The Obsidian Chamber

by Lincoln Child

  Garey watched the procedure without curiosity.

  Diogenes went through the final preliminary steps, then withdrew from the gurney into the doorway of the drug administration room. Once he was out of sight, a modesty sheet was placed over Garey’s gown and legs, extending as high as his midriff. Then the curtains on the far wall drew back with a faint whirring sound, exposing two large panels of one-way glass. Garey couldn’t see the witnesses beyond, but they could see him.

  There was a faint rasp over the loudspeaker system. “Silence in the witness area, please,” came the voice of the warden. A brief pause. “Does the condemned have any last words?”

  “Fuck you,” said Garey. There was now nothing left on his face but anger. He spat in the direction of the one-way glass.

  In the drug administration room, Diogenes signed paperwork handed him by the warden. He then checked the drug delivery apparatus, which consisted of a number of syringes, already prepped and loaded by trained prison flunkies. Instead of the usual two sets, tonight there was only one. Along with several other states, Florida used a combination of three drugs: a controversial cocktail that underwent frequent updating, based on the availability of the drugs. The intended result, however, never varied. The first drug would induce unconsciousness; the second would cause paralysis, halting respiration; and the third would stop the heart. They were always introduced serially.

  Diogenes examined the drugs and dosages in the delivery system: one hundred milligrams of midazolam hydrochloride, followed by equally LD-excessive doses of vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. He picked up the bulky, state-mandated execution forms and filled out the first of two sections, including his name, the name of the subject, his physician number, execution license serial number, and drugs to be administered.

  “Five minutes,” the warden said.

  Diogenes broke the paper seals around the syringes, then fitted the syringes tightly into the three IV lines, one after the other. In the execution chamber, Garey was beginning to shout now: angry outbursts, mostly incoherent save for curses. Diogenes paid no attention as he turned on the cardiac monitor in order to observe the subject’s heart rhythm. It was considerably elevated—as might be expected.

  A death house guard stepped into the room.

  “Final statement?” the warden asked wearily, going through the standard checklist.

  “If you want to call it that, yes, sir,” the guard answered.

  “Governor’s office?”

  “Green light.”

  All was silent in the room save for Garey’s expletives, louder now, filtering through the partially open door. The warden watched the wall clock tick slowly through one minute, then two. And then he turned to Diogenes. “The execution may commence,” he said.

  Diogenes nodded. Turning toward the first syringe, he injected the midazolam. The colorless liquid went down the IV tube, which snaked—along with several other tubes—through a small circular hole into the execution chamber.

  “Constance,” he whispered to himself, almost reverently.

  At first, Garey’s loud, harsh vocalizing remained unchanged. Then it grew slow and garbled. Within thirty seconds it was little more than a sporadic, incoherent mutter.

  Diogenes depressed the second syringe, introducing the paralytic.

  All eyes in the room were trained either on the partially open door to the execution chamber, or on the small observation window set into the nearby wall. Nobody noticed as Diogenes slipped one hand into the pocket of his lab coat, palmed another syringe he had already taken out of his medical bag and placed there, inserted its needle into the injection valve of the third catheter, and introduced its contents into the IV tube. Just as quickly, he replaced the now-empty syringe in his pocket.

  This fourth, secret part of the lethal cocktail was one of Diogenes’s own devising: a combination of sodium benzoate and ammonium sulfate, preservatives used—among other things—to keep meat fresh.

  A moment later there were gasps in the room, followed by a series of murmurings.

  “Look at him,” said the death house guard. “He’s flopping around like a fish. Never seen that before.”

  “It’s almost as if he’s in severe pain,” said Dr. LeBronk, his voice strained.

  “How’s that possible?” The warden swore under his breath. Then he turned to Diogenes. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing at my end. Everything’s in order. I’m about to introduce the potassium chloride.”

  “Hurry,” said the warden.

  Slowly and carefully, Diogenes depressed the plunger of the third syringe, the contents of which would induce cardiac arrest and cause death. Given the unsanctioned chemicals introduced into his veins, the murderer was perhaps suffering more than was normally the case. Far more than normal, most likely. However, it was important that his harvest be as fresh as possible.

  The plunger reached the hilt. Now it was just a matter of time. Diogenes watched the heart monitor begin to slow inexorably as, in the execution chamber, Lucius Garey struggled feebly, gargling and gasping for air, in evident torment despite the sedative and paralytic. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. He took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed the Old Voice down. It took a full twelve minutes for cardiac activity to cease completely.

  “Done,” Diogenes said briskly, stepping back from the monitor.

  The warden exchanged glances with the prison doctor. They were, Diogenes noticed, both ashen looking—the condemned had died an ugly, protracted, and painful death. He felt contempt for their weakness and hypocrisy.

  The warden took a deep breath, mastering himself. “Very well,” he said. “Dr. Leyland, would you please confirm that the subject has expired and sign the death certificate?”

  Diogenes nodded. Stepping away from the monitor, he plucked a few items from his medical bag—replacing the empty syringe in it as he did so—then stepped into the execution chamber. The viewing curtain was closed once again: already, the family members were being escorted out by prison staff, and official witnesses would be signing documentation. He walked over to the corpse of Lucius Garey. The man, in his agony, had struggled mightily against the leather bonds, as abraded and bleeding skin at the wrists and ankles attested to. Diogenes plucked the needle from the cubital vein and disposed of it in medical waste. He shone a light into Garey’s eyes and confirmed the pupils were fixed and dilated. After this, he did not look again at the face of the corpse: its unpleasant expression, including the fat protruding stub of a tongue—like an eggplant-colored Popsicle, papillae distinct and engorged as if from chelonitoxism—was offensive to him. Instead, he went methodically through the steps necessary to confirm death. He did a trapezius squeeze to ensure there was no pain reflex; observed the skin color; noted there were no signs of respiratory effort; felt the carotid artery for a pulse and found none. Using a stethoscope on the chest of the corpse, he listened carefully for respiration or a heart rhythm for two minutes. There was nothing; Lucius Garey was as dead as a mackerel. He stepped back, then turned and walked quickly away from the body with relief: Garey had voided his bowels during the execution process.

  He walked out of the chamber, gave his findings to the warden and LeBronk, then completed the official paperwork, concluding with the time and date. Everything was done now—everything, that was, save what was for him the most important step of all.

  By now, he knew, a refrigerated van would be waiting in a small parking area outside the death house. He’d drive back to the M.E.’s office in advance of it. He shook hands with the warden and LeBronk in turn. They both still appeared a little shaken from Garey’s protracted death. It amused Diogenes, on one level, that it had not occurred to either of them—or anyone else, for that matter—that the same doctor who’d administered the fatal cocktail of drugs to Garey would, rather unusually, also be the coroner who both pronounced the man dead and performed the postmortem. As a result, the unusual preservatives he had introduced would
never be discovered in the deceased’s bloodstream. Of course, he hadn’t told Constance he was executioner as well as examiner—that would have distressed her unnecessarily.

  Within five minutes he was out of the prison and headed toward LaBelle, county seat of Hendry County, where the M.E.’s office was located. He glanced southeast, in the direction of Miami. While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. In the trunk of his rental car—along with the beautiful suit, fast-acting hair coloring, and colored contact lenses of his Petru Lupei identity—was a special medical case, used in the transporting of organs or human tissue for such critical applications as transplants. At present, it was empty.

  In an hour or so, he knew, it would be empty no longer.

  40

  HOWARD LONGSTREET’S OFFICE on the twenty-third floor of 26 Federal Plaza was not at all like the usual FBI office, which was how Longstreet liked it. For one thing, it rarely if ever received visitors—the executive associate director for intelligence called on others; they did not call on him. For another, considering Longstreet’s lofty position in the FBI, it was quite sparse. Longstreet eschewed the usual trophies, framed certificates or awards, and photograph of the sitting president normally found in such offices. There was not even a computer—Longstreet did his digital work elsewhere. Instead, there were three walls lined in books of every imaginable subject; a small table barely large enough for a tea service; and two wing chairs of cracked red leather.

  Longstreet’s thin and remarkably tall form lounged in one of the wing chairs. He was reading—alternately—from a confidential report in one hand and a copy of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda in the other. Now and then he stopped to take a sip from an iced beverage sitting on the table.

  There was a faint knock on the door, then it opened a crack. “He’s here, sir,” came the voice of his private secretary.

  “Send him in,” Longstreet said.

  The door opened wider and A. X. L. Pendergast entered the room. Now, two days after his rescue, his rather distracted face still bore the marks of numerous scrapes and abrasions, but he was once again wearing his trademark black suit.

  “Aloysius,” Longstreet said. “Good morning.” He gestured to the empty chair—a little dusty from disuse—and Pendergast took a seat.

  Longstreet gestured at his drink. “Care for an Arnold Palmer?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Longstreet took a sip of his own. “You’ve been busy.”

  “One could say that.”

  Those few people who knew Pendergast well would notice that he addressed Longstreet differently from the way he addressed others. There was somewhat less irony in his tone, and his normal air of remote detachment was tempered with something almost like deference. It was the vestigial effect, Longstreet knew, of being in the company of the man who had previously been one’s superior officer.

  “I want to thank you for my rescue,” Pendergast said, “and for getting me back to New York so quickly.”

  Longstreet waved a dismissive hand. Then he sat forward and pinioned Pendergast with bright black eyes. “If you want to thank me, you can do so by answering a few questions—with the honesty that I’ve always expected and demanded of you.”

  Pendergast went a little still. “I’ll answer however I can.”

  “Who brought you into the FBI?”

  “You know who did: Michael Decker.”

  “Yes. Michael Decker.” Longstreet ran a hand through his long gray hair. “My direct report, and your right-hand man, during our time in the Ghost Company. He saved your life twice during the later tactical ops, did he not?”

  “Three times.”

  Longstreet raised an eyebrow as if in surprise, although in fact he already knew the answers to all these questions. “And what was the motto of the Ghost Company?”

  “Fidelitas usque ad mortem.”

  “Quite right. ‘Loyalty unto death.’ Mike was close to you, was he not?”

  “He was like a brother to me.”

  “And he was like a son to me. After the Ghost Company, you were both like sons to me. And since his death, I’ve tried to take on his role so far as it pertains to you. I’ve done what I can to see you have free rein to work on the cases that most interest you—because, after all, that is what you’re best at, and it would be a shame to waste or, God forbid, lose your services. I’ve also, on occasion, shielded you from the official wrath of the Bureau. So far as I could, of course; there were one or two occasions when not even I could help completely.”

  “I understand, H. And I’ve always been grateful.”

  “But it’s Mike Decker’s death I want to talk about right now.” Longstreet took another sip of his drink.

  Pendergast nodded slowly. Three years earlier, Decker had been found in his Washington, DC, home—murdered, with a bayonet pinning his head to his office chair.

  “At first, there were some who suspected you as being the killer—I, of course, was never among them. Later it became clear it was your brother, Diogenes, who murdered Mike and tried to frame you for the job.”

  Longstreet peered into his drink. “Now here’s where we get to the heart of the matter. A few months later, once you had been cleared of the false charges, you took me aside and said—not in these exact words, of course—‘You didn’t hear it from me, but my brother is dead.’ When I asked you for proof, you went on to inform me that, while you had not seen the body with your own eyes, you had every proof necessary to confirm his death. You asked me to refrain from further investigation and to take your word for it. You further explained that you did not want me, your friend and mentor and erstwhile commanding officer, to waste countless hours conducting what would ultimately prove a fruitless chase. You suggested that, when the time was right, I should quietly bury Mike Decker’s death among the cold cases. And so I did.”

  Longstreet sat forward a little further and laid a fingertip lightly on Pendergast’s knee. “But therein lies the rub. After your disappearance from and apparent drowning near Exmouth, Massachusetts, we of course sent a field team to do a careful investigation. While we turned up no signs of you, either dead or alive, we did lift three prints—all from a wooden observation pier overlooking the town beach—that belonged to your brother. Diogenes.”

  Longstreet sat back and let this linger in the air for a moment before continuing.

  “I kept the discovery silent. But you can imagine what went through my mind. As members of the Ghost Company—one of the smallest, most secret, most intensely loyal outfits in the military—we all took blood oaths to avenge any member who died at the hands of another. When you specifically told me your brother, Mike Decker’s murderer, was dead, you were, in effect, asking me to put aside my blood oath. Now, years later, there is very good evidence that he was not dead, after all.” He pinned Pendergast with his gaze. “What’s going on, Aloysius? Did you lie to me, betray our common oath, because the killer was your brother?”

  “No,” Pendergast said immediately. “I thought he was dead. We all thought he was dead. But he’s not.”

  Longstreet remained still for a moment. Then he nodded, settling into his chair, waiting.

  Pendergast’s expression went far away. Then, after a few minutes, he roused himself.

  “I’m going to have to share some history with you,” he said. “Some very private family history. You mentioned that Diogenes tried to frame me for Mike Decker’s murder—among others. For a while, he was successful, and I was imprisoned.”

  Pendergast went silent again for a moment. “I have a ward by the name of Constance Greene. She has the appearance of a woman in her early twenties. She also has a very difficult history that’s not important now; what is important is that she is very fragile mentally and emotionally. She has a hair-trigger temper. Anything that threatens her or those few close to her is likely to precipitate a violent, even homicidal, response.” He drew a deep breath. “When I was in prison, Diogenes seduced Constance and then discarded her with a cruel
note suggesting that she kill herself rather than live with the shame. In response, Constance pursued Diogenes with single-minded fury. She chased him across Europe and finally caught up with him on the island of Stromboli. There, she threw him into the lava flow streaming down from the Stromboli volcano.”

  Longstreet’s only reaction was to raise his bushy eyebrows.

  “Both Constance and I believed Diogenes to be dead. And in the intervening years, there has been no reason for me to believe otherwise. Until my final days in Exmouth.”

  “He contacted you?” Longstreet asked.

  “No. But I saw him, or thought I saw him, on one occasion—observing me from a distance. Later on, I came upon proof of his being in the vicinity. But before I could do anything about him, I was washed out to sea and held prisoner. And in the weeks since, it appears that—” Pendergast paused to compose himself— “Diogenes has managed to…interfere with Constance again.”

  “Interfere?”

  “All evidence points to his having either kidnapped her, drugged her, or somehow Stockholm-syndromed her into becoming his accomplice. Whatever the case, they were seen leaving—escaping—my Riverside Drive residence together two mornings ago.”

  Longstreet frowned. “Stockholm syndrome would imply active participation on her part. Kidnapping would not. There’s a big difference.”

  “The evidence suggests that Constance actively assisted in her abduction.”

  The office fell into silence. Longstreet tented his long, narrow fingers and rested his huge shaggy head on them. Pendergast remained motionless as a marble statue in the old wing chair. Many minutes passed. Finally, Pendergast cleared his throat.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t share these details with you before,” he said. “They’re painful. Mortifying. But…I need your help. I’m aware of the blood oath we took. Previously, my nerve failed me where Diogenes was concerned. But I now realize there is only one answer: my brother must die. We must work together to track him down and make sure he doesn’t survive apprehension. It’s as you say: we owe it to Mike Decker to make sure he’s taken care of once and for all.”