City of Endless Night

by Douglas Preston

  “Gentlemen, please wait here a moment.” The man slipped through the smaller door and closed it behind him.

  D’Agosta glanced at Pendergast. They could hear, beyond the door, a muffled voice raised in controlled anger. D’Agosta couldn’t catch the words but the meaning was pretty clear—some poor bastard was getting his ass reamed out. The voice rose and fell, as if cataloging a list of grievances. Then there was a sudden silence.

  A moment later the door opened. A man emerged—silver-haired, tall, handsome, impeccably dressed—blubbering like a baby, his face wet with tears.

  “Remember, I’m holding you responsible!” a voice called after him from the office beyond. “We’re bleeding proprietary code all over the Internet, thanks to this goddamned insider leak. You find the bastard responsible, or it’s your ass!”

  The man stumbled blindly past and disappeared into the waiting area.

  D’Agosta gave another glance at Pendergast to see his reaction, but there was none; his face was as blank as usual. He was glad to see the agent back in form, at least superficially, his finely chiseled face so pale that it might have been crafted from marble, his eyes especially bright in the cool wash of natural light that filled the space. He was, however, as thin as a damn scarecrow.

  The sight of a man reduced to such misery made D’Agosta a little nervous, and he gave himself a quick mental once-over. Since his marriage, his wife, Laura Hayward, had made sure he bought double-breasted suits from only the better Italian clothiers—Brioni, Ravazzolo, Zegna—along with shirts of cotton lawn from Brooks Brothers. The only nod to a uniform was a single lieutenant’s bar pinned to his lapel. Laura, it had to be said, had really straightened up his act regarding clothing, throwing out all his brown polyester suits. He found that dressing like a million bucks made him feel secure, even if his colleagues joked with him that the double-breasted look gave him the air of a Mafioso. That sort of pleased him, actually. He just had to be careful not to show up his boss, Captain Glen Singleton, who was known throughout the NYPD as a natty dresser.

  Their escort reappeared. “Mr. Ozmian will see you now.”

  They followed him through the door into a large—yet not cavernous—corner office, looking south and west. The cool, elegant flanks of the Freedom Tower filled one of the windows, seemingly so close D’Agosta could almost touch it. A man came around from behind a black granite desk, which looked like slabs of stone stacked as if for a tomb. He was thin, tall, and ascetic, very handsome, with black hair graying at the temples, a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard, and steel-rimmed glasses. He wore a white cable-knit turtleneck of thick cashmere, black jeans, and black shoes. The monochromatic effect was dramatic. He didn’t look like a man who had just handed someone his ass on a platter. But he didn’t look all that friendly, either.

  “About time,” he said, pointing to a sitting area to one side of the desk, not as a gesture of offering but as an order. “My daughter has been gone for four days. And finally I’m graced with a visit from the authorities. Sit down and tell me what’s going on.”

  D’Agosta glanced at Pendergast and saw he was not going to sit down.

  “Mr. Ozmian,” Pendergast said. “When did you last see your daughter?”

  “I’m not going over all this yet again. I’ve told the story over the phone half a dozen—”

  “Just two questions, please. When did you last see your daughter?”

  “At dinner. Four nights ago. She went out afterward with friends. Never came home.”

  “And you called the police when, exactly?”

  Ozmian sighed. “The following morning, around ten.”

  “Weren’t you accustomed to her coming in late?”

  “Not that late. What exactly…”

  The man’s expression changed. He must, D’Agosta thought, have seen something in their faces. This guy was sharp as a tack. “What is it? You’ve found her?”

  D’Agosta took a deep breath and was about to speak when Pendergast, to his great surprise, beat him to it.

  “Mr. Ozmian,” said Pendergast, in his quietest, smoothest voice, “we have bad news: your daughter is dead.”

  The man looked as if he’d just been shot. He actually staggered and had to grip the side of a chair in order to keep himself upright. His face instantly drained of all color; his lips moved, but only an unintelligible whisper came out. He was like a dead man standing.

  He swayed again and D’Agosta took a step over to him, grasping his arm and shoulder. “Sir, let’s sit down.”

  The man nodded mutely and allowed himself to be steered into a chair. He felt as light as a feather in D’Agosta’s grasp.

  Ozmian’s lips formed the word how, but with only a rush of air coming out.

  “She was murdered,” said Pendergast, his voice still very quiet. “Her body was found last night in an abandoned garage in Queens. We were able to make an identification this morning. We are here now because we wanted you to hear officially before the newspapers break the story—as they will at any moment.” Despite the baldness of his words, Pendergast’s voice managed to convey a depth of compassion and sorrow.

  Again, the man’s lips moved. “Murdered?” came the single strangled word.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “She was shot through the heart. Death was instantaneous.”

  “Shot? Shot?” The color was starting to come back into his face.

  “We will know more in a few days. I’m afraid you have the task of identifying the body. We will of course be glad to escort you there.”

  The man’s face was full of confusion and horror. “But…murdered? Why?”

  “The investigation is only a few hours old. It appears she was killed four days ago and her body left in the garage.”

  Now Ozmian grasped the sides of his chair and rose again to his feet. His face had gone from white to pink and was now turning a fiery red. He stood there for a moment, looking from Pendergast to D’Agosta and back again. D’Agosta could see he was recovering his wits; he sensed the guy was about to explode.

  “You,” he began. “You bastards.”

  Silence.

  “Where was the FBI these past four days? This was your fault—your fault!” His voice, starting out in a whisper, crescendoed by the end into a roar, spittle flecking his lips.

  Pendergast interrupted him very quietly. “Mr. Ozmian, she was probably already dead when you reported her missing. But I can assure you that everything was done to find her. Everything.”

  “Oh, you bungling dickheads always say that, you lying sons of—” His voice choked up, and it was almost as if he’d swallowed too large a piece of food; he coughed and spluttered, face turning purple. With a roar of fury he took a step forward, seized a heavy sculpture from a nearby glass table, raised it, and slammed it onto the floor. Swaying, he shambled to a whiteboard and knocked it aside, kicked over a lamp, and grabbed some kind of award made of ceramic from his own desk and heaved it down on the glass table; both shattered with a terrific crash, sending up a spray of glass splinters and clay chips that fell back like rain onto the granite floor.

  At this, their escort in the dark-gray suit came running in. “What’s going on?” he asked wildly, stunned to see the ruin strewn across the office and his boss so unmanned. He looked frantically at Ozmian, then at Pendergast and D’Agosta.

  His entrance seemed to trigger something in Ozmian and he halted his rampage, standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard. His forehead had been nicked by a piece of flying glass, and a dot of blood oozed from the wound.

  “Mr. Ozmian—?”

  Ozmian turned to the man and spoke, his voice hoarse but calm. “Get out. Lock the door. Find Isabel. Nobody comes in but her.”

  “Yes, sir.” He almost ran out.

  Ozmian suddenly burst into tears, racked by hysterical sobs. D’Agosta, after hesitating, finally stepped forward and grasped his arm, again helping him to sit down in the chair, where he crumpled up, h
ugging himself and rocking back and forth, sobbing and gasping.

  A minute or two later, he began to pull out of it. He jerked a handkerchief from his pocket, carefully wiped his face, and collected himself for a long moment, sitting in silence.

  In a flat voice, he spoke. “Tell me everything.”

  D’Agosta cleared his throat and took over. He explained how two kids had found the body in the garage, hidden in leaves, and how the homicide division jumped on it. He had put on a full CSU team, headed by the best in the business, and he described how more than forty detectives were now working the case. The entire homicide division was giving this its highest priority, with the full cooperation of the FBI. He laid it on as thick as he dared as the man listened, face bowed.

  “Do you have any theories about who did it?” he asked when D’Agosta was done.

  “Not yet, but we will. We’re going to find the person who did this; you have my word.” He faltered, wondering how he was going to tell him about the decapitation. He couldn’t quite seem to work in that detail, but before this meeting was over he knew that he had to; the newspapers would be full of it. And, most awful of all, the man would be asked to identify a headless body—the body of his daughter. They knew it was her from the fingerprints, but the physical ID process was still the law, even if, in this case, it seemed unnecessary and cruel.

  “After you identify the body,” D’Agosta went on, “if you feel able, we would like to interview you—the sooner the better. We’ll need to learn about her acquaintances that you know of, names and contact info; we’ll want to hear about any difficulties in her life, or in your business or personal life—anything that might possibly connect to the killing. As unpleasant as all these questions will be, I’m sure you understand why we have to ask them. The more we know, the sooner we’ll catch the person or persons responsible. Naturally you may have an attorney present if you wish, but it’s not necessary.”

  Ozmian hesitated. “Now?”

  “We’d prefer to interview you up at Police Plaza, if you don’t mind. After you’ve…made the identification. Perhaps later this afternoon, if you feel capable?”

  “Look, I…I’m ready to help. Murdered…Oh, God help me…”

  “There’s one other thing,” said Pendergast in a low voice that instantly caused Ozmian to pause. The tycoon raised his face from his hands and looked at Pendergast, fear in his eyes.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You should be prepared to identify your daughter by bodily markings—dermatological peculiarities, tattoos, surgical scars. Or by means other than her body. Her clothing and possessions, for example.”

  Ozmian blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Your daughter was found decapitated. We…have not yet recovered the head.”

  Ozmian stared at Pendergast for a long moment. Then his eyes swiveled over, seeking out D’Agosta.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “That is a question we would like very much to answer,” said Pendergast.

  Ozmian remained sunken in the chair. Finally he said: “Give the address of the morgue to my assistant on the way out and the location where you wish to question me. I’ll be there at two PM.”

  “Very well,” said Pendergast.

  “Now leave me.”

  5

  MARC CANTUCCI JERKED awake just as the airplane in his dream was about to plunge into the ocean. He lay there in the dark, his racing heart slowing as the familiar and comfortable surroundings of his bedroom took shape around him. He was damn tired of this same dream, in which he was in a jet hijacked by terrorists. They had invaded the cockpit and locked the door, and moments later the plane violently nosed down and went into a sickening plunge under full power toward the distant stormy sea, while out of his window he watched the black water rushing closer and closer, knowing the end was inevitable.

  He lay in bed, wondering if he should turn on the light and read for a bit, or try to go back to sleep. What time was it? The room was very dark and the steel shutters on the windows were down, making it impossible to get a sense of the hour. He reached for his cell phone, which he kept on his bedside table. Where the hell was it? He couldn’t have forgotten to leave it there; his habits were as regular as a clock. But maybe he had, because it sure as hell wasn’t at hand.

  Now too irritated to sleep, he sat up and turned on the bedside light, looking around for the phone. He threw off the covers, got out of bed, examined the floor around the table where it might have fallen, and finally went over to the wooden valet rack where he had hung his pants and jacket. A quick check showed it wasn’t there, either. This was becoming more than annoying.

  He didn’t keep a bedside clock, but the alarm system had an LCD clock on it, so he went over and slid open the panel. And now he had a most unpleasant surprise: the panel was dark, the LCD screen blank, the alarm-activated light off. And yet the power in the house was on and the CCTV system, beside the alarm panel, was still working. Very strange.

  For the first time, Cantucci felt a twinge of fear. The alarm system was the latest and best money could buy; it not only was hardwired into the house but had its own power supply and no less than two backups in case of power failures or technical problems, along with landline, cellular, and satphone connections to the off-site alarm company.

  But here it was—not working.

  Cantucci, the former New Jersey AG who had brought down the Otranto crime family before turning mob lawyer himself for the rival Bonifacci family, and who had received more blood-oaths of vengeance than he could count, was naturally concerned about his security.

  The CCTV screen was working just fine, doing its usual thing, automatically cycling through all the cameras in the building. There were twenty-five of them, five for each floor of the brownstone in which he lived in, by himself, on East Sixty-Sixth Street. He had a bodyguard who stayed in the house with him during the day, but the man left when the steel shutters automatically descended at seven every evening, turning the house into an impregnable mini-fortress.

  As he watched the cameras cycle through each floor, he suddenly saw something bizarre. Punching a key to stop the cycling, he looked at the image with horror. The camera in question covered the main front hallway of the house—and it revealed an intruder. It was a man, dressed in a black leotard, with a black mask over his face. He was carrying a compound bow with four feathered arrows racked in it. A fifth arrow was fitted into the bow and he carried it ahead of him, as if ready to shoot. The bastard looked as if he thought he was Batman and Robin Hood rolled into one.

  This was just fucking crazy. How did the guy get past the steel shutters? And how did he get in without setting off the alarm?

  Cantucci punched the instant-alarm panic button, but of course it didn’t work. And his cell phone was gone—a coincidence? He reached for a nearby landline phone and put the receiver to his ear. Dead.

  As the man moved out of the camera’s field of view, Cantucci quickly punched in the next camera. At least the CCTV was working.

  Now that he thought of it, he wondered why the man hadn’t disabled that, as well.

  The figure was heading for the elevator. As Cantucci watched, the figure paused before it, then reached out a black-gloved hand and pushed a button. Cantucci heard the mechanism hum as the elevator descended from its position on the fifth floor, where his bedroom was, to the first.

  Cantucci immediately mastered his fright. Six attempts had been made on his life; all had failed. This one was the craziest yet, and it would fail, too. The electricity was still on; he could freeze the elevator with the push of a button, leaving the man trapped—but no. No.

  Moving fast, Cantucci whipped on a bathrobe, opened his bedside drawer, and took out a Beretta M9 and an extra fifteen-round magazine, which he dropped into the pocket of the robe. The gun already had a full magazine with a round in the chamber—he kept it that way—but he checked anyway. All good.

  He quietly but swiftly passed out of the bedroom i
nto the narrow hall beyond and positioned himself in front of the elevator. It was now rising again. He could hear the clinking and humming of the machinery, and the elevator numbers lit up, showing what floor it was on: three…four…five…

  He waited, in firing-ready position, until he heard the elevator shudder to a stop. And then, before the doors could open, he fired into them, the heavy 9mm Parabellum rounds punching through the thin steel with plenty of killing power left on the other side, the noise deafening in the enclosed space. He counted the rounds as he fired, rapidly but accurately—one, two, three, four, five, six—moving in a pattern across and down that would be sure to hit anyone inside. He had plenty of rounds left to finish the job once the doors opened.

  The doors slid open. To Cantucci’s great shock, the elevator was empty. He ducked inside, firing a couple of rounds upward through the elevator ceiling just to make sure the man wasn’t hiding up there, and then he punched the STOP button, holding the elevator on that floor so it could no longer be used.

  Son of a bitch. The only other way for the killer to get up to his floor was by the stairs. The man had a bow and arrow. Cantucci, on the other hand, had a handgun—and he was an expert in its use. He made a quick decision: Don’t wait, go on the attack. The stairs were narrow, with a landing between each floor—a poor environment to get off an arrow shot, but ideal for handgun use at close quarters.

  Of course it was possible the intruder had a gun, as well, but he sure as hell seemed intent on using his bow. In any case, Cantucci would take no chances.

  Firearm at the ready, he raced down the stairs in his bare feet, making almost no noise, ready to fire. But by the time he’d descended as far as the second floor, he realized the man wasn’t on the stairs at all. He must’ve come up, then exited onto one of the lower floors. But which one? Where the fuck was he?

  Cantucci exited the stairwell at the second floor and, covering the corners, went into the hall. It was clear. One end opened through an archway to the living room; the other ended in a closed bathroom door.