14. Snow Hounds

The knock came at 2:47 in the morning.

Elias had been dozing in the chair by the window, the satchel clutched against his chest like a child's stuffed animal. The sound cut through the thin veil of his exhaustion and brought him fully awake in an instant. Three sharp raps on the door of Room 312, the kind of knock that expected to be answered.

He did not move. The desk was still wedged against the door, its wooden legs scraping the floor every time the building's ancient heating system shuddered. He had positioned it there hours ago, a barricade that would buy him perhaps thirty seconds if someone tried to force their way in. Thirty seconds to do what? The window was three stories up, and the fire escape was on the other side of the building.

"Mr. Voss." The voice was muffled by the door but still recognizable. Female. Measured. Familiar. "It's Elena Montoya. Brígida. I need to speak with you."

Elias's hand tightened on the satchel. Brígida was in San Cristobal. He had left her there that morning, standing in the doorway of the Rio Sangrado Inn while the state police swarmed the town. She could not be in the capital. It was a seven-hour bus ride. She would have had to leave immediately after him, driving through the night on roads that were barely clear.

"Mr. Voss, please. I know you're in there. I've been following you since you left the bus station."

"Prove it," Elias said. "Prove you're Brígida."

There was a pause. Then: "The night you arrived in San Cristobal, I left a cup of tea outside your door. You never drank it. The cup was still there in the morning, cold. You were too busy reading your case file to notice."

Elias closed his eyes. It was her. No one else could have known that detail. He stood, pushed the desk aside, and unlocked the door.

Brígida stood in the hallway, her dark shawl pulled tight around her shoulders, her face gray with exhaustion. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn since the storm began, and there was snow on her boots—snow that could only have come from the mountains. Behind her, the hallway was empty and silent, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

"I drove. The roads were clear enough. I left an hour after your bus departed." She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "You shouldn't have come alone. That was reckless."

"You told me to come alone. The note on Merrick's body. The meeting in the tunnel."

"That was different. That was in San Cristobal, where I could control the situation. Here—" She looked around the room, her dark eyes scanning the window, the door, the thin walls. "Here, you're in their territory. The capital is where Vega's network is strongest. It always has been."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've been tracking it for forty years. The list in the cylinder is only the beginning. Vega cultivated assets in every branch of the state government. Legislators. Judges. Bureaucrats. Police commanders. And he didn't stop at the state line. He had people in the federal agencies too. The Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Reclamation. Even the Department of Justice." She paused. "And now you're going to walk into the Supreme Court building and hand the evidence to the Chief Justice, and you have no idea who might be watching."

"The Chief Justice is beyond Vega's reach. The Supreme Court has no stake in the water compact. It's the only neutral institution in this entire dispute."

"Is it? Your Chief Justice was appointed by a president who received significant campaign contributions from the Castella Water Users Association. The downstream state's senior senator sits on the Judiciary Committee and has been blocking federal judicial appointments for two years to pressure the Court on water cases. Neutrality is a myth, Mr. Voss. Everyone has a stake."

Elias stared at her. "You came all the way from San Cristobal to tell me the system is corrupt?"

"I came to tell you that you have to be careful. You have to be strategic. You can't just hand the evidence to the Chief Justice and assume justice will follow. You have to make sure the evidence is seen. All of it. By people who can't be silenced."

"How do you suggest I do that?"

Brígida reached into her shawl and withdrew a folder. It was thin, maybe twenty pages, bound with a rubber band. "This is a summary of the archive. Eduardo compiled it years ago, in case something happened to the original documents. It contains the key names, the key dates, the key evidence. It's not as comprehensive as the archive itself, but it's enough to prove the conspiracy existed."

"Why didn't you give me this in the tunnel?"

"Because I wasn't sure I could trust you. I've spent forty years not trusting anyone. Old habits." She held out the folder. "Take it. Make copies. Give one to the Chief Justice, one to the Attorney General, one to the press. If the evidence is dispersed widely enough, no one can suppress all of it."

Elias took the folder. It was lighter than he expected, but its weight was immense. "Why now? You've been sitting on this for years. Why reveal it now?"

"Because the storm changed everything. The murders. The chapel burning. Merrick's death. The investigation is too big to contain now. The state police have found the bones in the arroyo. They've found the archive in the tunnel. Within a week, the story will be national news. If the evidence is going to come out—and it is going to come out—it needs to come out properly. It needs to be presented by someone credible, someone who has no stake in the outcome, someone who works for the highest court in the land. That someone is you."

"There's something else," Elias said. "Something you're not telling me."

Brígida was silent for a moment. Then she nodded. "The name on the succession directive. My name. Elena Montoya. Vega considered me a candidate for leadership of the Order. I told you I didn't know about that until last night, and that's true. But I've been thinking about it all day. Why me? I was never a member of the Order. I was never even sympathetic to their cause. Why would Vega put my name on his succession directive?"

"Maybe he saw something in you. Something you didn't see in yourself."

"Or maybe someone else put my name there. Someone who wanted to make sure that if the directive was ever found, I would be implicated. Someone who wanted to neutralize me before I could expose the truth."

"Who?"

Brígida looked at him. "I don't know. But whoever it is, they're still out there. Vega's network didn't die with Vega. It survived. It adapted. It's in the statehouse. It's in the federal agencies. It might even be in the Supreme Court building. And if they know you're coming—if they know what you're carrying—they'll try to stop you."

"They've had four days to stop me. They haven't."

"They've had four days to watch you. To figure out what you know and who you're working with. Now that they know, they'll act."

The words hung in the air between them. Outside, the capital was silent, the city holding its breath before dawn. Somewhere in that silence, Elias knew, people were making phone calls. Arrangements. Plans. Vega's list was a living thing, and it was beginning to move.

"You should go," Elias said. "If someone is watching the building, they'll have seen you come in. The longer you stay, the more danger you're in."

"I've been in danger for forty years. I'm used to it." Brígida moved toward the door, then paused. "There's one more thing. Something I found in Eduardo's papers a few days before the storm. I didn't understand it then. I'm not sure I understand it now. But you should see it."

She reached into her shawl and withdrew a single sheet of paper. It was different from the other documents. Newer. Typed on a modern machine, not the misaligned ribbon of the 1927 survey. At the top was a letterhead that Elias recognized.

SUPREME COURT OF THE FEDERAL UNION — OFFICE OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE.

Beneath it was a brief, handwritten note.

To E. Montoya: Your letter of the 15th has been received. The Court is aware of the allegations regarding the Rio Sangrado Compact. Please be advised that the matter is under review. No further correspondence is necessary at this time. — J.H.

"J.H.," Elias said. "Justice Harland. The Chief Justice."

"Your Chief Justice knew about the tunnel. He knew about the Order. He's known for years."

The room seemed to tilt. Elias grabbed the back of the chair to steady himself. Justice Harland. The man who had assigned him to the Castella v. Sangre case. The man who had sent him to San Cristobal to find the 1927 survey. The man who was waiting for his preliminary report.

"He knew," Elias said. "He knew all along."

"He knew something. Enough to tell Eduardo to stop asking questions. Enough to bury the correspondence in a file that would never see the light of day." Brígida looked at the note in Elias's hand. "When you go to the Court tomorrow morning, you're not bringing the Chief Justice new information. You're bringing him something he's been trying to suppress."

"Then why did he send me? Why assign me to the case at all?"

"Maybe he thought you wouldn't find anything. You're a junior clerk. He probably expected you to review the hydrological data and write a memorandum recommending that the compact be upheld. He didn't expect you to go to San Cristobal. He didn't expect the storm. He didn't expect any of this."

Elias stared at the note. The handwriting was neat, precise, the handwriting of a man who had spent his entire career measuring the weight of words. No further correspondence is necessary at this time. A polite way of saying stop asking questions. A polite way of saying we know, and we don't care.

"What do I do?" Elias asked.

"You do what you were going to do. You go to the Court. You present the evidence. But you don't give it to the Chief Justice alone. You present it in open court, on the record, with the other justices present. You make sure the evidence is entered into the official docket of Castella v. Sangre. Once it's part of the public record, no one can suppress it."

"The Chief Justice won't allow that. He'll take the evidence into chambers. He'll review it in private. He'll bury it."

"Then you make it impossible for him to bury it. There are other justices on the Court. Some of them might be clean. Find them. Approach them before you approach the Chief Justice. Give them copies of the evidence. If enough justices know about it, the Chief Justice can't suppress it alone."

Elias nodded slowly. The plan was risky. If Brígida was wrong, if there were other justices who were compromised, he would be walking into a trap. But if she was right, it was the only way.

"Will you stay in the city?" he asked.

"For a few days. I have an apartment on the south side, under a different name. I've been maintaining it for years, in case I ever needed to leave San Cristobal quickly. I'll be there if you need me."

"Will you testify? If the case goes forward, if there are hearings, will you testify about what you know?"

Brígida smiled, a thin expression that contained no warmth. "I've been invisible for forty years. Testifying would mean stepping into the light. I'm not sure I remember how."

"You'll have to learn. You're the only living witness who can connect Vega's network to the current state government. Without your testimony, the evidence is just paper."

"I know. I've been preparing for this longer than you've been alive." She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "Good luck, Mr. Voss. I hope the Court is worthy of your faith in it."

She closed the door behind her, and Elias was alone again.

He sat on the bed with the folder in his hands and the note from Chief Justice Harland on the nightstand. The satchel was still heavy against his side, its contents more dangerous now than they had been an hour ago. He had come to the capital believing that the Supreme Court was the one institution that could be trusted. Now he was not sure.

He opened Brígida's folder and began to read. The summary was organized chronologically, beginning with the 1927 survey and ending with a list of current state officials who were believed to be assets of the Order. The names were a cross-section of the state's political establishment. Legislators. Regulators. Police commanders. Even a federal district judge who had ruled on water cases in the Sangre basin.

And at the end of the list, beneath a heading that read "FEDERAL CONTACTS," was a name that made Elias's blood run cold.

Justice Julian Harland, Supreme Court of the Federal Union. Contact established via E. Montoya correspondence, 1987-1991. Nature of relationship: Unknown. Status: Active?

Active. With a question mark. Brígida had not been certain. But the correspondence was real. The note on the nightstand was real. Chief Justice Harland had been in contact with Eduardo Montoya. He had known about the allegations. He had told Montoya to stop asking questions.

And now Elias was supposed to walk into his chambers and hand over the evidence.

He spent the remaining hours of darkness reading and rereading the folder, memorizing names and dates and connections. When the first gray light of dawn began to seep through the window, he stood and dressed in his best suit—the same suit he had worn on the bus from Las Cruces, now wrinkled and stale with four days of accumulated fear. He tucked the satchel under his arm and walked out of the hotel into the cold morning.

The Supreme Court building stood at the end of a long marble plaza, its columns rising against the pale sky like the pillars of a temple. Elias had walked this plaza a hundred times during his three years as a clerk, but it had never felt as vast or as imposing as it did now. He crossed it slowly, his footsteps echoing on the stone, the satchel swinging at his side.

He did not go to the main entrance. Instead, he walked around to the side door used by clerks and administrative staff. He swiped his identification badge through the reader and pushed through the security turnstile. The guard at the desk nodded at him without looking up from his newspaper.

"Morning, Mr. Voss. You're in early."

"Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd get a head start on some briefs."

The guard waved him through. Elias walked down the marble corridor, past the clerk's office, past the law library, past the chambers of the associate justices. He knew which ones he needed to see. Which ones might be clean.

Justice Katherine Chen was the junior justice on the Court, appointed two years earlier. She had no connection to the Sangre basin. She had recused herself from water cases in the past, citing her family's background in environmental law. If any justice was beyond Vega's reach, it was her.

Elias knocked on her chamber door.

A clerk opened it, a young woman with glasses and an expression of mild surprise. "Mr. Voss? Justice Chen isn't in yet. She won't be here for another hour."

"I'll wait."

He stepped inside and sat in the leather chair outside the justice's inner office. The satchel was heavy on his lap. The folder was heavy in his hands.

An hour passed. The door opened. Justice Chen walked in, her robes still unbuttoned, a cup of coffee in her hand. She stopped when she saw Elias.

"Mr. Voss. You're back from the Sangre basin."

"Yes, Your Honor. I need to speak with you. It's urgent."

She looked at his face, at the satchel clutched against his chest, at the exhaustion that no amount of coffee could conceal. Then she nodded and opened the door to her inner office.

"Come in, Mr. Voss. Tell me everything."