The Book of the Dead

by Douglas Preston

  Meanwhile, Dr. Goshar Singh walked beside her, speaking in a calm, rational voice as if he heard nothing-and maybe, she thought, he didn’t. If he did, he would no longer be sane himself. It was that simple.

  Hayward tried to focus on the doctor’s words. “In all my years of clinical psychiatry,” he was saying, “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. We’re trying to get a handle on it. We’ve made some progress, although not yet as much as I’d like.”

  “It seems to have happened so suddenly.”

  “The sudden onset is a puzzling feature, indeed. Ah, yes, Captain Hayward: here we are.”

  Singh unlocked a door and held it open, ushering Hayward into an almost bare room, divided in half by a long counter, a thick plate-glass window above separating it from the other half-exactly like a visitors’ room at a prison. An intercom was set into the glass.

  “Dr. Singh,” said Hayward, “I requested a face-to-face meeting.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Singh replied almost sadly.

  “I’m afraid it will be possible. I can’t question a suspect under these conditions.”

  Again, Singh shook his head sadly, his plump cheeks wagging. “No, no, we’re in charge here, Captain. And I think when you see the patient, you’ll realize that it wouldn’t make a difference, no difference at all.”

  Captain Hayward said nothing. Now was not the time to fight with the doctors. She would evaluate the situation and, if necessary, return under her own conditions.

  “If you would care to have a seat?” Singh asked solicitously.

  Hayward seated herself at the counter and the doctor settled into the seat beside her. He glanced at his watch.

  “The patient will be out in five minutes.”

  “What kind of preliminary results do you have?”

  “As I say, it is a most puzzling case. Most puzzling indeed.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “The preliminary EEG showed significant focal temporal abnormalities, and an MRI revealed a series of small lesions to the frontal cortex. It is these lesions that seem to have triggered severe cognitive defects and psychopathology.”

  “Can you translate that into English?”

  “The patient seems to have suffered severe damage to the part of the brain that controls behavior, emotions, and planning. The damage is most pronounced in an area of the brain we psychiatrists sometimes call the Higginbottom region.”

  “Higginbottom?”

  Singh smiled at what was evidently an inside psychiatric joke. “Eugenie Higginbottom worked on an assembly line in a ball-bearing factory in Linden, New Jersey. One day in 1913, there was a boiler explosion in the factory. Blew apart the stamper. It was as if a huge shotgun shell had gone off: ball bearings flew everywhere. Six people were killed. Eugenie Higginbottom miraculously survived: but with some two dozen ball bearings embedded in the frontal cortex of her brain.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the poor woman suffered a complete personality change. She was instantly transformed from a kind, gentle person to a foulmouthed slattern, given to outbursts of profanity and violence, a drunkard, and, ah, sexually promiscuous. Her friends were astounded. It underscored the medical theory that personality is hardwired in the brain and that damage can literally transform one person into another. The ball bearings, you see, destroyed Higginbottom’s ventromedial frontal cortex-the same area that is affected in our patient.”

  “But there are no ball bearings in this man’s brain,” Hayward said. “What could have caused it?”

  “This is the crux of the matter. Initially, I hypothesized a drug overdose, but no drug residues were found in his system.”

  “A blow to the head? A fall?”

  “No. No evidence of coup/contrecoup, no edema or bruising. We’ve also ruled out a stroke: the damage was simultaneous in several widely separated areas. The only possible explanation I can come up with is an electrical shock administered directly to the brain. If only we had a dead body-an autopsy would show so much more.”

  “Wouldn’t a shock leave burn marks?”

  “Not a low-voltage, high-amperage shock-such as one generated by electronic or computer equipment. But there’s no damage anywhere but to the brain. It’s hard to see how such a shock might have occurred, unless our patient was performing some kind of bizarre experiment on himself.”

  “The man was a computer technician installing an exhibit at the museum.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  An intercom chimed, and a voice sounded softly. “Dr. Singh? The patient is arriving.”

  Beyond the glass window, a door opened, and a moment later Jay Lipper was wheeled in. He sat in a wheelchair, restrained. He was making slow circles with his head, and his lips were moving, but no sound came out.

  His face was shocking. It was as if it had caved in, the skin gray and slack and hanging in leathery folds, the eyes jittery and unfocused, the tongue hanging out, as long and pink and wet as that of an overheated retriever.

  “Oh my God…” Hayward said involuntarily.

  “He’s heavily sedated, for his own safety. We’re still trying to adjust the meds, find the right combination.”

  “Right.” Hayward looked at her notes. Then she leaned forward, pressed the talk switch on the intercom. “Jay Lipper?”

  The head continued its slow orbit.

  “Jay? Can you hear me?”

  Was there a hesitation there? Hayward leaned forward, speaking softly into the intercom.

  “Jay? My name is Laura Hayward. I’m here to help you. I’m your friend.”

  More slow rolling.

  “Can you tell me what happened at the museum, Jay?”

  The rolling continued. A long gobbet of saliva, which had gathered on the tip of his tongue, dripped to the floor in a foamy thread.

  Hayward leaned back and looked toward the doctor. “Have his parents been in?”

  Singh bowed. “Yes, they were here. And a very painful scene it was.”

  “Did he respond?”

  “That was the only time he’s responded, and then only briefly. He emerged from his inner world for less than two seconds.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘This isn’t me.’”

  “‘This isn’t me?’ Any idea what he meant by that?”

  “Well… I imagine he retains some faint recollection of who he was, along with a vague realization of what he’s become.”

  “And then?”

  Singh seemed embarrassed. “He became suddenly violent. He said he was going to kill them both and… rip out their guts. He had to be further sedated.”

  Hayward glanced at him a moment longer. Then, thoughtfully, she turned back toward Lipper, still rolling his head, his glassy eyes a million miles away.

  Chapter 33

  He got into a fight with Carlos Lacarra,” Imhof told Special Agent Coffey as they strode down the long, echoing corridors of Herkmoor. “Lacarra’s friends weighed in, and by the time the guards broke it up, a certain amount of damage had been done.”

  Coffey listened to the public recitation of events with Rabiner at his side. Two prison guards walking behind completed the entourage. They rounded a corner and continued down another long corridor.

  “What kind of damage?”

  “Lacarra’s dead,” said the warden. “Broken neck. Don’t know what happened, exactly-not yet. None of the prisoners are talking.”

  Coffey nodded.

  “Your prisoner got pretty banged up-mild concussion, contusions, bruised kidney, a couple of cracked ribs, and a shallow puncture wound.”

  “Puncture wound?”

  “Seems somebody shanked him. That was the only weapon recovered at the scene of the fight. All in all, he’s lucky to be alive.” Imhof coughed delicately and added, “He certainly didn’t look like a fighter.”

  “And my man is back in his cell, as per my orders?”

  “Yes. The doctor wasn’t happy.”

>   They cleared a security gate, and Imhof keyed an elevator for them. “At any rate,” he said, “I expect he’ll be a lot more amenable to questioning now.”

  “You didn’t sedate him, did you?” Coffey asked as the elevator chimed open.

  “We don’t habitually dispense sedatives here at Herkmoor-potential for abuse and all that.”

  “Good. We don’t want to waste our time with a nodding vegetable.”

  The elevator rose to the third floor, opening onto a pair of steel doors. Imhof swiped a card and punched in a code and they slid back, revealing a cinder-block corridor, painted stark white, with white doors on either side. Each door had a tiny square window and a foot slot.

  “Herkmoor Solitary,” Imhof said. “He’s in cell 44. Normally, I’d escort him to a visiting room, but in this case he’s not exactly mobile.”

  “I’d rather speak to him in his cell, anyway. With the guards on hand… in case he should become aggressive.”

  “Not much chance of that.” Imhof leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, Agent Coffey, but I would imagine that any suggestion that he might be put back in yard 4 for exercise would get him talking a mile a minute.”

  Coffey nodded.

  They approached the cell door and one of the guards gave it several whacks with his riot stick. “Make yourself pretty, you got a visitor!”

  Whang, whang! went the nightstick against the door. The guard removed his weapon and stood aside while the other unlocked the door and glanced in. “All clear,” he said.

  The first guard holstered his weapon and stepped inside.

  “How much time do you need?” Imhof asked.

  “An hour should do it. I’ll have the guard call you when we’re done.”

  Coffey waited until Imhof was gone, then he stepped into the small immaculate cell, followed by Rabiner. The second guard closed the door from the outside and locked it, preparing to stand watch.

  The prisoner lay on the narrow bed, propped up on a thin pillow, dressed in a fresh jumpsuit so orange it almost glowed. Coffey was shocked by his appearance-head bandaged, one eye swollen shut and the other dark, the entire face a palette of black, blue, and green. Behind the puffy slit in the prisoner’s good eye, Coffey could see the glitter of silver.

  “Agent Coffey?” the guard asked. “Do you want a chair?”

  “No, I’ll stand.” He turned to Rabiner. “Ready?”

  Rabiner had removed a microcassette recorder. “Yes, sir.”

  Coffey folded his arms and looked down at the battered and bandaged prisoner. He grinned. “What happened to you? Try to kiss the wrong guy?”

  No answer, but then, Coffey expected none.

  “Let’s get down to business.” He took out a sheet of paper with his notations. “Roll the tape. This is Special Agent Spencer Coffey, in prison cell number C3-44 at Herkmoor Federal Correctional and Holding Facility, interviewing the prisoner identified as A. X. L. Pendergast. The date is March 20.”

  A silence.

  “Can you talk?”

  To Coffey’s surprise, the man said, “Yes.” His voice was barely a whisper and a little thick on account of his puffy lips.

  Coffey smiled. This was a promising beginning. “I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible.”

  “Likewise.”

  It seemed the softening up had worked even better than he had anticipated.

  “All right, then. I’m going to return to my previous line of questioning. This time I expect a response. As I’ve already explained, the evidence puts you in Decker’s house at the time of the killing. It provides means, motive, and opportunity, and a direct link between you and the murder weapon.”

  The prisoner said nothing, so Coffey continued.

  “Point one: the forensic team recovered half a dozen long black fibers at the crime scene, which we found came from a highly unusual cashmere/merino blended Italian fabric made in the 1950s. An analysis of the suits in your wardrobe indicate that all of them were made from the same fabric, even the very same bolt of cloth.

  “Point two: at the scene of the crime, we found three hairs, one with root. A PCR analysis proved it matched your DNA to a probability of error of one in sixteen billion.

  “Point three: a witness, a neighbor of Decker’s, observed a pale-complected individual in a black suit entering Decker’s house ninety minutes before the murder. In no less than three photo lineups, he positively and categorically identified you as that person. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he is about as unimpeachable a witness as you could find.”

  If the prisoner sneered momentarily, it happened so fast that Coffey wasn’t sure he had seen it at all. He took a moment to read the man’s face, but it was impossible to discern any kind of emotion in a face so swollen and bandage-covered. All he could really see of the man was the silver glitter behind the slitted eye. It made him uneasy.

  “You’re an FBI agent. You know the ropes.” He shook the piece of paper at Pendergast. “You’re going to be convicted. If you want to avoid the needle, you’d better start cooperating, and cooperating now.”

  He stood there, breathing hard, staring at the bandaged prisoner.

  The prisoner gazed back. After a moment, he spoke.

  “I congratulate you,” he said. His slurred voice sounded submissive, even obsequious.

  “May I make a suggestion, Pendergast? Confess and throw yourself at the mercy of the court. It’s your only option-and you know it. Confess, and save us the shame of seeing one of our own dragged through a public trial. Confess, and we’ll get you transferred out of yard 4.”

  Another brief silence.

  “Would you consider a plea bargain?” Pendergast asked.

  Coffey grinned, feeling a flush of triumph. “With evidence like this? Not a chance. Your only hope, Pendergast-and I repeat-is to store up a bit of goodwill with a nice, round confession. It’s now or never.”

  Pendergast seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he stirred on the cot. “Very well,” he said.

  Coffey broke into a smile.

  “Spencer Coffey,” Pendergast went on, honeyed voice dripping with obsequiousness, “I have watched your progress in the Bureau for almost ten years, and I confess I’ve been amazed by it.”

  He paused to breathe in.

  “I knew from the beginning you were a special, even unique individual. You-what is the term?-nailed me.”

  Coffey felt his smile broaden. This was good; this was the moment of humiliation against a hated rival that most people only dreamed about.

  “Remarkable work, Spencer. May I call you Spencer? Peerless, I might even say.”

  Coffey waited for the confession he was now certain was coming. The poor bastard thought flattering him would gain some sympathy. That’s what they all did: Oh, you’re so clever to have caught me. He gestured behind his back for Rabiner to move closer with the recorder, not to miss a word. The beauty of it was, Pendergast was only digging his own grave deeper. There would be no mercy, even with a confession: not for the man responsible for murdering a top FBI agent. A confession would shave ten years off his death-penalty appeals-that was all.

  “I’ve been lucky enough to witness some of your work in person. For example, your performance during that harrowing night of the museum massacre many years ago, manning the mobile command station. That was truly unforgettable.”

  Coffey felt a stirring of unease. He didn’t remember much from that awful night-to be truthful, it hadn’t been his best moment. But then, maybe he was just being too hard on himself, as usual.

  “I remember that night vividly,” Pendergast went on. “You were in the thick of it, nerves of steel, barking orders.”

  Coffey shifted. He wished the man would get on with the confession. This was getting a bit maudlin. Pathetic how quickly the man had been reduced to groveling.

  “I felt bad about what happened afterward. You didn’t deserve that reassignment to Wa
co. It wasn’t fair. And then, when you mistook that teenager carrying home a prize catfish for a Branch Davidian terrorist with an RPG-well, that could have happened to anybody. Luckily, your first shot missed and your partner was able to tackle you before you squeezed off a second-although perhaps the teenager was in little danger, since I understand you came in dead last in your Firearms Training Unit at the Academy.”

  The segue had happened so smoothly, Pendergast’s tone of voice never varying from its whining submissiveness, that it took Coffey a moment to realize the effusive praise had morphed into something else. The stifled snicker of the guard stung him to the quick.

  “I happened upon a Bureau study of the Waco field office while it was under your benevolent leadership. It seems your office enjoyed being at the top of several lists. For example, the smallest number of cases successfully closed for three years running. The largest number of agents requesting transfers. The most internal investigations for incompetence or ethics violations. One could argue that your being transferred back to New York could not have come at a more convenient time. So nice to have an ex-U.S. senator for a father-in-law, Spencer, is it not?”

  Coffey turned to Rabiner and said, as calmly as possible, “Turn it off.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pendergast didn’t pause, although his voice changed in tone to cool sarcasm. “How’s the PTSD treatment coming, by the way? I understand they’ve got a new approach that works wonders.”

  Coffey gestured to the guard and said, with an effort at detachment, “I can see that further questioning of the prisoner is pointless. Open the door, please.”

  Even as the guard outside fumbled with the door, Pendergast continued speaking.

  “On another note, knowing your love of great literature, I recommend to you Shakespeare’s marvelous comedy Much Ado About Nothing. Particularly the character of Constable Dogberry. You could learn much from him, Spencer. Much.”

  The cell door opened. Coffey glanced at the two guards, their expressions studiously neutral. Then, straightening his back, he proceeded down the corridor toward the solitary confinement security doors, Rabiner and the guards following in silence.