Blue Labyrinth

by Douglas Preston

  Constance lay in the dirt, unmoving. A dim light played over her, and she could hear faint murmurings as the men communicated with one another. She felt a strange, gathering combination of remorse, chagrin, and particularly anger: not because she was about to be killed—she cared nothing for her own life—but because her discovery meant that Pendergast would die.

  She heard faint footfalls, and then a different voice said: “Stand her up.”

  Her neck was prodded again. “Get up. Slow.”

  Constance rose to her feet. A tall man with a military bearing stood in front of her, dressed in a dark business suit. His face, dimly illuminated by the moonlight, was large and granitic, with prominent cheekbones and a heavy, over-thrusting jaw.

  Barbeaux.

  For a moment her concentration narrowed to a fierce pinpoint, so overpowering was her hatred and loathing for this man. She remained motionless while Barbeaux played a light over her.

  “What a sight you are,” he sneered in a gravelly tone.

  Several other men had silently appeared and now took up positions around her. All were heavily armed. Every avenue of escape had been cut off. She considered snatching a firearm, but knew that would be useless; besides, these automatic weapons were foreign to her. Barbeaux did not look like the kind of man who could be surprised or overcome easily, if at all. He had a calm, intelligent, and alert air of cruelty about him that she had encountered, notably, only twice before: her first guardian, Enoch Leng, and Diogenes Pendergast.

  His inspection complete, Barbeaux spoke again. “So this is the operative Pendergast sends as his avenging angel. I didn’t believe it when Slade told me about you.”

  Constance did not react.

  “I’d like to know the name of the plant you’re looking for.”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “You’ve come in some last-ditch, desperate attempt to save your precious Pendergast. We were one step ahead of you, as you can see. Nevertheless, I am impressed at how far you managed to get in this fool’s errand before we caught you.”

  Constance let him talk.

  “Pendergast is on his deathbed now. You can’t imagine the delight I take in his suffering. His malady is unique: unendurable physical pain, mingling with the knowledge that you are losing your mind. I know all about it. I’ve seen it.”

  Barbeaux paused, his eyes lingering on her mud-smeared form. “I understand that Agent Pendergast is your ‘guardian.’ What exactly does that mean?”

  Silence.

  “You don’t speak, but your eyes give you away. I can see your hatred of me. The hatred of a woman for her lover’s killer. How touching. What is the age gap—twenty, twenty-five years? Disgusting. You could be his daughter.”

  Constance did not drop her eyes. She continued to stare into his.

  “A bold girl.” Barbeaux sighed. “I need the name of the plant you seek. But I can see you will require persuading.” He reached out, touched her face. She did not flinch or draw away. His hand moved down, smearing the mud on her neck, then descended to her chemise, lightly grazing her breast through the silk.

  Fast as a striking snake, Constance slapped him sharply across the face.

  Barbeaux stepped back, breathing hard. “Hold her.”

  Men on either side seized her by the arms. One had a shaved head; the other, hair to his shoulders. She did not struggle. Barbeaux took a step forward and reached out again, his hand closing over her breast. “Too bad Pendergast won’t be here to see his little plaything abused. Now tell me the name of the plant.” He squeezed her breast, hard.

  Constance bit her lip against the pain.

  “The name of the plant.”

  He hurt her again. She gave a short cry, checking herself immediately.

  “Don’t annoy us with hysterical outbursts. They won’t do you any good. We’ve neutralized what little security there was here. We have the place to ourselves.”

  Now Barbeaux’s hand descended farther, gathering the material of the chemise. He pulled it up. “Such a young, supple body. I can just imagine Pendergast bending it like a pretzel for his own recreation.”

  He let go of the chemise and stared at her a moment, appraisingly. Then he stepped back once again, nodded to Shaved Head. The man turned toward Constance, slapped her hard across the face: once, twice.

  Constance endured this in silence.

  “Bring the prod,” Barbeaux ordered.

  From a small pack slung over his shoulder, Long Hair removed a villainous-looking device about two feet long with a rubber handle, a spring-like curl of metal encircling its central shaft, and two silvery prongs protruding from the business end. A cattle prod. He waved it under her nose.

  “Gag her,” said Barbeaux. “You know how I can’t stand screaming.”

  Out of the pack came a wad of cotton and some duct tape. Shaved Head gave her a sudden punch in the stomach and, when she doubled forward, jammed the cotton into her mouth, then wrapped duct tape over it, circling her head. He stepped back while Long Hair readied the prod. The other men had formed a dark, silent ring around the proceedings, watching intently.

  While Shaved Head held her by both arms, Long Hair jammed the prod into her stomach. He hesitated a moment, smiling crookedly, and then pressed the button, activating the electric current. Constance jerked in agony, all her muscles constricting, while Shaved Head pinned her in place with his hands. A muffled sound of anguish rushed from her nose, defeating all her efforts to remain silent.

  Long Hair pulled the prod away.

  “Again,” said Barbeaux. “When she’s ready to talk, she’ll let us know.”

  Constance tried to straighten herself up. Long Hair waved the prod around teasingly, getting ready for another jolt. Suddenly he darted forward, jabbing it between her breasts and pulling the trigger again. She writhed, driven almost mad by the pain, but this time made no sound. Long Hair withdrew the prod again.

  Constance struggled to straighten up again.

  “This filly needs breaking hard,” said Barbeaux.

  “Maybe,” said Shaved Head, “she needs stimulation in a more sensitive area.”

  Barbeaux nodded, reached out, and lifted her chemise. Smiling, Long Hair closed in with the cattle prod.

  Just then a shot rang out. At the same moment, the top of Long Hair’s head came off in a single piece, spinning, hair flying, blood and brain matter rising in a cloud of pink and gray.

  The men reacted instantly, throwing themselves to the ground, Shaved Head yanking Constance to the ground with him. But even as the men took cover, two more shots rang out in close succession. One man doubled up, grabbing his belly with a roar, while another already on the ground was struck in the back. He jerked, letting out a scream of agony.

  Constance tried to twist out from under Shaved Head’s grip, but her muscles were still convulsing from the electric shocks and he held her fast. She saw that Barbeaux was the only other one to remain standing—he had coolly stepped behind the cover of a massive tree trunk.

  “Single shooter,” said Barbeaux. “Upper level. Flanking maneuver, both sides.” He signaled to three men, who immediately jumped up and disappeared, leaving her with Barbeaux, Shaved Head, a third man, and the three bodies crumpled and bleeding out within the orchids. She heard several more shots and looked up. Plucking a radio from his waistband, Barbeaux issued more orders, apparently to men in place outside the greenhouse. As she listened to the fugue of voices over the radio, Constance estimated Barbeaux must have close to ten men still in place in and around the Aquatic House. She watched him with narrowed eyes. What was happening? Had Lieutenant D’Agosta somehow deduced her location and arrived with the NYPD?

  Shaved Head pushed her back down. “Don’t fucking move,” he said.

  From his position behind the tree, Barbeaux continued to issue a calm stream of commands into his radio. For a while, all was silent. And then another series of shots rang out, deeper within the complex of greenhouses, followed by the sou
nd of falling glass. There was excited chatter over Barbeaux’s radio.

  Constance lay pinned in the muck, gradually recovering her breath. Barbeaux had mentioned a single shooter. But if that shooter was D’Agosta, he would have brought backup. Whatever it meant, Pendergast might not be lost, after all…

  Another burst of chatter over the radio, and then Barbeaux turned to Shaved Head. “Get her on her feet. You can remove the gag now—they’ve got the shooter. It’s Pendergast.”

  Margo came to the door of the first storage room, jammed her passkey into the lock with a prayer. It turned. She gasped, yanked the door open, rushed in, and slammed it behind her. As she did so Slade crashed into it, forcing it open a crack, but she braced herself and pushed back with all her might. He slammed into it again and she pushed back.

  This was not going to last long. She would lose this contest. And he might just shoot through the door.

  He slammed into the door again just as she yanked it open, causing him to sprawl onto the floor at her feet. She gave him a hard kick to the side of the head, then sprinted into the darkness of the storage room. Over her shoulders, she could hear him gasp in pain. She had lost her headlamp and he still had his flashlight. Its beam flashed past her as she skidded around one corner of the endless rows of shelves, sprinted first down one aisle, then another. She noted in passing that the shelves were covered with large glass jars, each one holding a glistening, staring, mucilaginous globe as large as a bowling ball: this was the Museum’s legendary collection of cetacean eyeballs.

  As she ran, she reached into her bag, plucked out her phone, and examined it. As she expected: no bars. The thick walls of the Museum basement effectively blocked all cell phone reception.

  She was fast and in good shape, but apparently so was Slade, and as she ran she realized she would lose this running contest, too. She had to find a way to stop him or at least slow him down. Why wasn’t he firing his gun? Perhaps he couldn’t risk the noise it would make. Slade was obviously a careful man—and one never knew who might be wandering around the basement, even late at night.

  Passing a bank of lights at the end of an aisle, Margo snapped them all on—it might make her visible, but if he wasn’t using his gun it would also neutralize his advantage with the flashlight. As the fluorescents popped on, she immediately turned and ran in the opposite direction down the next aisle. She could hear Slade, running up the aisle adjacent to hers. She had a sudden idea: pausing before the shelf and thrusting her hands forward, she pushed a group of specimen jars out the far side of the shelf, sending them crashing to the floor just in front of him. But even as she continued running, she could hear him skipping and hopping over the huge, soft, rolling eyeballs. It had only slowed him down a little. Maybe she could push over the entire shelf onto him—but no, the shelves were too massive and bolted to the floor.

  There were several doorways leading from the whale eyeball room to other storage areas, but only one of them led to the back exit from Building Six. He was gaining, and she wasn’t any closer to that exit. And at this time of night, that exit might well be locked from the inside. As she ran along the shelves she pulled more jars off, letting them crash to the floor. Could she light the ethyl alcohol on fire? But she had no lighter in her bag, and even if she did the entire storage room might go up, taking her with it.

  Doubling back at the end of the next aisle, she yanked more jars off a shelf and they crashed to the floor behind her, the huge whale eyeballs rolling about, trailing alcohol and slime. With a curse Slade slipped on one, then grabbed the edge of a shelf to keep from falling, sending more jars crashing to the floor in the process. The fishy reek of eyeballs and alcohol filled the room. He was up again in a flash, but Margo had bought herself a few more seconds. As she reached the end of the next aisle, gasping for air, legs burning, she finally made out the door that, ultimately, led to the exit from Building Six. But he was so close, he’d reach her before she could even get her key in the lock.

  Beside the door was a fire extinguisher.

  Even as she heard his feet coming up behind her, she yanked the fire extinguisher from its bracket, spun around, and swung it at Slade, hitting him in the solar plexus and sending him to the floor. As he began to rise again with a grunt she pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle at him, spraying the foam into his face at point-blank range. He blindly tried to fend off the spray, futilely grabbing for the extinguisher.

  “Bitch!” he screamed as he tried to get up, clawing the foam away as Margo kept blasting the white stream into his face. “I’ll kill you for this!” He lunged, slipped, and fell flat again. She saw her opening and hit him over the head with the extinguisher.

  With a groan he fell silent: unconscious, half-buried in foam, eyes rolling in his head.

  She paused, thinking furiously. Another powerful blow to the head, now that he was immobile, would crush his skull. She raised the extinguisher… only to find herself unable to do it. She tossed it away. She still had her bag—thank God. She should just get the hell out. But which way? If she continued on toward the rear exit, she would have to traverse several more rooms, probably locked, any one of which her passkey might not work on. It would be far faster to retrace her steps, back past the botanical collections to the elevator. What Slade had said about jamming the lock was probably bullshit—how would he get out, then?

  She started running back in the direction of the Herbarium Vault. God, she hoped she could get out that way. Otherwise she’d have to return, pass Slade again. Maybe he was already dead.

  Moving as quickly as she could in the dim emergency light, she passed the entrance to the botanical collections and made her way down the corridor to the exit from Building Six. If she could get up the elevator, she could head for the security entrance, staffed by armed guards. There she’d be safe. She could tell them about Frisby, dead, the killer cop unconscious in the basement…

  She reached the exit door, tried the crash bar. Locked. The door handle didn’t yield, either. She tried to fit her key into the lock but saw that, true to his word, Slade had jammed the blade of a penknife into it. She swore aloud. She would have to try the back exit, after all—past him. Now she wished she had bashed his brains out. If only she’d had the presence of mind to take away his gun. She wouldn’t make that mistake on her return pass—that is, if he was still unconscious.

  Moving fast and silently, Margo retraced her steps. What if he had come to and was awake? She’d better get her hands on a weapon. She cast about. She was now by the entrance to the botanical collections again. She thought for a moment. What kind of plant would be of any use against a gun? None, of course.

  Then she remembered something.

  Darting into the collections, she ran past the cabinets and shelving—pausing just long enough to retrieve her headlamp—until she reached the Herbarium Vault, the tiny red light on its front panel like a guiding beam. Gasping for breath, she punched in the code, then opened the heavy door.

  There they were: in the gleam of her headlamp, she could make out in the far corner the blowpipes—long hollow tubes—and the quiver of little bone darts, each about two inches long, with a tuft of feathers at one end. The tips of the darts were smeared with a sticky black substance.

  She grabbed one of the blowpipes, slung the quiver around her free shoulder, and loaded it with a dart, pushing it into the hollow tube, feather tuft rearward. Now, exiting the vault and moving through the collections, she advanced as quickly as possible, snapping off the headlamp and relying on the emergency lighting, through the storage room door and back into the whale eyeball collection. As she entered, the stench hit her with an almost physical blow.

  Her heart nearly stopped: there, in the aisle where she had left the cop, was a puddle of foam, but no body. Wet footprints led away.

  She froze in terror. He was conscious, on his feet—perhaps lying in wait for her. She cast about but could see nothing. Trying to control her hammering heart, she listened intently. Were those stealt
hy footfalls, echoing from some indeterminate direction?

  Panic took over and she ran toward the rear exit, only to round a shelf and slam directly into Slade, weapon drawn. He grabbed her, put her in a hammerlock, and threw her to the ground. He stepped over her, gun in hand.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said in a low voice. “Give me the fucking bag or I’ll put a .45 round in your head.”

  “Go ahead. The noise will bring security at a run.”

  He said nothing, and she could see she had guessed right. But then a small smile appeared on his face. “It appears I need a weapons upgrade. Something silent.” He bent down and picked up the blowgun tube and its quiver of darts, which she had dropped in the collision. He pulled one dart from the quiver, looked at it. “Poisoned. Nice.” He examined the tube. “And you conveniently loaded it for me.”

  He raised it awkwardly, placed it to his lips. Margo threw herself sideways just as he puffed, the dart flashing out and missing her by inches, clattering off a shelf. She scrambled sideways in a crab-like motion, then lunged to her feet as he pulled out another dart and poked it into the tube. She ran desperately as a second dart flashed past her. She heard him coming after her yet again.

  Her only chance now was to lose him somewhere in the Museum’s endless storage rooms.

  She ran around one corner, then another, shelving flashing past. Reaching a door in the nearest wall, she flung it open, passed through another storage room, turned a corner at the rear, and raced for a door at the end of a cul-de-sac. Locked—and this time, her key didn’t work. She turned to backtrack, but heard Slade sneer from just around the corner.