Brimstone p-5

by Douglas Preston

  "She's bleeding!"

  "Forget it, it's nothing. Let me go." They released her reluctantly.

  "Who was it? Who assaulted you?"

  Todd was staring, humanity shocked back into him, horrified at what he'd done.

  Hayward looked away. Another arrest right now could be disastrous. "Don't know. Came out of nowhere. It doesn't matter."

  "Let's get you to an ambulance."

  "I'll walk by myself," she said, brushing off yet another proffered arm. She felt embarrassed. It was nothing: scalp wounds always bled a great deal. She looked around, blinking her eyes. An immense silence seemed to have settled on the crowd. The police had the cuffs on Buck and had formed a semicircle around him, already moving him out. The crowd looked on, stunned, while Buck exhorted them to remain calm, be peaceful, hurt no one.

  "Forgive them," he said.

  All the momentum was gone. Buck had ordered them to stand down, and they had obeyed.

  It was over.

  { 79 }

  Immediately, D'Agosta pulled out his service piece and drew down on the count. "No fucking way," he said.

  The count stared at the gun, sighing condescendingly. "Put away that gun, you fool. Pinketts?"

  The manservant, who had left the room, now returned, carrying a large pumpkin in both arms. He set it down on the hearth before the fireplace.

  "It is true, Sergeant D'Agosta, you would have been a much more effective demonstration. But it would have caused such a mess. " Fosco went back to assembling the device.

  D'Agosta moved slowly backward, slipping his gun back into his holster as he did so. Somehow, the act of drawing his weapon brought fresh resolve. He and Pendergast were both armed. At the first indication of trouble, he would have no hesitation about taking out both the count and Pinketts. Except for some kitchen help, there didn't seem to be any other servants around-but he knew that, with the count, appearances were deceptive.

  "There we go." Fosco hefted the assembled machine, which looked something like a large rifle, made primarily of stainless steel, with a bulbous dish at one end and a barrel sporting half a dozen buttons and dials at the other. "As I said, I knew I had to kill Grove and Cutforth in such a way that the police would be utterly baffled. It had to be done with heat, of course. But how? Burning, arson, boiling-much too common. It had to be mysterious, unexplainable. That was when I recalled the phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion. You know the first documented case of it was here in Italy?"

  Pendergast nodded. "The countess Cornelia."

  "Countess Cornelia Zangari de' Bandi di Cesena. Most dramatic. How, I wondered, could a similarly devilish effect be duplicated? Then I thought of microwaves ."

  "Microwaves?" D'Agosta repeated.

  The count smiled patronizingly at him. "Yes, Sergeant. Just like your own microwave oven. They seemed perfect for my needs. Microwaves heat from the inside out. They can be focused, just like light, to-say-burn a body while leaving the rest of the environment intact. Microwaves heat water far more selectively than dry materials, fats, or oils, so they would burn a wet body before heating the rugs or furnishings. And they have an ionizing and heating effect on metals with a certain number of valence electrons."

  Fosco ran a hand over his device, then laid it on the table next to him. "As you know, Mr. Pendergast, I'm a tinkerer. I love a challenge. It's quite simple to build a microwave transmitter that would deliver the necessary wattage. The problem was the power supply. But I. G. Farben, a German company which my family was connected with during the War, makes a marvelous combination of capacitor and battery capable of delivering the requisite charge."

  D'Agosta glanced at the microwave device. It looked almost silly, like a cheap prop to an old science fiction movie.

  "It would never work as a weapon of war: the top theoretical range is less than twenty feet, and it takes time to do its work. But it suited my purposes perfectly. I had quite a time working out the kinks. Many pumpkins were sacrificed, Sergeant D'Agosta. At last, I tested it on that old pedophile in Pistoia-the one whose tomb you examined. There was a bit of a meltdown-the human body takes a lot more heating than a pumpkin. I rebuilt the device with improvements and used it more successfully on the terrorized Grove. It wasn't quite enough to set the man on fire, but it did the job. Then I arranged the scene to my satisfaction, packed up, and left, locking everything and turning the alarm back on. With Cutforth it was even simpler. As I said, my man Pinketts had rented the apartment next door and was undertaking 'renovations.' He made a marvelous elderly English gentleman, poor man, all bent over and muffled up against the chill."

  "That explains why they couldn't identify a suspect from the security video cams," D'Agosta said.

  "Pinketts used to be in the theater, which frequently comes in handy for my purposes. In any case, the weapon works beautifully through walls made of drywall and wooden studs. Microwaves, my dear Pendergast, have the marvelous property of penetrating drywall like light through glass, as long as there is no moisture or metal. There could of course be no metal nails in the wall between the two apartments, because metal absorbs microwaves and would heat up and cause a fire. So Pinketts opened our side of the wall, removed the nails, and replaced them with wooden dowels. When it was all over, he put our side of the wall back up. The whole operation was disguised as part of the remodeling job. Pinketts himself did the honors on Cutforth while I was at the opera with you. What better alibi than to contrive to spend the evening of the murder with the detective himself!" Fosco heaved in silent mirth.

  "And the smell of sulfur?"

  "Sulfur burned with phosphorus in a censer, injected through the wall at cracks around the molding."

  "How did you burn the images into the wall?"

  "The hoofprint in Grove's house was done directly, focusing the microwave. The image in Cutforth's apartment had to be done indirectly-Pinketts couldn't get into the apartment-by focusing the device against a mask. That was a little trickier, but it worked. Burned the image right through the wall. Brilliant, don't you think?"

  "You're sick," said D'Agosta.

  "I am a tinkerer. I like nothing more than solving tricky little problems." He grinned horribly and picked up the device. "Now please stand back. I need to adjust the range of the beam. It wouldn't do to scorch us as well as the pumpkin."

  Fosco raised the ungainly thing, slid its leather strap over his shoulder, aimed it at the pumpkin, adjusted some knobs. Then he pressed a rudimentary kind of trigger. D'Agosta stared in horrified fascination. There was a humming noise in the capacitor-that was all.

  "Right now the device is working up from its lowest setting. If that pumpkin were our victim, he would begin to experience a most awful crawling sensation in his guts and over his skin about now."

  The pumpkin remained unaffected. Fosco turned a knob, and the humming went up a notch.

  "Now our victim is screaming. The crawling sensation has gotten unbearable. I imagine it's like a stomach full of wasps, stinging endlessly. His skin, too, would start to dry and blister. The rising heat within his muscles would soon cause the neurons to begin firing, jerking his limbs spasmodically, causing him to fall down and go into convulsions. His internal temperature is soaring. Within a few more seconds he'll be thrashing on the ground, biting off or swallowing his tongue."

  Another tick of the dial. Now a small blister appeared on the skin of the pumpkin. It seemed to soften, sag a bit. A soft pop, and the pumpkin split open from top to bottom, issuing a spurt of steam.

  "Now our victim is unconscious, seconds from death."

  There was a muffled boiling sound inside the pumpkin, and the fissure widened. With a sudden wet noise, a jet of orange slime forced itself from the split, oozing over the floor in steaming rivulets.

  "No comment necessary. By now, our victim is dead. The interesting part, however, is yet to come."

  Blisters began swelling all over the surface of the pumpkin, some popping with little puffs of steam, others brea
king and weeping orange fluid.

  Another tick of the dial.

  The pumpkin split afresh, with a second rush of boiling pulp and seeds squeezing out in a hot viscous paste. The pumpkin sagged further and darkened, the stem blackening and smoking; more fluid and seeds oozed from the cracks along with jets of steam. And then suddenly, with a sharp popping sound, the seeds began to explode. The pumpkin seemed to harden, the room filling with the smell of burned pumpkin flesh; then, with a sudden paff! , it burst into flame.

  "Ecco! The deed is done. Our victim is on fire. And yet, if you were to place your hand on the stone next to the pumpkin, you would find it barely warm to the touch."

  Fosco lowered the device. The pumpkin continued to smolder, a flame licking the stem, sizzling and crackling as it burned, a foul black smoke rising slowly.

  "Pinketts?"

  The servant, without missing a beat, picked up a bottle of acqua minerale from the dinner table and poured it over the pumpkin. Then he gave the bubbling remains a deft kick into the fire, heaped on a few more sticks, and retired again to the corner.

  "Marvelous, don't you think? And yet it's much more dramatic with a human body, I can assure you."

  "You're one sick fuck, you know that?" said D'Agosta.

  "This man of yours, Pendergast, is beginning to annoy me."

  "Clearly a man of many virtues," Pendergast replied. "But I think this has gone on long enough. It is time for us to get to the remaining business at hand."

  "Quite, quite."

  "I have come here to offer you a deal."

  "Naturally." Fosco's lip curled cynically.

  Pendergast glanced at the count a moment, his looks unreadable, letting the silence build. "You will write out and sign a confession of all that you have told us tonight, and you will give me that diabolical machine as proof. I will escort you to the carabinieri, who will arrest you. You will be tried for the murders of Locke Bullard and Carlo Vanni, and as an accomplice in the murder of the priest. Italy has no death penalty, and you will probably be released in twenty-five years, at the age of eighty, to live the remainder of your days in peace and quiet-if you manage to survive prison. This is your side of the bargain."

  Fosco listened, an incredulous smile developing on his face. "Is that all? And what will you give me in exchange?"

  "Your life."

  "I wasn't aware my life was in your hands, Mr. Pendergast. It seems to me it's the other way around."

  D'Agosta saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. Pinketts had withdrawn a 9mm Beretta and had it trained on them. D'Agosta's hand moved toward his own weapon, unstrapped the keeper.

  Pendergast stopped him with a shake of his head. Then he removed an envelope from his pocket. "A letter identical to this one has been placed with Prince Corso Maffei, to be opened in twenty-four hours if I have not returned to reclaim it."

  At the name of Maffei, Fosco paled.

  "You are a member of the secret society known as the Comitatus Decimus, the Company of Ten. As a member of this society, which dates back to the Middle Ages, you inherited and were entrusted with certain documents, formulas, and manuscripts. You abused that trust, in particular on October 31, 1974, when you went through a mock ceremony using those same instruments to frighten a group of American students. Then you compounded it with these killings."

  The paleness had given way to mottled fury. "Pendergast, this is absurd."

  "You know better than I it is not. You belong to this secret society by virtue of your title. You had no choice in the matter: you were born into it. You didn't take it seriously as a young man; you thought it a joke. Only years later did you realize the severity of that mistake."

  "This is all bluster, a poor attempt to save your own skin."

  "It's your skin you should be concerned about. You know what awaits those who break the society's seal of silence. Remember what happened to the marchese Meucci? The ten men who head the Comitatus have enormous money, power, and reach. They will find you, Fosco-you know that."

  Fosco said nothing, simply staring back at Pendergast.

  "As I said, I will give you your life back by retrieving that letter-but only after I have received your signed confession and escorted you to the carabinieri headquarters. The violin you may keep. It is yours, after all. A fair deal, when you consider it."

  Fosco tore open the letter with a fat hand and began to read. After a moment, he paused and looked up. "This is infamy!"

  Pendergast merely watched as Fosco returned his attention to the document, hands visibly shaking.

  D'Agosta observed this interchange with growing comprehension. Now he understood the purpose of Pendergast's stop that morning, a stop he had referred to as "insurance." He had been depositing the copy of his letter with this Prince Maffei. How Pendergast had put all this together, and exactly what it meant, D'Agosta didn't know. No doubt he would learn in time. But his overwhelming feeling was one of relief. Once again, Pendergast had saved their asses.

  The count lowered the document abruptly. His face had gone white.

  "How did you know this? Someone must have already broken the seal of the Comitatus! Someone else must pay, not me!"

  "I learned it from you, and nobody else. That is all you need to know."

  Fosco appeared to be struggling to master himself. He placed the letter on the table, faced Pendergast. "Very well. I had expected a strong opening move, but this one does you credit. Twenty-four hours, you say? Pinketts will escort you back to your rooms while I consider my riposte."

  "No fucking way," said D'Agosta. "We're leaving. You can telephone our hotel when you're ready to hand over the confession." He glanced at Pinketts, who had his gun trained on them, the muzzle moving back and forth. D'Agosta figured the chances were pretty good that-if he timed it right-he could put a bulletin Pinketts before the man could react.

  "You will go to your quarters and await my answer," the count said imperiously.

  When nobody moved, he gave an almost imperceptible nod to Pinketts.

  All it took was a faint movement in the man's hand, and D'Agosta had dropped, rolled, and fired in one smooth, endlessly practiced move. Without even a cry, Pinketts staggered back against the wall, Beretta still in hand, firing once above their heads. D'Agosta rose to his knee and fired two more shots. Pinketts jerked, the gun skidded across the floor, coming to rest in a corner. Pendergast had his own gun out and was now aiming at the count.

  Slowly, Fosco raised his hands.

  Suddenly, men appeared in the doorways leading out of the dining room: rough-looking men in peasant dress, guns in hand, faces set. They came in orderly, deliberately, without haste, sure of themselves. In a moment, more than half a dozen had entered, guns aimed at Pendergast and D'Agosta.

  There was a long silence, interrupted only by a long, gargling rattle from Pinketts that wheezed off into silence.

  Fosco's hands were still raised. "We seem to be at a standoff," he said. "How very theatrical. You kill me, my men kill you." Though the words sounded light, they held a harsh, chill undertone.

  "Let us walk out of here," said D'Agosta. "And nobody'll get killed."

  "You've already killed Pinketts," Fosco replied crisply. "Here you are, the man who dared lecture me on the sanctity of human life. Pinketts, who was my best and most loyal servant."

  D'Agosta took a step toward the count.

  "Agent Pendergast!" Fosco said, turning and raising his voice. "A moment's reflection will show you this is a game you cannot win. At the count of three, I will order D'Agosta killed. I will die too, at your hand. You , on the other hand, will live to ponder how you brought death to your partner. You know me well enough to know it's not a bluff. You will lay down the gun-because you have the letter ."

  He paused. "One."

  "It's a bluff!" D'Agosta shouted. "Don't fall for it!"

  "Two."

  Pendergast laid down his weapon.

  The count paused again, hands still in the air. "Now, Mr. D'Agos
ta, you haven't put down your gun. Do I need to say that last number, or can you understand the situation has gone against you? Even with your remarkable marksmanship, you will not succeed in dropping more than one or two of my men before you are sent back to your Maker."

  D'Agosta slowly lowered his gun. He still had a second strapped to his leg, and he knew Pendergast had one, too. The game was not over by a long shot. And they still had the letter.

  Fosco looked from one to the other, eyes glittering. "Very well. My men will escort you to your rooms while I consider your offer."

  { 80 }

  Dawn was finally breaking through the tiny windows of the keep when Pendergast emerged from his room. D'Agosta, sitting by the fire, grunted an acknowledgment. He had spent the night tossing restlessly, unable to sleep, but Pendergast seemed to have had no difficulty.

  "Excellent fire, Vincent," he said, smoothing the front of his suit and taking a seat nearby. "I find these fall mornings a bit chilly."

  D'Agosta gave the fire a savage poke. "Nice sleep?"

  "The bed was an abomination. Otherwise, passable, thank you."

  D'Agosta heaved on another log. He hated all this waiting, this not knowing, and was unable to completely suppress his irritation at Pendergast's going directly to his room the night before without a satisfactory explanation.

  "How did you know about that secret society business, anyway?" he asked a little gruffly. "I've seen you pull a rabbit out of a hat before, but this one took the cake."

  "What a delightful mixed metaphor. I had a suspicion that Fosco was involved in some way or another, even before I found the horsehair from the Stormcloud at the site of Bullard's killing."

  "When did you first suspect him?"

  "You recall the associate I mentioned, Mime? I had him perform Internet background checks on the recent activities of all who were at Grove's last party. His research eventually picked up the fact that, six months ago, Fosco quietly purchased a rare seventeenth-century Florentine cross from an antique dealer on the Via Maggio."