Текст книги "Blue Labyrinth"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

35

Pendergast lay, fully dressed, on the king-size bed in his suite of rooms in the Copacabana Palace Hotel. The lights were off and, although it was just noon, the room was very dark. The faintest roar of surf from Copacabana Beach filtered through the closed windows and shuttered blinds.

As he lay there, quite still, a trembling washed over him, almost a palsy, that shook his frame with increasing violence. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and balled his hands into fists, trying through sheer force of will to make this sudden, unexpected attack pass. After a few minutes the worst of the trembling began to lessen. It did not, however, go entirely away.

“I will master this,” Pendergast murmured under his breath.

At first – when he’d initially noted the symptoms – Pendergast had held out hope that a way could be found to reverse them. When he found no answer in the past, he began searching the present, in the hope of uncovering the methods of his tormentor. But the more he comprehended the diabolical complexity of the plot to poison him, and the more he reflected on the story of his ancestor Hezekiah and his doomed wife, the more he had realized such hope was a cruel delusion. What drove him forward now was a burning need to see this investigation – which seemed ever more likely to be his final investigation – through… while he still had time.

He forced his thoughts back to that morning’s meeting – and the words of the Brazilian colonel. There are only two places he could have hidden, he’d said of Alban. The jungle… or a favela.

Other words came into Pendergast’s head, unbidden. They were the parting words Alban had given him – on that day, eighteen months ago, when he had walked, with an almost insolent lack of hurry, into the Brazilian forest. I have a long and productive life ahead of me. The world is now my oyster – and I promise you it’ll be a more interesting place with me in it.

Pendergast held the image of that parting in his head, recalling every detail to the utmost extent of his intellectual rigor.

He knew, of course, that his son had begun those eighteen months in the jungles of Brazil – he’d seen him melt into the unbroken line of trees with his own eyes. But as he’d told the colonel, he was also certain that Alban would not have stayed there. There would not have been enough to occupy him, to keep him entertained – and, most important, to allow him to plan his various schemes. He had not returned to the town of his birth, Nova Godói – that was now in the hands of the Brazilian government, under a kind of military receivership. Besides, nothing was left for Alban there anymore: the complex had been destroyed, its scientists and soldiers and young leaders now dead, in prison, rehabilitated, or scattered to the winds. No – the more Pendergast considered the matter, the more certain he was that, sooner rather than later, Alban would have emerged from the jungle – and slipped into a favela.

It would be the perfect place for him. No police to worry about, no security cameras, no surveillance or intelligence operatives shadowing him. With his keen intelligence, criminal genius, and sociopathic outlook, he might well have something to offer the drug lords who ran the favela. All this would give Alban the time and space he needed to develop his plans for the future.

The world is now my oyster – and I promise you it’ll be a more interesting place with me in it.

Pendergast was equally certain which favela Alban would have chosen. Always the biggest and best for him.

But these answers simply led to other questions. What had happened to Alban within the City of Angels? What strange journey brought Alban from the favela to his doorstep? And what was the connection between him and the attack at the Salton Sea?

I fear to speculate what your next move will be. The next move was obvious, of course.

Pendergast took several deep, shuddering breaths. Then he raised himself from the bed and placed his feet on the floor. The room rocked around him and the trembling turned into a painful, racking muscle spasm that slowly released. He had begun taking a regimen of self-prescribed drugs, including atropine, chelators, and glucagon, along with painkillers to keep him going during the fits that were beginning to plague him on a steadily increasing basis. But he was shooting blindly in the dark – and so far they had done little good.

He felt his body preparing to spasm again. This would not do – not for what he had next in mind.

He waited until the second spasm was over, then made his way to a desk pushed against the far wall. His toilet kit and duty holster lay upon it, the latter containing his Les Baer .45. Next to it rested several spare magazines.

He sat down at the desk and pulled the weapon from its holster. He’d had no difficulty bringing it into Brazil; he’d checked in with the TSA at Kennedy Airport, following standard protocol, and he had carry permits for several foreign countries. It had not passed through a scanner; it had not been x-rayed.

Not that it would matter if it had.

Steadying his fingers, Pendergast lifted the gun and – reaching into the barrel – pulled out a small rubber plug with his fingernails. Upending the gun, he carefully let a miniature syringe and several hypodermic needles slide out of the barrel and onto the table. He fitted one of the needles to the syringe and placed it to one side.

Next, he turned his attention to one of the spare magazines. He removed the top round, and – taking a miniature set of pliers from his coat pocket – carefully pried the bullet from its casing. Spreading out a piece of writing paper from inside the desk, he carefully turned the casing over and let its contents drain onto the paper. Instead of gunpowder, a fine white powder streamed out.

Pendergast pushed the empty shell and useless round away with the back of his hand. Reaching for his toilet kit and pulling it toward him, he fumbled inside and pulled out two vials of prescription pills. One contained a schedule 2 semi-synthetic opioid used for relief of pain; the other, a muscle relaxant. Taking two pills from each bottle, he placed them on the sheet of paper and, using a spoon from a nearby room service tray, ground each into fine powder.

There were now three small mounds on the sheet of paper. Pendergast mixed them together carefully, scooped the powder into the spoon. Taking a lighter from his toilet kit, he held it beneath the spoon and flicked it into life. Under heat, the mixture began to darken, bubble, and liquefy.

Pendergast let the lighter drop to the desk and held the spoon with both hands as another painful spasm racked his body. He waited a minute, allowing the toxic, dangerous mixture to cool. Then he dipped the needle into the liquid and filled the syringe.

He let the empty spoon fall to the table with a quiet sigh; the hardest part was over. Now he reached one last time into his toilet kit and removed a length of elastic. Rolling back one sleeve, he tied the rubber around his upper arm, made a fist, pulled the rubber tight with his teeth.

A vein sprang into view in the inside of his elbow.

Holding the elastic carefully between his teeth, he lifted the syringe with his free hand. Timing his movements between the spasms of his limbs, he inserted the needle into the vein. He waited a moment, then parted his teeth slightly, releasing the elastic. Slowly, judiciously, he slid the plunger home.

He let his eyes drift shut and sat there for several minutes, the needle drooping from his arm. Then, opening his eyes again, he plucked out the syringe and put it aside. He took a shallow breath, cautiously, like a bather testing the temperature of water.

The pain was gone. The spasms had abated. He was weak, disoriented – but he could function.

Dreamily, like an old man awakened from sleep, he rose from the chair. Then he shrugged into his holster, put on his jacket. He carefully removed his FBI shield and ID and locked them in the in-room safe, keeping his passport and wallet. With a final glance around, he exited the hotel suite.

36

The entrance to the City of Angels lay at the end of a narrow dogleg on a street in Rio’s Zona Norte. At first glance, the favela beyond did not look much different from the neighboring region of Tijuca. It consisted of drab boxes of concrete, three and four stories tall, crammed tightly together, above a warren of streets almost medieval in their crookedness and complexity. The closest buildings were gray in color, but the colors changed to green and then to terra-cotta as the vast shantytown climbed the steep slopes stretching away to the north, trailing a thousand plumes of smoke from cooking fires, hazy and wavering in the hot sun. It was not until Pendergast noticed the two youths lounging on empty gasoline drums, wearing shorts and Havaianas flip-flops, machine guns slung over their bare shoulders – lookouts, checking everyone who came and went – that he realized he was at the gates into an entirely different part of Rio de Janeiro.

He paused in the alleyway, swaying ever so slightly. The drugs he had taken – while necessary for endurance – had dulled his mind and slowed his reaction time. In his condition, it would have been too risky to attempt a disguise. Pendergast could speak only a few words of Portuguese, and in any case he never would have been able to master the patois, which varied from favela to favela. If the drug dealers or their guards in the Cidade dos Anjos took him for an undercover cop, he would be immediately killed. His only option was no disguise at all: to stand out like a sore thumb.

He approached the youths, who watched him, unmoving, through slitted eyes. Overhead, the electrical wires and cable TV lines that crossed and recrossed the street were so dense they cast the street into perpetual gloom, sagging under their own weight like some huge and ominous web. It was oven-hot in the fetid street, the air stinking of garbage, dog feces, and acrid smoke. As he approached, the youths – while not rising from their perches on the gasoline drums – let their machine guns slide down off their shoulders and into their hands. Pendergast made no attempt to pass them, but instead walked up to the older of the two.

The boy – he couldn’t have been more than sixteen – eyed the agent up and down with a combination of curiosity, hostility, and scorn. In the sweltering heat, wearing his black suit, white shirt, and silk tie, Pendergast looked like a visitor from another planet.

“Onde você vai, gringo?” he asked in a menacing tone. As he did so, the other youth – taller, with his head shaved bald – slid off his own drum, raising his machine gun and casually aiming it at Pendergast.

“Meu filho,” Pendergast said. “My son.”

The youth snickered and exchanged a glance with his compatriot. No doubt this was a common sight: the father looking for his wayward son. The shaved one appeared in favor of shooting Pendergast without asking any further questions. Instead, the shorter youth – who seemed nominally in charge – overruled this. With the barrel of his gun, he gestured for Pendergast to raise his hands. Pendergast complied, and the bald youth frisked him. His passport was removed, then his wallet. The small amount of money in the wallet was taken out and immediately divided. When the lookout found the Les Baer .45, an argument broke out. The shorter youth grabbed the gun from the bald one and shook it in Pendergast’s face, asking angry questions in Portuguese.

Pendergast shrugged. “Meu filho,” he repeated.

The argument continued, and a small knot of curious onlookers gathered. It appeared as if the bald one would get his way, after all. Reaching into a secret inner pocket of his suit jacket, Pendergast extracted a wad of bills – one thousand reais – and offered it to the shorter lookout.

“Meu filho,” he said yet again, in a quiet, non-threatening voice.

The youth stared at the money, but did not take it.

Pendergast again reached into his pocket, drew out another thousand reais, and added it to the wad he was proffering. Two thousand reais – a thousand dollars – was a lot of money in a community such as this.

“Por favor,” he said, waving the money gently in front of the lookout. “Deixe-me entrar.”

With a sudden grimace, the youth snatched the money away. “Porra,” he muttered.

This elicited another outburst from his shaven-headed companion, who was evidently in favor of simply shooting Pendergast and taking the money. But the shorter one silenced him with a volley of curses. He handed the passport and wallet back to Pendergast, keeping the gun.

“Sai da aqui,” he said, waving Pendergast on dismissively. “Fila da puta.”

“Obrigado.” As Pendergast walked past the makeshift guard post he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the shaven-headed youth detach himself from the assembled group and disappear down a back alley.

Pendergast wandered up the central street of the favela, which quickly split into a confusing labyrinth of ever-narrower roads that crossed and recrossed, turned at odd angles, and – occasionally – dead-ended abruptly. People eyed him silently as he passed by, some with curiosity, others with suspicion. Now and then he stopped to ask someone, “meu filho,” but this was greeted with a quick, silent shake of the head and a hurrying past, as if to avoid the mutterings of a madman.

Working through the dullness of the drugs, Pendergast pushed his senses to take in everything. He needed to understand. The alleyways were relatively clean, with the occasional chicken or slinking, emaciated dog. Besides the two guards he saw no weapons, drug dealing, or open criminality. Indeed, the favela seemed to display more order than the city outside. The buildings were decorated in a wild profusion of garishly colored posters and handbills, much of it peeling off and fluttering. The sound was almost overwhelming. From open windows poured Brazilian funk music, conversation, or loud argument; the occasional expostulation of “Caralho!” or some other invective. The air smelled overpoweringly of frying meat. Mopeds and rusted bicycles passed by infrequently – there were almost no cars. At each intersection there was at least one barzinho—a corner bar with grubby plastic tables, a dozen men inside gathered around an ancient TV with bottles of Cerveja Skol in their hands, cheering on the inevitable soccer game. Their voices rose from every point when a goal was scored.

Pendergast stopped, took his bearings as best he could, then started climbing the mountain face that the Cidade dos Anjos was spread across. As he ascended the winding streets, the character of the buildings changed. The three-story concrete structures began being replaced by shacks and shantyhouses of remarkable decrepitude, slats and sections of wood wired or tied together and covered – if they were covered at all – with roofs of corrugated iron. Now garbage appeared, strewn about, and the smell of bad meat and rotting potatoes lingered in the air. Adjoining buildings leaned against each other, apparently for support. Laundry hung in every direction from an impossible tangle of crisscrossing lines, dangling limply in the tremendous heat. Passing a small, improvised soccer field in a vacant lot, surrounded by the remains of a chain-link fence, Pendergast could make out, far below, the stately outlines of the high-rise apartment buildings of Rio’s Zona Norte. They were a mere mile or two away, but from his vantage point they could have been a thousand.

As the pitch grew steeper, the surrounding landscape changed to a confusing welter of terraces, rickety public staircases of badly poured concrete and wooden lathe, and narrow switchback lanes. Dirty children peered at him through barbed wire and broken slats. There was less music here, less shouting, less life. The stillness of poverty and despair infected the muggy air. Lashed-together structures rose up all around, each at its own level and angle, with seeming disregard to the surrounding buildings: a three-dimensional maze of back alleys and passageways and common spaces and tiny plazas. Still, Pendergast mumbled to all he passed the same pathetic phrase: “Meu filho. Por favor. Meu filho.”

As he passed a small, grimy upholstery store, a dented and scarred Toyota Hilux four-door pickup stopped in front of him with a screech. It was barely narrower than the alleyway itself and effectively blocked his progress. While the driver stayed behind the wheel, three young men in khaki pants and brightly colored knit shirts burst out from the other three doors. Each carried an AR-15, and each had his weapon trained on Pendergast.

One of the men stepped quickly up to him while the other two held back. “Pare!” he demanded. “Stop!”

Pendergast stopped. There was a tense moment of stasis. Pendergast took a step forward, and one of the men stopped him with a rifle butt, pushing him back. The other two closed in, pointing their own weapons at Pendergast’s head.

“Coloque suas maos no carro!” the first man yelled, spinning Pendergast around and pushing him against the pickup. While the other two covered him, the man frisked Pendergast for weapons. Then he opened the nearest rear door of the pickup.

“Entre,” he said roughly.

When Pendergast did nothing but blink in the bright sunlight, the man took him by the shoulders and propelled him into the rear seat. The other two followed, one on each side, weapons still pointed. The first man slid into the front passenger seat; the driver put the pickup into gear, and they shot away down the dingy street, raising a cloud of dust that completely obscured their departure.

37

One of the duty cops stuck his head into D’Agosta’s office. “Loo? You’ve got a call waiting. Somebody named Spandau.”

“Can you take a message? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“He says it’s important.”

D’Agosta looked over at Sergeant Slade, sitting in his visitor’s chair. He was, if anything, grateful for the interruption. Slade, Angler’s errand boy, had stopped in at Angler’s request to “liaise” on their two cases, the Museum murder and the dead body on Pendergast’s doorstep. Just how much Angler knew about what the two cases had in common, D’Agosta wasn’t sure… the man was playing his cards close. And so was Slade. But they wanted copies of all the case files – everything – and they wanted them now. D’Agosta didn’t like Slade… and it wasn’t just the disgusting licorice toffee he was so fond of. For some reason, he reminded D’Agosta of the toady of a schoolboy who, if he saw you doing something wrong, would tell the teacher as a way of currying favor. But D’Agosta also knew Slade to be clever and resourceful, which only made it worse.

D’Agosta held the phone up. “Sorry. I’d better take this. Might be a while. I’ll check in with you later.”

Slade glanced at him, at the duty cop, and stood up. “Sure.” He left the office, trailing an aroma of licorice behind him.

D’Agosta watched him walk away and lifted the phone to his ear. “What’s going on? Has our boy recovered his marbles?”

“Not exactly,” came Spandau’s matter-of-fact tone down the line.

“What is it, then?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead? How? I mean, the guy looked sick, but not that sick.”

“One of the guards found him in his cell, not half an hour ago. Suicide.”

Suicide. This case was a ball-buster. “Jesus, I can’t believe this.” Frustration put an edge to his voice that he didn’t intend. “Didn’t you have a suicide watch on him?”

“Of course. The full works: padded cell, leather restraints, fifteen-minute rotations. Just after the last check, he struggled out of the restraints – broke a collarbone in the process – bit off the big toe of his left foot, and then… choked on it.”

For a moment, D’Agosta was shocked into silence.

“I tried calling Agent Pendergast,” Spandau went on. “When I couldn’t reach him, I called you.”

It was true: Pendergast had vanished into thin air again. It was infuriating – but D’Agosta wasn’t going to think about that now. “Okay. Did he ever get lucid?”

“Just the opposite. After you left, what little lucidity he had vanished. He kept raving, saying the same things over and over.”

“What things?”

“You heard some of it. He kept mentioning a smell – rotting flowers. He stopped sleeping, was making a racket day and night. He’d been complaining about pain, too; not a localized pain, but something that seemed to affect his whole body. After you left, it grew worse. The prison doctor did some tests, administered meds, but nothing seemed to help. They couldn’t diagnose it. In the last twenty-four hours, he really started to go downhill. Nonstop raving, moaning, crying. I was making arrangements to have him transferred to the facility hospital when word of his death reached me.”

D’Agosta fetched a deep breath; let out a long, slow sigh.

“The autopsy is scheduled for later today. I’ll send you the report when I get it. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

“If I think of something, I’ll let you know.” And as an afterthought: “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t have better news for you.” And the line went dead with a click.

D’Agosta leaned back in his chair. As he did so, his eyes moved slowly – unwillingly – to the stack of files that covered his desk, all of which had to be copied for Slade.

Great. Just frigging great.