Blue Labyrinth

by Douglas Preston

This was followed by an intense silence.

  Abandoning the empty chemical case on the roof, Constance slung the backpack over her shoulder and began moving across the dome, to a ladder that curved down from the top.

  She descended just as two men came running out of the greenhouse complex, followed soon after by a third. She ran into the darkness of the arboretum, its giant trees leaving the ground in almost complete darkness. Making a ninety-degree turn to the right, she headed toward the dense plantings of the Japanese Garden. At the torii gate, she ducked into deep shadow and paused to look back. Her pursuers had lost her in the darkness under the trees, and now they were fanning out in an encircling maneuver, talking to each other via radio. Nobody else had emerged from the nearby buildings.

  That, Constance thought, left Barbeaux alone in the Palm House with Pendergast.

  The three men spread out farther as they approached the Japanese Garden. She crept through the darkness and skirted the pond, moving along narrow graveled pathways among dense plantings of weeping cherries, willows, yews, and Japanese maples. Partway around the pond stood a rustic pavilion.

  Based on the squawk of radios and the whispered murmur of voices, Constance could tell that the three had taken up triangular positions around the Japanese Garden. They would know she was surrounded; they would assume she’d gone to ground.

  It was time.

  In a thick, dark stand of twisted juniper, Constance knelt, letting her bag slip to the ground. She zipped it open and reached inside. Out came an old bandolier of heavy leather, studded along its length with looped ammunition pockets, which she had appropriated from Enoch Leng’s military collections. She fixed it sash-style over one shoulder and belted it at her waist. Reaching into the duffel again, she removed from another ancient case five large, identical syringes and laid them in a row on the soft ground. These were old, handblown glass “balling guns”—catheter-type irrigation syringes used for administering medicine orally to horses and other large animals. These, too, were courtesy of Leng’s bizarre cabinet of curiosities, in this case the collection devoted to veterinary curiosa, its contents used by him in experiments best not speculated on. All five syringes were filled with triflic acid and capable of delivering a larger, more directed payload than the flasks had been. Each was nearly a foot long, as thick around as a tube of caulk, and made of borosilicate glass with sodium metasilicate as both lubricant and sealant. These last facts were particularly important: triflic acid, she had learned, would violently attack any substance composed of carbon-hydrogen bonds.

  One at a time, Constance slid the oversize syringes into the leather pockets of the bandolier. It had been manufactured to hold fifty-millimeter artillery shells, and the syringes fit well. Each had a glass stopper snugged over its tip, but nevertheless she handled them very gingerly: triflic acid was not just a powerful superacid; it was also a deadly neurotoxin. Ensuring the bandolier was firmly in place, she rose cautiously to her feet, abandoning the now-empty duffel, and glanced around.

  Three men.

  Leaving the stand of juniper, she moved to the pavilion itself, a wooden structure built out over the pond, with open sides and a low-slung roof of cedar shakes. Climbing onto a nearby railing, she grasped the edge of the roof, pulled herself onto it, and knelt there, peering over the edge. The men were now tightening their noose, creeping into the Japanese Garden, guns drawn. They were moving laterally, flashlight beams probing the vegetation. One of them was approaching the pavilion itself. She crouched lower as the man’s light went past.

  In utter silence, Constance slid one of the syringes out of the bandolier, slipped off the protective glass tip, aimed at the man as he passed just beneath—and then directed a long, smoking jet of acid over him.

  Under the rain of acid, the man’s clothes burst into flames and dissolved. His sharp screams were almost immediately cut off by a gargled choking. Windmilling his arms, he staggered first one way, then another—the flesh literally melting from his bones as the stream cut into him—before blindly throwing himself into the pond. As he hit the water, a cloud of vapor rose up and spread slowly over the waters as the man convulsed. Within seconds he had disappeared beneath the surface, leaving behind a surge of bubbles.

  The other two men had dived into the brush. Now they knew she was on the pavilion roof.

  Without giving them time to recover, Constance tossed the now-empty syringe aside and scuttled across the roofline in the direction of the pond. Keeping the bulk of the pavilion between herself and the remaining two men, she slipped carefully into the water and—keeping below the surface—swam to the far shore, where she emerged. The men fired at her from cover but, crouching in the darkness more than a hundred feet away, their bullets went wide. She crawled into a dense, expansive stand of azaleas that had been planted next to the pond, pushing deep into the shrubbery on hands and knees while additional rounds snipped away the branches over her head. The men were shooting to kill despite Barbeaux’s orders. They were angry and panicked. But they were still formidable. She must be ready for what was about to happen.

  In her mind, Constance visualized a lioness in the bush: a lioness swollen with hatred and savage thoughts of revenge.

  Reaching the center of the azalea cluster, she crouched in the blackness. Silently, she eased another syringe of acid from the bandolier and readied it for use. She tensed, waiting, listening.

  She could not see the men, but she could hear their whispered voices. They had come around the pond and seemed to be positioned at the edge of the azaleas, perhaps thirty feet away. Additional whispers betrayed the fact that they were circling around. There was the hiss of a radio; a short conversation. They were not as panicked as she had expected. They were relying on their superior firepower.

  Now they picked up her track and started into the patch. The noise they made allowed Constance to better track their approach. She waited, motionless, crouched low in the densest heart of the bushes. Closer and closer they came, pushing through the azalea, moving with extreme caution. Twenty feet, ten…

  The lioness would not wait. She would charge.

  Constance leapt up and ran straight at them without uttering a sound. The two, taken by surprise, did not have time to react before she was upon them. At a run, turning sideways in order to avoid any backsplash, she emptied the contents of the syringe over one man—a colorless torrent of death—still running, threw aside the empty, slid out another syringe, then turned again to drench the second man. Never faltering, dropping this syringe as it, too, was spent, she burst out the far end of the azalea stand, then stopped, glancing back to examine her handiwork.

  A vast swath of the azalea garden, roughly following the course she had just taken, was now aflame: entire bushes exploding like popcorn, gouts of fire flaring up, leaves disintegrating, branches bursting into red-and-orange glow. The men themselves were screaming, one wildly firing his pistol at nothing, the other whirling like a top and clutching his face. Now they sank to their knees, great gushers of gray-and-pink mist roiling violently up from their dissolving flesh. As Constance looked on, what was left of the figures sank to the ground, convulsing as the shrubbery blackened and dissolved.

  She watched the ghastly tableau for just a moment longer. Then, turning away, she headed quickly across a dew-heavy lawn and onto the path leading to the Palm House, its panels of glass glittering in the moonlight.

  I’m back,” came the strangely old-fashioned voice from behind Barbeaux.

  He whipped around, gazing with astonishment. The petite form of Constance Greene stood there. Somehow, she had managed to approach without making any sound.

  Barbeaux gazed at her with astonishment. Her black chemise was torn, her body and face filthy, smeared with mud and bleeding from a dozen cuts. Her hair was caked with dirt, twigs, and leaves. She seemed more feral than human. And yet the voice, the eyes, were cold, unreadable. She was unarmed, empty-handed.

  She swayed slightly on her feet, looked at Pendergast—lying
motionless at Barbeaux’s feet—then returned her gaze to him.

  “He’s dead,” Barbeaux told her.

  She did not react. If there was any normal emotion going on in this crazy woman, Barbeaux could not see it, and this unnerved him.

  “I want the name of the plant,” he said, leveling his gun at her.

  Nothing. No recognition that he’d spoken.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t give it to me. I’ll kill you in the most horrific way imaginable. Tell me the name of the plant.”

  Now she spoke. “You’ve begun to smell lilies, haven’t you?”

  She’s guessed. “How—?”

  “It’s obvious. Why else did you want me alive? And why else would you want the plant, now, when he is dead?” She gestured at Pendergast’s body.

  With self-discipline born of long practice, Barbeaux pulled himself together. “And my men?”

  “I killed them all.”

  Even though, from the radio chatter, he’d surmised that things had gone very badly, Barbeaux could scarcely believe his ears. His eyes roamed over the insane creature that stood before him. “How in the world—?” he began again.

  She did not answer the question. “We need to come to an arrangement. You want—need—the plant. And I want to collect my guardian’s body for a decent burial.”

  Barbeaux gazed at her for a moment. The young woman waited, head slightly cocked. She swayed on her feet again. She looked like she might collapse at any minute.

  “All right,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “We’ll go to the Aquatic House together. When I’m satisfied you’ve told me the truth, I’ll let you go.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure I can make it on my own. Hold my arm, please.”

  “No tricks. You lead the way.” He prodded her with the gun. She was smart, but not smart enough. As soon as he’d secured the plant, she would die.

  She stumbled over Pendergast’s body, then walked along the wing into the Bonsai Museum. There she fell to the ground and was unable to get up without Barbeaux’s assistance. They entered the Aquatic House.

  “Tell me the name of the plant,” Barbeaux demanded.

  “Phragmipedium. Andean Fire. The active compound is in the underwater rhizome.”

  “Show me.”

  Using the railing to support herself, Constance circled the large, central pool, stumbling.

  “Hurry up.”

  At the far end of the main pool were a series of descending, smaller pools. A sign at one of them identified it as containing the aquatic plant called Andean Fire.

  She gestured, swaying. “There.”

  Barbeaux peered into the dark water. “There’s nothing in the pool,” he said.

  Constance sank to her knees. “The plant is dormant this time of year.” Her voice was slow, thick. “The root’s in the mud underwater.”

  He waved his gun. “Get up.”

  She tried to rise. “I can’t move.”

  With a curse, Barbeaux pulled off his jacket, knelt at the pool, and stuck his shirtsleeved arm into the water.

  “Don’t forget your promise,” Constance murmured.

  Ignoring this, Barbeaux began rummaging around in the muck at the bottom. In a few seconds he withdrew the arm with a grunt of surprise. Something was odd. No—something was wrong. The cotton material of his shirt was starting to come apart, dissolving and running off his arm in pieces with faint palls of smoke.

  The sound of police sirens, shrill and anxious, began rising in the distance.

  Barbeaux rose, staggered back with a roar of fury, pulled his gun out with his left hand, raised it—but Constance Greene had disappeared into the riot of growth.

  Now pain took hold, excruciating pain, rippling up his arm and into his head, and then Barbeaux felt a jolt in his brain like electricity, followed by another, even worse. He staggered back and forth, swinging his smoking arm around, seeing the skin blacken and curl away to expose the flesh beneath. He began firing the gun crazily into the jungle, his vision fogging, his lungs choking, the shocks in his head and the muscle spasms in his body coming faster and faster until a spasm knocked him to his knees and then threw him down to the ground.

  “There’s no point in struggling,” Constance said. She had reappeared from somewhere, and—out of the corner of his eye—Barbeaux saw her pick up his gun and toss it into the bushes. “Triflic acid, which I have introduced into this secondary pool, is not only highly corrosive, but it’s extremely poisonous as well. Once it eats its way through your skin, it starts to affect you systemically. A neurotoxin—you will die convulsing with pain.”

  She turned and darted away again.

  In a paroxysm of rage, Barbeaux managed to rise and stagger in pursuit, but could only make it to the far wing of the Palm House before collapsing again. He tried to rise once more, but found he had lost all control of his muscles.

  The sounds of sirens had grown much louder, and in the distance, through his fog of pain, Barbeaux could hear the sounds of shouting, running feet. Constance rushed in the direction of the commotion. Barbeaux hardly noticed. His brain was on fire, screaming even while his twitching mouth could no longer utter a word. His body began to shudder and jump, his stomach muscles clenching so hard he thought they would tear asunder, and he tried to scream but the only sound that emerged was a gasp of air.

  Now there was a commotion nearby, and he made out individual words. “… Paddles!” “… Charged!” “… I’ve got a pulse!” “… Hang some D5W!” “… Get him to the ambulance!”

  Hours, or maybe it was just moments, later a police officer and an EMS worker were leaning over him, shocked expressions on their faces. Barbeaux felt himself being lifted onto a stretcher. And then Constance Greene was among them, staring down at him. Through the fog of pain and the racking convulsions, Barbeaux tried to tell her she had lied; that she had welshed on their deal. Not even a gasp escaped his lips.

  But she understood anyway. She bent forward and spoke softly, so that only he could hear. “It’s true,” she said. “I reneged. Just as you would have.”

  The workers prepared to lift the stretcher, and she spoke more quickly. “One last thing. Your fatal mistake was believing you had—and please forgive the crudeness of today’s vernacular—a bigger pair of balls.”

  And as the unendurable pain overwhelmed him and his vision failed, Barbeaux saw Constance rise, turn, and then race away as Pendergast’s stretcher headed toward the ambulance.

  Within about five minutes, the scene at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden had gone from merely crazy to totally insane. Paramedics, cops, firemen, and EMS workers were everywhere, securing the site, yelling into radios, shouting in surprise and disgust at each fresh and horrifying discovery.

  As he jogged toward the central pavilion, a bizarre figure came rushing toward D’Agosta—a woman dressed only in a torn chemise, filthy, her hair full of twig ends and bits of flowers.

  “Over here!” the figure cried. With a start, D’Agosta recognized Constance Greene. Automatically, he began to remove his jacket to cover her, but she ran past him to a group of paramedics. “This way!” she cried to them, leading them off in the direction of a huge Victorian structure of metal and glass.

  Margo and D’Agosta followed, through a side door and into a long hall, apparently set up for a wedding reception but looking as if it had been raided by a biker gang: tables overturned, glassware shattered, chairs knocked over. At the far end, on the parquet dance floor, lay two bodies. Constance led the paramedics to one of them. When he saw it was Pendergast, D’Agosta staggered, grabbed the back of a chair. He turned on the paramedics and screamed, “Work this one first!”

  “Oh no,” Margo sobbed, her hand over her mouth. “No.”

  The paramedics surrounded Pendergast and began a quick ABC assessment: airway, breathing, circulation.

  “Paddles!” one of them barked over his shoulder. An EMS worker with defib equipmen
t came up as Pendergast’s shirt was ripped away.

  “Charged!” the EMS worker cried. The paddles were applied; the body jerked; the paddles reapplied.

  “Again!” ordered the paramedic.

  Another jolt; another galvanic jerk.

  “I’ve got a pulse!” the paramedic said.

  Only now, as Pendergast was placed on a stretcher, did D’Agosta turn his attention to the second supine figure. The body was twitching violently, eyes staring, mouth working soundlessly. It was a man in shirtsleeves, well into middle age, with a solid build. D’Agosta recognized him from pictures on Red Mountain’s website as John Barbeaux. One of his arms was blistering and smoking, with bone exposed, as if burned in a fire, the shirt eaten away almost to the shoulder. Several newly arriving paramedics bent over him and began working.

  As D’Agosta watched, Constance approached the twitching form of Barbeaux, nudged one of the paramedics aside, and bent in close. He could see her lips move in some whispered message to him. Then she straightened up and turned to the paramedics. “He’s all yours.”

  “You need an assessment, too,” said another paramedic, approaching her.

  “Don’t touch me.” She backed up and turned away, disappearing into the dark bowels of the greenhouse complex. The paramedics watched her go, then returned their attention to Barbeaux.

  “What the hell happened to her?” D’Agosta asked Margo.

  “I have no idea. There are… a lot of dead people here.”

  D’Agosta shook his head. It would all be sorted out later. He turned his attention to Pendergast. The paramedics were now raising his stretcher, one holding an IV bottle up, and they headed toward the ambulances. D’Agosta and Margo followed.

  As they were jogging along, Constance reappeared. She had a large pink lily in her hand, dripping wet.

  “I’ll take your jacket now,” she said to D’Agosta.

  D’Agosta draped his jacket over her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “No.” She turned to Margo. “Did you get it?”