Blue Labyrinth (23 page)

L
ieutenant Peter Angler sat behind the desk of his office in the Twenty-Sixth Precinct. All the thick paperwork on the desk had been relegated to its four corners, and the center was bare save for three items: a silver coin, a piece of wood, and a bullet.

There were times in every investigation where he felt that things were about to reach a turning point. At such times, Angler had a little ritual he always went through: he pulled these three relics out of a locked desk drawer and examined them in turn. Each, in its own way, marked a milestone in his life—just as every case he cracked while on the force was its own milestone in miniature—and he enjoyed reflecting on their importance.

First, he picked up the coin. It was an old Roman Imperial denarius, struck in
AD
37, with Caligula on its face and Agrippina Sr. on the reverse. Angler had purchased the coin after his thesis on the emperor—with its medical and psychological analysis of the changes wrought on Caligula by his serious illness of that year, and the illness’s role in transforming him from a relatively benevolent ruler to an insane tyrant—won first prize at Brown his senior year. The coin had been very expensive, but somehow he felt he had to own it.

Placing the coin back on the table, he picked up the piece of wood. Originally curled and rough, he had sanded and smoothed it himself until it was barely larger than a pencil, then varnished it so that it
glowed brilliantly in the fluorescent light of the office. It had come from the first old-growth redwood that he, in his days as an environmental activist, had saved from the logging companies. He had camped in the upper canopy of the tree for almost three weeks, until the loggers finally gave up and moved elsewhere. As he descended the tree, he’d cut off a small dead branch as a memento of the triumph.

Lastly he reached for the bullet. It was bent and misshapen from the impact with his own left tibia. He never discussed, on the Job or off, the fact that he’d taken a bullet; never wore or displayed the Police Combat Cross he’d earned for extraordinary heroism. Few people who worked with him even knew he’d been shot in the line of duty. It didn’t matter. Angler turned the bullet over in his hands, then replaced it on the desk.
He
knew, and that was enough.

He put the items carefully back in their drawer, relocked it, then picked up the phone and dialed the number for the departmental secretary. “Have them come in,” he said.

A minute later, the door opened and three men stepped in: Sergeant Slade and two desk sergeants assigned to the Alban murder. “Report, please,” Angler said.

One stepped forward. “Sir, we’ve completed our examination of the TSA records.”

“Go on.”

“As you requested, we went back through all available records for a period of eighteen months, looking for any evidence that the victim might have made trips to the United States other than June fourth of this year. We found such evidence. The victim, using the same false name of Tapanes Landberg, entered the country from Brazil roughly one year previously, on May seventeenth, coming through JFK. Five days later, on May twenty-second, he flew back to Rio.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. Using Homeland Security documentation, we found that a man using the same name and passport took a flight from LaGuardia to Albany on May eighteenth, returning May twenty-first.”

“A false Brazilian passport,” Angler said. “It would have to be of excellent quality. I wonder where he got it?”

“No doubt such things are easier to obtain in a country like Brazil than they are here,” said Slade.

“No doubt. What else?”

“That’s it, sir. At Albany, the trail went cold. We checked all available avenues through local law enforcement, travel companies, bus terminals, regional airports and airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. There is no further record of Tapanes Landberg until he boarded the plane back to LaGuardia on May twenty-first, and thence to Brazil the following day.”

“Thank you. Excellent work. Dismissed.”

Angler waited until the two had left the office. Then he nodded at Slade and motioned the man toward a chair. From one of the piles of paperwork at the edges of his desk, he took a large stack of oversize index cards. They contained information compiled enthusiastically by Sergeant Slade over the past several days.

“Why would our friend
Alban
have gone to
Alban
y?” Angler asked.

“No idea,” Slade replied. “But I’d lay odds those two trips are linked.”

“It’s a small town. The airport and central bus terminal would both fit in the Port Authority waiting room. Alban would have a hard time hiding his tracks there.”

“How do you know so much about Albany?”

“I have relatives in Colonie, to the northwest.” Angler turned his attention to the index cards. “You’ve been a busy man. In another life, you could have made a superlative muckraking journalist.”

Slade smiled.

Angler shuffled slowly through the cards. “Pendergast’s tax and property records. I can’t imagine they were easy to obtain.”

“Pendergast is a rather private individual.”

“I see he owns four properties: two in New York, one in New Orleans and another nearby. The one in New Orleans is a parking lot. Odd.”

Slade shrugged.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he owned offshore real estate, as well.”

“Neither would I. I’m afraid that would resist any further digging on my part, though, sir.”

“And it’s beside the point.” Angler put these cards down, glanced at another set. “His record of arrests made and convictions obtained.” He shuffled through them. “Impressive. Very impressive indeed.”

“The statistic that I found most interesting was the number of his perps who died in the process of being apprehended.”

Angler searched for this statistic, found it, raised his eyebrows in surprise. Then he continued his perusal. “I see that Pendergast has almost as many official censures as he has commendations.”

“My friends in the Bureau say he’s controversial. A lone wolf. He’s independently wealthy, takes a salary of one dollar a year just to keep things official. In recent years the upper echelons of the FBI have tended to take a hands-off approach, given his success rate, so long as he doesn’t do anything too egregious. He appears to have at least one powerful, invisible friend high up in the Bureau—maybe more.”

“Hmmm.” More turning of index cards. “A stint in the special forces. What’d he do?”

“Classified. All I learned was that he earned several medals for bravery under fire and completing certain high-value covert actions.”

Angler formed the cards into a pile, then squared them against his desk and put them to one side. “Does all this confuse you, Loomis?”

Slade returned Angler’s look. “Yes.”

“Me, too. What does it all mean?”

“The whole thing stinks… sir.”

“Precisely. You know it, and I know it. And we’ve known it for some time. Hence, all this.” And Angler patted the pile of index cards. “Let’s break it down. The last time Pendergast saw his son alive—by his own admission—was eighteen months ago, in Brazil. A year ago, Alban returned briefly to the U.S. under an alias, traveled to upstate New York, then returned to Brazil. Around three weeks ago, he returned to New York—and this time, was killed for his pains. In his body was found a piece of turquoise. Agent Pendergast claims that piece of turquoise led him to the Salton Fontainebleau, where he was supposedly assaulted by the same man who pretended to be a scientist and who probably killed a technician at the Museum. All of a sudden, after being uncooperative and evasive, Pendergast becomes
forthcoming… that is, once he learned we’d found ‘Tapanes Landberg.’ But then, after unloading a bunch of questionable information on us, he clams up again, stops cooperating. For example, neither he nor Lieutenant D’Agosta bothered to tell us that the phony professor killed himself in the Indio jail. We had to find that out for ourselves. And when we sent Sergeant Dawkins out to examine the Fontainebleau, he came back reporting that the inside of the place looked as if it had been unvisited for years and could not have been the scene of some extended fight. You’re exactly right, Loomis—it stinks. It stinks to high heaven. No matter which way I turn, I find myself being confronted by the same conclusion: Pendergast is sending us on one wild goose chase after another. And I can think of only one reason for that—he himself is complicit in his son’s death. And then, there’s this.” Leaning forward, Angler plucked an article in Portuguese from atop one of the piles on his desk. “A report from a Brazilian newspaper, vague and unsourced, that describes a massacre that took place in the jungle, with the involvement of an unnamed gringo described here as a man ‘
de rosto pálido
.’ ”

“
De rosto pálido?
What’s that mean?”

“Of pale visage.”

“Holy shit.”

“And all this took place eighteen months ago—just when Pendergast himself was in Brazil.”

Angler put the article down. “This article came to my attention just this morning. It’s the key, Loomis—I feel it. The key to the whole mystery.” He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the ceiling. “There’s one missing piece, I believe. Just one. And when I find that piece… then I’ll have him.”

C
onstance Greene walked down a gleaming corridor on the fifth and top floor of Geneva’s Clinique Privée La Colline, a gowned doctor at her side.

“How would you characterize his condition?” she asked in perfect French.

“It has been very difficult to make a diagnosis,
mademoiselle
,” the doctor replied. “It is something foreign to our experience. This is a multidisciplinary clinic. Half a dozen specialists have been called in to examine the patient. The results of the consultations and tests are… baffling. And contradictory. Certain members of the staff believe he is suffering from an unknown genetic disorder. Others think that he has been poisoned, or is suffering withdrawal symptoms from some compound or drug—there are unusual trace elements in the blood work, but nothing that corresponds to any known substance in our databases. Still others consider the problem to be at least partly psychological—yet nobody can deny the acute physical manifestations.”

“What medications are you using to treat the condition?”

“We can’t treat the actual condition until we have a diagnosis. We’re controlling the pain with transdermal fentanyl patches. Soma as a muscle relaxer. And a benzodiazepine for its sedative effect.”

“Which benzo?”

“Klonopin.”

“That’s a rather formidable cocktail, Doctor.”

“It is. But until we know what the source is, we can only treat the symptoms—if we didn’t, restraints would have been necessary.”

The doctor opened a door and ushered Constance in. Beyond lay a modern, spotless, and functional room containing a single bed. Numerous monitors and medical devices surrounded the bed, some flashing complicated readouts on LCD screens, others beeping in steady rhythms. At the far end of the room was an unbroken series of windows, tinted blue, that looked out onto the Avenue de Beau-Séjour.

Lying in the bed was Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. Leads were attached to his temples; an IV was inserted into the curve of one wrist; a blood pressure cuff was fixed to one arm and a blood-oxygen meter clipped to a fingertip. A privacy screen was bunched together on overhead rings at the foot of the bed.

“He has said very little,” the doctor said. “And of that, even less has made sense. If you can get us any information that could be of assistance, we would be grateful.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Constance said with a nod. “I’ll do my best.”

“
Mademoiselle
.” And with that, the doctor gave the briefest of bows, turned, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Constance stood for a moment, glancing at the closed door. Then, smoothing down her dress with a sweep of her hand, she took a seat at the lone chair placed beside the bed. Although nobody had a cooler head than Constance Greene, what she saw nevertheless deeply disturbed her. The FBI agent’s face was a dreadful gray color, and his white-blond hair was disarrayed and darkened with sweat. The chiseled lines of the face were blurred by several days’ growth of beard. Fever seemed to radiate from him. His eyes were shut, but she could see the eyeballs moving beneath the bruised-looking lids. As she watched, his body stiffened, as if in pain; spasmed; then relaxed.

She leaned forward, laid a hand over one clenched fist. “Aloysius,” she said in a low voice. “It’s Constance.”

For a moment, no response. Then the fist relaxed. Pendergast’s head turned on the pillow. He muttered something incomprehensible.

Constance gave the hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry?”

Pendergast opened his mouth to speak, took a deep, shuddering breath. “
Lasciala, indegno
,” he murmured. “
Battiti meco. L’assassino m’ha ferito
.”

Constance released her pressure on the hand.

Another spasm shuddered through Pendergast’s frame. “No,” he said in a low, strangled voice. “No, you mustn’t. The Doorway to Hell… stay back… stay away,
please
… don’t look…
the three-lobed burning eye…!
”

His body relaxed and he fell silent for several minutes. Then he stirred again. “It’s wrong, Tristram,” he said, his voice now clearer and more distinct. “
He
would never change. I fear you were deceived.”

This time, the silence was far longer. A nurse came in, checked Pendergast’s vitals, replaced the transdermal patch for a fresh one, and left. Constance remained in the chair, still as a statue, her hand on Pendergast’s. Finally—at long last—his eyes fluttered open. For a moment, they remained vague, unfocused. Then, blinking, they made a survey of the hospital room. At last, they landed on her.

“Constance,” he said in a whisper.

Her response was to squeeze his hand again.

“I’ve… been having a nightmare. It seems never to end.”

His voice was dry and light, like a faint breeze over dead leaves, and she had to lean in closer to catch the words.

“You were quoting the libretto of
Don Giovanni
,” she said.

“Yes. I… fancied myself the Commendatore.”

“Dreaming of Mozart doesn’t sound like a nightmare to me.”

“I…” The mouth worked silently for a moment before continuing. “I dislike opera.”

“There was something else,” Constance said. “Something that did sound like a nightmare. You mentioned a Doorway to Hell.”

“Yes. Yes. My nightmares have included memories, as well.”

“And then you mentioned Tristram. Some mistake he had made.”

To this, Pendergast only shook his head.

Constance waited as he slipped back out of consciousness. Ten minutes later, he moved, opened his eyes again.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“In a hospital in Geneva.”

“Geneva.” A pause. “Of course.”

“From what I can gather, you ruined some meter man’s day.”

“I remember. He insisted on giving me a ticket. I was dreadful to him. I fear that I… cannot abide petty bureaucrats.” Another pause. “It is one of my many bad habits.”

When he again fell silent, Constance—confident now that he was lucid—filled him in on recent events, as D’Agosta had informed her: the suicide of his attacker in the Indio jail, the man’s face-altering plastic surgery, the reconstruction of his original appearance, and D’Agosta’s discovery of his real identity. She also passed on D’Agosta’s discovery, from Angler’s case file, that when Alban had entered the country under the name Tapanes Landberg a year before, he’d made a brief trip to upstate New York before returning to Brazil. Pendergast listened to it all with interest. Once or twice, his eyes flashed with the old spark she remembered so well. But when she was finished, he closed his eyes, turned his head away, and drifted back into unconsciousness again.

When next he awoke, it was night. Constance, who had not left his side, waited for him to speak.

“Constance,” he began, his voice as quiet as before. “You must understand that, at times, it is becoming difficult for me to… maintain my hold on reality. It comes and goes, as does the pain. At present, for instance, just to converse with you in a lucid fashion requires all my concentration. So let me tell you what I have to say, as briefly as possible.”

Constance, listening, kept very still.

“I said something unforgivable to you.”

“I’ve forgiven you.”

“You are too generous. From almost the beginning, when I scented the lilies in that strange animal gas chamber at the Salton Sea, I sensed what had happened: that my family’s past had come back to haunt me. In the form of someone bent on vengeance.”

He took a few shallow breaths.

“What my ancestor Hezekiah did was criminal. He created an elixir that was in reality an addictive poison, which killed a great
many people and ruined the lives of others. But that was so… so far in the past…” A pause. “I knew what was happening to me—and you’d guessed it as well. But at the time, I simply couldn’t bear your pity. What hope I’d initially held out for reversing the effects quickly faded. I preferred not to even think about it. Hence my appalling remark to you in the music room.”

“Please don’t dwell on it.”

He fell into silence. In the dark room, lit only by the medical instrumentation, Constance was not sure if he was still awake.

“The lilies have begun to suppurate,” he said.

“Oh, Aloysius,” she said.

“There is something worse than the suffering. It’s that I lack answers. This baroque plot at the Salton Sea bears all the hallmarks of something Alban would organize. But who was he working with, and why did they kill him? And… how can I bear this slide into madness?”

Now Constance gripped his hand in both of hers. “There has to be a cure, an antidote. We’ll conquer this together.”

In the dimness, Pendergast shook his head. “No, Constance. There is no cure. You must go away. I’ll fly home. I know private doctors who can keep me as comfortable as possible while the end approaches.”

“
No!
” said Constance, her voice louder than she had intended. “I’ll never leave you.”

“I do not care to have you see me like… like this.”

She stood up and leaned over him. “I’ve got no choice.”

Pendergast shifted slightly under the covers. “You always have a choice. Please honor my request that you not see me in extremis. Like that man in Indio.”

In a languorous movement, she bent over the prostrate sufferer and kissed his brow. “I’m sorry. But my choice is to fight this to the end. Because—”

“But—”

“Because you are the other half of my heart,” she murmured. She sat down once more, took up his hand, and did not speak again.