Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker
Dark Revelations (33 page)
Within an hour, the reports began to come in from holy sites, starting with Rome.
The victims were already dead.
Had been for
weeks
, according to initial forensic analysis.
weeks
, according to initial forensic analysis.
“At least he didn’t lie to Jane Talbot,” O’Brian said. “He hasn’t killed since he promised he wouldn’t on live TV.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” Riggins said. “Hell of a guy.”
In each case, holy relics had been stolen from specific shrines or sacred places. In Rome, Labyrinth had somehow plundered the Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi, notable for being the resting place of the embalmed hearts of twenty-five medieval popes. Once they pried open the resting place, they found the body of a man identified as Lucas Gregory—an American who claimed to be the “true pope,” descended from a secret line of authentic popes starting with Saint Peter. No one took Gregory seriously, especially after his numerous predictions for the supposed rapture—when God would call his faithful home, leaving the damned behind—came and went.
“He was no threat to anyone,” Natasha said. “Why target him?”
“What was the COD?” Riggins asked.
“Cause of death, they’re reporting starvation,” Blair said. “In other words, they died from eating
nothing
.”
nothing
.”
“These religious nuts were spewing nothing—and received nothing in return,” Riggins said.
chapter 63
DARK
D
ark came up out of a fuzzy nonsensical dream to see that someone had left behind a meal on a plastic tray. No idea if it was morning or night. He lifted the lid and saw scrambled eggs, a triangle of dry toast, and a small cream-colored envelope resting on top of an empty plastic container. Dark opened the envelope with slightly numb fingers and pulled out a card with familiar block printing on it.
ark came up out of a fuzzy nonsensical dream to see that someone had left behind a meal on a plastic tray. No idea if it was morning or night. He lifted the lid and saw scrambled eggs, a triangle of dry toast, and a small cream-colored envelope resting on top of an empty plastic container. Dark opened the envelope with slightly numb fingers and pulled out a card with familiar block printing on it.
I STOPPED BY
YOU WERE SLEEPING
WE’LL CATCH UP LATERLABYRINTH
Supposedly there were only five people who knew that Dark was in this secret government care facility. The four members of Global Alliance—Blair, Natasha, O’Brian, Roeding—and, of course, now Riggins.
This was another riddle, Dark realized. With Labyrinth, you always had to look for the hidden meaning behind the words.
In this case, Labyrinth’s hidden meaning was perfectly clear.
I am a member of your team.
Or at least that’s what Labyrinth wanted Dark to think, wasn’t it? A man with Labyrinth’s resources could probably find a way to dig up a list of supposedly “secret” hospitals near the accident site. From there, some simple, old-fashioned bribery could have yielded Dark’s location, as well as entrance to the floor. Dark knew better than to believe that anything was secure.
The larger implications troubled him. Labyrinth’s attention had turned, and he was targeting the team specifically. Presumably, other members of Global Alliance had received similar notes. Labyrinth was trying to sow seeds of doubt within the only organization equipped to stop him. GA had stepped up onto the playing field, and Labyrinth was eager to play with them.
Dark pushed aside his scrambled eggs. He wasn’t hungry. The smell of them made him nauseous. There was also the fact that a monster could have easily poisoned his breakfast—could have easily killed an unconscious Dark, for that matter.
That’s when he saw the edge of the second envelope, hidden under the plate.
This one was pure white, business-size.
Dark opened the flap and removed the piece of paper inside. He recognized the form immediately—a standard Special Circs blood analysis report. The typed name at the top, however, is what stopped him.
SQWEEGEL
When he’d pulled off the mask during their final confrontation, Dark had been surprised by Sqweegel’s true face. It had been perfectly . . . unremarkable. Dull black eyes. Shaved bony head. Narrow forehead devoid of eyebrows. Bad teeth. Mottled skin. A geek grown-up. An abused boy.
His
brother.
brother.
This was the blood test that had confirmed it—seven of eleven alleles matching Steve Dark’s DNA.
Labyrinth hadn’t been bluffing. And now he wanted Dark to know that.
But there was something even worse at the bottom of the page. An insignificant detail that would have been overlooked by most people, because most people haven’t had to fill out these kinds of forms. But to Dark, the detail meant everything.
The typed initials: TR.
Tom.
Riggins.
Nothing
, Riggins had said, five years ago.
No hits. Fucker was a real nowhere man.
, Riggins had said, five years ago.
No hits. Fucker was a real nowhere man.
But the blood test had been run by Riggins.
He knew.
chapter 64
DARK
“
K
nock knock,” Riggins said, flanked by two armed guards.
K
nock knock,” Riggins said, flanked by two armed guards.
Dark had been sitting up, waiting. Natasha had briefed him on the killings of the religious fundamentalists—all of whom turned out to be outcasts and heretics of the five religions targeted. All had been captured and stashed in various vaults and tombs and antechambers at the same time Labyrinth had stolen the relics for his packages. Stashed . . . and left to starve to death. It was clear that Labyrinth had killed these men long before he’d sent the first package to LAPD headquarters. Natasha also told him that Riggins was on his way over—he wanted to kick around the riddle with him a bit more.
“Tell him I’m looking forward to it,” Dark said.
Natasha could hear the strange bitterness in his voice. “Hey, are you all right?”
Now Riggins was here with a computer tablet in his hand. Dark couldn’t think about the case. He wanted to jump out of bed and throw Riggins against a wall.
“You look like hell,” Riggins said. “You feeling okay?”
“You fucking knew,” Dark said.
“Huh? Knew what?”
“You
knew
, all of these years.”
knew
, all of these years.”
When the realization finally hit Riggins, he looked like someone had just pulled a rubber plug somewhere on his body; the man deflated. He shuffled over to the nearest chair and fell into it, leaning back his head and covering his eyes with his hands.
“Yeah, I knew.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Riggins removed his hands and looked at Dark. He was almost wincing as he spoke.
“Dark, when I found out, you’d just lost Sibby. What, was I supposed to compound your grief by taking away your identity, too? Tell you that a blood test showed you were related to that weird little fuck? No. I couldn’t do that to you. You didn’t deserve to hear something like that, after all you’d been through. So I took it upon myself to keep watch over you.”
“What, in case I went into the family business?”
Riggins shook his head. “I’ve always known that there’s a fine line between us and them. Reason and chaos, good and evil, yin and yang, whatever. It takes a particular kind of mind to be in this game, no matter what side you’re playing for. You chose the path of good, and that’s all that matters.”
Dark considered this. He’d often thought the same thing. What made the best manhunter often made the best sociopath. But that was academics; this was his fucking life. His
family
. His
daughter.
family
. His
daughter.
“How did he find out?”
Riggins exhaled and told him about the attack from the previous week. How he suspected that Labyrinth himself was in the lobby of the Epoch Hotel, watching them all. And how he must have followed him all the way back to D.C., found out where he lived, and . . .
“And what?” Dark asked. “Did you do a couple of shots together and say, ‘Hey, you’re never going to believe this, this is the craziest thing ever . . .’”
“That motherfucker pulled it out of my skull,” Riggins said, his words burning with rage. “I don’t know what he shot into me, but it was like I was running off at the mouth, saying whatever popped into my thick head. And he was just fuckin’ toying with me, giving me little nudges, to get what he wanted. If I had the use of my hands I would have squeezed his neck so hard his head would have popped off.”
“Did you at least get a look at him?”
“No.”
Dark and Riggins sat in silence for a while.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Riggins asked.
More silence.
“Look,” Riggins said at long last. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that blood doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s what you do that counts.”
“That’s a nice sentiment,” Dark replied, “but I don’t think you believe that. I think it’s best if you go back to D.C. now. You’re compromised, just like me.”
“Steve, look, whatever this is—”
“Didn’t you hear me? Get the fuck out
now
.”
now
.”
A wounded look came over Riggins’s face. He opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it. Instead he dropped the tablet onto Dark’s bed and left without another word.
After a while of staring at nothing in particular, Dark picked up the tablet, pressed the power button, flicked the on-screen lock. This was a tablet identical to Natasha’s, and it was already opened on a browser page: Labyrinth’s latest video.
As footage from various religious wars and crusades and even the Twin Towers falling played across the screen, he spoke:
LABYRINTHMore wars have been fought in the name of God than any others. Religion is a leading cause of man’s destruction. Instead of having everyone judge who has the better god, we need to be under one deity that everyone responds to. We shall all share under one god. And the same laws shall apply to all of us . . .
chapter 65
DARK
As Dark stood up from the hospital bed, an icy wave of dizziness washed over him. Every cell in his body screamed:
Lie down. You’re not ready for this yet.
Every muscle in his back cried out for more rest.
Lie down. You’re not ready for this yet.
Every muscle in his back cried out for more rest.
But that wasn’t an option. He needed to catch this motherfucker now.
Labyrinth seemed to get off on knowing everyone’s dirtiest, deepest secrets. That told Dark that Labyrinth must have the dirtiest, deepest secret of all.
All he needed was the man’s true identity—not his avatars or puppets or stand-ins. The real man behind the mask.
And thanks to Riggins, Dark had an increasingly sharper image of that man.
Dark thought about the attack on Riggins, which provided the first hint that Labyrinth was able to control and pry secrets out of people. This had been a thread running through the entire case, starting with the homeless Albanian man in L.A., all the way through the body double he used in South Africa and the women who’d been raped by Shane Corbett.
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