The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (32 page)

Aiming the Canon,
he zoomed
in
on the paper.
He could read the word “Radio,” b
ut the way
the paper
was entangled with the shrubbery made it impossible to identify
further information
.
Ben hesitated. He could try climbing
straight
down the cliff, but it would probably be easier to climb
from the bottom up
. Strapping the camera bag to his back, he headed for the
foot
path that went around the cliff all the way to the bottom.

Indeed, it was
easier to climb up the cliff—as long as he didn’t look down. It wasn’t a straight-up rock, but rather a very steep patchwork of granite boulders, loose soil, and shrubbery that
was bare from the early
winter cold. He found footholds and small crevices for his fin
gers, carefully making his way on a zigzag trajectory upward
.

His iPhone rang.

Leaning forward, his cheek pressed to a chilly rock, Ben managed to pull it from his pocket and look at the screen. It was Keera.

He answered, putting it on speaker. “Can’t talk right now. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Long story.” He felt his right foot slipping off its hold. “I’ll call you later.”

“Is this about the Mormons? Please tell me it’s not!”

His foot slipped off. He grabbed the phone between his teeth and managed to grip a rock ledge before falling off.

“Ben? Are you there?”

He tried to speak, but the sounds were mere growling.

“What’s going on?”

Unable to find solid footing by
feeling with the toe of his shoe
, he pulled up with his hands, now both feet in the air, and lifted himself over a boulder, turning at the same time so that his bottom rested on the shallow rock shelf. He was panting hard, which must have sounded terrible on the phone.

“Ben!
What
’re you doing
?”

F
inally
he
could take the phone out of his mouth. “Don’t worry
.
I’m not having sex
.”

That made her laugh. “The thought never occurred to me
, despite al
l that huffing and puffing.”

“I’m searching the accident site again.”

“Anything new?”

“It’s still
kind of
up in the air.” He glanced upward at his target. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll see you at home. We
’ll
have
M
om’s leftovers.”

The rest of
the way was as treacherous
, but he took his time and made sure he had solid footing before reaching into the bush and pulling out the piece of paper
—
or rather,
a piece of
thin
cardboard
from a
Radio Shack
packag
e that had
originally
been
bigger than a pack of cigarettes
, but not by much
.
The brand was 3M.

High Density
Floppy Disks

5-Pack –
1.2 MB – 5.25’’

Made in
Mesa, AZ
.
1994.

Immediately questions flooded his mind.
Had this
piece of packaging f
allen
off Zachariah
’s
Harley
as it
fell over
? Ben glanced up toward the
overlook
, maybe three
sto
ries above him
, and imagined the stars-and-stripes Harley Davidson tumbling through the air, separating from Zachariah, and the impact as the bike and its rider hit the ground hard, an instant of devastating destruction for both
.
Had this piece of
cardboard
been in Zachariah’s pocket? Or somewhere on the Harley? How had it separated and flown up into the shrubbery on the cliff?

He felt the cardboard, examining its condition. It was a bit wet, but not destroyed as it would have been after weeks or months outside, exposed to the elements. Two days was feasible, only slight discoloring and dampness, enough to wipe any fingerprints and clear away any threads of cloth or hair. No lab test would prove that the floppy
disk packaging came from Zachariah, but what was the likelihood that someone else had tossed this over the side in the past few days? No one had used floppy disks in years, at least since the late nineties. Statistically, there was little doubt that this Radio Shack package of floppy disks had come from Zachariah.
Had it flown off the bike or the body after the accident? Ben remembered a slight breeze on Sunday. Or had Zachariah taken it out before the accide
nt and thro
w
n
it away just as it happened? Or immediately afterward, as he lay dying at the bottom?

Ben folded the thin cardboard and put it in his pocket. Were there five floppy disks out there? That would explain how Porter had found one, and Palmyra found another. If neither of those two floppy disks was
the real one, then three more we
re out there, hidden by Zachariah, and only one of them carried the data and Joe Morgan’s incriminating handwritten note.

Looking down at the spot where Zachariah had taken his last breath, Ben quickly shut his eyes against the onslaught of
dizziness.
The dead Marine veteran had either been a meticulous planner or a troublemaker
in the grips of a nervous breakdown
. Whatev
er the case may be, Ben
couldn’t stop
t
his investigation
, which
was turning into a treasure hunt
.

He
was holding on to rocks and shrubbery halfway up
a cliff. It was time to move on, and the only way was up.
He tightened the shoulder straps of the camera bag and resumed climbing.

The climb proceeded well, which gave him
a
growing sense
of
confidence. It also helped that the
angle moderated by
a few degrees, a minor difference to the eye, but a tangible advantage for a climber
hanging on by
his hands and
the tips of his
riding boots.

The edge at the top was enforced with concrete, forming a long beam across, which prevented erosion of the
overlook
’s edge
. The concrete beam stuck outward a bit, and Ben had to plan the last
bit
of climbing so that he reached a point where there was enough support for his boots in order to allow his hands a good grip on the
outer lip of the concrete beam.

It worked well, and he was able to reach up with one hand, the
n the other. Testing that he could
hold his weight, he
started to pull up, his feet dangling in the air.

And just as his head cleared the concrete beam, he saw the toe of a white boot fly at him, kicking him square in the forehead.

Chapter 39

Getting kicked in the head, even with both feet on solid ground and a football helmet on, would be
dangerous, b
ut
a boot to the head over
a
hillside seven or eight stories high was surely fatal. That was the quick realization that flashed through Ben’s conscious
ness
. As
the impact threw him backward,
he caught a glimpse of a white figure at the edge of the
overlook
above
.

T
he rest of his body followed his head,
rolling over bac
kward
.
He began to slide down the precipice, head first, back to the
rocks
, when the camera bag hit a protruding rock, broke the downward motion for a second, and twisted him
around
.

Facing the
hillside
again, Ben tried to grab
a hold of
the rocks or shrubbery
, but he slid down again and dropp
ed
through a straight-down
section
,
hitting another
rock ledge, this time
with
his knees
. He grasped
a bush growing out of a crack.
Its roots tore out under Ben’s weight, but
it
gave him a brief reprieve, enough for his vision to focus
and
grab
another bush, which also tore out. He slid down some more, shoved his fingers into a chink, felt his hand lose skin, but held on until the toe of his boot found a nook.

Finally he was stationary, his body pressed against the
face of the rocks
.
The pain in his head was dull, his breathing shallow and rapid, and his mind only now beginning to digest that he had just been the subject of an assassination attempt.

Craning his head, careful not to lose his balance, Ben tried to see if his attacker was still up there. But the cliff was uneven, and the spot where his fall had
been interrupted
was slightly in,
hidden from
view
by anyone standing at
the edge of the
overlook
above.

He had to make a decision. The method of
the
attack—a kick in the
fore
head—was intended to make it look like an accident. It was unlikely that the attacker would try to shoot him from above. But risking another climb up was out of the question. He might not be so lucky a second time.

After a few minutes of waiting, he started
moving sideways like a crab. He had about a third of a football field to reach a more moderate
incline
, where the vegetation was thicker. Once there, he picked up speed, reaching the footpath without further incident. From there, he ran uphill. It had been about
six
minutes since the
attack
, but if the
Ghost
had assumed that Ben was dead, he might have taken his time
searching the GS before
leaving, unwittingly giving Ben a chance to snap a photo, hopefully getting a clear shot of the Ducati license plate.

At the last hairpin turn up the path, Ben heard the telltale sound of an engine from above. His ear was attuned to motorcycle sounds, and this motor sputtered at low RPM, rising to a high
pitch as the rider revved it up.

Ducati!

He pulled out the camera, keeping
up the pace, and got it ready.

The motorcycle engine sound pitched
high
. It was
accelerating
!

As he cleared the path, camera held upfront, finger on the shutter, a white Ducati was making a sharp turn out of the parking area and onto the road, speeding off with its engine practically screaming. Ben held down his finger and snapped a series of photos, but he already knew that none of them would show th
e license plate due to the angle.

Instead of slowing down, Ben kept running, making it to the GS just as the Ducati’s sound fad
ed
downhill.

The top box on the rear rack had been pried open and searched. His helmet was on the ground next to the front wheel, but Ben didn’t stop to worry about it. He never left anything worth stealing in the box, other than the helmet. He slipped it on, shoved the camera in his backpack, dug his keys out of his pocket, and started the GS while mounting it. A few seconds later, he was accelerating across the parking lot.

A
bout ten
miles
of mountainous road separated th
e Camp David
Scenic Overlook
from the two-lane road
that
connected
Thurmont
with
I-70.
The Ducati was lighter and
more agile
than the top-heavy BMW GS, enabling it to run downhill through the twists and turns at a higher speed.
Once the Ducati reached
the intersection,
there would be n
o way to know which
way
it
went
.

Ben
operat
ed
the bike with
well-practiced
motions
despite a
pounding headache
. He was still panting from the extreme physical effort
,
and
his
arms and legs
hurt as he shifted g
ear
s
and execut
ed
deep turn
s at high speed.