they looked up at each other.

“This is incredible,” Corrie finally murmured.

“Yes,” said Nora. She shook her head as if to dispel a dream. “Which peak is this Aguijón del Escorpión—the Tail of the Scorpion?”

Corrie leaned over the keyboard, and soon Google Earth popped up on the screen, showing the Sierra Oscura at the northern end of the missile range, west and south of the Trinity site. The range ran north-south for twenty-five miles and encompassed hundreds of hills, peaks, buttes, and ridges.

“You’re asking which one is the Scorpion’s Tail?” Corrie asked, peering. “It took Gower and Taza weeks to find it.”

“They didn’t have twenty-first-century technology,” Nora said. “Think about the strange name of the peak. Could it look like a scorpion’s upraised stinger? Or is it called that for some other reason?”

Corrie shrugged. She expanded the view, zeroing in on the northern end of the Oscura range, nearer to the Trinity site. There were almost too many peaks and ridges and hills to count.

“Here’s a thought,” Nora said. “After Gower found the treasure, he would have made a beeline back to High Lonesome, carrying that cross as proof of his find. High Lonesome is here on the map. His route must have taken him within about a mile of ground zero on either side of the Trinity site, here, to have been caught in the blast. So let’s draw lines from High Lonesome to within a mile on either side of the Trinity site, and see which hills they intersect.”

Using Google Earth’s line-drawing facility, she drew the two lines. The lines cut through the Oscura foothills, crossing a dozen or so peaks. Nora and Corrie leaned forward to peer closely at the screen.

“Whoa!” said Nora. “Look at that hill. You see that?”

Corrie zoomed in. The hill was named Mockingbird Butte on the map.

“I don’t see it.”

“Not the hill itself,” said Nora. “The little canyon just below it, cutting into its base.”

Corrie stared. The little canyon curled up from below, shaped very much like the raised tail of a scorpion with a bulbous stinger at the end. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right,” Nora said, tingling with excitement, heart pounding. “That’s the peak. That’s where the Victorio Peak treasure is hidden! Not in Victorio Peak at all, but there!”

*

An hour later, Corrie and Nora each held an empty glass of wine they had drunk to celebrate. The precious parchments had been carefully sealed back up in the plastic evidence envelope and stored in the FBI-issue safe in Corrie’s home office. She had tried to call Morwood but gotten only voice mail.

Nora rose. “I’d better get back to Santa Fe,” she said. “Skip will be holding dinner for us, and he gets cranky if it dries out in the oven.”

“Okay.” Corrie rose, too. “Meet me in my cubicle at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ll take this in to Morwood together.”

“I can hardly wait.”

Corrie smiled at the thought. “It’s going to blow his mind.”

52

AS THEY APPROACHED the crest of the pass leading down to High Lonesome, Morwood pulled the vehicle to one side of the road. “We’d better not let our headlights show over the ridgeline,” he said. “Let’s have a look and see what’s going on.”

Watts got out, put on his hat, and buckled on his six-guns. Morwood didn’t say anything during this ritual but was privately amused. He took a pair of binoculars out of the glove compartment, and they walked into the ponderosa forest and climbed to the ridgeline.

Below, the town of High Lonesome came into view, a thousand yards away. There were lights. Morwood peered down with the binocs and could see two pickup trucks parked at right angles to each other, their beams illuminating a work scene. Several men were busy taking apart the second-floor wooden wall of the building in which Gower’s body had been found. Two others, armed, stood nearby, apparently on guard.

“Son of a bitch,” said Watts.

Morwood counted the men and confirmed there were five visible. “We need to call in backup,” he said.

Watts grunted. “How long is that going to take?”

“Hours, but the alternative is to apprehend them ourselves, which is suicide.”

After a moment, Watts nodded. “Backup it is.”

They returned to the vehicle. Morwood pulled down the radio, but they were out of range, and there was no cell coverage. He started the truck. “All we can do is head back until we find coverage and call it in.”

Watts pursed his lips. “Can I make a suggestion, Agent Morwood?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s approach a little closer and see if we can’t ID some of them, or at least get a plate number. By the time we drive out, call for backup, and return, those guys are going to be gone.”

Morwood thought about this. It entailed risk—but also reward. Even a plate number would be crucial information.

“Okay,” he said. “Not a bad idea.”

Morwood eased the truck forward, headlights off. The moon hadn’t risen, but there was a desert azimuth glow in the sky: just enough to see by. He eased the truck over the pass, and they proceeded down the switchbacks, slow and quiet, brakes only, in neutral to prevent the sound of gears. Reaching the far end of town, Morwood snugged the truck up behind an adobe wall where it would be well concealed. They got out. Watts took out one of his .45s and slowly spun the cylinder while Morwood checked his own weapon.