The Book of the Dead
Page 30
“But I will. Thank you very much, my dear Vincent.” He spoke softly, taking D’Agosta’s hand in his own and giving it a curt shake. D’Agosta felt strangely moved by this man who sometimes found even the simplest human courtesies awkward.
“Please sit down,” said Glinn in the same neutral voice—devoid of any human feeling—that had so annoyed D’Agosta on their first meeting.
He complied. Pendergast slipped into a seat opposite—a little stiffly, D’Agosta thought, yet with his usual feline grace. “And I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to you as well, Mr. Glinn,” Pendergast went on. “A most successful operation.”
Glinn nodded curtly.
“Although I deeply regret having to kill Mr. Lacarra to do so.”
“As you know,” Glinn replied, “there was no other way. You had to kill an inmate in order to escape in his body bag, and that inmate, furthermore, had to take his exercise in yard 4, the ideal spot for an abortive escape. We were fortunate—if I may be permitted that expression—to identify a yard 4 inmate who was so thoroughly evil that some might say he deserved to die: a man who tortured three children to death in front of their mother. It was then a simple matter to hack into the Justice Department database and change Lacarra’s arrest records to identify him as one of your ‘collars’—thus baiting the trap for Coffey. Finally, I might point out that you were forced to kill him: it was self-defense.”
“No amount of sophistry will change the fact it was a premeditated killing.”
“Strictly speaking, you are correct. But as you know yourself, his death was necessary to save more lives—perhaps many more lives. And our model indicated his death sentence appeals would have been denied, anyway.”
Pendergast silently inclined his head.
“Now, Mr. Pendergast, let us lay trivial ethical dilemmas aside. We have urgent business to take care of, relating to your brother. I assume no news from the outside world reached you while in solitary confinement?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Then it would be a surprise to learn that your brother destroyed all the diamonds he stole from the museum.”
D’Agosta saw Pendergast stiffen visibly.
“That’s right. Diogenes pulverized the diamonds and returned them to the museum as a sack of powder.”
After a silence, Pendergast said, “Once again, his actions were beyond my ability to predict or comprehend.”
“If it’s any consolation to you, they surprised us as well. It meant our assumptions about him were wrong. We believed that after being cheated of Lucifer’s Heart—the one diamond he most desired—your brother would go to ground for a period, lick his wounds, plot his next move. Clearly, that was not the case.”
Krasner broke in, his cheerful voice in stark contrast to Glinn’s monotone. “By destroying the very diamonds he had spent many years planning to steal, diamonds that he both desired and needed, Diogenes was destroying a part of himself. It was a suicide of sorts. He was abandoning himself to his demons.”
“When we learned what happened to the diamonds,” Glinn went on, “we realized our preliminary psychological profile was woefully insufficient. And so we went back to the drawing board, reanalyzed existing data, gathered additional information. That is the result.” He nodded to the thick volume. “I’ll spare you the details. It boils down to one thing.”
“And that is?”
“The ‘perfect crime’ which Diogenes spoke of was not the theft of the diamonds. Nor was it the outrage he perpetrated on you: killing your friends and then framing you for the crimes. Whatever his original intent was we are in no position to speculate. But the fact remains that his ultimate crime has yet to be committed.”
“But the date in his letter?”
“Another lie, or at least diversion. The theft of the diamonds was part of his plan, but their destruction was apparently a more spontaneous act. That doesn’t change the fact that his series of crimes was carefully planned to keep you occupied, to mislead you, to stay one step ahead of you. I must say, the depth and complexity of your brother’s plan is quite breathtaking.”
“So the crime is yet to come,” Pendergast said in a dry, quiet voice. “Do you know what it is, or when it will take place?”
“No—except that all indications are that this crime is imminent. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps tonight. Hence the need for your immediate liberation from Herkmoor.”
Pendergast was silent a moment. “I fail to see how I can be of any help,” he said, his voice tinged with bitterness. “As you see, I’ve been wrong at every turn.”
“Agent Pendergast, you are the one person—the only person—who can help. And you know how.”
When Pendergast did not immediately respond, Glinn went on. “We had hoped our forensic profile would have predictive power—that it would provide a sense of what Diogenes’s future action would be. And it has . . . to a point. We know he’s motivated by a powerful feeling of victimization, the sense that a terrible wrong was done to him. We believe his ‘perfect crime’ will attempt to perpetrate a similar wrong on a large number of people.”
“That is correct,” Krasner broke in. “Your brother wants to generalize this wrong, to make it public, to force others to share his pain.”
Glinn leaned over the table and stared at Pendergast. “And we know something else. You are the person who inflicted this pain on your brother—at least, that’s how he perceives it.”
“That is absurd,” said Pendergast.
“Something happened between you and your brother at an early age: something so dreadful it twisted his already warped mind and set in motion the events he’s playing out now. Our analysis is missing a vital piece of information: what happened between you and Diogenes. And the memory of that event is locked up there.” Glinn pointed at Pendergast’s head.
“We’ve been through this before,” Pendergast replied stiffly. “I’ve already told you everything of importance that has passed between my brother and myself. I even submitted to a rather curious interview with the good Dr. Krasner here—without result. There is no hidden atrocity. I would remember: I have a photographic memory.”
“Forgive my disagreeing with you, but this event happened. It must have. There’s no other explanation.”
“I’m sorry, then. Because even if you’re right, I have no recollection of any such event—and there’s clearly no way for me to recall it. You’ve already tried and failed.”
Glinn tented his hands, looked down at them. For a moment, the room went still.
“I think there is a way,” he said without looking up.
When there was no response, Glinn raised his head again. “You’re schooled in a certain ancient discipline, a secret mystical philosophy practiced by a tiny order of monks in Bhutan and Tibet. One facet of this discipline is spiritual. Another is physical: a complex series of ritualized movements not unlike the kata of Shotokan karate. And still another is intellectual: a form of meditation, of concentration, that allows the practitioner to unleash the full potential of the human mind. I refer to the secret rituals of the Dzogchen and its even more rarefied practice, the Chongg Ran.”
“How did you come by this information?” Pendergast asked in a voice so cold D’Agosta felt his blood freeze.
“Agent Pendergast, please. The acquisition of knowledge is our primary stock-in-trade. In trying to learn more about you—for purposes of better understanding your brother—we have spoken to a great many people. One of them was Cornelia Delamere Pendergast, your great-aunt. Current residence: the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Then there was a certain associate of yours, Miss Corrie Swanson, enrolled as a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy. She was a rather more difficult subject, but we ultimately learned what we needed to.”
Glinn regarded Pendergast with his Sphinx-like gaze. Pendergast returned the look, his pale cat’s eyes hardly blinking. The tension in the conference room increased rapidly; D’Agosta felt the hairs on his arms standing on end.
Glinn did not reply.
“I use the memory crossing in a strictly impersonal way—as a forensic tool, to re-create the scene of a crime or a historical event. That is all. It would have no value with such a . . . personal matter.”
“No value?” A dry tone of skepticism crept into Glinn’s voice.
“On top of that, it is a very difficult technique. Attempting to apply it here would be a waste of time. Just like the little game that Dr. Krasner tried to play with me.”
Glinn leaned forward again in his wheelchair, still staring at Pendergast. When he spoke, his voice carried a sudden urgency.
“Mr. Pendergast, isn’t it possible that the same event which has marred your brother so terribly—which turned him into a monster—scarred you as well? Isn’t it possible you have walled up its memory so completely that you no longer have any conscious recollection of it?”
“Mr. Glinn—”
“Tell me,” Glinn said, his voice growing louder. “Isn’t it possible?”
Pendergast looked at him, gray eyes glinting. “I suppose it is remotely possible.”
“If it is possible, and if this memory does exist, and if this memory will help us find that last missing piece, and if by doing so we can save lives and defeat your brother . . . isn’t it at least worth trying?”
The two men held each other’s gaze for less than a minute, but to D’Agosta it seemed to last forever. Then Pendergast looked down. His shoulders slumped visibly. Wordlessly he nodded.
“Then we must proceed,” Glinn went on. “What do you require?”
Pendergast did not reply for a moment. Then he seemed to rouse himself. “Privacy,” he said.
“Will the Berggasse studio suffice?”
“Yes.”
Pendergast placed both hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself upright. Without a glance at the others in the room, he turned and made his way back toward the room from which he’d emerged.
“Agent Pendergast . . . ?” Glinn said.
Hand on the doorknob, Pendergast half turned.
“I know how difficult this ordeal will be. But this is not the time for half measures. There can be no holding back. Whatever it is, it must be faced—and confronted—in its totality. Agreed?”
Pendergast nodded.
“Then good luck.”
A wintry smile passed briefly over the agent’s face. Then, without another word, he opened the door to the study and slipped out of sight.
48
Captain of Homicide Laura Hayward stood to the left of the Egyptian Hall entrance, gazing dubiously over the crowd. She had dressed in a dark suit, the better to blend in with the crowd, the only sign of her authority the tiny gold captain’s bars pinned to her lapel. Her weapon, a basic Smith & Wesson .38, was in its holster under her suit jacket.
The scene that greeted her eyes was one of textbook security. Her people, plainclothed and uniformed, were all at their appointed stations. They were the best she had—truly New York’s finest. The museum guard presence was there as well, deliberately obtrusive, adding at least a psychological sense of security. Manetti had so far been fully cooperative. The rest of the museum had been painstakingly secured. Hayward had run dozens of disaster scenarios through her head, drawing up plans to deal with every contingency, even the most unlikely: suicide bomber, fire, security system malfunction, power failure, computer failure.
The only weakness was the tomb itself—it had only one exit. But it was a large exit, and at the insistence of the NYC fire marshals, the tomb and all its contents had been specially fireproofed. She herself had made sure the tomb’s security doors could be opened or closed from the inside or outside, manually or electronically, even in the case of a total power failure. She had stood in the control room, occupying the empty room next to the tomb, and had operated the software that opened and closed the doors.
The toxicological teams had made not one sweep, not two, but three—the results uniformly negative. And now she stood, surveying the crowd, asking herself, What could possibly go wrong?
Her intellect answered loud and clear: Nothing.
But her gut sensed otherwise. She felt almost physically sick with unease. It was irrational; it made no sense.
Once more, she delved deep into her cop instincts, trying to discover the source of the feeling. As usual, her thoughts formed almost automatically into a list. And this time the list was all about Diogenes Pendergast.
Diogenes was alive.
He had kidnapped Viola Maskelene.
He had attacked Margo.
He had stolen the diamond collection—and then destroyed it.
He had probably been responsible for at least some of the killings ascribed to Pendergast.
He spent a great deal of time in the museum in some unknown capacity, most likely posing as a curator.
Both perps—Lipper and Wicherly—had been involved with the Tomb of Senef, and both had suddenly gone mad after being in the tomb. And yet a meticulous examination of the tomb and the hall had produced no evidence whatsoever of any kind of environmental or electrical problem—certainly nothing that could trigger psychotic breaks or brain damage. Was Diogenes somehow to blame? What on earth was he planning?
Against her will, her mind returned to the conversation she’d had with D’Agosta in her office days before. All of what he’s done so far—the killings, the kidnapping, the diamond theft—has been leading up to something else. Those had been his words. Something bigger, maybe much bigger.
She shivered. Her conjectures, her questions about Diogenes—it was all linked, it had to be. It was part of a plan.
But what was the plan?
Hayward hadn’t the slightest idea. And yet her gut told her it would happen tonight. It couldn’t be coincidence. This was the “something else” D’Agosta had talked about.
Her eyes traveled around the room, making contact with her people, one by one. As she did so, she picked out the many famous faces in the hall: the mayor, the speaker pro tem of the House, the governor, at least one of the state’s two senators. And there were many others: CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, Hollywood producers, a smattering of actors and television personalities. Then there were the museum staff she knew: Collopy, Menzies, Nora Kelly . . .
Her eyes moved to the PBS television crew, which had set up at one end of the hall and was filming the gala live. A second crew had set up inside the as-yet-unopened tomb, ready to film the first VIP tour of the exhibition and the sound-and-light show that would be part of it.
Yes—that would be part of the plan. Whatever was going to happen would happen live, with millions watching. And if Diogenes’s alter ego was a curator, or somebody else highly placed in the museum, he would have the power and the access necessary to engineer almost anything. But who could he be? Manetti’s careful probing of the museum’s personnel files turned up nothing. If only they had a picture of Diogenes that was less than twenty-five years old, a fingerprint, a bit of DNA . . .
What was the plan?
Her eye ended up at the closed door to the tomb, the steel now covered with a faux stone finish, a huge red ribbon stretched across its front.
Her feeling of sickness increased. And along with it came a desperate feeling of isolation. She had done everything in her power to stop, or at least postpone, this opening. But she had convinced nobody. Even Police Commissioner Rocker, her ally in the past, had demurred.
Was it all in her mind? Had the pressure finally gotten to her? If only she had someone who saw things her way, who understood the background, the true nature of Diogenes. Someone like D’Agosta.
D’Agosta. He had been ahead of her at every step of the investigation. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. Long before anyone else, he’d known the kind of criminal they were up against. He had insisted Diogenes was alive even when she and everyone else had “p
roved” he was dead.
And he knew the museum—knew it cold. He’d been involved in cases connected to the museum going back half a dozen years or more. He knew the players. God, if only he were here now . . . Not D’Agosta the man—that was over—but D’Agosta the cop.
She controlled her breathing. No point wishing for the impossible. She had done all she could. There was nothing left now but to wait, watch, and be ready to act.
Once again her eye roved the crowd, gauged the flow, examined each face for unnatural tension, excitement, anxiety.
Suddenly she froze. There, standing by the group of dignitaries near the podium, stood the tall figure of a woman: a woman she recognized.
All her alarm bells went off. Making an effort to control her voice, she raised her radio. “Manetti, Hayward here, do you read?”