Brimstone p-5

by Douglas Preston

  "Fuck!" D'Agosta screamed. "You bastard !"

  Bullard stepped back, breathing hard. His palms were sweating; he wiped them on the sleeve of his jacket, took a fresh grip on the knife. Then he caught sight of the wall clock. It was already close to two. He couldn't let himself get caught up in a minor distraction. He had something more important to do before dawn. Something much, much more important.

  He turned back to his security chief. "Kill them. Then get rid of the bodies. Dump their weapons with them. Do it over at the old shafts. I don't want any forensics left on the premises, especially not around the lab. You know what I mean: hair, blood, anything with DNA. Don't even let them spit."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You-," began Pendergast, but Bullard spun around and landed a massive uppercut in his stomach. Pendergast doubled over.

  "Gag them. Gag them both."

  The security men rammed balls of cloth into their mouths, then bound them tightly with duct tape.

  "Blindfold them, too."

  "Yes, Mr. Bullard."

  Bullard looked at D'Agosta. "Remember how I promised to pay you back? Now your finger's as short as your dick."

  D'Agosta struggled, making inarticulate sounds as the blindfold went on.

  Bullard turned to his assistant, nodded at the table. "Clean up that mess. And then get the hell out of here."

  { 55 }

  Gagged and blindfolded, hands cuffed behind his back, D'Agosta was herded along by one of the two security men. He could hear the chink of Pendergast's shackles beside him. They were moving through what seemed a long, damp underground passageway: the air stank of fungus, and he could feel the chill humidity soaking into his clothes. Or maybe it was his own sweat. His middle finger felt like it had been dipped in molten lead. It was pulsing in time to his heartbeat, the blood running freely down the small of his back.

  There was something unreal about the whole situation. At any other time, the thought he'd just lost the end of a finger would be all-consuming. Yet right now only the pain itself registered. Everything had happened so quickly. Just hours before, he'd been relaxing in a luxurious suite. Just a few hours before, he'd been almost tearful at seeing his own native land at long last. And now here he was-a dirty cloth stuffed in his mouth, his eyes blindfolded, arms bound, being led to an execution-style death.

  He couldn't really believe he was about to die. And yet that was exactly what was going to happen unless either he or Pendergast could think of something. But they had been thoroughly searched. And Pendergast's most powerful weapon-his tongue-had been silenced. It seemed impossible, unthinkable. And yet the fact was he had only minutes left to live.

  He tried to force the sense of unreality away; tried to forget the searing pain; struggled to think of some last-minute escape, some way to turn the tables on the two men that were so matter-of-factly leading them off to their deaths. But there was nothing in his training, nothing even in the detective books he'd read or written, to give him a clue.

  They paused, and D'Agosta heard the groan of rusty metal being forced open. Then he was shoved forward, and the trilling of crickets and the humid night air hit his nostrils. They were outside.

  He was prodded forward by what was undoubtedly the barrel of a gun. Now they were walking on what felt through the soft shoes like a grassy trail. He could hear the rustling of leaves above his head. Such small, insignificant sensations-and yet they had suddenly grown unbearably precious to him.

  "Christ," said one of the men. "This dew is going to ruin my shoes. I just paid two hundred euros for them, handmade over in Panzano."

  The other chuckled. "Good luck getting another pair. That old geezer makes like one pair a month."

  "We always get the shit jobs." As if to underscore this, the man gave D'Agosta another shove. "They're soaked through already, goddamn it."

  D'Agosta found his thoughts stealing toward Laura Hayward. Would she shed a tear for him? It was strange, but the one thing he most wanted right now was to be able to tell her how he went out. He thought that would make it easier to bear, easier than just vanishing, than never knowing .

  "A little shoe polish and they'll be like new."

  "Once leather gets wet it's never the same."

  "You and your fucking shoes."

  "If you paid two hundred euros, you'd be pissed, too."

  D'Agosta's sense of unreality grew. He tried to embrace the throbbing pain in his finger, because as long as he could feel that, he knew he was still alive. What he feared was when the pain ended .

  Just a few more minutes now. He took a step forward, another, then stumbled against something in the grass.

  A slap to the side of the head. "Watch your step, asshole."

  The air had grown cooler, and there was a smell of earth and decaying leaves. He felt a terrible helplessness. The gag and blindfold robbed him of all ability to make eye contact with Pendergast, to signal, to do anything.

  "The trail to the old quarry goes that way."

  There was a rustling, then a grunt. "Jesus, it's overgrown in here."

  "Yeah, and watch where you put your feet."

  D'Agosta felt himself shoved forward once again. Now they were pushing through wet foliage.

  "It's right up ahead. There's a lot of stones near the edge, don't trip." A guffaw. "It's a long way down."

  More pushing through bushes and wet grass. Then D'Agosta felt himself brusquely halted

  "Another twenty feet," his man said.

  Silence. D'Agosta caught a whiff of something wet and cold-the exhalation of stale air from a deep mine shaft.

  "One at a time. We don't want to fuck this up. You go first. I'll wait here with this one. And hurry up, I'm getting bitten already."

  D'Agosta heard Pendergast being pushed forward, heard the swish of wet footsteps through the undergrowth ahead. The first man had a tight hold on his cuffs, a gun barrel pushed hard into his ear. He should do something, he had to do something. But what? The slightest move and he was dead. He couldn't believe what was happening. His mind refused to accept it. He realized that, deep down, he'd been certain Pendergast would manage to do something miraculous, pull another rabbit out of his hat. But the time for that was past. What could Pendergast do: gagged, blindfolded, a gun to his head, standing at the edge of a precipice? The last small bit of hope drained away.

  "That's far enough," came the voice from about thirty feet away, slightly muffled by the foliage. It was the second man, speaking to Pendergast. D'Agosta caught another whiff of cold air from the mine shaft. Insects whined in his ear. His finger throbbed.

  It really was over.

  He heard the sound of a round being racked into a pistol chamber.

  "Make your peace with God, scumbag."

  A pause. And then the sound of a gunshot, incredibly loud. Another pause-and then from far below, echoing up the shaft in a distorted way, the sound of a heavy object hitting water.

  There was a longer silence, and then the man's voice came back, a little breathless. "Okay. Bring up the other one."

  { 56 }

  Three a.m.

  Locke Bullard stood in the enormous, vaulted alone of his villa, isolated on a hill south of Florence, his feelings betrayed only by the muscles working slowly above his massive jawline. He walked to the leaded windows that looked over the walled gardens, opened one with a shaking, knotted hand. The stars were obscured by clouds, the night sky perfectly black. A perfect night for this kind of business; as perfect as that other night had been, all those years ago. God, what he would give to undo that night . He shivered at the memory, or maybe it was just the cool breath of the wind sighing through the ancient trees in the pineta beyond the garden.

  He stood at the window for some time, struggling to calm himself, to suppress a growing feeling of dread. Below, on the terrace, the indistinct white shapes of marble statues glowed faintly. Soon it would be over, he reminded himself. And he would be free. Free. But right now, he had to keep calm He had to put his old,
rational view of the world aside, if only for one night. Tomorrow, he could tell himself it had all been a bad dream.

  With a great effort he cleared his mind, tried to focus on something else, even briefly. Beyond the swaying tops of the umbrella pines, he could see the outlines of cypresses on the far hills, and then the distant cupola of the Duomo, next to Giotto's tower, brightly lit. Who was it that said only if you lived within sight of the Duomo were you a true Florentine? This was the same view Machiavelli had seen, exactly this: those hills, that famous dome, the distant tower. Perhaps Machiavelli had stood in this very spot five hundred years ago, working out the details of The Prince . Bullard had read the book when he was twenty. It was one of the reasons he'd jumped at the opportunity to own the villa Machiavelli was born and raised in.

  Bullard wondered how Machiavelli would have reacted to this predicament. The great courtier would no doubt have felt the same things he did: dread and resignation How do you make a choice when faced with a problem that has two solutions, both intolerable? He corrected himself: one was intolerable, the other unthinkable.

  You accepted the intolerable.

  He turned from the window and looked across the dim room at the clock on the mantelpiece. Ten minutes after three. He needed to make his final preparations.

  He moved toward a table and lit a huge, ancient candle, whose glow illuminated an old piece of parchment: a certain page from a thirteenth-century grimoire. Then, taking up the ancient arthame knife that lay beside it, Bullard carefully began to score a circle in the terra-cotta floor of the room, working slowly, taking the utmost care to make sure the circle remained unbroken When that was done, he took a piece of charcoal, specially prepared, and began to inscribe letters in Greek and Aramaic on the periphery of the circle, stopping now and then to consult the grimoire. He followed this by inscribing two pentagrams around it all. Next he inscribed a smaller circle-this one broken-beside the larger. He did not worry about being interrupted: he had dismissed all the security and the help. He wanted no chance of witnesses and-above all-no chance of interruption When you were doing what he was about to do, raising what he hoped to raise, there could be no disruptions, no mistakes, nothing left out. The stakes were greater than his life-because, it seemed, the consequences would not end with his death.

  He paused, preparations almost complete. It would not be long now. It would be over and then he could begin again. There would be, of course, minor loose ends to take care of: the disappearance of Pendergast and D'Agosta, for example; the Chinese and what had happened in Paterson. But it would be a relief to return to business as usual. Those problems, as tricky as they were, belonged to the real world, and he could handle them. They were small potatoes compared to this .

  He went over the manuscript page again, then yet again, making sure he had missed nothing. Then, almost against his will, his gaze shifted to the old rectangular box sitting on the table. Now it was time for that .

  He reached out, undid the brass latch. He caressed the polished surface of the box and then-with a terrible reluctance-opened it. A faint scent of antique wood and horsehair wafted upward. He breathed it in: this ancient perfume, this priceless scent With a trembling hand, he reached into the darkness of the box, stroked the smooth object inside. He did not dare take it out-handling it had always frightened him a little. It was not made for him at all. It was made for others. Others who, if he was successful, would never see it again .

  A sudden rush of regret, anger, fear, and helplessness staggered him. He was almost overwhelmed by the sheer force of it. Incredible that a thought could virtually bring him to his knees. He gasped again, breathing hard; took a firm grip on the heavy table. What had to be done, had to be done.

  He carefully closed the box, latched it, and placed it on the ground inside the smaller, broken circle. He wouldn't look at it again, wouldn't torture himself further. With a troubled heart, he glanced over at the clock. It responded by chiming out the quarter hour, the bell-like tones a strange counterpoint to the oppressive darkness of the room. Bullard swallowed, worked his jaw, and finally, with a supreme effort, spoke the words he had memorized so carefully.

  It was the work of ninety seconds to complete the incantation

  At first, nothing happened. He strained, listening, but there was not a sound, not a sigh; nothing. Had he said it incorrectly? With the help gone, the place was as quiet as the tomb.

  His eye drifted back to the manuscript page. Should he recite it again? But no-the ceremony had to be performed precisely, without deviation Repetition could have disastrous, unimaginable consequences

  As he waited, there in the faint light, he wondered if perhaps it wasn't true, after all: that it was all hollow superstition. But at this thought, such a desperate mixture of hope and uncertainty rose within him that he forced himself to push it aside. He was not wrong. There could be no other answer .

  Then he felt, or thought he felt, a strange shifting of the air. A faint smell came to him, drifting across the alone . It was the acrid odor of sulfur

  A breeze shifted the curtains of the window. The room seemed to grow dimmer, as if a great darkness was encroaching from all directions. He felt himself go rigid with fear and anticipation It was happening. The incantation was working, just as promised.

  He waited, almost afraid to breathe. The smell got stronger, and now it almost seemed as if tendrils of smoke were drifting in the lazy air of the room, tendrils that licked about the windows and curled in the corners. He felt a strange sense of apprehension, of physical dread. Yes, it was a physical sensation, a harbinger of what was to come, and the air seemed to congeal with a rising warmth.

  Bullard stood within the greater circle, his heart pounding, his eyes straining to see beyond the darkened doorway. A vague outline . a lumbering, slow-moving shape .

  He'd done it! He'd succeeded! He was coming! He was really coming . !

  { 57 }

  D'Agosta felt numb. The shot, the silence, and the final splash-this was really it.

  "Come on," his minder said, giving him a push.

  D'Agosta couldn't move; he couldn't believe what was happening.

  "Move!" The man jabbed D'Agosta in the back of the head with his gun barrel.

  He stumbled forward, mechanically trying to keep his footing among discarded pieces of stone. The moldy breath of the open shaft washed over him. Six steps, eight, a dozen.

  "Stop."

  Now he could feel the foul air tickling his nose, stirring his hair. Everything seemed abnormally clear, and time had slowed to a crawl. Jesus, what a way to go out.

  The gun barrel pressed hard against his skull. D'Agosta squeezed his eyes tightly closed behind the blindfold, prayed for a quick end.

  He took a shallow breath, another. Then came a deafening gunshot. He fell forward into space .

  . Vaguely, as if at a great distance, he sensed a steel arm shooting out from behind and hauling him back from the utter brink. The hand let go, and D'Agosta collapsed immediately onto the rock-strewn grass. A moment later he heard a body-not his-hitting the water far below.

  "Vincent?"

  It was Pendergast.

  A snick and his blindfold was removed; another snick and Pendergast had cut off his gag. D'Agosta lay where he had fallen, stunned.

  "Wake up, Vincent."

  Slowly, D'Agosta came back. Pendergast was standing to one side, gun trained on his own minder, binding him to a tree. D'Agosta's man was nowhere to be seen.

  D'Agosta stumbled woodenly to his feet. He felt a strange wetness on his face. Tears? Dew from the grass? It seemed a miracle. He swallowed, managed to croak, "How . ?"

  But Pendergast simply shook his head and glanced into the yawning mouth of the shaft. "I think his shoe troubles are over." Then he glanced at the remaining guard and flashed him a brief, chilling smile.

  The man paled and mumbled something through his gag.

  Pendergast turned to D'Agosta. "Show me your finger."

  D'Agosta h
ad forgotten all about it. Pendergast took his hand, examined it. "Done with a sharp knife. You're lucky: neither the bone nor the root of the nail was affected." He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his black shirt and bandaged it. "It might be wise to get you to a hospital."

  "The hell with that. We're going after Bullard."

  Pendergast raised his eyebrows. "I'm delighted to hear that we are of the same opinion. Yes, now is a good opportunity. As for your finger-"

  "Forget the finger."

  "As you wish. Here's your service piece."

  Pendergast handed him the Glock 9mm, then turned to his minder and aimed his own Les Baer at the man's temple. "You have one chance-only one-to tell us the best route out. I already know a great deal about the layout of this place, so any attempt to deceive will be detected and instantly answered with a bullet to the parietal lobe. Understand?"

  The man couldn't talk fast enough.

  An hour later, Pendergast and D'Agosta were driving south of Florence on the Via Volterrana, a dark, stone-walled road that curved along the hilltops south of the city. A faint scattering of lights winked from the surrounding hills.

  "How did you do it?" D'Agosta asked. He could still hardly believe it. "I thought we were about to buy the farm."

  They were still in their black stealth outfits, and only Pendergast's hands and face could be seen. In the dim light of the dashboard, his expression was hard and flat. "I have to admit a moment of discomfort back there myself. We were lucky they decided to separate, to kill us one at a time. That was their first mistake. The second was overconfidence and inattention. The third was my man keeping his gun pressed into me-which, of course, revealed exactly where the weapon was at all times. I always carry a few small tools in my shirt cuff, the hem of my trousers, other places. It's an old magicians' trick. I used these to pick the lock of my cuffs. Luckily, the Italian locks were rather crude. When we halted at the pit, I disarmed my opponent with a blow to the solar plexus, removed my blindfold and gag. I then shot the gun into the air while pushing a heavy rock into the quarry with my foot. Next I instructed my guard to order you brought forward-which he did as soon as he recovered his wind. I regret shooting your guard, but there would have been no way to manage both of them . I do not care for killing people in cold blood, but there was no help for it."