Текст книги "Dance Of Death"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 29 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

SIXTY-EIGHT

Pendergast remained in the darkness of the tunnel, gun drawn, waiting. All was silent. A minute went by, then two, then three, then four.

Five minutes passed. No train came.

Six minutes. Seven.

Still Pendergast waited in the dark. He realized his brother, always cautious, would not show himself until the train had passed. Slowly, he stepped back out into the light.

"Aloysius!What are you still doing here?" The voice was suddenly panicked. "I said I'd kill anyone who showed themselves again!"

"Then do it."

Once again, a gun fired, kicking up gravel inches from his toe.

"Your aim is off."

A second round ricocheted off the stone arch above Pendergast's head, spraying him with chips.

"You missed again."

"The train's coming through at any moment," came the urgent voice. "I won't have to kill you-the train will do it for me."

Pendergast shook his head. Then he began strolling leisurely along the railroad turntable, heading toward the center of the vault.

"Get back!"Another shot.

"Your aim is poor today, Diogenes."

He stopped at the center of the turntable.

"No!" came the voice. "Get away!"

Pendergast reached down and picked up the box, took out the diamond, weighed it in his palm.

"The train, you fool! Put the diamond down! It's safe in that hole!"

"There is no train."

"Yes, there is. It's late, that's all."

"It's not coming."

"What are you talking about?"

"The midnight Acela was canceled. I called in a bomb threat at the Back Bay station."

"You're bluffing! How could you have called in such a threat? You couldn't have known my plan."

"No? Why meet us at six minutes to midnight, rather than midnight? And why here? There could be only one reason: it had to do with the railroad timetable. From there it was elementary." He slipped the diamond into his pocket.

"Put that back-it's mine! You liar! You liedto me!"

"I never lied to you. I merely followed your instructions. You, on the other hand, lied to me. Many times. You said you would kill Smithback. Instead, you targeted Margo Green."

"I killed your friends. You know I won't hesitate to kill you."

"And that's precisely what you're going to have to do. You want to stop me? Then kill me."

"Bastard! Mon semblable, mon frère-now, you die!"

Pendergast waited, motionless. A minute passed, then another.

"You see, you can't kill me," Pendergast said. "That's why you did not properly aim your shots. You need me alive. You proved that when you rescued me from Castel Fosco. You need me, because without me-without your hatredof me-you would have nothing left."

Diogenes did not respond. And yet a new sound had been introduced to the vault: the sound of running feet, barked commands, crackling radios.

The sounds were coming closer.

"What is it?" came Diogenes's urgent voice.

"The police," said Pendergast calmly.

"You called the police'?You fool, they'll get you, not me!"

"That's the whole point. And your gunshots will bring them here all the faster."

"What are you talking about? Idiot, you're what-using yourself as bait? Sacrificing yourself?"

"Precisely. I'm exchanging my freedom for the safety of Viola, and for the recovery of Lucifer's Heart. Self-sacrifice, Diogenes: the one end result you could not have predicted. Because it's the one thing you would never, ever think to do yourself."

"You-! Give me my diamond!"

"Come and get it. You might even have a minute to enjoy it before we're both captured. Or you can run now, and maybe– just maybe– escape."

"You can't do this, you're utterly mad!" The disembodied voice fell in another choking moan, so penetrating and inhuman that it sounded feral. And then it cut off abruptly, leaving only an echo.

A moment later, Hayward burst out of tunnel IV, a phalanx of cops behind her. Singleton followed, speaking excitedly into his radio. The officers quickly surrounded Pendergast, dropping to their knees in the three-point stance, weapons aimed at him.

"Police! Freeze! Raise your hands!"

Slowly, Pendergast raised his hands.

Hayward came forward, stepping through the ring of blue. "Are you armed, Agent Pendergast?"

Pendergast nodded. "And you will find Lucifer's Heart in the left pocket of my jacket. Please treat it with great care. Hold it yourself, don't entrust it to anyone."

Hayward glanced back, motioned for one of the officers to frisk him. Another agent came up behind, grabbing Pendergast's hands, pulling them behind his back and cuffing them.

"I suggest we move away from the railroad track," Pendergast said. "For the sake of safety."

"All in good time," Hayward said. She reached cautiously into his jacket pocket, withdrew the diamond, glanced at it, tucked it into her own breast pocket. "Aloysius Pendergast, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…"

But Pendergast was not listening. He was looking over Hayward's shoulder, into the darkness of tunnel III. Two small points of light were barely visible there, seemingly mere reflections of the faint light of the vault. As he watched, the lights faded out a moment, then returned-as eyes would do when blinked. Then they dimmed, turned away, and vanished, leaving only blackness in their wake.

SIXTY-NINE

THE ambulance crew had already taken away Kaplan and Viola. D'Agosta remained behind, cuffed to a chair in the holding area of the NYPD's Madison Square Garden substation, guarded by six cops. His head was down, eyes on the floor, trying to avoid eye contact with his former peers and subordinates as they stood around, making forced small talk. It turned out to be easy: everybody was assiduously avoiding looking at him. It was as if he no longer existed, as if he'd turned into some kind of vermin that didn't even merit a glance.

He heard a burst of radio talk and saw, through the substation's glassed-in partition, a large group of cops moving through the ticketing area of Penn Station. In the middle, still walking tall, was the slender, black-suited figure of Pendergast, hands cuffed behind his back, two burly cops on either side. Pendergast glanced neither to the left nor to the right, and his back was straight, his face untroubled. For the first time in many days, he looked-if it was possible, under the circumstances-almost like his old self. No doubt they were leading him to a waiting paddy wagon at the station's Eighth Avenue entrance. As Pendergast passed, he glanced in D'Agosta's direction. Even though the partition was made of mirrored glass, it seemed that Pendergast nevertheless looked directly at him, with what seemed to be a quick, grateful nod.

D'Agosta turned away. His whole world, everything he cared about, had been destroyed. Because of Pendergast's insistence that he inform Hayward of their whereabouts, his friend was on his way to prison, probably for life. There was only one thing that could make him feel worse, and that would be if Hayward herself made an appearance.

As if on cue, there she was: walking with Singleton, approaching from the far side of the substation.

He dropped his head and waited. He heard footsteps approach. His face burned.

"Lieutenant?"

He looked up. It wasn't Hayward, just Singleton. Laura had simply passed him by.

Singleton glanced around, exchanged greetings with the cops guarding D'Agosta. "Uncuff him, please."

One of the cops uncuffed him from the chair.

"I'd like to have a private word with the lieutenant, if you fellows don't mind."

The cops evacuated the holding area with visible relief. When they were gone, Singleton put a hand on his shoulder. "You're in deep shit, Vinnie," he said, not unkindly.

D'Agosta nodded.

"Needless to say, they'll be convening a board of inquiry, and a preliminary internal affairs hearing will be held as soon as possible, probably the day after tomorrow. Your future in law enforcement is a big question mark at this point, but, frankly, that's the least of your worries. It looks like we're dealing with four felony charges: kidnapping two, grand auto, reckless endangerment, accessory after."

D'Agosta put his head in his hands.

Singleton squeezed his shoulder. "The thing is, Vinnie, despite all this, in the end you came through. You dropped a dime on Pendergast, and we nailed him. A few cars were wrecked, but nobody got hurt. We might even be able to argue that this was the plan allalong-you know, you were working undercover, setting Pendergast up."

D'Agosta didn't respond. The sight of Pendergast being led off in cuffs was still working its way into his head. Pendergast, the untouchable.

"The point is, I'm going to see what I can do about these charges, maybe knock some of them down to misdemeanors before they get written up and filed, if you know what I mean. No promises."

D'Agosta swallowed and managed to say, "Thanks."

"There's a bit of a twist here. The kidnap victim's preliminary statement seems to indicate that this Diogenes Pendergast is alive– and maybe even responsible for the diamond heist at the museum. Seems we just missed him down there in the railroad tunnels. The fact that Pendergast had Lucifer's Heart in his pocket is also damned puzzling. This sort of… well, opens up the case. We're going to have to take a second look at some of our assumptions."

D'Agosta looked up sharply. "I can explain everything."

"Save it for the interrogation. Hayward already told me about your theory that Diogenes framed his brother for those killings. The fact is, we now know that Pendergast impersonated Kaplan and stole the diamond. Whatever the precise details are, he's going to do hard time, no question about it. If I were you-and I'm speaking to you now as a friend, not as a supervisor-I'd worry about your own skin and quit interesting yourself in his. That FBI bastard's caused you enough trouble."

"Captain, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't speak of Agent Pendergast in that way."

"Loyal to the end, eh?" Singleton shook his head.

The sound of a loud, angry voice came echoing down the substation. A solid mass of federal agents, led by a tall, glowering, sunburned man, came into view outside the holding area. D'Agosta stared hard: the man at the front looked familiar, very familiar. He tried to clear his mind, cut through the fog. Coffey.Special Agent Coffey.

Spying Singleton, Coffey veered in the direction of the holding area.

"Captain Singleton?" His fleshy face was red even through the tan.

Captain Singleton looked up, his expression mild. "Yes, Agent Coffey?"

"What the hell's gone down here? You made the collar without us?"

"That's right."

"You know this is our case."

Singleton waited a minute before responding. When he did, his voice was calm and low, almost as if he were talking to a child. "The information came in fast and we had to act on it immediately. The perp slipped your Suffolk County dragnet and made his way back into the city. We couldn't wait. I'm sure you'll understand, given the circumstances, why we had to move without you."

"You didn't contact the Southern District of Manhattan Field Office at all. There were agents standing by in the city, ready to move at a moment's notice."

Another pause. "That was certainly an oversight, for which I take full responsibility. You know how easy it is, in the heat of action, to neglect to dot an isomewhere along the way. My apologies."

Coffey stood in front of Singleton, breathing hard. A few NYPD officers snickered in the background.

"There was an unexpected bonus in collaring Pendergast," Singleton added.

"And what the hell was that?"

"He had the diamond, Lucifer's Heart, in his pocket."

Singleton took advantage of Coffey's momentary speechlessness to glance at his men. "We're done here. Let's head downtown."

And, propelling D'Agosta gently to his feet, he turned on his heel and walked away.

SEVENTY

Wednesday dawned brilliant and dear, the morning sun blazing in through the single window of the dining nook of the small apartment on West End Avenue. Nora Kelly heard the door to the bathroom slam. A few minutes later, Bill Smithback emerged in the hallway, dressed for work, his tie unknotted and his jacket slung over one shoulder. The expression on his face was dark.

"Come and have some breakfast," she said.

His face brightened slightly as he saw her, and he came over and sat down at the table.

"What time did you get in last night?"

"Four." He leaned over and gave her a kiss.

"You look like hell."

"It isn't for lack of sleep."

Nora pushed the paper over to him. "Page one. Congratulations."

Smithback glanced at it. His story of the theft of Lucifer's Heart by an unknown assailant was front page, above the fold: the dream of every journalist. It was a stupendous scoop, and along with the arrest of Pendergast, it had pushed Harriman's story of the Dangler capture to B3 of the Metro Section-an old woman had seen the Dangler exposing himself in front of an ATM and, righteously indignant, had whacked him into semiconsciousness with her cane. For the first time, Nora thought, Bill didn't seem interested in Harriman's misfortune.

He pushed the paper away. "Not going to work?"

"The museum's told us all to stay home for the rest of this week– a kind of forced vacation. The place is in lockdown mode until they find out how the security system was breached." She shook her head. "On top of that, Hugo Menzies seems to have disappeared. It seems they caught him on a security camera not far from the Astor Hall at the time of the heist. They're worried he might have stumbled on the robbery and gotten himself killed."

"Maybe he's the thief."

"Diogenes Pendergast is the thief. You of all people should know that."

"Maybe Menzies is Diogenes." Bill forced a brittle laugh.

"That's not even funny."

Smithback shrugged. "Sorry. Poor taste on my part."

Nora filled his coffee cup, refilled her own. "There's one thing I still don't get from reading your story. How did Pendergast get Lucifer's Heart out of the Affiliated Transglobal building? I mean, they immediately sealed the building, they X-rayed everyone leaving, they did a count of every single person who had come in and left. And they never found Pendergast. What'd he do, climb down the outside of the building? How'd he get the gem out?"

Smithback smoothed down an unruly cowlick, which popped back up as soon as his hand was gone. "That's the best part of the story-if only I could write it."

"Why can't you?"

Smithback turned toward her and smiled a little grimly. "Because I was the one who walked the diamond out of the building."

"You?" Nora stared at him, incredulous.

Smithback nodded.

"Oh, Bill!"

"Nora, I hadto. It was the only way. And don't worry-it'll never be traced back to me. The diamond is back where it belongs. It was truly a brilliant plan."

"Tell me about it."

"You sure you want to know? That makes you an accessory after the fact."

"I'm your wife,silly. Of course I want to know."

Smithback sighed. "Pendergast worked it all out. He knew they'd seal the building and search everyone on their way out. So he posed as a technician manning the X-ray machine."

"But if security was as tight as you say, wouldn't they X-ray the security technicians, too? I mean, when they left the building?"

"Pendergast figured that out, too. After sending me through the X-ray machine, he pointed me toward the building exit. That's when he slipped the diamond into my pocket. I walked it right out of the building."

Nora could hardly believe it. "If you'd been caught, they would have put you away for twenty years."

"Don't think that wasn't on my mind." Smithback shrugged. "But a life depended on it. And I have faith in Pendergast-sometimes I feel like I'm the only one left in the world who does."

At this, he rose, walked to the window, and stared out restlessly, hands on his hips.

"It's not over, Nora," he muttered. "Not by a long shot."

He turned swiftly, eyes flashing with anger. "It's a travesty of justice. An innocent man's been framed as a horrendous serial killer. The real killer's still loose. I'm a journalist. It's my job to report the truth. There's a hell of a lot of truth still missing in this story. I'm going to find out what it is."

"Bill-for God's sake, don't go after Diogenes."

"What about Margo? Are we going to let her killer go free? With Pendergast in jail and D'Agosta on modified duty or worse, there's no one left who can do it but me."

"Don't. Pleasedon't. This is just another one of your impulsive– and stupid-decisions."

He turned back to the window. "I concede that it's impulsive. Maybe even stupid. So be it."

Nora rose from her chair, feeling a surge of anger herself. "What about us? Our future? If you go after Diogenes, he'll kill you. You're no match for him!"

Smithback looked out the window, not answering immediately. Then he stirred. "Pendergast saved my life," he said quietly. He turned again and looked at Nora. "Yours, too."

She wheeled away, exasperated.

He came over and took her in his arms. "I won't do it… if you tell me not to."

"And that's the one thing I'm notgoing to tell you. It's your decision."

Smithback stepped back, knotted his tie, drew on his jacket. "I'd better get to work."

He kissed her. "I love you, Nora."

She shook her head. "Be very, very careful."

"I will, I promise. Have faith in me."

And he vanished out the door.

SEVENTY-ONE

One day later, and fifty miles to the north, the sun shone dimly through the shuttered window of a small room in the intensive-care unit of a private clinic. A single patient lay under a sheet, hooked up to several large machines that beeped softly, almost comfortingly. Her eyes were closed.

A nurse came in, checked the machines, jotted down some of the vitals, and then paused to look at the patient.

"Good morning, Theresa," she said brightly.

The patient's eyes remained closed, and she did not answer. They'd removed the feeding tube, and she was out of immediate danger, but she was still one very sick woman.

"It's a beautiful morning," the nurse went on, opening the shutters and allowing a ray of sun to fall across the covers. Outside the window of the rambling Queen Anne mansion, the Hudson River sparkled amidst the winter landscape of Putnam County.

The woman's pale face lay against the pillow, her short brown hair spreading slightly across the cotton fabric.

The nurse continued to work, changing the IV bag, smoothing the covers. Finally, she leaned over the girl and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

The girl's eyes slowly opened.

The nurse paused, then took her hand. "Good morning," she said again, holding the hand lightly.

The eyes flicked to the left and right. The lips moved, but no sound came.

"Don't you try to talk just yet," the nurse said, moving to the intercom. "Everything will be all right. You've had a tough time of it, but now everything's fine."

She pressed the intercom lever and leaned toward it, speaking in a low voice.

"The patient in ICU-6 is waking up," she murmured. "Get word to Dr. Winokur."

She went and sat by the bed, taking the woman's hand again.

"Where…?"

"You're at the Feversham Clinic, Theresa dear. A few miles north of Cold Spring. It's January 31, and you've been unconscious for six days, but we've got you on the mend. Everything's just fine. You're a strong, healthy woman and you're going to get better."

The eyes widened slightly. "What…?" the weak voice managed to say.

"What happened? Never you mind about that now. You had a very close call, but it's all over and done with. You're safe here."

The figure in the bed struggled to speak, her lips moving.

"Don't try to talk just yet. Save your strength for the doctor."

"… tried to kill…" The phrase came out disconnected.

"Like I said, never you mind. You concentrate on getting better."

"…awful…"

The nurse stroked her hand kindly. "I'm sure it was, but let's not dwell on that now. Dr. Winokur will be here at any moment and he might have some questions for you. You should rest, dear."

"Tired… Tired…"

"Certainly, you are. You're very tired. But you can't go back to sleep quite yet, Theresa. Stay awake for me and the doctor. Just for now. Okay? That's a good girl."

"I'm not… Theresa."

The nurse smiled indulgently, patting her hand. "Don't worry about a thing. A little confusion on awakening is perfectly normal. While waiting for the doctor, let's look out the window. Isn't it a lovely day?"