Dark Revelations

by Duane Swierczynski

  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,

  You want to know what happened to Shane Corbett?

  He attempts to snarl a profanity, unable to even finish the thought.

  The drugs are already taking hold, and he’s finding it difficult to do much of anything.

  I continue,

  Soon you’re going to learn.

  He grunts.

  And you’re going to tell me all about Steve Dark.

  chapter 45

  DARK

  Over the Atlantic Ocean

  “You going to tell me what that was about?”

  Dark paused before saying, “It’s kind of complicated.”

  Natasha and Dark were recrossing the Atlantic Ocean. Damien Blair’s fury was tempered by the fact that Steve Dark had been right—Labyrinth had struck in New York City, and they’d missed him by a matter of minutes. Natasha watched Dark as he scoured the fresh crime scene, and it was like the man had come alive for the first time in days. Something primal inside the man had been ignited. Natasha had to remind herself that she was investigating the case, too, coordinating with the NYPD and FBI, but it was hard to take her attention away from Dark and his obvious passion for the hunt. It was mesmerizing to watch.

  That changed the moment Dark saw Agent Tom Riggins in the lobby. Dark’s former mentor—the man who’d seen the same fire in Steve Dark, and tapped him to join Special Circs at an early age. Natasha had read the Global Alliance files.

  “I understand,” she continued. “I’ve had my own issues with father figures in the past.”

  “He’s not exactly the father type,” Dark said quietly.

  Natasha knew the truth was different. Dark’s foster family had been slaughtered. And his biological parents? No one knew who they were. Tom Riggins was the closest thing Dark had to family.

  Natasha let it rest. Better to focus on Labyrinth. She wanted that investigative fire back. When Damien Blair had announced that Dark would be joining the team, she’d had her serious doubts—just like the rest of them. Damaged goods. A lone wolf. Erratic. Emotionally and possibly psychologically compromised. Not exactly what you’d call a good fit.

  But now she saw the same blazing element that Blair had seen. And Natasha knew she could help bring it out of him, once again.

  She reached out and touched his hand. Dark looked at her, barely, still lost in his thoughts about Riggins. But then all at once Dark really looked at her. Dark glanced around, as if only realizing just now that they were in an empty Gulfstream jet paid for by Global Alliance, and there was quite a bit of time before touchdown.

  Natasha waited until he caught on, then pressed her lips to his.

  Hours later, as the jet cleared French airspace, Dark told Natasha why he thought that Labyrinth would be striking in Scotland next.

  The word politicians in the video tipped Dark off.

  In two days, Edinburgh would play host to the so-called WoMU summit—World Minds United. The media had been buzzing about it for months now. A super–think tank aimed at solving no less than the problems of global inequality—all streaming live on the Internet.

  “It’s a huge stage,” Dark explained now. “Labyrinth couldn’t resist something like that. In fact, this may be what he’s been building towards the whole time.”

  “You’re saying he’s a press-hungry killer. That this is all for the headlines.”

  “Why else would he be doing this? I don’t think it’s about the thrill of murdering someone. The deaths are incidental. The message means everything. He even told Jane Talbot that he was done with killing. Don’t forget, though, he was saying that on live TV. That was the key.”

  “But that just proves that Labyrinth is lying,” Natasha said.

  “How? He didn’t kill Shane Corbett. He found other people to do it for him—women who’d have a good reason to want to make him suffer. As far as Labyrinth is concerned, his hands are clean. He’s just giving victims a chance to avenge themselves.”

  “So who does Labyrinth want to make suffer next?” Natasha asked.

  chapter 46

  DARK

  Global Alliance HQ / Paris, France

  Back at home base, Blair wasn’t exactly falling all over himself to congratulate Dark that his instincts had been correct—that Labyrinth had struck in New York City, and that it was increasingly likely that he was going to hit Edinburgh, too. Dark had presented his case quickly, backed up by Natasha at every turn.

  In fact, Blair didn’t respond at all. He absorbed the details, but offered no commentary or feedback. After Dark was finished, Blair nodded, then retreated to his personal quarters.

  The team sat in silence for a few moments before O’Brian finally spoke.

  “Hey, don’t take it personally. Big guy’s got a lot on his mind. He’s had a hard-on for this guy for years.”

  Dark shook his head. “That’s what I don’t understand. Labyrinth only emerged just now. I can understand the idea of bracing for a monster like Labyrinth to appear, but Blair seems like he’s been expecting this specific monster the whole time.”

  “Well, I’ve been with the team longer than anybody at this table,” Natasha said. “We’ve targeted a lot of threats that no one knows about—and hopefully, no one will ever know about. Each time, Blair compares the case at hand to the nightmare scenario in his mind. Each time, the case at hand comes up short. For whatever reason, Blair believes this Labyrinth is the nightmare scenario, and that’s good enough for me.”

  “Doesn’t change our tactics,” said O’Brian. “Bad, badder, baddest . . . we take ’em out.”

  Dark stood up from the conference table. He heard what his teammates were saying, and he knew they were right. But there was another piece missing.

  “Where are you going?” Nata
sha asked.

  “Be right back.”

  Blair was at his desk, back to the door, staring at a series of black-and-white photos on the wall. Family, colleagues—whatever. Dark didn’t care. He only wanted to know Damien Blair long enough to have him book a flight back to L.A. And if he refused, then fine. He’d be out of his life even faster.

  “What is it?” Dark asked.

  Blair continued staring at the wall.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Still nothing.

  “Why do I have the feeling there’s a lot more to Labyrinth than you’re letting on.”

  Finally, he spoke:

  “I was just thinking of a way to admit to you that I was wrong, and I should have trusted you.”

  Blair spun around in his chair.

  “Your instincts are why I was so eager to have you join our team. You remind me of the best operatives I’ve worked with over the years. Sadly, they’re the very operatives who never fail to frustrate me. Because the best seem to work best as lone wolves, and here I am trying to incorporate you into the pack. I do wonder why I’m drawn to such individuals. Must be something in the blood.”

  Now it was Dark’s turn to say nothing. He figured it was better to let Blair speak his mind, and then tell him that he quit anyway.

  “What I’m trying to say is, I’ve had trouble with lone wolves in the past, which is probably why I was determined to break you from the start. But I’ve been sitting here, trying to poke holes in your theories about New York and the possible attack in Edinburgh . . . and I’m coming up with nothing. I’m forced to concede that you’re more finely tuned in to this predator’s wavelength than I am.”

  Dark said, “We just have different methods.”

  “Exactly. And from now on, we run it your way, Dark. Nothing matters to me except catching Labyrinth. We’ll go to Edinburgh, and we’ll follow your lead.”

  Dark nodded, but he didn’t step into this office to seize control away from Blair.

  “Why do you think Labyrinth’s the one?”

  “The one?”

  “You know what I mean. The threat you’ve been bracing for.”

  Blair nodded. “A little while ago, you said you flew to New York on a hunch. That was a leap of faith. I’m asking that you and the team take a leap of faith with me.”

  A few minutes after Dark left his quarters, Blair picked up his cell phone and thumbed through to the text message he’d received an hour ago.

  DO YOU KNOW YOU HIRED A MONSTER?

  The message was accompanied by a link. Blair had clicked it, after considerable hesitation. Labyrinth had been taunting him with personal messages ever since the L.A. attacks. Blair had no idea how he found his number, since it was unlisted and untraceable to him or any member of Global Alliance. And with every Labyrinth text taunt—this was the fourth—Blair would dispose of his phone and order a new one.

  The link was new. Had Labyrinth come up with some diabolical way to infect his phone, and by extension, the computer systems inside Global Alliance?

  No.

  Instead, the link caused a small pdf to download to Blair’s phone. A DNA report marked CLASSIFIED.

  Blair had read the report, and with growing horror, put the pieces together.

  Now he was wondering if he had just made the second biggest mistake of his life, or if the two would cancel each other out.

  chapter 47

  DARK

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  The package arrived two days later, the morning of the WoMU summit, just as Dark had predicted.

  No fancy messengers this time, no homeless couriers. It arrived via next-day shipping from an address in London (that later turned out to be a vacant storefront). Dark and the rest of his Global Alliance teammates—O’Brian, Roeding—were there to watch as the forensic experts carefully picked apart the cardboard shipping box and removed the contents. The team had to watch from behind a thick pane of blast-resistant plastic—for their protection, of course, which annoyed Dark. He tried to remind the Lothian and Borders officials that Labyrinth had not detonated any of his packages so far—just the delivery man for the first one. They merely nodded and ignored Dark, continuing with their excruciatingly slow and methodical disassembly.

  “They need to stop screwing around and just open the damned thing,” Dark complained bitterly.

  “It’s procedure,” Natasha said, eyeing the Scottish police, who in turn were eyeing Dark.

  “We’re wasting time.”

  At long last, the Lothian and Borders police removed another riddle. Same hand printing, same block letters, this time on U.S. Congress letterhead. The image was scanned and projected onto a flat-screen TV.

  A MAN WALKS UP TO YOU AND SAYS, “EVERY THING I SAY TO YOU IS A LIE.” IS HE TELLING YOU THE TRUTH OR IS HE LYING?

  LABYRINTH

  “Good, another twisty little mindfuck,” said O’Brian.

  “Remember, the riddle’s only part of it,” Dark said. “Let’s see what else he’s thrown into the box.”

  Next, the police removed a modern digital stopwatch—black plastic, common brand name, nothing remarkable about it at first glance. Again it seemed like the Scottish police were moving in slow motion, despite the fact that clearly, nothing had gone boom.

  “Fuck this,” Dark said. “I need to see it up close.”

  When the door remained shut after a few frenzied knocks, Dark sighed, took a step back, then smashed his boot against it, right near the knob. Wood split and burst. Dark moved into the room, shouldering his way past the hazmat-suited experts, and plucked the stopwatch from the robot arm that was holding it.

  “Less than five hours,” Dark said, reading the display. “When does the summit begin?”

  Natasha, who had followed him into the room, said, “Within the hour.”

  Dark pushed aside the robot arm and removed the remaining item from Labyrinth’s package: a sheath of yellowed parchment paper, incredibly brittle, sealed in a plastic bag.

  “What is it?”

  The top page looked familiar to Dark, but he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The yellowed, brittle paper. The jagged scrawls. You’d need an expert to authenticate it, of course, but almost anyone could easily identify it.

  Did Labyrinth actually just FedEx an early draft of the U.S. Constitution to Scotland?

  A historic document expert from nearby University of Edinburgh was rushed down to St. Leonards Street station. The woman blinked as if she’d just woken from a five-year nap, but she tentatively described the document as authentic to the era (late 1780s)—but quickly added this version of the Constitution couldn’t be real.

  “Why?” asked Dark.

  “Well, there is an urban legend going around my circles that there was an early, far more radical draft of the U.S. Constitution debated by the American founders,” the expert said. “One that allegedly put much more power in the hands of the executive branch, with ordinary citizens having very few of the rights eventually granted. It was also rumored to have had proslavery elements—instead of the tacit approval given in the eventual version. This, of course, is no doubt an invention of conspiracy theorists, much like this document.”

  “But the paper and ink check out?”

  “Well . . . yes. But there’s no way this can be real.”

  If such a document existed, Dark knew, it would no doubt sell for untold millions on some secret, black market. Yet Labyrinth had found a way to put his hands on it. And he’d sent it, uninsured, by overnight delivery. Almost casually. This was as important as the message itself, Dark thought. He wanted to let them know his wealth was unlimited, and there was nothing he couldn’t touch.

  Not even the tender heart of the United States of America.

  Lothian and Borders did their best to keep the examination of the latest Labyrinth package from the press. But the reporters seemed to know anyway—anonymous tips had armed them with just enough to turn them rabid. They pressed at the front doors of th
e St. Leonards Street station as Dark and the rest of the team emerged.

  “He’s tipping them off,” Dark said. “Raising the game. It’s only fun for him if everybody knows what he’s up to.”

  They walked across the street to the black van that had been transported from Paris. Fully equipped with computers, bug detectors, weapons, a mobile forensics lab, and everything else the team could possibly need. As always, with Blair, money was no object.

  “So we’ve seen the clues,” O’Brian said. “We’ve got a copy of the Constitution and a stopwatch and another riddle.”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Oh come on. You must have some idea. Some kind of crazy leftfield thinking. That’s your trademark, isn’t it?”

  “Deckland, shut the fuck up,” Natasha said. “We’re going to have some help, anyway. Blair’s already on the scene.”

  Dark’s eyebrow lifted. “He is?”

  “These are his people, after all. Aristocrats, the hoi polloi, that whole set. He’s smoothing feathers and scoping the scene.”

  Dark was the product of a foster home and a humble middle-class upbringing. No wonder Blair seemed like an alien to him.

  “I thought he never went out into the field,” Dark said.

  “He seems to have changed his mind,” Natasha said.

  “Let’s go,” O’Brian said. “I’m driving. I’m still motion sick from Roeding’s driving in J’burg.”

  The team walked to the van, at which point Dark separated himself.

  “Got my own ride,” Dark said.

  “What do you mean, your own ride?” Natasha asked.