Текст книги "Brimstone"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston,Lincoln Child
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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

{ 73 }

 

Bryce Harriman sat at the old table, taking notes in the harsh light of a Coleman lantern, the Reverend Buck across from him. It was almost midnight, but he wasn't the least bit sleepy. The day before, he had filed a crackerjack story, about the failed attempt to arrest Buck. He had pieced it together from a half dozen witnesses, and it was juicy: the swaggering police captain coming in to arrest Buck, how he'd panicked and run, leaving it to the other captain-a woman-to straighten things out. Great copy. In the long run, it might turn out to be more than just great copy: he'd begun putting out feelers at the Times , and they seemed receptive to a job interview. This new article would be gravy. And thanks to Buck, he was now the only journalist allowed in the tent city. With this second piece appearing hot on the heels of the first, he was going to score a double whammy. And he would be there tomorrow, too, just in case there was a showdown with New York's finest.

Judging from the mood in the camp, it was going to be a mess. Since the botched arrest, the whole place had been on edge, restless, belligerent, like a powder keg ready to go. Even at midnight, more than a day after the would-be raid, everyone was still awake, the prayers and camp meetings sounding shrilly through the darkness. A lot of the kids he'd noticed on his first visit to the tent city were gone-a night or two of sleeping on the hard ground, without an Internet connection or cable TV, had sent them scurrying home to their comfy suburbs. What remained was the hard-core element, the real zealots. And there was no shortage of those: there had to be at least three hundred tents here.

Buck himself was different. Gone was the flicker of uncertainty, the faint aura of surprise and wonder that he had possessed before. Now he seemed almost transcendentally calm and assured. When he looked at Harriman, it was as if he was looking right through him to another world.

"Well, Mr. Harriman," he was saying, "have you gotten what you came for? It's almost midnight, and I usually deliver a message to the people before retiring."

"Just one other question. What do you think's going to happen? The NYPD aren't just going to walk away, you realize."

He had half expected the question to shake Buck up a bit, but instead, the man seemed to settle even deeper into something like serenity. "What will happen will happen."

"It may not be pretty. Are you ready?"

"No, it won't be pretty, and yes, I am ready."

"You say that almost as if you know what's going to happen."

Buck smiled knowingly but said nothing.

"Aren't you concerned?" Harriman asked more insistently.

Again that enigmatic smile.  Damn, you can't quote a smile. "We're talking tear gas maybe, cops swinging billy clubs. No more fun and games."

"I put my trust in God, Mr. Harriman. Who do you trust?"

Time to wrap this up.  "Thank you, Reverend, you've been very helpful." Harriman rose.

"And thank you, Mr. Harriman. Won't you stay a few minutes to hear my message to the people? As you say, something is about to happen. And as a result, my sermon this evening will be somewhat different."

The reporter hesitated. He had to be up at five, ready to go. He was pretty sure the cops were going to do their thing tomorrow, and it might begin early. "What's it on?"

"Hell."

"In that case, I'll stay."

Buck rose and signaled one of his men, who came over, helped him don a simple vestment, and then accompanied him out of the tent. Harriman followed in their wake, pulling his recorder out of one pocket, trying to ignore the heavy reek of the encampment. They were headed, he knew, to a huge glacial erratic that reared out of the earth to the west of the tent city and which was now universally called the "preaching rock."

The bustle of the camp died away as Buck went out of sight behind the massive boulder, climbed the grassy hummock to the rear, then reappeared on its lofty crag. He raised his hands slowly. Watching from below, Harriman found hundreds of people drifting in out of the darkness to surround him.

"My friends," he began. "Good evening. Once again I thank you for joining me on this spiritual quest. It's been my custom, in these evening talks, to speak to you of this quest: to explain why we are here and what it is we must do. But tonight my subject will be different.

"Brothers and sisters, you will soon face a trial. A great trial. We won a mighty victory here yesterday, thanks be to God. But the agents of darkness are not easily turned back. Therefore, you must be strong. Be strong, and accept the will of God ."

Harriman, listening with recorder raised, was surprised by Buck's tone and manner. His voice was quiet, but it rang with an iron conviction he'd never heard before, even in the very first sermon delivered outside Cutforth's building. There was a strange look in Buck's bright eyes: a look of anticipation mingled with an almost stoic resignation.

"I have spoken to you many times about what we have come here to achieve. Now, on the eve of your trial to end all trials, I must take a moment to remind you of what we are up against and who your enemy is. Remember my words even when I am no longer among you."

The eve of your trial. Who your enemy is. No longer among you. Since his last meeting in Buck's tent, Harriman had begun reading the Bible-just a little, here and there-and the words of Jesus came back to him now: Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

"Why, my friends and my brothers, were our medieval ancestors-unsophisticated and unlettered in other ways-so much more God-fearing than people today? But I speak the answer even as I ask the question. Because they had the fear of God. They knew what rewards awaited the chosen few in heaven. And they also knew what awaited the sinful, the wicked, the lazy and unbelieving.

"The fault lies not just with the people. Today's clergy are even more at fault. They sugarcoat the word of God, make light of his warnings, tell their flocks that hell is merely a metaphor or an antique concept with no actual reality. God's love is expansive and forgiving, they tell us. They lull their flocks into a false sense of entitlement. As if a baptism here, a few good deeds there, a communion or two, is a ticket to heaven. My friends, this is a tragic mistake."

Buck paused to glance around at the hushed multitude.

"God's love is a tough love. In this city, as in all great cities, people die every day. They die by the hundreds. At what point do you suppose all those poor souls begin to realize the real fate that lies in store for them? At what point do the scales fall from their eyes and they learn their entire life has been a lie-that they've spent it running from the light ever deeper into the darkness-and that they now have nothing but unimaginable torment to look forward to? There is no way to know for sure. But I believe at least some people have a glimpse of it in their last moments. I believe that, for these people, there is a creeping sense that something is terribly wrong: something far, far worse than the act of dying itself. In those last moments, as the soul begins to separate from the body, the fabric of everyday reality is ripped asunder. And suddenly they can see into the void beyond. Then comes a terrible oppression; overwhelming fear; rising heat. They cannot scream, they cannot flee. This is no panic attack that will pass; this is merely the foretaste of what is to come. This is a step onto the first tread of the long stairway down into hell.

"And what is hell itself like? Our ancestors were told it was a burning lake of fire, of sulfur and brimstone, in which one was eternally submerged. A terrible furnace whose flames bring no light, but merely darkness made visible. And in a simpler time, such a depiction was enough."

He stopped again to look around, fixing first one, then another, with his eyes.

"Mind you, I do believe this is hell for some. But it is not the only hell. There are countless hells, my brothers and sisters. There is a hell for each of us. Lucifer may be no match for our God. Yet he was a very mighty angel indeed, and as such, has powers far beyond our poor comprehension.

"You must remember something, and remember it always: Lucifer, the devil, was cast out of heaven because of his overmastering envy and evil. In his implacable jealousy, his unquenchable thirst for revenge, he now uses us as his pawns. Just as the rejected child hates a favored rival, he hates us for what we are: beloved children of God. And which of us can hope to comprehend the depths of his bottomless rage? Each human he corrupts, each soul he takes, is for him a victory: a fist shaken up at God.

"He knows our individual weaknesses, our petty desires; he knows what triggers our vanity or our greed or our lust or our cruelty. We have no secrets from him. He has handcrafted temptations for each one of us; he has strewn our path with a thousand ways to veer into darkness. And once he has successfully lured a soul into his kingdom-once he has won, yet again-do you think Satan will be content to leave that soul in a generic hell? Think again, my friends: think again. He who knows all our weaknesses also knows all our fears. Even those we may not know ourselves. And to complete his victory, to make his victim's suffering supreme , he will fashion each individual hell to be the most unendurable for its particular inhabitant. And worst of all, it will be a hell that lasts forever. And ever. And ever. For some, that may well mean a burning lake of fire. For others, it may mean an eternity nailed up in a black coffin, motionless, lightless, speechless, as insanity doubles and redoubles over long eons. For others, it might mean, say, eternal suffocation. Imagine that for a moment, my friends. Imagine that you've held your breath for two minutes, maybe three. Imagine the desperate need for oxygen, the exquisite torture. And yet in hell, there is no release of breath, no drawing in of good sweet air. Nor is there the blankness of oblivion. There is simply that moment of maximal agony, prolonged forever."

Maximal agony, prolonged forever. Despite himself, Harriman shivered in the warm night.

"Other hells might be more subtle. Imagine the man who always feared going crazy, doing so over decades or even slow centuries. And then beginning the process over. And over. Or imagine the doting mother, forced to watch-again and again and again-how after her own passing her children slide into poverty and neglect, drug addiction, depression, maltreatment, and death."

Here he stopped, and stepped up to the very edge of the rock.

"Take a moment to think of the very worst hell you could imagine for yourself. And then realize that Satan, who knows you even better than you know yourself, could fashion one far worse. And he will. He already has. In anticipation. Because he has only one salve for his bitter pain: the despair, the desperate pleadings, the cries and sufferings of his victims."

Buck paused again. He took a deep breath, then another. Then, in an even lower voice, he went on.

"I've said there was a hell for each of us. That hell is there, waiting for each one of you. Satan has made your hell so very easy to find, with a wide and comfortable road leading straight to it. It is far, far easier for us to go with the flow, to stroll unthinking down that broad pleasant avenue, far easier than to search for the rough, hidden turnoff that leads to heaven. We must fight against the lure of the easy road. It is a fight, my friends; a fight to the death. Because that is the only way-the only way-we are going to discover that difficult trail to heaven. I ask you to remember this in the trials we are about to face."

And then he turned and stepped down out of sight.

{ 74 }

 

When D'Agosta entered Pendergast's hotel suite, he found the agent at breakfast. The table was set with assorted fruits, breakfast rolls, and the inescapable and inevitable tiny espresso. Pendergast was nibbling daintily at poached eggs and reading what looked like a set of faxed documents. For a brief moment, D'Agosta thought of the earlier meal they'd shared, back in Southampton, when this case was still brand-new. It seemed a distant memory indeed.

"Ah, Vincent," Pendergast said. "Come in. Would you care to order something?"

"No, thanks." Although it was a beautiful morning and sunlight gilded the rooms, D'Agosta felt as if a threatening cloud was hanging over them both. "I'm surprised you've got an appetite."

"It's important I take some refreshment now. I'm not sure how long it will be until my next meal. But that shouldn't stop you: come, have a croissant. These Alsatian plum preserves from Fauchon are delightful." He put the faxes aside and picked up La Nazione .

"What's that you were reading?"

"Some faxes from Constance. I'll need all the, ah, ammunition I can gather for what's to come. She has proven most helpful."

D'Agosta stepped forward. "I'm coming with you," he said grimly. "I want to get that straight here and now so there won't be any questions later."

Pendergast lowered the paper. "I assumed you'd make such a demand. Let me remind you the invitation was for me alone."

"I doubt that fat-assed count would have any objections."

"You're probably right."

"I've come all this way. I've been shot at more than once, lost the end of a finger, almost been pushed off a cliff, almost been driven off a cliff."

"Right again."

"So don't expect me to spend the evening relaxing by the pool with a few cold ones while you're in Fosco's lair."

Pendergast smiled faintly. "I have one more errand to run before leaving Florence. Let's discuss it then."

And he raised the paper once again.

Two hours later, their car stopped on a narrow street in Florence, outside a vast, austere building of rough stone.

"The Palazzo Maffei," Pendergast said from behind the wheel. "If you wouldn't mind waiting here a moment? I won't be long." He got out of the car, approached a brass plaque of door buzzers set into the facade, scanned the names, and pressed one. A moment later, a muffled voice rasped over the intercom. Pendergast answered. Then the great door buzzed open and he vanished inside.

D'Agosta watched, curious. He'd picked up enough Italian to know that what Pendergast said into the intercom hadn't sounded right. It sounded more like Latin, to tell the truth.

Getting out of the car, he crossed the narrow street and examined the buzzers. The one Pendergast pressed was labeled simply Corso Maffei . This told D'Agosta nothing, and he returned to their rental car.

Within ten minutes, Pendergast emerged from the building and got back into the driver's seat.

"What was that all about?" D'Agosta asked.

"Insurance," Pendergast replied. Then he turned to look intently at D'Agosta. "The chances of success in this venture are not much better than fifty-fifty. I have to do this. You do not. I would personally prefer it if you didn't come."

"No way. We're in this together."

"I see you are determined. But let me just remind you, Vincent, that you have a son and what appear to be excellent prospects for advancement, promotion, and a happy life ahead of you."

"I said , we're in this together."

Pendergast smiled and laid a hand on his arm-a strangely affectionate gesture from a man who hardly ever showed affection. "I knew this would be your answer, Vincent, and I am glad. I have come to rely on your common sense, your steadiness, and your shooting ability, among other excellent qualities."

D'Agosta felt himself unaccountably embarrassed and he grunted a reply.

"We should reach the castle by midafternoon. I'll brief you on the way."

The road running south from Florence into Chianti wound through some of the prettiest country D'Agosta had ever seen: hills striped with vineyards turning yellow in fall colors, and pale gray-green olive groves; fairy-tale castles and gorgeous Renaissance villas sprinkled on hills and ridges. Beyond loomed a range of forested mountains, dotted here or there with a grim monastery or an ancient bell tower.

The road loosely followed the ridges above the Greve River. As they passed over the Passo dei Pecorai, the town of Greve came into view far below, lying in a low valley along the river. As they came around another bend in the road, Pendergast pointed a finger at his side window. "Castel Fosco," he said.

It stood on a lonely spar of rock far up in the Chiantigian hills. From this distance, it looked to D'Agosta like a single massive tower, crenellated and time-worn, rising above the forest. The road turned, dipped, and the castle disappeared. A moment later Pendergast turned off the main road, and after a confusing series of turns onto ever-smaller lanes, they arrived at a mossy wall with an iron gate. The marble plaque beside it read Castel Fosco. The open gate was rotten and rusted, and it seemed to have settled crookedly into the very ground itself. An ancient dirt road ran up from the gate through some vineyards, climbing a steep hillside and disappearing over the brow of the hill.

As they wound their way up the hillside, Pendergast nodded toward the terraced vineyards and groves that lined the road. "A rich estate, apparently, and one of the largest in Chianti."

D'Agosta said nothing. Every yard they drove farther into the count's domain seemed to increase the sense of oppression that hung over him.

The road topped the ridge and the castle came into view again, much closer now: a monstrous stone keep perched on a crag far up the mountainside. Built into one side of the keep was a later, yet still ancient, addition: a graceful Renaissance villa with a pale yellow stuccoed exterior and red-tile roofs. Its rows of stately windows stood in strong contrast to the grim, almost brutal lines of the central keep.

The entire structure was surrounded by a double set of walls. The outermost was almost completely in ruins, consisting mostly of gaps of tumbled stone, broken towers, and crumbling battlements. The inner curtain was in much better repair and acted as a kind of retaining wall to the castle itself, its enormous ramparts providing fields of level ground around the exterior. Beyond the castle, the slopes of the mountain rose yet another thousand feet into a wild, forested amphitheater, jagged outcrops forming a serrated semicircular edge against the lowering sky.

"Over five thousand acres," said Pendergast. "I understand it dates back more than a millennium."

But D'Agosta did not reply. The sight of the castle had chilled him more than he cared to admit. The sense of oppression grew stronger. It seemed insane, walking into the lion's den like this. But he'd learned to trust Pendergast implicitly. The man never did anything without a reason. He'd outfoxed the sniper. He'd saved them from death at the hands of Bullard's men. He'd saved their lives many times before, on earlier cases. Pendergast's plan-whatever it was-would work.

Of course it would work.

{ 75 }

 

The car came around a final turn and passed the ruined outer gate. The castle rose above them in its stern and immense majesty. They proceeded down an avenue of cypress trees with massive ribbed trunks and stopped at a parking area just outside the inner curtain. D'Agosta peered at this wall through the passenger window with deep misgiving. It towered twenty feet over his head, its great sloping buttresses streaked with lime, dripping moss and maidenhair ferns. There was no gate in this inner wall, just a spiked and banded pair of wooden doors at the top of a broad stone staircase.

As they got out of the car, there was a humming sound, followed by a deep scraping noise, and the doors opened at an invisible cue.

They mounted the stairs, passed through a hulking doorway, and stepped into what seemed like another world. The smooth lawn of the inner ward ran for a hundred yards to the skirt of the castle itself. To one side of the lawn lay a large, circular reflecting pool surrounded by an ancient marble balustrade, ornamented at its center by a statue of Neptune astride a sea monster. To the right stood a small chapel with a tiled dome. Beyond was another marble balustrade overlooking a small garden that stepped down the hillside, ending abruptly at the fortified inner wall.

There was another scraping noise, and the ground trembled; D'Agosta turned to see the great wooden doors rumbling closed behind them.

"Never mind," murmured Pendergast. "Preparations have been made."

D'Agosta hoped to hell he knew what he was talking about. "Where's Fosco?" he asked.

"We'll no doubt see him soon enough."

They crossed the lawn and approached the main entrance of the massive keep. It opened with a creak of iron. And there stood Fosco, dressed in an elegant dove-gray suit, longish hair brushed back, his smooth white face creased with a smile. As always, he was wearing kid gloves.

"My dear Pendergast, welcome to my humble abode. And Sergeant D'Agosta, as well? Nice of you to join our little party."

He held out his hand. Pendergast ignored it.

The count let the hand drop, his smile unaffected. "A pity. I had hoped we could conduct our business with courtesy, like gentlemen."

"Is there a gentleman here? I should like to meet him."

Fosco clucked disapprovingly. "Is this a way to treat a man in his own home?"

"Is it any way to treat a man, burning him to death in his own home?"

A look of distaste crossed Fosco's face. "So anxious to get to the business at hand, are we? But there will be time, there will be time. Do come in."

The count stood aside, and they walked through a long archway into the castle's great hall. It was quite unlike what D'Agosta had expected. A graceful loggia ran along three sides, with columns and Roman arches.

"Note the Della Robbiatondi ," said Fosco, gesturing toward some painted terra-cotta decorations set into the walls above the arches. "But you must be tired after the drive down. I will take you to your quarters, where you can refresh yourselves."

"Our rooms?" Pendergast asked. "Are we spending the night?"

"Naturally."

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary, or even possible."

"But I must insist." The count turned and seized an iron ring on the open castle door, drawing it shut with a boom. With a dramatic flourish, he removed a giant key from his pocket and locked it. Then he opened a small wooden box mounted on the nearby wall. Inside, D'Agosta saw a high-tech keypad, wildly out of place amidst the ancient masonry. The count punched a long sequence of numbers into the keypad. In response, there was a clank, and a massive iron bar shot down from above, sliding into a heavy iron bracket and barring the door.

"Now we are safe from unauthorized invasion," said Fosco. "Or, for that matter, unauthorized departure."

Pendergast made no answer. The count turned and, moving in his peculiar light-footed way, led them through the hall and into a long, cold stone gallery. Portraits, almost black with age, lined both walls, along with mounted sets of rusted armor, spears, lances, pikes, maces, and other medieval weaponry.

"The armor is of no value, eighteenth-century reproductions. The portraits are of my ancestors, of course. Age has obscured them, fortunately-the counts of Fosco are not a pretty race. We have owned the estate since the twelfth century, when my distinguished ancestor Giovan de Ardaz wrested it from a Longobardic knight. The family bestowed the title 'cavaliere' on itself and took as its coat of arms a dragon rampant, bar sinister. During the time of the grand dukes, we were made counts of the Holy Roman Empire by the electress palatine herself. We have always led a quiet existence here, tending our vines and olive groves, neither meddling in politics nor aspiring to office. We Florentines have a saying: The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in. The House of Fosco did not stick out, and as a result, we never felt the blow of the hammer during many, many shifts of political fortune."

"And yet you, Count, have managed to stick yourself out quite a bit these past few months," Pendergast replied.

"Alas, and much against my will. It was only to recover what was rightfully ours to begin with. But we shall talk more of this at dinner."

They passed out of the gallery and through a beautiful drawing room with leaded-glass windows and tapestried walls. Fosco gestured toward some large landscape paintings. "Hobbema and van Ruisdael."

The drawing room was followed by a long series of graciously appointed, light-filled chambers, until quite suddenly the character of the rooms changed abruptly. "We are now entering the original, Longobardic part of the castle," Fosco said. "Dating back to the ninth century."

Here the rooms were small and almost windowless, the only light admitted by arrow ports and tiny, square openings high on the walls. The walls were calcined, the rooms bare.

"I have no use for these dreary old rooms," said the count as they passed through. "They are always damp and cold. There are, however, several levels of cellars, tunnels, and subbasements below, most useful for making wine, balsamico , and prosciutto di cinghiale . We hunt our own boar here on the estate, you know, and it is justly famous. The lowest of those tunnels were cut into the rock by the Etruscans, three thousand years ago."

They came to a heavy iron door, set into an even heavier stone wall. Deeper within the castle, D'Agosta could see that the stonework was beaded with moisture.

"The keep," Fosco said as he unlocked the door with another key.

Immediately inside was a wide, windowless circular staircase that corkscrewed its way up from the depths and curved out of sight above their heads. Fosco removed a battery-powered torch from a wall sconce, turned it on, and led the way up the stairs. After five or six revolutions, they stopped at a small landing containing a single door. Opening it with yet another key, Fosco ushered them into what looked like a small apartment, retrofitted into the old castle keep, its tiny windows overlooking the valley of the Greve and the rolling hills marching toward Florence, far below. A fire burned in a stone fireplace at one end, and Persian rugs covered the terra-cotta floor. There was a comfortable sitting area in front of the fire; a table to one side well furnished with wines and liquors; a wall of well-stocked bookshelves.

"Eccoci quà! I trust you will find your chambers comfortable. There are two small bedrooms on either side. The view is refreshing, don't you think? I am concerned that you brought no luggage. I will have Pinketts furnish you with anything you might need-razors, bathrobes, slippers, sleeping shirts."

"I very much doubt we will be staying the night."

"And I very much doubt you will be leaving." The count smiled. "We eat late, in the Continental fashion. At nine."

He bowed, backed out of the door, shutting it with a hollow boom. With sinking heart, D'Agosta heard a key rasp in the lock, and then the footsteps of the count disappearing quickly down the stairway.