Blue Labyrinth (34 page)

M
argo came to the door of the first storage room, jammed her passkey into the lock with a prayer. It turned. She gasped, yanked the door open, rushed in, and slammed it behind her. As she did so Slade crashed into it, forcing it open a crack, but she braced herself and pushed back with all her might. He slammed into it again and she pushed back.

This was not going to last long. She would lose this contest. And he might just shoot through the door.

He slammed into the door again just as she yanked it open, causing him to sprawl onto the floor at her feet. She gave him a hard kick to the side of the head, then sprinted into the darkness of the storage room. Over her shoulders, she could hear him gasp in pain. She had lost her headlamp and he still had his flashlight. Its beam flashed past her as she skidded around one corner of the endless rows of shelves, sprinted first down one aisle, then another. She noted in passing that the shelves were covered with large glass jars, each one holding a glistening, staring, mucilaginous globe as large as a bowling ball: this was the Museum’s legendary collection of cetacean eyeballs.

As she ran, she reached into her bag, plucked out her phone, and examined it. As she expected: no bars. The thick walls of the Museum basement effectively blocked all cell phone reception.

She was fast and in good shape, but apparently so was Slade, and
as she ran she realized she would lose this running contest, too. She had to find a way to stop him or at least slow him down. Why wasn’t he firing his gun? Perhaps he couldn’t risk the noise it would make. Slade was obviously a careful man—and one never knew who might be wandering around the basement, even late at night.

Passing a bank of lights at the end of an aisle, Margo snapped them all on—it might make her visible, but if he wasn’t using his gun it would also neutralize his advantage with the flashlight. As the fluorescents popped on, she immediately turned and ran in the opposite direction down the next aisle. She could hear Slade, running up the aisle adjacent to hers. She had a sudden idea: pausing before the shelf and thrusting her hands forward, she pushed a group of specimen jars out the far side of the shelf, sending them crashing to the floor just in front of him. But even as she continued running, she could hear him skipping and hopping over the huge, soft, rolling eyeballs. It had only slowed him down a little. Maybe she could push over the entire shelf onto him—but no, the shelves were too massive and bolted to the floor.

There were several doorways leading from the whale eyeball room to other storage areas, but only one of them led to the back exit from Building Six. He was gaining, and she wasn’t any closer to that exit. And at this time of night, that exit might well be locked from the inside. As she ran along the shelves she pulled more jars off, letting them crash to the floor. Could she light the ethyl alcohol on fire? But she had no lighter in her bag, and even if she did the entire storage room might go up, taking her with it.

Doubling back at the end of the next aisle, she yanked more jars off a shelf and they crashed to the floor behind her, the huge whale eyeballs rolling about, trailing alcohol and slime. With a curse Slade slipped on one, then grabbed the edge of a shelf to keep from falling, sending more jars crashing to the floor in the process. The fishy reek of eyeballs and alcohol filled the room. He was up again in a flash, but Margo had bought herself a few more seconds. As she reached the end of the next aisle, gasping for air, legs burning, she finally made out the door that, ultimately, led to the exit from Building Six. But he was so close, he’d reach her before she could even get her key in the lock.

Beside the door was a fire extinguisher.

Even as she heard his feet coming up behind her, she yanked the fire extinguisher from its bracket, spun around, and swung it at Slade, hitting him in the solar plexus and sending him to the floor. As he began to rise again with a grunt she pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle at him, spraying the foam into his face at point-blank range. He blindly tried to fend off the spray, futilely grabbing for the extinguisher.

“Bitch!” he screamed as he tried to get up, clawing the foam away as Margo kept blasting the white stream into his face. “I’ll kill you for this!” He lunged, slipped, and fell flat again. She saw her opening and hit him over the head with the extinguisher.

With a groan he fell silent: unconscious, half-buried in foam, eyes rolling in his head.

She paused, thinking furiously. Another powerful blow to the head, now that he was immobile, would crush his skull. She raised the extinguisher… only to find herself unable to do it. She tossed it away. She still had her bag—thank God. She should just get the hell out. But which way? If she continued on toward the rear exit, she would have to traverse several more rooms, probably locked, any one of which her passkey might not work on. It would be far faster to retrace her steps, back past the botanical collections to the elevator. What Slade had said about jamming the lock was probably bullshit—how would he get out, then?

She started running back in the direction of the Herbarium Vault. God, she hoped she could get out that way. Otherwise she’d have to return, pass Slade again. Maybe he was already dead.

Moving as quickly as she could in the dim emergency light, she passed the entrance to the botanical collections and made her way down the corridor to the exit from Building Six. If she could get up the elevator, she could head for the security entrance, staffed by armed guards. There she’d be safe. She could tell them about Frisby, dead, the killer cop unconscious in the basement…

She reached the exit door, tried the crash bar. Locked. The door handle didn’t yield, either. She tried to fit her key into the lock but saw that, true to his word, Slade had jammed the blade of a penknife into it. She swore aloud. She would have to try the back exit, after all—past
him. Now she wished she had bashed his brains out. If only she’d had the presence of mind to take away his gun. She wouldn’t make that mistake on her return pass—that is, if he was still unconscious.

Moving fast and silently, Margo retraced her steps. What if he had come to and was awake? She’d better get her hands on a weapon. She cast about. She was now by the entrance to the botanical collections again. She thought for a moment. What kind of plant would be of any use against a gun? None, of course.

Then she remembered something.

Darting into the collections, she ran past the cabinets and shelving—pausing just long enough to retrieve her headlamp—until she reached the Herbarium Vault, the tiny red light on its front panel like a guiding beam. Gasping for breath, she punched in the code, then opened the heavy door.

There they were: in the gleam of her headlamp, she could make out in the far corner the blowpipes—long hollow tubes—and the quiver of little bone darts, each about two inches long, with a tuft of feathers at one end. The tips of the darts were smeared with a sticky black substance.

She grabbed one of the blowpipes, slung the quiver around her free shoulder, and loaded it with a dart, pushing it into the hollow tube, feather tuft rearward. Now, exiting the vault and moving through the collections, she advanced as quickly as possible, snapping off the headlamp and relying on the emergency lighting, through the storage room door and back into the whale eyeball collection. As she entered, the stench hit her with an almost physical blow.

Her heart nearly stopped: there, in the aisle where she had left the cop, was a puddle of foam, but no body. Wet footprints led away.

She froze in terror. He was conscious, on his feet—perhaps lying in wait for her. She cast about but could see nothing. Trying to control her hammering heart, she listened intently. Were those stealthy footfalls, echoing from some indeterminate direction?

Panic took over and she ran toward the rear exit, only to round a shelf and slam directly into Slade, weapon drawn. He grabbed her, put her in a hammerlock, and threw her to the ground. He stepped over her, gun in hand.

“I’ve had enough,” he said in a low voice. “Give me the fucking bag or I’ll put a .45 round in your head.”

“Go ahead. The noise will bring security at a run.”

He said nothing, and she could see she had guessed right. But then a small smile appeared on his face. “It appears I need a weapons upgrade. Something
silent
.” He bent down and picked up the blowgun tube and its quiver of darts, which she had dropped in the collision. He pulled one dart from the quiver, looked at it. “Poisoned. Nice.” He examined the tube. “And you conveniently loaded it for me.”

He raised it awkwardly, placed it to his lips. Margo threw herself sideways just as he puffed, the dart flashing out and missing her by inches, clattering off a shelf. She scrambled sideways in a crab-like motion, then lunged to her feet as he pulled out another dart and poked it into the tube. She ran desperately as a second dart flashed past her. She heard him coming after her yet again.

Her only chance now was to lose him somewhere in the Museum’s endless storage rooms.

She ran around one corner, then another, shelving flashing past. Reaching a door in the nearest wall, she flung it open, passed through another storage room, turned a corner at the rear, and raced for a door at the end of a cul-de-sac. Locked—and this time, her key didn’t work. She turned to backtrack, but heard Slade sneer from just around the corner.

“I do believe you’re trapped.”

She cast about, but there was no way to go. He was right: she really was trapped.

Gasping, heart hammering, Margo saw Slade’s shadow against the far wall of the cul-de-sac—black against red in the emergency lighting—creep forward as he approached the corner. And then she saw the blowpipe appear, bobbing slightly, inching forward. Next, Slade’s head and hands came into view. He was moving cautiously, blowpipe to his lips, taking his time, aiming carefully, preparing to fire another dart.

He wasn’t going to chance missing her again.

B
arbeaux led the way, Shaved Head pushing Constance along before him. They passed through the Bonsai Museum and into the far wing of the Palm House, still decorated for a wedding but now looking a little the worse for wear. Four men stood around a figure seated at the table reserved for the bride and groom. A single candle had been placed on it, casting a dim illumination that barely penetrated the murk.

Constance faltered when she saw Pendergast slumped in the chair, handcuffed, his face smeared with dirt, his suit awry. Even his eyes had lost their luster. For an instant, those slitted, leaden eyes flickered toward her, and Constance was horrified by their look of hopelessness.

“Well, what a surprise,” said Barbeaux. “Unexpected, but not unwelcome. In fact, I couldn’t have planned it better myself. Not only have you delivered into my hands your pretty little ward—but also your own very ill person.”

He contemplated Pendergast for a moment with a cold smile, and then turned to two of the men. “Stand him up. I want him attentive.”

They pulled Pendergast to his feet. He was so weak he could barely stand; they had to support him, his knees buckling. Constance could hardly bear to look at him. It was she who had drawn him here after her.

“I was planning to pay you a visit at the end,” Barbeaux said, “so you’d know who did this to you, and why. And…” Barbeaux smiled again, “especially how the idea for this little scheme originated.”

Pendergast’s head lolled to one side, and Barbeaux turned to his men. “Wake him up.”

One of the men, with a neck so covered in tattoos it was almost completely blue, stepped forward and delivered a stunning, open-handed blow to the side of Pendergast’s head.

Constance stared at Tattoo. “You will be the first to die,” she said quietly.

The man looked over at her, his lip curling in derision, his eyes wandering lasciviously over her body. He issued a short laugh, then reached out and grasped her hair, pulling her toward him. “What, you gonna take me out with that M16 hidden under your teddy?”

“That’s enough,” said Barbeaux sharply.

Tattoo backed off with a smirk.

Barbeaux returned his attention to Pendergast. “I suspect you already know the broad outlines of why I poisoned you. And you surely appreciate its poetic justice. Our families were neighbors in New Orleans. My great-grandfather went shooting with
your
great-great-grandfather, Hezekiah, up at his plantation, while he had Hezekiah and his wife to dinner several times. In return, Hezekiah poisoned my great-grandparents with his so-called elixir. They died hellish deaths. But it didn’t end there. My great-grandmother took the elixir while pregnant and gave birth before she succumbed to the effects. But as a result, the elixir caused epigenetic changes to her bloodline, to
our family DNA
, casting a blight across the generations. Of course, nobody knew it at the time. But now and again, another family member would die. The doctors were stumped. My ancestors whisperingly called it the ‘Family Affliction.’ But then it spared my father’s generation. And mine. I believed the Family Affliction had burned itself out.”

He paused. “How wrong I was. My son was the next victim. He died—slowly and horribly. Again, the doctors were baffled. Again, they said it was some inherited flaw in our genes.”

Barbeaux paused, staring calculatingly at Pendergast.

“He was my only son. My wife was already gone. I was left alone in my grief.”

A deep breath. “And then I received a visit. From
your
son. Alban.”

At this, Barbeaux turned and began pacing, slowly at first, his voice low and tremulous.

“Alban found me. He opened my eyes to the evil your family had perpetrated on mine. He pointed out that the Pendergast family fortune was largely founded on the blood money from Hezekiah’s elixir. Your lavish lifestyle—the apartment in the Dakota, a mansion on Riverside Drive, your chauffeured Rolls-Royce, your servants—is based on the suffering of others. He was sickened by your hypocrisy: pretending to bring justice to the world, while all the time being the very image of injustice.”

During this speech, Barbeaux’s voice had grown louder, and now he halted, face flushed, the blood pulsing visibly in his thick neck. “Your son told me how much he hated you. My God, what a splendid hatred that was! He came to me with a plan of justice. What were his words for it?
Delectably appropriate
.”

He resumed pacing, faster this time.

“I don’t need to tell you how much time and money it took to put my plan into action. The greatest challenge was piecing together the original formula of the elixir. Conveniently, there was a skeleton of a woman murdered by the elixir in the New York Museum’s collection, and I obtained a bone from it, which provided my scientists with the final chemical formulae. But you know all about that, of course.

“And then there came the challenge of devising and setting the trap out at the Salton Sea—a location Alban had discovered on his own. It was important to me that you suffered the same fate as my son and the others in my family. Alban had anticipated that. And I would never have succeeded had not Alban—before he left me that special evening—warned me in the strongest terms not to underestimate you. Wise counsel indeed. Of course, at the time he warned me against something else, as well: not to send my men after him. Then he left.”

Barbeaux halted and leaned toward Pendergast. The agent returned the look, his eyes like glassy slits in his pale face. Blood trickled from his nose, almost purple against the alabaster skin.

“And then, something remarkable happened. Almost a year later, just as my plan was reaching maturity, Alban returned. It seems he’d had a change of heart. In any case, he tried at length to talk me out of my vengeance, and, when I refused, he left in anger.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I knew he wouldn’t leave it there. I
knew
he would try to kill me. He might have succeeded, too… if I hadn’t had those security tapes recording his initial visit. Despite Alban’s warning, you see, I’d had my men try to stop him from leaving. But he’d bested them most effectively—and most violently. I watched those fascinating tapes of him in action, over and over again… and in time I figured out the only possible way he’d been able to do the seemingly impossible. He had a kind of sixth sense, didn’t he? An ability to envision what was about to happen.” Barbeaux looked at Pendergast to gauge the effect his words were having. “Isn’t that right? I suppose we all have it to some degree: a primitive, intuitive sense of what’s just about to happen. Only in Alban, this sense was more refined. He’d told me, arrogantly, of his ‘remarkable powers.’ By examining the security tapes frame by frame, I determined your son had the uncanny ability to
anticipate
events; to, in a sense, almost see a few seconds into the future. Not in an absolute way, you understand, but to see the
possibilities
. Again, no doubt you know all this.”

Barbeaux’s pacing quickened further. He was like a man possessed.

“I won’t go into all the sordid details of how I bested him. Suffice to say, I turned his own power against him. He was cocky. He had no sense of his vulnerability. And I think he’d grown a little soft between our first meeting and our second. I set up the most elaborate and meticulous plan of attack, briefed my men on it. All was in place. We lured Alban in with the promise of another meeting—one of reconciliation this time. He arrived, knowing all, feeling invincible, certain the meeting was a sham—and I spontaneously strangled him with a shoelace, on the spot. It was a sudden improvisation, with no malice
aforethought. I had deliberately avoided thinking about when and how I would
actually
kill him. As such, it short-circuited his extraordinary ability to anticipate. By the way, the look of astonishment on his face was priceless.”

He rumbled a laugh, turned.

“And that was the greatest irony of all. I’d been racking my brains about how to lure you—the most suspicious and circumspect of people—into my trap. In the end, it was Alban himself who provided the bait. I put his own corpse into my service. I was out there, by the way, at the Salton Fontainebleau. If you only knew how much time, money, and effort it cost to stage that—right down to the cobwebs, the untouched dust, the rust on the doors. But it was worth it—because that was the cost of fooling you, luring you in. Watching you sneak in like that, thinking you’d gotten the upper hand—I’d have paid ten times as much to witness that! You see, it was I who pressed the button, released the elixir, poisoned you. And now, here we are.”

His face broke into another smile as he swung around again. “One other thing. It seems you have another son at school in Switzerland. Tristram, I believe. After you’re gone, I’ll pay him a little visit. I’m going to scrub the world clean of the Pendergast stain.”

Now Barbeaux halted, planting himself in front of Pendergast, massive jaw thrust forward. “Have you anything to say?”

For a moment, Pendergast was silent. Then he said something in a low, indistinct voice.

“What’s that?”

“I’m…” Pendergast halted, unable to muster the breath to continue.

Barbeaux gave Pendergast a short, brutal slap. “You’re what?
Say
it!”

“… Sorry.”

Barbeaux stepped back, surprised.

“I’m sorry for what happened to your son… for your loss.”

“Sorry?” Barbeaux managed to say. “You’re
sorry
? That doesn’t begin to cut it.”

“I… accept the death that is coming.”

Hearing this, Constance froze. An electric silence descended among the group. Barbeaux, clearly astonished, seemed to struggle
to recover the momentum of his anger. And in the temporary silence, Pendergast’s silvery eye flickered toward Constance—for no more than an instant—and in that momentary look she sensed a message was being sent. But what?

“Sorry…”

Constance could feel, ever so slightly, the slackening of Shaved Head’s grip on her arms. He, like everyone else, had been intent on the drama unfolding between Barbeaux and Pendergast.

Suddenly Pendergast collapsed, going limp and dropping like a bag of cement toward the floor. The two men on either side jumped to catch his arms, but they were taken by surprise and thrown off balance as they tried to pull him back to his feet.

And in that instant, Constance knew her moment had come. With sudden violence she twisted free of Shaved Head and leapt into the darkness.