Dark Revelations (24 page)
Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker
Midday, after a crushing round of interviews, Pantin retreated back to his office. He’d leaned back and closed his eyes . . . and simply never surfaced.
Until now, an hour later, to a phone call from Trey.
“You’ve got a flight reservation, leaves in two hours.”
“Oh?” Pantin asked, rubbing his eyes. “Where am I going?”
“Edinburgh. I’ve secured a time slot for you at the WoMU summit this weekend. You can thank me later.”
“I want to thank you now. I almost want to kiss you.”
A speaking slot at World Minds United—a much-ballyhooed global think tank summit scheduled to begin tomorrow in Scotland—was huge. Pantin hadn’t even been able to secure a seat at the session, let alone the chance to appear before it. The eyes of the world would be on Edinburgh; political careers were born at events such as these.
“Look, I wouldn’t recommend mentioning Labyrinth overtly, in this case—you’ve already established yourself as on the record as condemning his acts, and you don’t need to rehash that.”
“So what, then?”
“Take advantage of the world stage. Everybody claims to be wanting to hear from the rest of the world, but the truth is, the American representative will try to dominate. This is your chance to pull some of the spotlight away from him and promote your agenda.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing. Cancel the rest of your media appearances and start working on your speech on your way to the airport.”
Adrenaline banished all signs of fatigue. Pantin stood up, stretched until his fingertips nearly reached the ceiling. Sleep was overrated. Sleep too much and you miss your chance to rule the goddamned world.
chapter 43
RIGGINS
A
ll of these years had gone by and Tom Riggins was still doing the same thing. Rushing to crime scenes. Not getting enough sleep. Not eating right. Popping antacids. Thinking about the crime, as well as thinking about his next drink. Wondering where all of the years had gone and wondering why he was still doing this.
ll of these years had gone by and Tom Riggins was still doing the same thing. Rushing to crime scenes. Not getting enough sleep. Not eating right. Popping antacids. Thinking about the crime, as well as thinking about his next drink. Wondering where all of the years had gone and wondering why he was still doing this.
The moment the news broke about the latest “Labyrinth” attack, Riggins had an assistant booking a Metroliner to Penn Station in New York City. The roads along I-95 were unpredictable—the train was the fastest way to go.
Not that Special Circs had any official reason to be poking its nose into the case—the FBI and Interpol had made that clear, a former colleague even telling Riggins to back the
fuck off
. His requests to travel to Dubai and South Africa—denied. Special Circs was not welcome.
fuck off
. His requests to travel to Dubai and South Africa—denied. Special Circs was not welcome.
Riggins never let that stop him before.
So he took the Metroliner to Penn Station, caught a cab down to the World Trade Center site to the Epoch Hotel, where the NYPD already had barriers. Riggins remembered the Epoch from the news reports during 9/11. The luxury hotel had been finished just a few weeks before the attacks. While it had been left standing, the entire place had to be gutted and remodeled. Just across the street, the Freedom Tower construction was well under way, reaching to the upper limits of the sky.
About damn time,
Riggins thought.
About damn time,
Riggins thought.
Inside the hotel lobby, Riggins flashed his Special Circs badge and made it about halfway across the room when he saw Steve Dark.
Riggins swallowed his shock just as Dark turned and noticed him.
“Dark,” he said.
A defeated look washed over Dark’s face—as if Riggins were a teacher, and Dark had just been caught writing obscenities on the playground.
“Riggins.”
“I’m kind of surprised to see you here. Here I always thought you hated New York.”
Riggins noticed there was a pretty dark-haired woman standing next to him. More important, it was obvious she and Dark were together. She glanced at Riggins, frowned in disapproval, turned her attention elsewhere.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lady friend there?”
“It’s not a good time, Riggins. We have to go.”
The last time Riggins and Dark saw each other, at the scene of another murder, Riggins and Dark had reached an uneasy peace. The kind that could be shattered in a moment. And this seemed to be one of those moments.
So his former protégé, Steve Dark, was working the Labyrinth case, too. Josh Banner had told him that Dark was working the L.A. bombing and the double homicide in Malibu, but Riggins assumed it was a backyard interest thing. Something Dark, a born manhunter, couldn’t resist. But now he was here in NYC, just hours after news of the threat. He didn’t fly here on a whim. He knew something had been up—in advance.
“So it’s safe to assume you’re still freelancing,” Riggins said. “Still working for that evil shadowy bitch I warned you about?”
“No,” Dark said.
“Well then, who? What, is it a state secret or something?”
“Seriously, Riggins, I’m not messing around, we’ve got a plane to catch,” Dark said, brushing past him. The pretty dark-haired woman with no name followed in his wake.
“Well,” he called out after Dark. “See you next crime scene.”
Riggins couldn’t help but wonder why he was still trying, still doing this, after all these years.
chapter 44
LABYRINTH
I
have many things on my checklist to accomplish, but nothing
have many things on my checklist to accomplish, but nothing
I can’t do by remote—and this is too great an opportunity to resist.
It’s been a while since I followed a man spontaneously.
I enjoy it.
I decide to follow him while sitting in the comfortable lobby of the Epoch Hotel watching all manner of police officers try to work out the details of my “crime.”
Two investigators, in particular, interest me. They’re not NYPD, they’re not FBI, nor Interpol nor anything else. They’re not the usual suspects. Thinking back on the mental footage I have of the scene of my second gift in Dubai, I realize these two were there, too, picking over the scene. They’re with some other agency.
Could it be . . . the agency? Blair’s secret unit?
As I ponder, an FBI man—you can tell by the ill-fitting suit, the way he hunches, the shoes, the look that practically screams BURNOUT—approaches them and says,
“Steve Dark.”
Why, thank you, Mr. FBI man. Nice to put a face to a name. I’ve read about Dark. Extremely disturbed individual.
Dark himself gives me a name for the bearlike FBI burnout: Riggins.
And a simple search on my phone reveals his identity: Agent Tom Riggins.
Their meeting isn’t pleasant. There’s some salacious history here. They act like parent and prodigal child.
For a few seconds, it’s a coin toss—follow Dark or Riggins?
My gut tells me Riggins. If Dark is to be my hunter, then it would pay to know as much as possible about him.
Perhaps he can be turned.
So when they leave . . .
. . . I follow.
A cab drops Agent Tom Riggins off at Penn Station, where he catches an Amtrak train bound for Washington, D.C.
On the train I sit across the aisle and one seat back so that I not only have a view of his profile and facial expressions, but the ability to see what he reads or who he calls.
He calls no one, however.
The man just sits there and broods.
Closing his eyes every so often, pushing his fingers into his temples.
The pretty brunette next to me who smells of rosemary tries to chat me up—no doubt my suit and my haircut and the quality of the watch strapped to my wrist arouses her interest. Just like they are designed to do. My sheep’s clothing.
So I engage in mild conversation, nothing deep, just polite chatter about absolutely fucking nothing.
All the while I’m—
Watching Tom Riggins.
Rosemary asks me,
What do you do for a living?
I tell her, smiling,
Insurance.
Thinking,
I could just lean over and start whispering into your ear right now and by the second sentence you’d be stumbling into the Labyrinth and by the third you’d be hopelessly lost and by the time this train pulls into D.C. you’d be totally mine, you fucking whore, ready to do whatever I tell you to whomever I tell you, including yourself. We could settle in for a long evening of degradation and self-destruction.
And the temptation is there, believe me. When you’re on a mission to save the world, you still have the urge to blow off steam now and again.
But it’s Tom Riggins I’m after.
Yes, Tom Riggins will provide the most pleasure this evening.
Tom Riggins disembarks at Union Station, where he’s left his car—boring sedan, FBI issue.
I have no car, and cannot offer immediate pursuit.
I do have a tracking device, the size of a postage stamp, which I affix to the body of the sedan, which will give me time to research Tom Riggins’s home security system.
Surprise—Tom Riggins has next to nothing. A simple home alarm that’s easily bypassed with a phone call and the pretense that I am the condo manager and need access to Tom Riggins’s bathroom. My voice is authoritative and slightly bored. They believe me.
By the time I arrive in a stolen vehicle thirty minutes later, Agent Riggins has started to settle in for the night.
There he is now, staring into space. Look at him. Pathetic. He’s spent most of his life chasing monsters and has absolutely nothing to show for it but a hollow space within his soul.
As if to prove my point.
Tom Riggins moves to his refrigerator, scoops stale ice into an oversize coffee mug, then tops it off with poor-quality scotch and retreats to his living room.
I take advantage of the distraction—kick in the front door, knowing that no alarm will sound. In my left hand, a Taser pistol. The prongs fly through the air and catch Tom Riggins in the chest. I squeeze. There’s a crackling sound and then Agent Riggins is on his knees, the cheap contents of his mug spilling on a poor-quality rug that hasn’t been cleaned since the day it was installed. I kick the door shut behind me, because we are going to need some private time, Tom Riggins and I . . .
Look at him crawling across the rug, wires still in his chest. Fingers clawed into rakes, pulling himself along the carpet, going for . . .
Oh, he must have a gun hidden in this room.
Tom Riggins, the last of the true hard-boiled men.
But there’s no time for any of that. I have a plane to catch in the morning and I have the feeling it’s going to be a long night, so I decide to get started. With the toe of my $1,500 A. Testoni, I catch Tom Riggins under his shoulder and flip him around, then quickly kneel on his barrel chest and give him the injection.
I tell him,
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