Diogenes’s heart leapt into his mouth. This would make what he had to say even more difficult.
He cleared his throat, announcing his presence. Immediately Constance turned toward him. Her eyes flashed with a fleeting emotion, quickly suppressed.
“Forgive the intrusion,” he said. “I merely wanted to tell you that all is ready. I have made the necessary preparations for our trip. Please tell me when I should call for you in the morning.”
Constance paused. Her eyes strayed toward the open trunk. “Eight o’clock should suffice.”
“Very good. Constance…” He hesitated. “Before I leave, I want you to hear a story. A true story about an evil man.”
Constance raised an eyebrow quizzically, but said nothing.
“His name is Lucius Garey. Six years ago, on Christmas Eve, he broke into the house of a Jacksonville doctor, interrupting the family as they were singing carols around their tree. The doctor had two teenage daughters. Garey raped each daughter, in turn, while forcing the parents to watch at gunpoint. This was followed by the brutalization of the mother, once again with the entire family as witnesses. Finally, he shot the parents, then cut the throats of the two girls.”
Constance spoke sharply. “Why in God’s name are you telling me this?”
“Please bear with me. It took the authorities a month to catch Garey. A police officer was killed in the resulting confrontation. Garey was found guilty of five murders and sentenced to die. Before being placed on death row, however, he managed to strangle another prisoner to death with his bare hands.”
He took a cautious step forward. “I’ve told you about Halcyon Key. I think you’ll find it even more marvelous than I have painted it for you—especially once you’re restored to your full youthful vigor. I’ve also told you about the arcanum. With a great deal of time, money, and research, I’ve been able to reformulate—almost—the old arcanum without resorting to the unfortunate necessity of extracting it from a human at the time of death.”
“Almost?”
“There is a complication. In order to complete the work, I need to prepare the original formulation one time only.”
“Why?”
“The explanation is complicated.”
“That answer doesn’t satisfy me at all. Are you saying you need to do an extraction from a human cauda equina?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can obtain the cauda equina you need from a corpse.”
Diogenes shook his head. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t work. The cauda equina needs to be fresh, you see—extremely fresh. Obtained at the very moment of death. The medical researchers I’ve employed have all come to the same conclusion.”
He saw a fury blaze across Constance’s face. She spoke quietly, with a razor’s edge to her voice. “You lied to me.”
“What I promised was that no human being has been harmed. And that is true—no human being has. The fact is, my research would have been far easier, and less expensive, if I had taken human lives. But I knew you would object. And…I am no longer a killer.”
“So you haven’t taken a human life yet, but now you will. How contemptible.”
“If you will let me explain, Constance. Please.”
Constance stared at him, saying nothing.
“It’s a life that would be taken anyway. You see, in three days, Lucius Garey will die by lethal injection, in a prison in southern Florida. He’s exhausted all his appeals, and the governor will not commute. Garey is a sociopath who’s expressed no remorse—on the contrary, he’s bragged of how much he enjoyed it. This horrible man, this sadistic killer and rapist, will die whether or not I lift a finger.”
He stopped, looking intently at Constance. She did not reply. That unreadable expression was once again on her face.
“Try to understand.” Diogenes spoke more quickly now. “I need the cauda equina, one very fresh cauda equina, for the chemical synthesis necessary to re-create the improved formula. A drug can’t be synthesized from nothing. You have to know its chemical structure. I need to have it analyzed and the chemical structure of certain compounds determined. We are talking about complex proteins and biochemical compounds that have millions of atoms within a single molecule, folded in complex ways. In the eighteen months I’ve had biochemists analyzing the problem, I’ve learned a great deal. As soon as I can obtain a sample of the original formulation, at long last my work will be done.”
Still Constance said nothing. Diogenes was unnerved by the opacity of her expression.
“Constance, I beg you—think this through. It’s a onetime process. After that, the synthesis of the arcanum will be free and clear. And nobody is being hurt: Garey is a dead man anyway.”
“And just how do you plan to obtain this man’s ‘fresh’ cauda equina?” Her voice was cold, cold.
“After an execution, a medical examiner must perform an autopsy. I will arrange to be that medical examiner. Once I have the cauda equina, I will extract what I need, bring the extraction to Halcyon, and biochemically synthesize it in the lab I’ve built there. Everything is prepared and in readiness—save for this. No more bodies needed. And you, my dear Constance, will get your youthful vitality, your health, restored in full. Please, Constance. Please.”
He fell silent, watching her very carefully. She remained still for what seemed an eternity, as if struggling with some inner conflict. Then—briefly, almost inaudibly—she said: “All right.”
Relief flooded through him. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for seeing the logic of the situation. I’ll leave you to your packing. Until eight tomorrow morning, then.”
And with a smile, he turned and left the room.
31
THE MIDNIGHT SEA was like rippled glass, with a quarter moon setting over the horizon—a perfect night for business like theirs. At the helm, Filipov glanced over at the chartplotter. He had taken a heading due south from Bailey’s Hole, passing by the southern end of Machias Seal Island, avoiding the Grand Manan Banks and their flotilla of fishing boats. He was looking for water deeper than trawler depth, and according to the charts the Jordan Basin was the place for it. They were now fifty miles offshore, still in the U.S. exclusive zone but well outside the twelve-mile territorial limit. The radar indicated no boats, fishing or otherwise, as far as it could reach. This was one of the deepest parts of the continental shelf—and a notoriously poor fishing ground at that. The body would go to the bottom and never, ever reappear, not even in some bottom trawler’s net.
Filipov throttled down, brought the boat in a circle, and backed the engine until they were stationary. They were within the Labrador Current, a sluggish, quarter-knot flow of very cold water coming down from the Labrador coast, with no wind and little swell. No point in putting out a sea anchor; the boat could drift.
The crew had gathered in the pilothouse, their faces illuminated in the dim-red light of the nighttime bridge. Filipov looked at Miller. The man had a special hatred of the FBI, and Filipov had decided to let him do the honors—along with Abreu, the engineer, who was built like a brick shithouse. That should keep them happy. When they had dispatched the fed and dumped him overboard, they would head to Canada. And then, just as soon as was humanly possible, Filipov would shake free of these losers and head to Macedonia, where his family was originally from and he still had relatives. He had plenty of money; he could lie low and see how things developed. But he wanted to make sure they all got out of Canada first, and that none of them balked and decided to try their luck staying in the States.
“Miller, Abreu,” he said. “You two go below, get the fed, bring him up. Be careful—he’s a dangerous one. Check your weapons.”
“Why don’t we just shoot the fucker down in the hold?” Miller asked.
“Leaving his blood and DNA everywhere and giving ourselves a ten-hour cleanup job? No: we lay out tarps on the aft deck and shoot him there, then we can wash everything out the scuppers with the raw water hose.”
Miller and Abreu rem
oved their weapons, checked them, racked in rounds, and stepped out into the darkness.
Filipov turned to Smith. “Dwayne, cut twenty feet of half-inch chain and spread some plastic tarps out on the aft deck. The rest of you, rack rounds; I don’t want to take any chances with this guy. He looks like shit, but looks can be deceptive. Take positions along the gunnels.”
He reached down to the breaker panel and flipped on all the night floods, bathing the working deck of the boat in dazzling light. Then he stepped out of the pilothouse, hooking the door open. Smith was already laying out the tarps, held down by lengths of chain. The lazarette hatch opened and Abreu emerged, hauling Pendergast up by his two handcuffed hands, with Miller shoving from below. The man could hardly walk; he looked practically dead already. Still, Filipov wasn’t about to take any chances—he remembered the look he’d seen in the man’s eyes.
“Everyone, keep your weapons at the ready. You two, dump him on the tarp.”
Abreu half dragged the agent to where the tarps were laid out, then let him drop. He looked hideous, his face bruised from the recent beating. His eyes were slits, swollen like sooty holes in a lump of dough, blood crusted around the nose. His body flopped onto the tarp, his cuffed hands lying stretched out over his head.
“Let’s get this over with,” Filipov said. “Miller—you do it.”
“With pleasure.” Miller stepped over, right above the agent, raised his .45 in both hands, and aimed at the head. “Eat this, motherfucker.”
At that moment the fed’s eyes sprang open, sudden white spots in the black holes. Miller, startled, pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide as Miller simultaneously jerked sideways and fell. Filipov saw it as if in slow motion: the fed had swiped at Miller’s ankle, sending it skidding out from under him on the slippery tarp; and as he was falling the man rose up in a smooth motion, his face suddenly charged with a demon-like intensity; he snagged the .45 from Miller’s hand and shot him, then turned and fired at Abreu. It happened with incredible swiftness and yet, for Filipov, time seemed to have slowed into a kind of horrifying ballet. Pendergast kept rotating like a machine; firing next at the cook. One after the other, the tops of Abreu’s and the cook’s heads came off. Pendergast was swiftly moving on, swiveling toward Smith.
Filipov, shaking off his surprise and gathering his wits, began firing his own weapon, as did DeJesus. But they were caught off guard, panicked, firing too fast, and the fed evaded their fire by dropping and swinging sideways, scuttling to a place of cover behind the pilothouse. Now Smith began firing as well, and the three of them engaged in a terrific, useless fusillade that Filipov could see was doing nothing but peppering the empty space where the man had just stood.
Realizing his exposure, Filipov scrambled back, taking cover behind the pilothouse, joined immediately by Smith and DeJesus. They crouched behind the steel wall, near the rail, and a momentary silence fell.
“He’s on the other side of the pilothouse,” said DeJesus. “I’m going over the top.”
“No,” said Filipov, breathing hard. “We need a plan.”
“I’ve got a plan. I’m going over the top before he comes over on top onto us. That motherfucker killed my friend. He’s going to run out of ammo; Miller’s piece held seven plus one and he’s shot three. I’m going to smoke his ass.”
“He’s too fast. It’s just what I said: he’s been faking. Give me a second to think this through—”
“Fuck thinking. I was special forces, I know what I’m doing. You and Smith go forward and come around the front—we’ll squeeze him in a pincer movement. Get him to start firing. He’ll go through his magazine—and then he’s fucked.”
Filipov saw the wisdom in the plan and stopped protesting. He watched DeJesus grasp the handhold at the edge of the pilothouse roof and, in one fast motion, pull himself up and over, on his belly, creeping forward.
DeJesus is right, he thought. Take the high ground. He motioned to Smith and they began creeping forward, crouching low. Where the pilothouse swept around to the helm windshields, he paused to listen. There was no sound at all. The fed was on the port side, no doubt taking cover around or behind the tied-down Zodiac. The three of them would draw his fire and he’d run out of ammo. They, on the other hand, had plenty of spare magazines.
He signaled to Smith to follow as he crept toward the corner. What was DeJesus doing? Strange that there was no sound.
And then it happened: a sudden, controlled burst of shooting, in groups of two. A pause, and then more shooting. DeJesus. He could hear the rounds hitting the Zodiac, hear the drum-like gasps of air as the pontoons were shot full of holes. The Zodiac was like butter to a .45 round—no cover at all. DeJesus was just going to riddle him. Or so Filipov hoped.
A third set of shots; DeJesus was on his third magazine.
Silence fell again. He crept forward. The man was dead, had to be, with DeJesus shooting down on him from above.
Just as he reached the far corner and crouched, hesitating, he heard a single shot; then a scream and a splash.
Silence again.
Filipov felt himself go cold all over. That scream had sounded like DeJesus. One shot?
With a jab behind he felt around for Smith. He signaled for him to turn around, and together they retreated to the other side of the pilothouse, crouching, breathing hard. Filipov had never been so frightened in his life. Smith looked equally spooked.
“What the fuck do we do?” Smith whispered, his voice cracking.
Filipov’s mind was racing. They had to do something, and do it immediately. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think what.
32
COME ON, FILIPOV told himself. Think. Think.
And then, suddenly, he knew what he had to do. He had to get the son of a bitch off guard.
Scuttle the boat. The water temperature was forty degrees. The bastard would fall unconscious and drown within fifteen minutes. If they could get into the cabin, they could pull on immersion suits, then scuttle. It was a steel boat; it would go down fast.
And when the boat went down, the EPIRB, the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, would pop free and—as it was designed to do when becoming submerged—send out its emergency beacon. The Coast Guard would be there in two hours. They would be rescued. Pendergast would be dead, the Moneyball and all its incriminating evidence would be at the bottom of the ocean—there would be nothing to get them convicted. Pendergast’s corpse, if it was floating at all, would have been taken far away in the quarter-knot current. Just a freak boating accident.
The moon was setting. It would soon be pitch dark.
He grasped Smith’s shoulder. “We go into the pilothouse. And down into the cabin.”
Smith nodded. He was paralyzed with fear.
“Just follow my lead.”
Another nod.
Filipov raised his weapon and fired at the Plexiglas window once, twice, popping it into slivers.
“In!”
Smith scrambled through the window frame and Filipov followed, half falling into the pilothouse and rushing down the companionway into the cabin. As Filipov swung the steel cabin door shut he saw a black shadow chasing them into the pilothouse; he dogged the hatch shut just as the fed threw himself against it.
They had taken him by surprise.
He heard the man try the hatch again. Filipov realized the first thing he would do was get on the VHF radio and broadcast an SOS—the wrong kind of SOS. Also, they were vulnerable through the portholes, which were too small to fit a man but could be fired through.
“Cover the portholes!” he barked.
He lunged forward, opened the breaker box, and grabbed a fistful of wires, yanking them loose in a shower of sparks. He then opened the battery compartment. There were four marine batteries: two main and two backup. He yanked open a tool drawer, pulled out a pair of rubber-handled snips, and, with more snapping of electricity, cut the positive cables—one, two, three, four.
The boat was plunged into da
rkness. So much for the VHF.
The EPIRB. Did the bastard realize all he needed to do was throw it in the water for it to go off, and get his SOS? Unless he was a sailor, he wouldn’t know that. Filipov was banking on this ignorance.
He went to the emergency locker, threw it open, and pulled out two immersion suits, frantically putting one on and tossing the other one to Smith. He heard Smith yell, firing twice through one of the ceiling hatches.
“Put it on. I’ll cover.”
Smith grabbed it and began wrestling himself into it, while Filipov backed up against the hull. The portholes were covered, but the air hatches were not. It was dark and he saw a shadow moving fast by the ceiling air hatch; he fired, shattering it. And then it occurred to him: there was a second way into the cabin, through the forepeak hatch and anchor locker. It was the only hatch big enough to fit a person. If the fed knew it was there, they’d be in trouble. And there were two smaller hatches in the forepeak itself.
He scurried over to the forepeak and looked up at the two dark air hatches in the ceiling. The fed couldn’t see down at them in the darkness, but there was enough ambient moonlight above that he could see the man if he peered in. He waited. Now he could hear movement, ever so quiet, along the side of the boat toward the bow. A slow footstep on the cabin roof; another; then another. Then he saw a faint shadow cover the hatch; he was ready and fired.
The hatch shattered, blown out. He waited, controlling his breathing, his heart pounding so violently he could hardly hear. Was he dead? Filipov knew in his gut that he wasn’t. The way the fed had just risen up like that, those demonic, silvery eyes, the machine-like way he’d killed three people in less than as many seconds…
And then suddenly the fed’s chalky face appeared in the shattered hatch, with that same contemptuous smile and a buttery comment: “Unluckiest man alive.”
With a furious roar Filipov fired again and again at the porthole where the face had been, followed by clicks as he realized his magazine was empty. The son of a bitch.
The Obsidian Chamber Page 16