Jericho's Fall Read Free

decided, starting the engine. They wanted to convey the sense of dread.
    There was plenty to go around.

CHAPTER 2

The Redoubt
    (i)
    For another ninety minutes, the mountain owned her, hiding the small car against its immensity the way mountains do after nightfall. She popped in and out of forest and descended into the valley, then climbed the other side, winding upward until she reached the plateau that she remembered. The helicopter had it easier. The passage of time had altered the landmarks along the road. The storm-split tree that used to mark the way was gone, and the little culvert had disappeared. By hit or miss, she eventually found the turnoff, an unmarked gravel lane that fifteen years ago had rated an unmarked security car. A bumpy mile farther along was the empty guardhouse, its roof caved in, and a pair of wrought-iron gates, wide open. A faded sign announced STONE HEIGHTS , Jericho’s pretentious name for his mountain redoubt. In the spill of her headlamps as she passed, she could see the mounds of snow-speckled brush and debris that had collected along their hidden base. It occurred to her that the gates had not been closed in years, and now might never be closed again. She felt bad for Jericho, who had been proud of the security even as he had pretended to hate it, back in the days when he wandered his stronghold with a head chock-full of Cold War secrets, sleeping with a gun near at hand because, as he whispered to her in bed, sooner or later the Russians or the Chinese or somebody worse would be coming for him.
    The driveway climbed farther up the mountain, still in the trees, and, finally, she glimpsed the black Suburban she had been looking for, complete with polarized windows. The driver was a pallid smear in the darkness. Beck slowed down automatically, but he did not even lift his head. As the house loomed into view, boxlike and stolid, trees and brush cut back fifty yards on every side to provide clear lines of fire, Rebecca almost smiled. Just one guard nowadays, but at least they were watching. State Department, Secret Service, state trooper, whoever it was, the dying man still rated security. Rebecca felt a warm wash of relief, for Jericho’s sake.
    Cars were scattered in the forecourt, dusted with varying amounts of snow. The silver Prius probably meant that Pamela was here, the younger of Jericho’s daughters, although both were older than Beck, a distinction that had put the fat in the fire from the first. The battered brown van would likely be Audrey’s, borrowed from the abbey where she was cloistered, or whatever they called it. Rebecca, who despite her churchgoing mostly kept a careful distance from the overly religious, was none too sure of such details. Outside the garage stood a shiny pickup truck, and pickup trucks were what Jericho liked, although it was difficult to imagine that he did much driving these days.
    Jericho had an unforgiving son named Sean, who helped run an environmental foundation in New York, but Sean would no more attend his father’s final days than he would fund a coal mine. Besides, Sean would not be caught dead in a pickup. Jericho used to have friends spread over his mountain, quiet, self-reliant men who attached themselves to the land and sported National Rifle Association decals on their bumpers. Maybe the truck belonged to an old acquaintance. But the snow lay thick on the hood, and the same instinct that had counseled Beck to hide from the helicopter proposed that the pickup truck had another significance entirely, one she had not fathomed. It was Jericho’s, and there was a reason it was not in the garage.
    Never mind. Not her business.
    Rebecca parked her modest rental next to Audrey’s decrepit van. Climbing out, she was struck by the silence. In the old days, Jerichowould have bounded from the house to sweep her, literally, off her feet, and pepper her with ribald jokes in four languages about her mode of transport. The house had always been