Blue Labyrinth

by Douglas Preston

  The tech stared at it for a long time. “It looks sort of like him.”

  “We’re just getting started. Let’s go feature by feature. We’ll start with the eyebrows.”

  Bonomo clicked on a window containing a catalog of facial features and selected BROWS. A horizontal scroll of small boxes containing representations of eyebrows appeared. Sandoval picked the best match, and then a bunch more appeared, all variations on that, and Sandoval picked the best match again. D’Agosta watched as Bonomo went through the exhaustive process of winnowing down the look of the suspect’s eyebrows: shape, thickness, taper, distance between, on and on. Finally, when both Bonomo and Sandoval appeared satisfied, they moved on to the eyes themselves.

  “So what’s this perp supposed to have done?” Bonomo asked D’Agosta.

  “He’s a person of interest in the murder of a lab technician at the Natural History Museum.”

  “Yeah? Of interest how?”

  D’Agosta recalled Bonomo’s incurable curiosity about the details behind the faces he had to create. “He used a phony identity to access the Museum’s collections, and perhaps kill a technician. The identity actually belonged to this college professor in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Doddering old fart with trifocals. He almost soiled his underwear when he learned someone had stolen his identity and was now wanted for questioning in a murder.”

  Bonomo let out another loud bray. “I can just see it.”

  D’Agosta hovered as Bonomo went through the interminable process of sharpening the nose, lips, jaw, chin, cheekbones, ears, hair, skin color and pigment, and a dozen other features. But he had a good witness in Sandoval, who had seen the fake scientist on more than one occasion. Finally, Bonomo clicked a button and the Identi-CAD program brought up a series of computer-generated variations of the final face from which Sandoval could choose. Some shading and blending, a few additional tweaks, and then Bonomo sat back with an air of satisfaction like that of an artist completing a portrait.

  The computer seemed to have frozen. “What’s it doing now?” D’Agosta asked.

  “Rendering the composite.”

  A few minutes passed. Then the computer gave a chirrup and a small window appeared on the screen that read RENDERING PROCESS COMPLETE. Bonomo clicked a button and a nearby printer stirred into life, spooling out a sheet containing a grayscale image. Bonomo plucked it from the tray, glanced over it, then showed it to Sandoval.

  “That him?” he asked.

  Sandoval looked at the picture in amazement. “My God. That’s the guy! Unbelievable. How’d you do that?”

  “You did it,” said Bonomo, clapping him on the shoulder.

  D’Agosta peered over Bonomo’s picture at the sheet. The facial portrait it contained was almost photographic in its clarity.

  “Terry, you’re the man,” he murmured.

  Bonomo beamed, then printed half a dozen more copies and passed them over.

  D’Agosta squared up the sheets on the edge of the table and put them in his case. “Email me the image, okay?”

  “Will do, Vinnie.”

  As D’Agosta left with Sandoval in tow, he thought that now it was just a question of trying to match this sketch to the twelve thousand people who came and went from the Museum on the day of the murder. That was going to be fun.

  Interrogation Room B of the California State Holding Facility at Indio was a spacious room with beige cinder-block walls and a single table with four chairs: three on one side, one on the other. A boom mike descended from the ceiling, and video cameras sprouted from two corners. Along the far wall ran a dark rectangle of one-way glass.

  Special Agent Pendergast sat in the center of the three chairs. His hands rested on the table, fingers interlocked. The room was perfectly silent. His pale eyes were fixed at some faraway point in space, and he remained as still as a marble statue.

  Now sounds of footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. There was a rolling noise as a security bolt was drawn back, then the door opened inward. Pendergast glanced over to see John Spandau, senior corrections officer, enter the room.

  Pendergast rose, a little stiff from the previous day’s struggle, and extended his hand. “Mr. Spandau,” he said.

  Spandau smiled faintly, nodded. “He’s ready if you are.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “Not a word.”

  “I see. Bring him in, by all means.”

  Spandau stepped back out into the corridor. There was a brief murmur of conversation. Then Pendergast’s attacker from the Salton Fontainebleau entered, wearing an orange jumpsuit, escorted by two prison guards. The man had a cast on one wrist and a brace on one knee, and he walked slowly, with a limp. He was in cuffs and leg-chains. The guards directed him to the lone chair on the far side of the table, sat him down.

  “Do you want us to be present?” Spandau asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “They’ll be right outside if you need anything.” Spandau nodded to the guards, then all three men left the interrogation room. There was the sound of the security bolt sliding home, then a key being turned in a lock.

  Pendergast’s gaze rested on the closed door for a moment. Then he sat down and turned to regard the man opposite the table. The man returned the look. His face was absolutely impassive. He was tall and muscular, with a broad face, high forehead, and heavy brows.

  For a long time, the two men just stared at each other without speaking. Finally, Pendergast broke the silence. “I’m in a position to help you,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”

  The man did not reply.

  “You’re a victim, just as much as I am. You were as surprised as I was when the sedative agent was injected into that room.” His tone was gentle, understanding, almost deferential. “You’ve been made into—in the parlance of the day—a ‘fall guy’ or ‘stooge.’ Not very agreeable. Now, I don’t know why you undertook this job, why you agreed to attack me, or how you were to be compensated. I only know that it must have been a job, not any personal grievance, because I’ve never seen you before in my life. You were set up, played, used—and then thrown to the wolves.” He paused. “I told you that I could help. And I will—if you tell me who you are and who you’re working for. That’s all I want from you: two names. I shall do the rest.”

  The man merely looked back at him with the same impassive expression.

  “If you are maintaining your silence out of some misguided sense of loyalty, let me clarify: you have already been sacrificed. Do you understand? Whoever your puppeteer is—whoever has been guiding your actions—clearly meant from the very beginning for you to be incapacitated as well as myself. So why remain silent?”

  Still, silence.

  “Let me tell you a story. One of my fellow agents put a mobster in jail seven years ago for extortion and blackmail. The mobster was given many opportunities to provide the names of his bosses in exchange for leniency. But he remained a loyal soldier. He did the whole stretch, all seven years of his sentence. This man was released just two weeks ago. The first thing he did was go home to his family, who greeted him with tears of joy. Less than an hour later, he was shot to death by the very mobsters he’d gone to prison to protect. They acted to make sure his mouth stayed closed… despite his seven years of loyal silence.”

  As Pendergast spoke, the man blinked infrequently, but made no other movement.

  “Are you keeping silent out of the hope you will be rewarded? That will never happen.”

  Nothing. Now Pendergast fell silent for a time, staring appraisingly at the man across the table. At last, he spoke again.

  “Perhaps you are protecting your family. Perhaps you fear that, if you speak, they will be killed.”

  The man did not respond to this, either.

  Pendergast rose. “If this is the case, then the only hope for your family and for you is to speak. We can protect them. Otherwise, both you and they will be lost—utterly. Trust me: I’ve seen it happen many times.”

  Some
thing flashed in the man’s eyes—perhaps.

  “Good day.”

  With this, he called for the guards. The door was unlocked, the bolt thrust back, and the guards entered, along with Spandau. Pendergast remained standing while the two guards led the prisoner away.

  Pendergast hesitated. “I’ll be heading back to New York. Will you arrange for me to obtain his mug shots, fingerprints, DNA, and the medical report from the admitting doctor?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ve been most cooperative.” He paused. “Tell me, Mr. Spandau—you are something of a wine connoisseur, are you not?”

  The man looked back at him with veiled surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  “A pamphlet detailing Bordeaux futures on your desk, which I noticed yesterday.”

  Spandau hesitated. “I am a bit of an enthusiast, I admit.”

  “You’re familiar, then, with Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I’ve never tasted it.” Spandau shook his head. “Nor will I, on a correction officer’s salary.”

  “Pity. It just so happens that this morning I was able to procure a case of the 2000 vintage. An excellent year, quite drinkable already. I’ve arranged for it to be delivered to your home.”

  Spandau frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I would take it as a great personal favor if you could call me right away should our friend start to talk. All for a good cause—solving this case.”

  Spandau considered this in silence.

  “And if you could arrange for a transcript to be made of what he says—officially, of course—that would be simply icing on the cake. It’s possible I might be of assistance. Here’s my card.”

  Spandau remained still another moment. And then a smile spread across his normally unemotional features. “Agent Pendergast,” he said, “I believe it would be my pleasure.”

  Leaving the prison, Pendergast drove south from Indio. It was late afternoon when he pulled his car off the main road and parked beneath the cruel ridgeline of the Scarrit Hills.

  He climbed to the crest and gazed eastward. Between him and the dead shore of the Salton Sea lay the Fontainebleau, its gaudy, ragged lines dwarfed by the bleak expanse. All was still. From horizon to horizon, stretching to infinity, there was not the slightest sign of life. He had only the faint moaning of the wind for company.

  Now Pendergast looked northward, toward the gullied track that led to the Golden Spider Mine. The ill-disguised tire tracks he had noted the day before were gone, leaving nothing but an apparently unbroken crust of salt.

  He walked down the far side of the foothills and approached the resort, just as he had done the night before. His footprints raised plumes of salt dust as he walked. And yet there was no sign of his tracks from the previous evening—the steps leading up to the veranda, and the veranda itself, appeared to have lain untouched for decades.

  He turned away from the Salton Fontainebleau and walked the half mile north to the main entrance of the Golden Spider Mine. Its ancient door was half-buried in a wash of salt. Miniature salt dunes, formed by dust devils, were scattered along the gullied approach. It was as it had appeared from the ridgeline: the salt crust seemed undisturbed.

  Pendergast scrutinized the entrance from a variety of angles, walking first here, then there, pausing now and then to stare with an appraising eye. And then he knelt and very carefully examined the crust beneath his feet, taking a tiny whisk from a pocket of his suit jacket and brushing the surface—gently, gently—gradually exposing the lighter-colored salt underneath. And now he saw, finally, the faintest traces of activity, so skillfully erased that there would be no way to deconstruct or glean any information from them. He stared for a long time, marveling at the obvious effort, before rising again.

  The wind cried and moaned, stirring his hair and ruffling the lapels of his jacket. For the briefest of moments, the dry air was touched by a pleasing scent of lilies.

  Turning away from the mine, Pendergast continued north, walking the two miles to the outskirts of the ghost town of Salton Palms. It looked just as it had the day before: broken streetlights, ruined houses, gaping windows, rusting birdbaths, empty swimming pools. But the cobbled-together shack with the tar-paper roof that had stood at the south edge of town was gone.

  Pendergast walked over to where it had been—where, just the day before, he had knocked on the rude door and spoken to Cayute. Now there was nothing but dirt and patches of desiccated grass.

  It was as if everything—the resort, the mine—had sat here, unvisited, untouched, for years. As if the old man and his worthless possessions had never existed.

  It was as if it had all been a dream.

  For a brief moment Pendergast swayed, a trifle unsteadily, as the wind worried and tugged at his ankles. And then he turned southward and began the trek back through the salt, dust, and sand to his rental car.

  Yes,” said the junior curator. “Sure, I remember him. He was working with Marsala, maybe two months ago. He and Marsala seemed like buddies, which was kind of unusual.”

  “That guy on the screen look like him?” asked Bonomo.

  “Almost exactly. Except…” The curator stared at the laptop screen. “I think his forehead was a little broader. Around the temples, maybe.”

  Bonomo worked his magic with the Identi-CAD program. “Like this?”

  “A little broader still,” the curator said, conviction growing in his voice. “And higher.”

  More magic. “This?”

  “Yes. That’s perfect.”

  “Perfect? Really?”

  “Really.”

  “We aim to please!” Bonomo said with his trademark bray of laughter.

  D’Agosta watched this exchange with amusement. They had been making the rounds of the Osteology Department, speaking with everyone who remembered seeing the “scientist” Marsala had assisted. This had allowed Bonomo to tweak the portrait he’d created the day before, making it an even better match. D’Agosta felt optimistic enough to begin a software review of the security video feeds again, with portrait in hand. He was interested in two dates in particular: the day Marsala died, and the day he signed out the specimen for the visitor.

  D’Agosta checked the junior curator’s name off his list, and they continued down the hall. Spotting another Osteology worker who’d seen the fake scientist, D’Agosta introduced her to Bonomo, and looked on as the police technician showed her the composite portrait and asked for her feedback. Bonomo had cut quite a swath through the dusty, quiet Museum, talking loudly, cracking jokes, making wiseass remarks and laughing at the top of his lungs. This had given D’Agosta a measure of secret joy, especially when Frisby had popped his head out of his office more than once, glowering. He hadn’t said anything—what could he say? This was police business.

  Out of the corner of his eye, D’Agosta caught sight of Margo Green. She was coming down the corridor from the main entrance to Osteology. Their eyes met, and she gestured toward a nearby storeroom.

  “What’s up?” D’Agosta said, following her inside and closing the door behind them. “Ready to examine those additional specimens?”

  “Already done. Not a Hottentot to be found. The missing long bone didn’t turn up in any nearby trays, either. But I’ve done further analysis of the female skeleton, as promised. I wanted to give you an update.”

  “Shoot.”

  To D’Agosta, Margo seemed a little breathless. “I’ve been able to confirm most of my initial conclusions about the bones. Further examination, and in particular the ratio of oxygen and carbon isotopes present in the skeleton, indicate a diet and geographic location consistent with a late-nineteenth-century woman, roughly sixty years of age, living in an urban American environment, probably New York or vicinity.”

  From the corridor beyond came another bark of laughter from Bonomo that almost shook the walls.

  “A little loude
r,” Margo said, “and your friend out there could channel Jimmy Durante.”

  “He’s a bit obnoxious, but he’s the best at what he does. Besides, it’s fun to watch Frisby get his knickers in a twist.”

  At the mention of Frisby’s name, Margo’s face darkened.

  “How are you managing?” D’Agosta asked. “I mean, being in here like this. I know it’s not easy for you.”

  “I’m doing all right.”

  “Is Frisby giving you a hard time?”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Do you want me to have a word with him?”

  “Thanks, but it wouldn’t help. There’s nothing to be gained and everything to lose from a confrontation. The Museum can be a real snake’s den. If I keep a low profile, everything should be fine.” She paused. “Look, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Yeah?”

  Despite the fact they were alone, Margo lowered her voice. “Do you remember when we had Sandoval check the accession record for that skeleton?”

  D’Agosta nodded. He couldn’t imagine where this was leading.

  “And when we got to the name of the preparator—Dr. Padgett—Sandoval said: Oh. Him.”

  “Go on.”

  “At the time, it struck me as strange. So today I asked Sandoval about it. Like many Museum workers, he loves to collect old Museum rumors and gossip. Anyway, he told me that this Padgett—an Osteological curator here many years ago—happened to have a wife who disappeared. There was some sort of scandal. Her body was never found.”

  “Disappeared?” D’Agosta asked. “How? What kind of scandal?”

  “He didn’t know,” Margo said.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Probably—and it’s creeping the heck out of me.”

  Lieutenant Peter Angler sat at a scuffed desk, heaped with paper, in the rambling offices of the Transportation Security Administration. Outside the room’s lone window, a steady stream of jets screamed by on JFK’s runway 4L-22R. It was almost as noisy inside: the TSA offices were awash in ringing phones, clacking keyboards, slamming doors, and—not infrequently—voices raised in anger or protest. Directly across the hall, a heavyset man from Cartagena was being subjected—visible past a door that was more than ajar—to a body cavity search.