Two Graves

by Douglas Preston

  “I love the windows in these old skyscrapers,” Pendergast said. “They actually open. And you were right about the view.”

  Weber clung desperately to the sides of the window, gasping with terror.

  Reaching around with the butt of his gun, Pendergast smashed the fingers of Weber’s left hand, breaking bones, then pounded on his right. With a cry, Weber felt himself shoved backward into open space, his arms flailing uselessly, his legs still hooked over the windowsill. Pendergast prevented his fall by grabbing his tie, holding him out at arm’s length from the window.

  Frantically Weber pressed his calves against the sill, choking and fighting to maintain a grip.

  “A man should always know his wardrobe—and his wardrobe’s limitations,” Pendergast went on, his voice still light and conversational. “My Jay Kos ties, for example, are made of Italian sevenfold silk. As strong as they are beautiful.”

  He gave Weber’s tie a rough jerk. Weber gasped as one leg began to slip from the sill. He scrabbled to regain his footing. He tried to speak, but the tie was choking him.

  “Other manufacturers sometimes cut corners,” Pendergast went on. “You know, like single stitching, only two folds.” He gave the tie another tug. “So I want you to be sure of the quality of your tie before I ask you my question again.”

  Jerk.

  With a harsh sound, Weber’s tie began to rip. He stared at it, crying out involuntarily.

  “Oh, dear,” Pendergast said, disappointed. “Brioni? I don’t think so. Perhaps you’ve been deceived by a forgery. Or you’ve been cutting corners, lying to me about your haberdashers.”

  Jerk.

  The tie was now torn halfway across its fat end. From the corner of his eye, Weber could see a crowd gathering below, pointing upward, distant shouts. He felt his head start to swim. Panic overwhelmed him.

  Jerk. Rip.

  “All right!” Weber screamed, scrabbling at Pendergast’s hand with his own broken and twisted fingers. “I’ll talk!”

  “Make it quick. This cheap tie isn’t going to last much longer.”

  “She’s, she’s leaving the country tonight.”

  “Where? How?”

  “Private plane. Fort Lauderdale. Pettermars Airport. Nine o’clock.”

  With a final, brutal tug, Pendergast pulled Weber back into his office.

  “Scheiße!” Weber cried as he sprawled across the floor, in a fetal position, cradling his ruined hands. “What if my tie had torn completely?”

  The man’s smile simply widened. And suddenly Weber understood—this was a man as far on the edge as a person could be while remaining sane.

  Pendergast withdrew a step. “If you’re telling the truth, and I recover her without incident, you don’t have to worry about seeing me again. But if you have deceived me, I’ll pay you another visit.”

  In the act of turning toward the door, Pendergast stopped. He loosened his own necktie, unknotted it, threw it toward Weber. “Here’s the real thing. Remember what I said about cutting corners.” And with a final, cold smile, he slipped out of the office.

  + Forty-Five Hours

  PETTERMARS AIRPORT. PENDERGAST HAD JUST UNDER SIX hours to go seven hundred miles.

  A quick check of the local airports showed no feasible commercial flights and no chartered planes available on such short notice. He would have to make the trip by car.

  He had flown into Atlanta and taken a cab from the airport. He would need to rent a vehicle. Locating a specialty rental agency a few blocks down Peachtree, he selected a brand-new storm-red Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. He contracted for a one-way trip to Miami, with full insurance coverage, at a staggering price.

  Even though rush hour had not yet begun, the notorious Atlanta traffic was already choking the freeway interchanges. Merging onto I-75 south, Pendergast quickly pressed the accelerator to the floor, passing through a construction zone at high speed by sticking to the right-hand shoulder. As he had hoped, the ear-shattering roar of the Mercedes’s ferocious 563-horse engine attracted attention and helped clear the way for him. He blasted along the shoulder at close to a hundred miles an hour until he passed a speed trap.

  Excellent.

  A Georgia state trooper came shooting out from behind an embankment, sirens wailing and lightbar flashing. Pendergast pulled over so fast the cop almost rear-ended him. Even before the trooper could call in the license plate, Pendergast was out of the car with his shield held high, striding toward the trooper’s vehicle and motioning with his hand to lower his window.

  Reaching the vehicle, Pendergast pushed his shield inside. “Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York office. I’m on an emergency mission of the highest priority.”

  The trooper looked from Pendergast, to the shield, to the Mercedes, and back again. “Um, yes, sir.”

  “I had to improvise the car. Listen to me carefully. I’m on my way to Pettermars Airport, outside Fort Lauderdale, by way of Interstates Seventy-Five, Ten, and Ninety-Five.”

  The state trooper stared at him, struggling to keep up.

  “I want you to radio ahead and authorize my rapid and unrestricted passage along this route. No stops. And no escorts—I’ll be traveling too fast. My vehicle is somewhat recognizable, so this should not be a problem. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. But our jurisdiction ends once you leave Georgia.”

  “Have your commanding major call his counterpart in Florida.”

  “But perhaps the FBI’s New York office—”

  “As I said, this is an emergency situation. There’s no time. Just do it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pendergast sprinted back to his car and laid a hundred yards of rubber getting back up to speed, leaving the state trooper sitting in a blue cloud.

  By four o’clock Pendergast was past Macon, arrowing due south. Cars, road signs, scenery passed by in brief smudges of color. Suddenly, coming around a bend, he saw a line of red brake lights ahead: two semis were driving abreast, crawling up a hill, the one on the left trying to pass the one on the right by inching ahead up the rise, slowing everyone behind—a despicable act on a two-lane freeway.

  Driving once again on and off the shoulder, flashing his lights, Pendergast passed the series of cars until he was directly behind the left-hand truck. It studiously ignored the blasts of his horn and the flashing of lights—if anything, it seemed to slow a little, out of spite.

  The freeway curved to the right, and—as often happened—the truck in the slow lane began to drift into the shoulder. Pendergast used this opportunity to move himself back into the left-hand shoulder. As he anticipated, the trucker in front of him moved left as well, to block his passage. This was his chance. He decelerated slightly, then—switching the transmission into manual mode—he yawed abruptly right into the gap created between the two trucks, using his paddle shifters to scream from fifty miles per hour to ninety in three seconds, darting past the trucks and shooting forward onto the empty freeway ahead. He was rewarded by twin angry blasts of air horns.

  He drove on without stopping, occasionally moving into the left or right shoulder to pass vehicles, honking and flashing his lights at the more recalcitrant drivers, sometimes terrifying them into changing lanes by coming up behind them at high speed and not braking until the last possible moment. By five thirty he was past Valdosta and crossing the border into Florida.

  He knew that the most direct route was problematic—heading as it did through Orlando and its tangle of clogged, tourist-filled interchanges—so instead he turned east on I-10, making for the Atlantic coast. It was a less-than-satisfactory alternative, but it was nevertheless the one with the greatest probability of success. At Jacksonville, he turned south again onto I-95.

  Outside Daytona Beach, he stopped for gas, flinging a hundred-dollar bill at the surprised attendant and screeching off without waiting for change.

  As the evening lengthened, the traffic on the freeway began to thin, and the long-haul trucks drove faster. Pendergast dodged
between them—top down, the night wind helping to keep him awake—pushing the vehicle harder. Titusville, Palm Bay, and Jupiter shot past, mere blurs of light. As he came into Boca Raton, he activated the GPS system and punched in his destination.

  He had covered the distance at an average of one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour.

  Pettermars Executive General Airport was located ten miles west of Coral Springs, carved out of the eastern flanks of the Everglades. As he approached it through the sprawling Fort Lauderdale suburbs, Pendergast could make out a small tower, a set of wind socks, the twinkle of runway lights.

  Five minutes to nine. The airport runway came into view, beyond a ragged field of switchgrass. A single-engine, six-seater propeller plane was warming up outside the closest hangar.

  Pendergast pulled in front of the FBO with a squeal of brakes, sprang from the car, and ran as fast as his limp would allow into the low, yellow-painted building.

  “Where is that plane headed?” he asked the lone airport administrator behind the desk, pulling out his shield. “It’s an FBI emergency.”

  The man hesitated only a moment. “They filed a flight plan to Cancun.”

  Cancun. Probably a false destination. However, it indicated the plane was headed south, over the border.

  “Any other flights scheduled for this evening?”

  “A Lear, incoming from Biloxi in ninety minutes. Is there something I can help you with—?”

  But the administrator was talking to an empty room. Pendergast had disappeared.

  Exiting the FBO, Pendergast ran back to the Mercedes and slipped inside. The plane was moving toward the runway now, its engine rumbling. A security fence surrounded the hangar and the taxiway; its set of chain-link gates was closed. There was no more time: Pendergast aimed the car at the gates and stamped on the accelerator. With a roar, the vehicle shot forward, taking out the gates and sending them tumbling onto the tarmac.

  The airplane was just beginning to lumber down the runway, slowly picking up speed. Pendergast drew level with it and looked into the cabin. The pilot was striking: tall and very muscular, with a deep tan and perfectly snow-white hair. The person sitting in the copilot’s seat glanced out the window at the Mercedes. It was one of the joggers who had apprehended Helen in Central Park. Recognizing Pendergast, the man quickly drew a gun and fired out the window.

  Pendergast sheared away from the shot, then swerved in close to the wing, placing himself in the shooter’s blind spot. As he adjusted the car’s speed to match that of the aircraft, he briefly considered circling in front to cut it off—but that might easily lead to the plane losing control. Helen was on board. Instead he edged the car even closer to the wing, still pacing it. Opening the door, he waited, his body tense—and then launched himself from the moving car onto the right landing gear assembly. His timing was just a fraction off target and he slid down the struts, feet dragging for a moment on the tarmac; with a mighty heave he pulled himself from the humming asphalt to a more secure position, wincing from the pain of his injured leg.

  The plane was rapidly accelerating, moving upwards of thirty knots, and the wind whipped at his hair and clothes. Pendergast hoisted himself up the gear assembly until he was directly beneath the wing. He leaned forward, taking his gun from its holster. He could just make out the form of the jogger in the copilot’s seat; any view of the other passengers was blocked by the wing.

  The end of the runway was in sight now, with nothing but switchgrass and swamp beyond; the pilot appeared to be having trouble compensating for the extra weight and drag. Pendergast leaned forward still farther. The jogger stuck his head out the window, peering back into the darkness, looking for him. Just as the plane became airborne, Pendergast took careful aim and—extending himself almost horizontally from the landing gear—shot the man full in the face.

  The man screamed as his head snapped back. His body spasmed violently, involuntarily; the door flew open and the body tumbled outward, smacking into the tarmac like a side of beef just as the plane lifted off. Then the plane was airborne, skimming over the marsh below. The wheels would come up at any moment.

  Pendergast thought quickly. The plane was already thirty feet above the ground. He holstered his gun, balanced himself on the horizontal landing strut beside the wheel, pulled a fountain pen from his pocket, and stabbed into the tiny flap of the fuel sump at the bottom of the cowling. Then—just as the hum of the wheel hydraulics began—he timed himself for a leap from the landing gear. Keeping himself at the correct entry angle, he hit the marsh with a terrific splash, plunging into the water and underlying mud.

  + Fifty-Three Hours

  PENDERGAST SAT ON A STEEL STANCHION AT THE END OF Pettermar Airport’s runway 29-R. The night was dark and starless, and the only illumination came from the parallel lines of runway lights that led off toward the horizon. The fall from the plane had reopened his gunshot wound. He had managed to stem the flow of blood and done his best to rinse the foul mud away. It would need closer medical attention and antibiotic treatment, but right now he had more important things to do.

  Over his shoulder, several hundred feet in the air, another light slowly became visible: an approaching plane. It resolved into a set of running and warning lights. A minute later, a Learjet 60 hurtled past some twenty feet over Pendergast’s head, its reverse thrusters screaming as it prepared to land, the wake turbulence of the jet’s passing hurling up a violent cloud of dust.

  Pendergast took no notice.

  He had searched the body of the jogger, which had come to rest hidden in the tall grass at the end of the runway. Nothing. There had been a flurry of activity on the airfield triggered by his bashing down of the gate. The police had come, searched the area, impounded the Mercedes, and gone. They had found neither him nor the body.

  Now everything had returned to normal; all was quiet. He rose and, keeping well within the darkness of the grass, circled the airstrip to an ancient pay phone at the gas station on the airfield road, which—miraculously—worked. He put in a call to D’Agosta.

  “Where are you?” came the voice from New York.

  “Not important. Put out an APB on a Cessna 133 single-engine plane, call letters November-eight-seven-niner-foxtrot-Charlie. It was heading into Mexico with a flight plan for Cancun, but it will be forced to land within a—” he thought a moment—“two-hundred-mile radius of Fort Lauderdale, due to a slow leak in the fuel line.”

  “How do you know it has a leak?”

  “Because I introduced it. A hollow plastic tube, wedged into the fuel sump. There’s nothing they can do in the cockpit to reverse it.”

  “You’ve got to tell me what the hell’s going on—”

  “Call me back at this number when you get a hit.”

  “Wait, Pendergast, Jesus—”

  Pendergast hung up. He left the lighted area of the phone booth, retreating to the darkness of a vacant lot overgrown with palmettos. He lay down on the ground—the loss of blood had made him weaker—and there he waited.

  Thirty minutes later he heard the phone ring. He got up, made it to the booth, his head spinning. “Yes?”

  “We got a hit on that APB. The plane landed maybe ten minutes ago at a tiny strip outside Andalusia, Alabama. Tore up the landing gear, too.”

  “Go on.”

  “They must have called ahead, because a van was waiting. There was only one person on the field, a guy drinking coffee in the hangar. He saw a bunch of people bundle into the van, then they hauled ass, heading in the direction of the—” a pause—“Conecuh National Forest. Ditched the plane, left it right there on the runway.”

  “Did the onlooker get the plates of the van?”

  “Nah. It was dark.”

  “Alert the Alabama Highway Patrol. And put out an APB at all the border crossings—they’re headed into Mexico. I’ll call you later. My cellular phone is out of commission.”

  A reluctant pause. “You got it.”

  “Thank you.” Pendergast
hung up.

  He sat perhaps another ten minutes, still motionless, in the humid darkness. Then he dialed another number.

  “Yo,” came the high, breathy voice of Mime, the reclusive hacker of questionable ethics whose only contact with the outside world was Pendergast himself.

  “Anything?”

  “Dunno. It’s not much. I was hoping to get more before I called you…” His high voice paused dramatically, teasingly.

  “I have no time for games, Mime.”

  “Right,” said Mime hastily. “I’ve been listening in on the electronic eavesdropping of our friends in Fort Meade—monitoring the monitors, you might say.” He chuckled. “And they do scrutinize domestic calls and e-mails, you know, despite protests to the contrary. I isolated a piece of cell phone chatter that I think is from this group you call Der Bund.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Impossible to be one hundred percent sure, my man. The transmissions are encrypted, and all I was able to figure out was that they’re in German. Cracked a few proper nouns here and there. According to the government’s triangulation of the cell signal, it’s been moving fast across central and northwestern Florida.”

  “How fast?”

  “Plane-fast.”

  “When?”

  “Seventy minutes ago.”

  “That must be the plane that just landed in Alabama. What else?”

  “Nothing except for a brief unencrypted burst in Spanish. That burst mentioned a place: Cananea.”

  “Cananea,” Pendergast whispered. “Where is that?”

  “A town in Sonora, Mexico… in the middle of nowhere, thirty miles south of the border.”

  “Sketch me a picture of the town.”

  “My research indicates it has a population of thirty thou. It was once a huge mining center—copper—and it was the site of a bloody strike that helped launch the Mexican Revolution. Now it hosts a couple of maquiladora factories on the north side and that’s about it.”