Brimstone

by Douglas Preston

  "Some good memories. But nothing now. It's over."

  "Well then, Bullard just did you a favor." She extended her hand and laid it on his, comfortingly.

  D'Agosta looked at her. She was right: in a way, Bullard had done him a favor. Maybe a really big favor.

  { 27 }

  Midnight. The boat was still in its slip, the crew aboard, everything ready for a departure at first light. Bullard stood on deck, breathing the night air, looking across the bay toward Staten Island. There was one last thing he had to take care of before weighing anchor. He had made two serious mistakes, and they had to be corrected. The first was impulsively hiring those goons to cap D'Agosta. Damn stupid thing: he knew better than that. If you were going to kill a cop, you had to do it right. The bastard had mouthed off with a few empty threats, and in his nervous state he'd allowed himself to be spooked. Christ, he was jumpy these days. He wasn't thinking clearly. The fact was, that fat fuck was not his real enemy. He was just a gumshoe. The real enemy was the FBI agent, Pendergast. That man was dangerous as an adder: coiled up, cool, smooth, ready to strike. Pendergast played for keeps, and he was the brains in that team. Kill the brain and the body will die. Get Pendergast and the investigation would go away.

  The same rule about cops was even truer for FBI agents. You didn't kill them unless there was no other way. It almost never made things better. But there were exceptions to every rule, and this was one of them. Bullard could allow nothing—nothing—to interfere with what he had to do.

  He went below decks. All was quiet. He slipped into a soundproofed room, locked the door behind him, checked his watch. Still a few minutes. He pressed a few buttons, and a videoconferencing screen came to life. Pendergast had made off with one CPU and some of his files, but all his computers were networked, their business-related data folders encrypted. He used public encryption with 2,048-bit keys, unbreakable even by the most powerful computers in the world. He wasn't worried about what Pendergast might find. He was worried about the man himself.

  He pressed a few more keys, and a dim face appeared on the screen. It was a face as smooth and tight as a drum, so thin it looked as if the wet skin had been stretched over the bones and allowed to dry. His head was shaved so smooth there wasn't even a five o'clock shadow on the scalp. It gave Bullard the creeps. But the man was good. More than good: he was the best there was. He called himself Vasquez.

  The man said nothing, offered no greeting, just stared, hands folded, his face expressionless. Bullard eased back in his chair, smiled, although the smile made no difference. The image Vasquez was seeing on-screen was the computer-generated face of a nonexistent person.

  Bullard spoke. "The target is Pendergast, first name unknown. Special Agent with the FBI. Lives at 891 Riverside Drive. I want two in the brainpan. I'll give you a million per bullet."

  "I require full payment in advance," Vasquez said.

  "What if you fail?"

  "I don't."

  "Bullshit. Everyone fails."

  "The day I fail is the day I die. Now, do you agree?"

  Bullard hesitated. Still, if you were going to do something, do it right.

  "Very well," he said curtly. "But time is of the essence here." If Vasquez screwed him, there were other Vasquezes out there, willing to finish the job and reduce the competition; two killings wouldn't cost much more than one.

  Vasquez held up a piece of paper with a number on it. He waited a moment, giving Bullard time to jot it down. "When the two million shows up in this account, I will undertake the assignment. We need never speak again."

  The screen went black. Bullard realized Vasquez must have cut the transmission. He wasn't used to people hanging up on him. He felt a momentary irritation, then took a deep breath. He had worked with artists before, and they were all cut from the same cloth: egotistical, flamboyant, greedy.

  And Vasquez was the best kind of artist: the kind that truly loved his work.

  { 28 }

  D'Agosta pulled his Ford Taurus up to the iron gates, then stopped, wondering if he might have gotten the directions wrong. He was at least an hour late—the paperwork from the previous day's blowup with Bullard had taken all morning. Cops these days couldn't fire their gun, couldn't question a suspect, couldn't even break wind without having to fill out reports after the fact.

  The rusty gates hung open, as if abandoned, mounted on two crumbling stone pillars. The graveled drive beyond was carpeted with sprouting ragweed well over a foot high, recently smashed down by the passage of a vehicle. But no, this had to be the place: a stone plaque mortared into one of the pillars bore the name, abraded by time and weather but still legible: Ravenscry.

  D'Agosta got out of the car and shoved the groaning gate open a little farther, then got behind the wheel again and headed down the drive. He could see where the other car or cars had gone, flattening the weeds in two vague stripes. The drive wandered through an ancient beechwood forest, massive warped tree trunks rising on both sides, until at last it broke out into sunlight—a meadow dotted with wildflowers that had once evidently been a lawn. At the far end of the meadow rose a gaunt stone mansion: shaded by elms, shuttered tight, its roofs topped by at least twenty chimneys, a real haunted pile if ever there was one. D'Agosta shook his head slowly. Then, glancing at the directions Pendergast had given him, he followed the carriageway around the massive house and turned onto another road that led on through ancient gardens toward a stone millhouse on the banks of a stream. Pendergast's Rolls was parked here and he pulled in beside it. Pendergast's chauffeur, Proctor, was arranging something in the car's trunk; as D'Agosta got out of the car and approached, he bowed politely, then nodded in the direction of the stream.

  D'Agosta began following a stone path that led down from the road. Farther ahead now, he could see two figures strolling along the path, dappled in shade, intent in conversation. One had to be Pendergast—the black suit and slim bearing gave him away. The other, who was wearing a sunbonnet and holding a parasol, could only be the girl staying in Pendergast's house. What was her name again? Constance.

  As he approached the stream, he could hear the purling of water, hear the birds rustling in the beechwood. Pendergast turned and waved him over. "Vincent, you made it. Very good of you to come."

  Constance turned, too, smiling gravely and holding out her hand. D'Agosta took it, mumbling a greeting. For some reason she made him eager to be on his best behavior, just the way his grandmother had done when he was a child. Her unusual eyes were concealed by a pair of very dark sunglasses.

  He glanced down the shade-dappled path. The mill was no longer turning, but the shunt of water had been directed into a curious series of stone sluice tanks. "What is this place?"

  "The estate belongs to my great-aunt Cornelia, who, alas, is not well and is confined to a home. I've begun bringing Constance up here to take the air."

  "To complete my rehabilitation," said Constance with a faint smile. "Mr. Pendergast thinks I'm in delicate health."

  "Quite a spread," D'Agosta said.

  "The mill here was converted into a trout farm in the late nineteenth century," Pendergast replied. "Every year they stocked Dewing Brook with thousands of trout and kept the forest full of wild turkey, deer, pheasant, grouse, quail, and bear. Come Sunday there was quite a massacre around these parts, as my relations and their sporting friends took to the field."

  "A hunting preserve. I'll bet the fishing was fantastic." D'Agosta looked at the brook purling over its cobbled bed, with deep pools and holes no doubt still thick with trout. Even as he watched, several fish, rising to a hatch, dimpled the surface.

  "I never cared for fishing," Pendergast said. "I preferred blood sport."

  "What's wrong with fishing?"

  "I find it quotidian in the extreme."

  "Quotidian. Right."

  "After the sudden death of Aunt Cornelia's husband and children, most of the staff quit. Shortly thereafter, my aunt was obliged to leave. And now Ravenscry lies empty, d
ecaying. In any case," Pendergast went on more briskly, "I asked you to come so we may take stock of the case in surroundings conducive to contemplation. Frankly, Vincent, the case is baffling. Normally by this stage I'd have found a piece of thread leading into the tangle. But this is different."

  "It's a tough one," D'Agosta said. He glanced at the girl, wondering how much to say.

  "We may speak freely in front of Constance."

  The girl smiled with mock gravity. They strolled back through the dappled shade in the direction of the cars.

  "Let us review what we know. We have two murders, each with inexplicable features, including the heating of the body and the various Mephistophelean appurtenances. We know that the two victims must have been connected with each other and to Bullard in some way. But I have not been able to find that connection."

  "Hayward's been helping me with that end of things. We've pulled their telephone bills, credit card transactions, T&E records going back ten years. Nada. It doesn't look like they ever met. As for Bullard, most of the folders on that computer we seized are encrypted too strongly to break. I did get one nugget of interesting information from Hayward, though: they found a reference to the name Ranier Beckmann in a temporary Internet directory on the computer. Seems Bullard was trying to locate him, too."

  "And yet you said Bullard denied knowing Beckmann when you questioned him at the Athletic Club. It's evident Bullard is concealing a great deal. He's angry, he's defensive. I might even say he's frightened. Of what?"

  "Of arrest. As far as I'm concerned, Bullard is suspect number one. He doesn't have a good alibi for the Grove murder, either. He said he was on his yacht, cruising the sound that night. Without a crew. He could've been cruising the Atlantic side instead, slipped up on the beach at Southampton, done the job."

  "Possible. But the fact that he has no alibi for either night, in my view, is actually a strike in his favor. Besides, what's Bullard's motivation? Why kill Grove and Cutforth? And why make it look like the devil?"

  "He's got a macabre sense of humor."

  "On the contrary, the man appears to have absolutely no sense of humor at all, apart from a kind of gangsterish schadenfreude. Somebody playing a mere joke would not take such a dangerous risk."

  "He wants to send a message, then."

  "Yes, but to whom? For what purpose?"

  "I don't know. If it isn't Bullard, it might be some fundamentalist nutcase who wants to bring back the Inquisition. Somebody who thinks he's doing God's work."

  "A second possibility."

  There was a short silence. Then Pendergast added, "Vincent, you haven't mentioned the other possibility."

  D'Agosta felt his gut tighten. Pendergast wasn't serious—was he? He found himself unconsciously fingering his cross.

  "Where's Bullard now?" Pendergast asked.

  "He left on his yacht this morning, heading to the open ocean."

  "Any idea where?"

  "Looks like Europe. At least he's heading east, at full speed. Better than full speed, in fact—the yacht must have a specially modified power plant. In any case, Hayward's got someone on it. We'll know where and when he lands—unless he evades customs and immigration, which seems improbable with a yacht like that."

  "The admirable Hayward. Is she still upset?"

  "You could say that."

  Pendergast smiled thinly.

  "So what's your theory?" D'Agosta asked.

  "I am doing my best not to have a theory."

  D'Agosta heard the crunching of tires on gravel, the slamming of doors, the distant chatter of voices. He glanced back across the meadows and spotted the new arrival: a long, old-fashioned limousine, its top down. A huge wicker basket was lashed across the rumble seat with leather straps.

  "Who's this?" D'Agosta asked.

  "Another guest," Pendergast said simply.

  Now someone came around the side of the car: an enormous figure, grossly out of proportion to its surroundings but moving with a remarkable fluidity and ease. It was Fosco, who, it seemed, had somehow made the transition from witness to acquaintance.

  D'Agosta looked over. "What's he doing here?"

  "It seems he is in possession of some information of great value that he's most eager to pass on. And since he's expressed an interest in viewing what passes for antiquity here in America, I thought I'd invite him to Ravenscry. I owed him a return for an interesting night at the opera."

  The figure came striding swiftly down the path, waving his arm in greeting long before he arrived.

  "Marvelous place!" boomed the count, rubbing his white-gloved hands together. He bowed to Pendergast, then turned to D'Agosta. "The good sergeant. D'Agosta, is it not? Always pleased to make the acquaintance of a fellow Italian. How do you do?"

  "Fine, thanks." D'Agosta hadn't liked the man and his flamboyant ways at the memorial service, and he liked him even less now.

  "And this is my ward, Constance Greene," said Pendergast.

  "Your ward, you say? I am delighted." Fosco bowed and brought her hand almost, but not quite, to his lips.

  Constance inclined her head in acknowledgment. "I see you and Mr. Pendergast share an interest in exotic automobiles."

  "Indeed we do; that and much more. Mr. Pendergast and I have become friends." He beamed. "We are very different in some ways. I am a lover of music and he is not. I am a lover of fine clothes, and he dresses like an undertaker. I am voluble and open, he is silent and closed. I am direct, he is diffident. But we do share a love of art, literature, fine food, wine, and culture—as well as a fascination with these dreadful and inexplicable crimes." He peered at Constance, smiled again.

  "Crimes are interesting only when they are inexplicable. Unfortunately, few remain so."

  "Unfortunately?"

  "I was speaking from an aesthetic point of view."

  The count turned to Pendergast. "This young lady is exceptional."

  "And what is your interest in the case, Count, besides mere fascination?" Constance asked.

  "I wish to help."

  "Count Fosco has already been helpful," said Pendergast.

  "And, as you shall see, I will be more helpful still! But first I must tell you how enchanted I am with this estate. Your great-aunt's, did you say? So picturesque! Falling into ruin and neglect, mysterious, haunted. It reminds me of Piranesi's engraving Veduta degli Avanzi delle Terme di Tito, the Ruins of the Baths of Titus. I much prefer a building in neglect and ruin—much of my own castello in Tuscany is in a delightful state of dilapidation."

  D'Agosta wondered what the castle of a count looked like.

  "As promised, I brought lunch," the count boomed. "Pinketts!" He clapped his hands and his driver, who was about as English as they come, unstrapped the huge wicker trunk and hefted it down the path, then proceeded to arrange a linen tablecloth, bottles of wine, cheeses, prosciutto, salami, silverware, and glasses on a stone table beneath the shade of an enormous copper beech.

  "This is kind of you, Count," said Pendergast.

  "Yes, I am kind, especially when you see the Villa Calcinaia '97 Chianti Classico Riserva I've brought, made by my neighbor, the good count Capponi. But I have something else for you. Something even better than wine, caviar, and fois gras. If such a thing is possible." The black eyes in his smooth, handsome face sparkled with pleasure.

  "And that is?"

  "In good time, in good time." The count began arranging, with fussy attention, the things on the table, uncorking and decanting a bottle of red wine, letting the anticipation build. At last, he turned with a conspiratorial grin. "By chance, I have made a discovery of the first importance." He turned to D'Agosta. "Does the name Ranier Beckmann mean anything to you, Sergeant?"

  "We found that name on Bullard's computer. The guy he was trying to locate."

  The count nodded as if he'd known it all along. "And?"

  "Bullard had done an Internet search for a Ranier Beckmann, without success. Grove also seems to have been looking for Beckmann. But we
don't know why."

  "I was at a luncheon party yesterday and was seated beside Lady Milbanke. She told me—between frequent displays of her new necklace—that a few days before Jeremy Grove was murdered, he had asked if she could recommend a private detective. Turned out she could—scandalous people often can. I then went to this gentleman myself and soon pried from him the fact that Grove hired him…to find a certain Ranier Beckmann."

  He paused dramatically. "Grove was in a panic to find this man. When the detective asked him for details, he could provide none at all. None. The detective stopped his investigation when he heard of Grove's death."

  "Interesting," D'Agosta said.

  "It would be interesting to see if the name Beckmann turned up among Cutforth's effects, as well," Pendergast said.

  D'Agosta removed his cell, dialed Hayward's direct line.

  "Hayward here," came the cool voice.

  "It's Sergeant D'Agosta. Vinnie. Have your people finished inventorying Cutforth's apartment?"

  "Yes."

  "The name Ranier Beckmann turn up, by any chance?"

  "As a matter of fact, it did." D'Agosta heard a rustling of paper. "We found a notebook with his name written on the first page, in Cutforth's hand."

  "The rest of the notebook?"

  "Blank."

  "Thanks." D'Agosta closed the phone and related what he'd heard.

  Pendergast's face tensed with excitement. "This is precisely the thread we've been looking for. Grove, Cutforth, Bullard. Why were all three looking for Beckmann? Perhaps we should find this Beckmann and see what he has to tell us."

  "You may find that a difficult proposition, my friend," said the count.

  Pendergast glanced at him. "And why is that?"

  "Because the private investigator told me something else. That he was unable to find any information at all on this Ranier Beckmann. No present or past address, no employment history, no family information. Nothing. But I leave that to you." The count, beaming with his success, extended his white hands. "And now, business concluded, let us be seated and enjoy our lunch." He turned and bowed to Constance. "May I be permitted to seat you here, on my right? I feel we have much to talk about."