, a jeep, driven by a uniformed PFC, had pulled up at the visitor waiting area—vehicle and driver practically clones of those from her previous visit—and now, almost an hour later, they were slowing as they approached the basin that contained the ranch house.