Cold Vengeance

by Douglas Preston

  Esterhazy put on his calmest voice. “It’s Judson. It’s all over. Falkoner and I have got them immobilized in the saloon.”

  “The rest of the crew?”

  “Gone. Most of them killed or incapacitated—or overboard. But everything’s under control now.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Falkoner wants Gruber below for a few minutes.”

  “We’ve been trying to raise Falkoner on the radio.”

  “He ditched his radio. That man Pendergast got his hands on a headset and was listening in on our chatter. Look, we don’t have a lot of time, Captain, Falkoner wants the mate below. Now.”

  “How long? I need him on the bridge.”

  “Five minutes, tops.”

  He heard the bridge door being unbolted, then unlocked. It opened. Immediately, Pendergast kicked it back, knocking the mate senseless with the butt of his handgun while Esterhazy rushed the captain, jamming his weapon into his ear. “Down!” he shouted. “On the floor!”

  “What the—?”

  Esterhazy fired the pistol to one side, then put the muzzle back against his head. “You heard me! Face down, arms spread!”

  The captain dropped down to his knees, then lay prone, stretching out his arms. Esterhazy turned in time to see Pendergast tying up the mate.

  He walked over to the helm, keeping his pistol trained on the captain, and throttled the twin diesels back into neutral. The boat slowed on its way to coming to rest in the water.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the captain cried. “Where’s Falkoner?”

  “Tie this one up, too,” Esterhazy said.

  Pendergast stepped over and immobilized the captain.

  “You’re a dead man,” the captain told Esterhazy. “They’ll kill you for sure—you of all people should know that.”

  Esterhazy watched as Pendergast went to the helm, scanned it, lifted a cage enclosing a red lever, and pulled the lever. An alarm began to sound. “What’s that?” he asked, alarmed.

  “I’ve activated the EPIRB, the emergency position-indicating radio beacon,” Pendergast replied. “I want you to go below, launch the tender, and wait for me.”

  “Why?” Esterhazy was disconcerted at how suddenly Pendergast had taken control.

  “We’re abandoning ship. Do as I say.”

  The flat, cold tone of his voice unnerved Esterhazy. The agent disappeared off the bridge, heading to the lower decks. Esterhazy went down the stairs to the main saloon and to the stern. He found Constance there, waiting.

  “We’re abandoning ship,” said Esterhazy. He pulled the canvas from the second tender. It was a 5.2-meter Valiant with a seventy-five-horsepower Honda four-stroke outboard. He opened the stern transom and threw the windlass into gear. The boat slid off its cradle into the water. He cleated it at the stern, climbed inside, started the engine.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “Not until Aloysius returns,” Constance replied.

  Her violet eyes remained gazing at him, and after a moment she spoke again in that curious, archaic way. “You will recall, Dr. Esterhazy, what I told you earlier? Let me reiterate: at some point in the future, in the fullness of time, I will kill you.”

  Esterhazy snorted in derision. “Don’t waste your breath on empty threats.”

  “Empty?” She smiled pleasantly. “It is a fact of nature as ineluctable as the very turning of the earth.”

  CHAPTER 78

  ESTERHAZY TURNED HIS THOUGHTS TO PENDERGAST and what he was up to. He had his answer when he heard a muffled explosion below. A moment later Pendergast appeared. He helped Constance into the tender, then leapt in himself as another explosion shook the yacht. A smell of smoke suddenly filled the air.

  “What did you do?” Esterhazy asked.

  “Engine fire,” said Pendergast. “The EPIRB will give those still alive on board a sporting chance. Take the helm and get us out of here.”

  Esterhazy backed the boat away from the yacht. A third explosion erupted, sending a ball of fire into the sky, streamers and burning bits of wood and fiberglass raining down around them. Esterhazy turned the boat and throttled up as much as he dared in the ocean swell. The boat pitched and yawed, the engine rumbling.

  “Head northwest,” said Pendergast.

  “Where are we going?” Esterhazy said, still nonplussed at Pendergast’s tone of command.

  “The southern tip of Fire Island. It will be deserted this time of year—the ideal place to land unnoticed.”

  “And then?”

  The boat ploughed through the medium sea, up and down, riding the swells. Pendergast didn’t say anything, did not answer the question. The yacht disappeared in the darkness behind them, even the flame and black smoke that poured from it growing indistinct. It was dark all around, the faint lights of New York City a distant glow as a low-lying mist covered the waters.

  “Throttle down to neutral,” Pendergast said.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Esterhazy did as ordered. And then, suddenly, just when a swell swayed him off balance, Pendergast seized him, slammed him to the floor of the tender, and pinned him. Esterhazy had a moment of déjà vu, when the agent had done the same to him at the Scottish churchyard. He felt a gun barrel press against his temple.

  “What are you doing?” he cried. “I just saved your life!”

  “Alas, I am not a sentimental man,” said Pendergast, his voice low and menacing. “I need answers, and I need them now. First question: why did you do it? Why did you sacrifice her?”

  “But I didn’t sacrifice Helen! She’s alive. I could never kill her—I love her!”

  “I’m not talking about Helen. I’m talking about her twin. The one you called Emma Grolier.”

  Esterhazy felt sudden, massive surprise temporarily overpower his fear. “How… how did you know?”

  “The logic is inescapable. I began to suspect it as soon as I learned the woman in the Bay Manor Nursing Home was young rather than old. It was the only explanation. Identical twins share identical DNA—that’s how you managed a deception that could persist even past death. Helen had beautiful teeth, and her twin obviously did as well. Giving her twin the one filling—matching it to Helen’s—what a work of dental art.”

  “Yes,” said Esterhazy after a moment. “It was.”

  “How could you do it?”

  “It was either her or Helen. Emma was… very damaged, profoundly retarded. Death was almost a release. Aloysius, please believe me when I tell you I’m not the evil man you think I am. For God’s sake, if you knew what Helen and I survived, you would see all this in a completely different light.”

  The gun pressed harder. “And what is it that you survived? Why did you arrange this mad deception?”

  “Somebody had to die—don’t you see? The Covenant wanted Helen dead. They thought I killed her in that lion attack. Now they know differently. And Helen is in extreme danger as a result. We’ve got to go to ground—all of us.”

  “What is the Covenant?”

  Esterhazy felt his heart pounding. “How can I make you understand? Longitude Pharmaceuticals? Charlie Slade? That’s just the beginning. What you saw at Spanish Island was a mere sideshow, a footnote.”

  Pendergast remained silent.

  “The Covenant’s rolling up their New York operation, erasing their U.S. footprint. The big boys are coming into town to supervise. They may be here already.”

  Still Pendergast did not reply.

  “For the love of God, we have to get moving! It’s the only way Helen will survive. Everything I’ve done has been to keep Helen alive, because she…” He paused. “I even sacrificed my other sister, damaged as she was. You have to understand. This is not just about you, or about Helen, anymore. It’s bigger than that. I’ll explain all, but right now we need to save Helen.” His voice broke into a sob, quickly suppressed. He seized Pendergast’s jacket. “Can’t you see this is the only way?”

  Pendergast rose,
put the gun away.

  But Constance, who had been silent, now spoke. “Aloysius, don’t trust this man.”

  “The emotion is genuine. He’s not lying.” Pendergast took the wheel, throttled up, and directed the boat northeastward, toward Fire Island. He glanced toward Esterhazy. “When we land, you will take me directly to Helen.”

  Esterhazy hesitated. “It can’t work like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve taught her over the years to—take extreme precautions. The same precautions that saved her life in Africa. A phone call won’t do, and surprising her with you would be too dangerous. I have to go to her myself—and bring her to you.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Not yet. We must find a way to expose and destroy the Covenant. It’s either them or us. Helen and I know a great deal about them, and you’re a master at strategy. Together we can do this.”

  Pendergast paused. “How long do you need to get her?”

  “Sixteen, maybe eighteen hours. We should meet in a public place where the Covenant won’t dare act, and from there go directly underground.”

  Another low murmur from Constance. “He’s lying, Aloysius. Lying to save his own beggarly self.”

  Pendergast laid a hand on hers. “While you are right that his instincts for self-preservation are excessive, I believe he is telling the truth.”

  She fell silent. Pendergast went on, “My apartments at the Dakota contain a secure area, with a secret back door to get out when necessary. Across Central Park from the Dakota is a public area called Conservatory Water. It’s a small pond where they sail model boats. Are you familiar with it?”

  Esterhazy nodded.

  “It isn’t that far from the zoo,” Constance observed acidly.

  “I’ll be waiting in front of the Kerbs Boathouse,” Pendergast said, “at six o’clock tomorrow evening. Can you get Helen there by then?”

  Esterhazy glanced at his watch: just past eleven. “Yes.”

  “The transfer to me will take five minutes. The Dakota is just across the park.”

  Ahead, Esterhazy could see the faint blinking of the Moriches Inlet light and the line of the Cupsogue Dunes, white as snow under a brilliant moon. Pendergast turned the tender toward it.

  “Judson?” Pendergast said quietly.

  Esterhazy turned to him. “Yes?”

  “I believe you’re telling the truth. But because the matter is so close to me, I might have misjudged you. Constance seems to think I have. You will bring Helen to me as planned—or, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, your remaining existence on this planet will prove nasty, brutish, and short.”

  CHAPTER 79

  New York City

  CORRIE HAD SPENT THE FIRST PART OF THE EVENING helping her new friend clean the place and cook a tray of lasagna—while keeping an eye on the building next door. Maggie had left at eight PM to work at the jazz club, and she wouldn’t be home until two in the morning.

  Now it was almost midnight and Corrie was finishing her third cup of coffee in the tiny Pullman kitchen while contemplating her kit. She had read, then re-read, her tattered copy of the underground classic MIT Guide to Lock Picking, but she feared that the new locks on the house might be of the kind that had serrated drivers, almost impossible to pick.

  And then there was that lead alarm tape she’d noticed. It meant that even if she picked the lock, opening the door would generate an alarm. Opening or breaking a window would do the same. On top of that, despite the appearance of advanced decrepitude, there might be motion detectors and laser alarms scattered throughout the place. Or maybe not. No way to know until she was inside.

  … Inside? Was she really going to do this? Before, all she’d been considering was an external recon. Somehow, over the course of the evening, her plans had unconsciously changed. Why? She had made a promise to Pendergast to stay out of things—but at the same time, she had a deep, instinctual feeling that he was unaware of the full scope of the danger facing him. Did he know of what these drug dealers had done to Betterton and that Brodie couple? These were bad, bad guys.

  And as for herself—she was no fool. She would do nothing whatsoever to endanger herself. The house at 428 East End Avenue gave every impression of being deserted—there were no lights on inside at all. She’d been watching the place all day: nobody had come or gone.

  She was not going to step over the line of her promise to Pendergast. She wasn’t going to tangle with drug smugglers. All she would do was get her ass in the house, look around for a couple of minutes, and go. At the first sign of trouble, no matter how small, she’d get the hell out. If she found anything of value, she’d take it to that pumped-up chauffeur Proctor and he could pass it on to Pendergast.

  She glanced at her watch: midnight. No point waiting any longer. She folded up the lock picks and tucked them in her knapsack, along with the other gear: a small portable drill with bit-sets for glass, wood, and masonry, a glass cutter, suction cups, a set of wires, wire strippers and tools, dental mirrors and picks, a couple of small LED lights, a stocking for her face in case there were video cameras, gloves, Mace, lock oil, rags, duct tape, and spray paint—and two cell phones, one hidden in her boot.

  She felt a certain mounting excitement. This was going to be fun. Back in Medicine Creek, she’d often performed break-ins like this—and it was probably a good idea to keep her hand in, not let herself grow stale. She wondered if she was really cut out for a career in law enforcement or if she shouldn’t think about becoming a criminal instead… Then again, many people in law enforcement did have a sort of perverse attraction to criminality. Pendergast, for one.

  She exited the kitchen onto the tiny back patio, which was surrounded on all sides by an eight-foot brick wall. The garden was overgrown, and several pieces of cast-iron lawn furniture were arranged around the patio. The lights of the surrounding rear windows cast enough illumination for her to see while sheltering her from prying eyes.

  Selecting the darkest section of brick wall abutting 428, she placed a piece of lawn furniture against it, climbed onto it, then pulled herself over the wall and slipped into the backyard of the abandoned house. It was completely overgrown with ailanthus trees and sumac: even more perfect cover. She pulled a rickety old table over to the wall she’d just scaled, then moved ever so slowly through the overgrowth toward the back of the house. Absolutely no lights or signs of activity within.

  The patio door was of metal and sported a relatively new lock. She crept forward, knelt, and opened her lock-pick set, selecting a tool. She inserted the pick and bounced it off the tumblers, rapidly establishing that this would be a very difficult lock to pick. Not for Pendergast, perhaps, but certainly for her.

  Better look for an alternative.

  Creeping along the back of the house, she spied some low basement windows in sunken wells along the rear wall. She knelt and shone a light into the closest one. It was filthy, almost opaque, and she reached down with a rag and began wiping it. Gradually she cleaned it well enough to see through, and saw that metal alarm tape had also been placed on this window.

  Now, this was something she could work with. Taking out the cordless drill, she fitted a 0.5mm diamond tip to the end and fired it up, drilling two holes through the glass, one through the upper foil tape near the junction, and one through the lower foil tape, making sure not to sever the tape and therefore break the circuit. She stripped a copper wire and threaded it through both holes, using a fine dental pick to attach it to the foil on the inside, thus maintaining a complete circuit and, in essence, deactivating the alarm for the rest of the window.

  Then, once again using the drill, she made a number of holes in the glass, outlining an opening large enough for her to slip through. Next, she scored a line on the glass with the glass cutter, connecting all the holes with one another. Affixing the suction cup, she rapped sharply on the glass; it broke neatly along the line. She removed the piece and set it aside. Although the lead foil was torn along the cut,
it didn’t matter: thanks to the copper wire, the circuit remained live.

  She stepped back, glanced around at the surrounding buildings. Nobody had seen or heard her; nobody was taking any notice. She looked up at the structure before her. It remained dark and silent as the grave.

  She returned her attention to the window. Wary of a motion sensor, she aimed a flashlight through it, but could see very little save filing cabinets and stacks of books. The lead tape was a rudimentary alarm system, and she suspected that whatever existed in the interior—if anything—might be as lame. Using a dental mirror, she was able to direct the flashlight beam into all corners of the room, and spotted nothing resembling a motion detector, infrared or laser trip alarms.

  She stuck her arm in and waved it around, ready to run at the first sign of a red light coming on somewhere in the darkness.

  Nothing.

  Okay, then. She turned around, stuck her feet through the hole, carefully worked her way in, dropped to the floor, then pulled her knapsack in behind her.

  Again she waited in the dark, motionless, looking for any blinking lights, any indication of a security system. All was quiet.

  She pulled a chair from one corner and placed it below the window, in case she needed to make a quick escape. Then she glanced around. There was just enough moonlight to make out the contents of the room: as she had noticed from outside, it seemed to be primarily a storage area, full of metal cabinets, yellowing paper files, and piles of books.

  She moved toward the first pile of books and lifted the grimy plastic cover. It exposed a stack of old, identical, buckram-bound hardcovers, each one sporting a large black swastika in a white circle, surrounded by a field of red.

  The book was Mein Kampf, and the author was Adolf Hitler.

  CHAPTER 80

  NAZIS. CORRIE LOWERED THE PLASTIC SHEET, taking care not to rustle it. A chill traveled down her spine. She couldn’t seem to move. Everything Betterton had told her now began falling into place. The building had been around since World War II; the neighborhood had been a German enclave; that killer the reporter talked about had had a German accent. And now, this.