Fever Dream (30 page)

“And what theory is that?”

“My dear Vincent, do we know what illness Audubon actually suffered from?”

“No.”

“Correct. But that illness is the key to everything! It was the
illness
itself she wanted to know about. What it did to Audubon. Because it seems to have transformed a thoroughly mediocre artist
into a genius. She knew something had changed him—that’s why she went to New Madrid, where he’d experienced the earthquake:
she was searching, far and wide, to understand that agent of change. And when she hit upon his illness, she knew her search
was complete. She wanted to see the painting only to confirm her theory: that Audubon’s illness did something to his mind.
It had
neurological
effects. Marvelous neurological effects!”

“Whoa, you’re losing me here.”

Pendergast sprang to his feet. “And
that
is why she hid it from me. Because it was potentially an extremely valuable, proprietary pharmacological discovery. It had
nothing to do with our personal relationship.” With a sudden, impulsive movement he grasped D’Agosta by both arms. “And I
would still be stumbling around in the dark, my dear Vincent—if not for your stroke of genius.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say—”

Releasing his hold, Pendergast turned away and strode quickly toward the library door. “Come on—there’s no time to lose.”

“Where are we going?” D’Agosta asked, hurrying to follow, his mind still in a whirl of confusion, trying to piece together
Pendergast’s chain of logic.

“To confirm your suspicions—and to learn, once and for all, what it all must mean.”

T
HE SHOOTER SHIFTED POSITION IN THE DAPPLED
shade, took a swig of water from the camouflaged canteen. He dabbed the sweatband around his wrist against each temple
in turn. His movements were slow, methodical, completely hidden in the labyrinth of brush.

It wasn’t really necessary to be so careful. There was no way the target would ever see him. However, years of hunting the
other kind of prey—the four-legged variety, sometimes timid, sometimes preternaturally alert—had taught him to use exquisite
caution.

It was a perfect blind, a large deadfall of oak, Spanish moss thrown across its face like spindrift, leaving only a few tiny
chinks, through one of which he had poked the barrel of his Remington 40-XS tactical rifle. It was perfect because it was,
in fact, natural: one of the results of Katrina still visible everywhere in the surrounding forests and swamps. You saw so
many that you stopped noticing them.

That’s what the shooter was counting on.

The barrel of his weapon protruded no more than an inch beyond the blind. He was in full shade, the barrel itself was sheathed
in a special black nonreflective polymer, and his target would emerge into the glare of the morning sun. The gun would never
be spotted even when fired: the flash hider on the muzzle would ensure that.

His vehicle, a rented Nissan four-by-four pickup with a covered bed, had been backed up to the blind; he was using the bed
as a shooting platform, lying inside it with the tailgate down. The nose pointed down an old logging trail running east. Even
if someone saw him and gave chase, it would be the work of thirty seconds to slide from the truck bed into the cab, start
the engine, and accelerate down the trail. The highway, and safety, were just two miles away.

He wasn’t sure how long he would have to wait—it could be ten minutes, it could be ten hours—but that didn’t matter. He was
motivated. Motivated, in fact, like he’d never been in his life. No, that wasn’t quite true: there had been one other time.

The morning was hazy and dew-heavy, and in the darkness of the blind the air felt sluggish and dead. So much the better. He
dabbed at his temples again. Insects droned sleepily, and he could hear the fretful squeaking and chattering of voles. They
must have a nest nearby: it seemed the damn things were everywhere in the lowland swamps these days, ravenous as lab rabbits
and almost as tame.

He took another swig of water, did another check of the 40-XS. The bipod was securely placed and locked. He eased the bolt
open; made sure the .308 Winchester was seated well; snicked the bolt home again. Like most dedicated marksmen, he preferred
the stability and accuracy of a bolt-action weapon; he had three extra rounds in the internal magazine, just in case, but
the point of a Sniper Weapon System was to make the first shot count and he didn’t plan on having to use them.

Most important was the Leupold Mark 4 long-range M1 scope. He looked through it now, targeting the dot reticule first on the
front door of the plantation house, then the graveled path, then the Rolls-Royce itself.

Seven hundred, maybe seven hundred fifty yards. One shot, one kill.

As he stared at the big vehicle, he felt his heart accelerate slightly. He went over the plan once again in his mind. He’d
wait until the target was behind the wheel, the engine started. The automobile would roll forward along the semicircular drive,
pausing a moment before turning onto the main carriage road. That’s where he would take the shot.

He lay absolutely still, willing his heart to slow once again. He
could not allow himself to grow excited, or for that matter
allow any emotion—impatience, anger, fear—to distract him. Utter calm was the answer. It had served him well before, in the
veldt and the long grass, in circumstances more dangerous than these. He kept his eye glued to the scope, his finger resting
lightly on the trigger guard. Once again, he reminded himself this was an assignment. That was the best way to look at it.
Get this last job out of the way and he’d be done—and this time, once and for all…

As if to reward his self-discipline, the front door of the plantation house opened and a man stepped out. He caught his breath.
It was not his target, it was the other, the cop. Slowly—so slowly it seemed not to move—his finger drifted from the trigger
guard to the trigger itself, its pull weight feather-light. The stocky man paused on the wide porch, looking around a little
guardedly. The shooter did not flinch: he knew his cover was perfect. Now his target emerged from the gloom of the house,
and together the two walked along the porch and down the steps to the gravel drive. The shooter followed them with the scope,
the bead of his reticule centered on the target’s skull. He willed himself not to shoot prematurely: he had a good plan, he
should stick with it. The two were moving quickly, in a hurry to get somewhere.
Stick with the plan
.

Through the crosshairs of the scope, he watched as they approached the car, opened its doors, got in. The target seated himself
behind the wheel, as expected; started the engine; turned to say a few words to his companion; then eased the car out into
the drive. The shooter watched intently, letting his breath run out, willing his heart to slow still further. He would take
the shot between its beats.

The Rolls took the gentle curve of the gravel drive at about fifteen miles per hour, then slowed as it approached the intersection
with the carriage road.
This is it
, the shooter thought. All the preparation, discipline, and past experience fused together into this single moment of consummation.
The target was in position. Ever so slightly, he applied pressure to the trigger: not squeezing it, but caressing it, more,
a little more…

That was when—with a squeak of surprise followed by a violent scrabbling—a gray-brown vole darted over the knuckles of his
trigger hand. At the same time, a large ragged shadow, black against black, seemed to flit quickly over his blind.

The Remington went off with a bang, kicking slightly in his grasp. With a curse he brushed the scampering vole away and peered
quickly through the scope, working the bolt as he did so. He could see the hole in the windshield, about six inches above
and to the left of where he’d planned it. The Rolls was moving ahead fast now, escaping, the tires spinning as it sheared
through the turn, gravel flying up behind in a storm of white, and being careful not to panic the shooter led it with his
scope, waited for the heartbeat, once again applied pressure to the trigger.

… But even as he did so he saw furious activity inside the vehicle: the stocky man was darting forward, lunging for the wheel,
filling the windshield with his bulk. At the same moment the rifle fired again. The Rolls slewed to a stop at a strange angle,
cutting across the carriage path. A triangular corona of blood now covered the inside of the windshield, obscuring the view
within.

Whom had he hit?

Even as he stared he saw a puff of smoke from the vehicle, followed by the crack of a gunshot. A millisecond later, a bullet
snipped through the brush not three feet from where he was hidden. A second shot, and this one struck the Nissan with a clang
of metal.

Instantly, the shooter kicked backward, tumbling from the truck bed and into the cab. As another bullet whined past, he started
the engine and threw the rifle onto the passenger seat, where it fell atop another weapon: a shotgun, its double barrels sawn
off short, sporting an ornately carved stock of black wood. With a grinding of gears and a screech of tires, he took off down
the old logging path, trailing Spanish moss and dust.

He took one turn, then another, accelerating past sixty despite the washboard condition of the track. The weapons slid toward
him and he pushed them back, throwing a red blanket over them. Another turn, another screech of tires, and he could see the
state highway ahead of him. Only now, with safety clearly in sight, did he allow the frustration and disappointment to burst
from him.

“
Damn
it!” Judson Esterhazy cried, slamming his fist against the dashboard again and again. “Goddamn it to hell!”

New York City

D
R. JOHN FELDER WALKED DOWN THE LONG
, cool corridor in the secure ward at Bellevue, flanked by an escorting guard. Small, slender, and elegant, Felder was acutely
aware of how much he stuck out in the general squalor and controlled chaos of the ward. This was his second interview with
the patient. In the first he had covered all the usual bases, asked all the obligatory questions, taken all the proper notes.
He had done enough to satisfy his legal responsibilities as a court-appointed psychiatrist and render an opinion. He had,
in fact, reached a firm conclusion: the woman was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and therefore not liable
for her actions.

But he was still deeply unsatisfied. He had been involved in many unusual cases. He had seen things that very few doctors
had seen; he had examined extraordinary presentations of criminal pathology. But he had never before seen anything quite like
this. For perhaps the first time in his professional career, he felt he had not touched on the core mystery of this patient’s
psyche—not in the least.

Normally, that would make little difference in a bureaucracy such as this. Technically, his work was done. But still he had
withheld his conclusion pending further evaluation, giving him the opportunity for another interview. And this time, he decided,
he
wanted to have a conversation. Just a normal conversation between two people—nothing more, nothing less.

He turned a corner, continued making his way down the endless corridors. The noises, the cries, the smells and sounds of the
secure ward barely penetrated his consciousness as he mulled over the mysteries of the case. There was, first, the question
of the young woman’s identity. Despite a diligent search, court administrators had been unable to find a birth certificate,
Social Security number, or any other documentary evidence of her existence beyond a few genteel and intentionally vague records
from the Feversham Institute in Putnam County. The British passport found in her possession was real enough, but it had been
obtained through an exceedingly clever fraud perpetrated on a minor British consular official in Boston. It was as if she
had appeared on the earth fully formed, like Athena sprung from the forehead of Zeus.