Blue Labyrinth

by Douglas Preston

  In response, Margo pressed the handbag slung over one shoulder.

  A brace of ambulances were parked at the closest corner of visitors’ parking, lightbars turning. As they hurried toward them, Constance stopped to retrieve a small satchel, hidden in some bushes. The paramedics opened the rear of the nearest ambulance and rolled in Pendergast’s stretcher, climbing in after it. D’Agosta started to get in, followed by Margo and Constance.

  The emergency workers looked at the two women. “I’m sorry,” one began, “but you’re going to have to take separate transportation—”

  D’Agosta silenced the man with a flash of his badge.

  With a shrug, the paramedic shut the doors; the siren started up. Constance handed Margo the satchel and the lily plant.

  “What is this stuff?” one EMT said angrily. “It’s not sterile. You can’t bring that in here!”

  “Move aside,” Margo said sharply.

  D’Agosta put a hand on the man’s shoulder and pointed at Pendergast. “You two focus on the patient. I’ll be responsible for the rest.”

  The EMT frowned, saying nothing.

  D’Agosta watched as Margo went to work. She pulled open the ambulance storage compartment in the rear of the vehicle, slid out a shelf, opened Constance’s satchel, and began pulling out various things—old bottles filled with liquid, ampoules, envelopes of powder, a jar of emolument. She laid them all out in order. To these, Margo added the lily that Constance had handed her, and then some dried plant specimens from her own handbag, picking them out from among pieces of broken glass. Next to all this she smoothed out a wrinkled piece of paper, grabbing abruptly for a handhold as the ambulance pulled out onto Washington Avenue, its siren shrieking.

  “What are you doing?” D’Agosta asked.

  “I’m preparing the antidote,” Margo replied.

  “Shouldn’t you do this in a lab or something—?”

  “Does it look to you like we have the time?”

  “How is the patient?” Constance asked the paramedic.

  The paramedic glanced at D’Agosta, then at her. “Not good. B/P low, pulse thready.” He pulled open a plastic tray at one side of Pendergast’s stretcher. “I’m going to start a lidocaine drip.”

  As the ambulance careered onto Eastern Parkway, D’Agosta watched Margo grab a bag of saline from a nearby drawer, pluck a tracheotomy scalpel from another drawer, and pull away its protective silver covering. She slashed open the saline bag, poured some into an empty plastic beaker, and dropped the leaking bag on the floor.

  “Hey,” said the paramedic. “What the hell are you doing—?” Again, he was silenced by a warning gesture from D’Agosta.

  The ambulance shrieked its way past Prospect Park, then through Grand Army Plaza. Steadying herself against the movements of the vehicle, Margo took a small glass jar from among the contents of Constance’s satchel, warmed it briefly in her hands, then removed its stopper and poured out a measure into the plastic beaker. Immediately the ambulance filled with a sweetish, chemical smell.

  “What’s that?” D’Agosta asked, waving away the odor.

  “Chloroform.” Margo re-stoppered the jar. Taking the scalpel, she chopped up the lily Constance had retrieved from the Aquatic House, mashed it, and added the pulp, along with the dried, crushed pieces of plant from her own handbag, into the liquid. She stoppered the beaker and shook it.

  “What’s going on?” D’Agosta asked.

  “The chloroform acts as a solvent. It’s used in pharmacology to extract compounds from plant material. Then I have to boil most of it off, as it’s poisonous if injected.”

  “Just a moment,” Constance said. “If you boil it, you’ll make the same mistake Hezekiah did.”

  “No, no,” Margo replied. “Chloroform boils at a far lower temperature than water—around a hundred forty degrees. It won’t denature the proteins or the compounds.”

  “What compounds are you extracting?” D’Agosta asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Margo rounded on him. “Nobody knows what the active ingredients in these botanicals are. I’m winging it.”

  “Jesus,” D’Agosta said.

  The ambulance turned onto Eighth Avenue, approaching New York Methodist Hospital. As it did, Margo consulted her sheet of paper, added more liquid, broke an ampoule, mixed in two kinds of powder from their glassine envelopes.

  “Lieutenant,” she said over her shoulder. “When we get to the hospital, I’m going to need some things right away. Ice water. A piece of cloth for straining. A test tube. Half a dozen coffee filters. And a pocket lighter. Okay?”

  “Here’s the lighter,” said D’Agosta, reaching into his pocket. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  The ambulance came to a halt before the hospital’s emergency entrance, the siren cutting off. The paramedics threw open the rear doors and slid the stretcher out to the waiting ER staff. D’Agosta glanced down at Pendergast, covered in a thin blanket. The agent was pale and motionless as a corpse. Constance got out next and followed the stretcher inside, her attire and dirty appearance eliciting strange looks from the hospital staff. Next, D’Agosta hopped down and made his way quickly toward the entrance. As he did so, he looked over his shoulder. He could see Margo in the rear bay of the ambulance, brilliantly illuminated by the emergency lights, still working with single-minded purpose.

  ICU Bay Three of the emergency room at New York Methodist Hospital resembled a scene of controlled chaos. One intern wheeled in a red crash cart, while a nurse nearby readied an ear, nose, and throat tray. Another nurse was attaching various leads to the motionless figure of Pendergast: a blood pressure cuff, EKG, pulse oximeter, fresh IV line. The paramedic workers from the ambulance had passed off their information on Pendergast’s condition to the hospital staff, then left; there was nothing more they could do.

  Two doctors in scrubs swept in and quickly began to examine Pendergast, speaking in low tones to the nurses and interns.

  D’Agosta took a look around. Constance was seated in a far corner of the bay, her small form now dressed in a hospital gown. It had been five minutes since he’d delivered the requested materials to Margo, back in the ambulance. She was still in there, working like a demon, using his lighter to heat a liquid in the test tube, filling the air with a sweet stench.

  “Vitals?” one of the doctors asked.

  “BP’s at sixty-five over thirty and falling,” a nurse replied. “Pulse ox is seventy.”

  “Prep for endotracheal intubation,” the doctor said.

  D’Agosta watched as more equipment was wheeled into place. He felt a terrible mixture of rage, despair, and distant hope gnawing at him. Unable to keep still, he began to pace back and forth. One of the doctors, who earlier had tried to throw him and Constance out, shot him a glare, but he ignored it. What was the point of all this? This whole antidote thing seemed far-fetched, if not completely nuts. Pendergast had been dying for days—weeks—and now the final moments had come. All this fuss, this pointless bustle, just made him feel more agitated. There was nothing they could do—nothing anyone could do. Margo, for all her skill, was trying to concoct an elixir whose dosage she could only guess at—and that hadn’t worked before. Besides, it was moot now; it was taking her too long. Even these doctors, with all their equipment, couldn’t do jack to save Pendergast.

  “Getting a lethal rhythm here,” an intern said, monitoring one of the screens at the head of Pendergast’s bed.

  “Stop the lidocaine,” the second doctor said, pushing his way between the nurses. “Get a central vein catheter ready. Two milligrams epi, stat.”

  D’Agosta sat down in the empty chair beside Constance.

  “Vitals failing,” one of the interns said. “He’s coding.”

  “Get that epi,” the doctor barked. “Stat!”

  D’Agosta leapt to his feet. No! There had to be something he could do, there had to…

  At that moment Margo Green
appeared at the entrance of the ICU bay. Flinging the privacy screen wide, she stepped inside. She held a small beaker in one hand, partly full of a watery, greenish-brown liquid. The top of the beaker was covered with alternating layers of coffee filters and the cotton he’d appropriated from an ER gown locker. The entire beaker had then been wrapped in thin clear plastic and sealed with a rubber band.

  One of the doctors looked over at her. “Who are you?”

  Margo said nothing. Her gaze turned toward the still body on the bed. Then she approached a set of nurses.

  “Damn it,” a doctor cried. “You can’t all be in here! This is a sterile environment.”

  Margo turned to one of the nurses. “Get me a hypodermic,” she said.

  The nurse blinked her surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “A hypodermic. With a big-bore syringe. Now.”

  “Do what she says,” D’Agosta said, holding out his badge. The nurse looked from Margo, to the doctors, to D’Agosta. Then, silently, she pulled open a drawer, exposing a number of long objects wrapped in sterile paper. Margo grabbed one and tore away the wrapper, exposing a large plastic syringe. Reaching into the same drawer, she selected a needle, fitted its adaptor to the end of the syringe. Then she walked toward D’Agosta and Constance. She was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat stood out on her temples.

  “What’s going on?” one of the doctors asked, looking up from his work.

  Margo looked from Constance to D’Agosta, then back again. The syringe was in one hand; the beaker in the other. Her mute question hung in the air.

  Slowly, Constance nodded.

  Margo eyed the antidote under the strong light of the ER bay, tore the seal off the beaker, stuck the needle into the liquid, drew up an amount, then pulled it out, holding it up and flicking the end of the syringe to remove extraneous bubbles. Then, taking a deep breath, she approached the bed.

  “That’s it,” the doctor said. “Get the hell away from my patient.”

  “I’m ordering you to give her access,” D’Agosta said. “On my authority as a lieutenant in the NYPD.”

  “You have no authority here. I’ve had enough of this meddling. I’m calling security.”

  D’Agosta planted his hands at his waist. His right hand curled over his holster and, to his great shock, found his service piece missing.

  He spun around to see Constance standing there, pointing his .38 at the doctors and nurses. Although she had washed most of the mud from her person, and had exchanged the ragged silk chemise for a long hospital smock, she was still covered in scratches and cuts. Her face bore an expression that was chilling in its singular intensity. A sudden silence fell over the bay, and all work ceased.

  “We’re going to save your patient’s life,” she said in a low voice. “Back away from the security alarm.”

  Her expression, as much as D’Agosta’s weapon, caused the hospital staff to shrink back.

  Quickly, while the doctors were stunned, Margo inserted the needle into the IV line, just above the drip chamber, and squeezed off about three ccs of liquid.

  “You’ll kill him!” one of the doctors cried.

  “He’s dead already,” Margo said.

  There was a moment of shocked stasis. Pendergast’s body lay motionless on the bed. The various bleeps and blips of the monitoring machines formed a kind of funereal fugue. Now, amid the chorus, a low, urgent tone sounded.

  “He’s coding again!” the first doctor said, leaning in from the far end of the bed.

  For a moment, Margo remained still. Then she raised the syringe to the IV line again. “Fuck it,” she said, squeezing off a dose doubly large as the last one.

  As if with a single movement, the nurses and interns surged around the body, ignoring the gun. Margo was dragged roughly away in the process, the syringe taken from her unresisting hand. There was a flurry of shrill, shouted orders and a security alarm went off. Constance lowered the gun, staring, her face white.

  “Pulseless ventricular tachycardia!” one voice rose above the rest.

  “We’re losing him!” the second doctor cried. “Cardiac compression, now!”

  D’Agosta, frozen in shock, stared as the gowned figures worked feverishly around the bed. The EKG on the monitor above had flatlined. He stepped over to Constance, gently took the gun from her hand, and replaced it in the holster. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared at the useless activity, trying to think of the last time Pendergast had spoken to him. Not the half-raving outburst in the gun room, but really talked to him, personally, face-to-face. It seemed very important for D’Agosta to remember those last words. As far as he could remember, it had been outside the jail at Indio, just after they’d finished trying to interrogate Rudd. And what had Pendergast said to him, precisely, as they’d stood on the asphalt of that parking lot, under the hot sun?

  Because, my dear Vincent, our prisoner is not the only one who has begun smelling flowers of late.

  Pendergast had understood what was happening to him almost from the beginning. God, to think those were to be the agent’s last words to him…

  Suddenly the sounds around him, the shouted voices, changed in tone and urgency.

  “I’ve got a pulse!” one doctor said. The EKG flatline began flickering, jumping, coming back to life.

  “Blood pressure climbing,” said a nurse. “Seventy-five over forty.”

  “Cease cardiac compression,” said the other doctor.

  A minute passed as the doctors continued their labors, the patient’s vitals slowly coming back to life. And then, on the bed, the figure of Pendergast opened one eye, just slightly—a gleaming slit. D’Agosta, shocked, saw the pinpoint pupil rotate about, taking in the room. Constance leaned forward and clasped his hand.

  “You’re alive!” D’Agosta heard himself say.

  Pendergast’s lips worked; a short phrase escaped. “Alban… Good-bye, my son.”

  EPILOGUE

  Two Months Later

  Beau Bartlett guided the silver Lexus off the county road onto white gravel, drove slowly down a long lane framed by black oaks hung with Spanish moss, and emerged onto a circular drive. A large and stately Greek Revival plantation house came into view, and, as usual, it just about took Bartlett’s breath away. It was a hot afternoon in St. Charles Parish, and Bartlett had the windows of the sedan closed, the A/C blasting. He killed the engine, opened the door, and bounded out with an excess of good humor. He was dressed in a lime-colored polo shirt, pink pants, and golf shoes.

  On the front porch, two figures rose. One he recognized immediately as Pendergast, dressed in his standard black suit, looking his usual pale self. The other was a young woman of singular beauty, slender, with short mahogany hair, wearing a pleated white dress.

  Beau Bartlett paused and approached the grand mansion. He felt like an angler hooking the fish of a lifetime. It was all he could do not to rub his hands together. That would be tacky.

  “Well, well!” he exclaimed. “Penumbra Plantation!”

  “Indeed,” murmured Pendergast as he approached, the woman trailing at his side.

  “I’ve always believed it the handsomest estate in all Louisiana,” Bartlett said, waiting to be introduced to the lovely young lady. But he was not introduced. Pendergast merely inclined his head.

  Bartlett swiped his brow. “I’m curious. My firm’s been trying to get you to sell the place for years. And we’re not the only ones. What made you change your mind?” A sudden feeling of anxiety came across the developer’s chubby face—even though the initial papers had been signed—as if the very question might cast a shadow of doubt over the transaction. “Of course, we’re happy you did, very happy indeed. I’m just… well, curious, that’s all.”

  Pendergast looked slowly around, as if committing the sights to memory: the Grecian columns; the covered porch; the cypress groves and extensive gardens. Then he turned back to Bartlett. “Let us just say that the estate had become a… nuisance.”

  “No doubt! T
hese old plantation houses are a black hole of maintenance! Well, all of us at Southern Realty Ventures thank you for putting your trust in us.” Bartlett fairly burbled. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his damp face with it. “We’ve got wonderful plans for the estate—wonderful plans! In twenty-four months or so, all this will have been transformed into Cypress Wynd Estates. Sixty-five large, elegant, custom-built houses—mansionettes we call them—each situated on its own acre of land. Just think!”

  “I am thinking of it,” Pendergast said. “I am imagining it rather vividly.”

  “I hope you might even consider picking up a Cypress Wynd mansionette of your own—far more carefree and convenient than this old house here. It comes with a golf membership, too. We’ll give you a hell of a deal!” Beau Bartlett gave Pendergast a friendly nudge with his shoulder.

  “How generous of you,” said Pendergast.

  “Of course, of course,” Bartlett said. “We’ll be good stewards of the land, I promise you. The old house itself can’t be touched—being on the National Register of Historic Places and all that. It will make a hell of a fine clubhouse, restaurant, bar, and offices. Cypress Wynd Estates will be developed in an environmentally sound manner—LEED green certified construction throughout! And according to your wishes, of course, the cypress swamp will be preserved as a wildlife refuge. By law, a certain percentage of the development—ah, estate—must be zoned for environmental purposes anyway and as protection against runoff. The swamp will fit that zoning requirement very nicely. And of course, no less than thirty-six holes of golf will only add to the attractiveness of Cypress Wynd.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You shall be my honored guest on the links at any time. So… next week, you’ll begin moving the family plot?” asked Bartlett.

  “Yes. I will handle all the details. And expenses.”

  “Very good of you. Respectful of the dead. Commendable. Christian.”

  “And then, there’s Maurice,” said Pendergast.

  At the mention of Maurice—the elderly manservant who had maintained Penumbra for countless years—Bartlett’s perpetually sunny expression fell slightly. This Maurice was as ancient as the hills, utterly decrepit, not to mention dour and silent. But Pendergast had proven quite a stickler on this point.