Verses for the Dead

by Douglas Preston

  She approached the house a second time. This would be her last pass. Circling the block three times would be out of the question, so whatever she found, it had to be now.

  Or maybe…just maybe…she should stop and ring the bell.

  On what pretense? Remembering something, she glanced into the backseat—and sure enough, like a gift from God, there were the Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets that had been thrust at her in the parking lot by some well-meaning soul as she was leaving work two days before. Perfect.

  Drawing on her courage and thinking of Pendergast’s reaction—and Dr. Moberly’s mortification—if she brought in this unbelievable breakthrough on a silver platter, she boldly drove into the driveway of 203 Tarpon Court, snatched up the pamphlets, exited the car before she could change her mind, then strode up to the door and pushed the doorbell.

  No sound.

  The door looked as decrepit as the rest of the house, with an overhead light stamped in an owl design and two small, cracked windows beneath its upper edge. Putting her ear to it, she pushed the rusty doorbell again. Still no sound—the mechanism must be broken.

  She knocked. And waited. Then knocked again, more boldly, chips of paint falling from the humidity-swollen door.

  She could hear no movement in the house, no sound, nothing. The place gave all appearances of being empty. What now? The blinds were carefully drawn, their edges stained with mildew. She could see nothing inside.

  What the hell. Pamphlets in hand, she picked her way through the tall, moist grass and walked around the house. Arriving at the back door, she paused. From here, she was out of view of the houses on either side. Should she knock? If he answered, how would she explain her presence at the back door? Really, this was stupid. She took a step backward, then another.

  On the other hand, the man wouldn’t dare do anything to her—not in his own home. That just wasn’t his MO. If it was indeed Brokenhearts.

  It was Brokenhearts. Wasn’t it?

  Leave this to the professionals.

  That did it. She took a breath, stepped forward again, raised her hand, paused a moment, and then knocked loudly on the back door. Under the pressure of her knuckles, the door—unlocked—creaked open an inch. She couldn’t help herself and leaned in close, peering through the crack. Just beyond, in the mudroom, hanging on a coat hook, was an old Marlins baseball cap.

  44

  IT WAS LIKE being swallowed by Mother Earth herself, with a sudden groaning of soil and jumble of ferns and rush of damp wind. Coldmoon tumbled, his fall arrested when something like a steel cable suddenly grabbed him as the storm of dirt began to subside. Coughing, choking, he spat sand from his mouth and realized it was Pendergast who had stopped his fall, holding him by the arm on a steep slope of sand and earth, which descended into a deep, swirling pool of muck.

  With his other hand, Pendergast was gripping a thick root. “Dig in,” he said. “Find a purchase.”

  With his free hand, Coldmoon scrabbled against the shifting wall of earth, grabbing another root, his feet managing to locate something to balance on. As the rumbling subsided, the collapsing hole seemed to stabilize, its edges still folding in, dropping ferns on them as they clung to the steep slope.

  “Earthquake?” Coldmoon gasped.

  “Sinkhole,” Pendergast replied.

  With a remarkable display of strength, he was able to reach up and grab a higher root. The sandy dirt continued to crumble away around the perimeter.

  Coldmoon followed Pendergast’s example and found another root of his own. He pushed with his feet, ensuring he had a good purchase.

  “I can climb,” he said, and Pendergast released him.

  The slope was steep but not vertical, with many exposed roots, and Coldmoon used them as hand- and footholds, the soil cascading down on his head and getting in his eyes and mouth, sometimes forcing him back down a step. The sinkhole might have stabilized, but it was nevertheless like trying to climb up an ever-shifting sand pile: a few feet up, then almost as many back down again, as the sandy flanks cracked, crumbled, then fell away. Nevertheless, it was only minutes before Pendergast reached the lip of the hole, Coldmoon close behind, gasping and spitting out sand and dirt. As his head and shoulders cleared ground level, he could see the broken ferns littering the trail now dangling over the far edge of the sinkhole and, in the distance beyond, the dilapidated lodge. The elderly figure on the veranda was still struggling to rise. “Help!” the figure cried again.

  A sudden, sharp crack rang through the air. Simultaneously, Coldmoon felt a blow, as if he’d been punched in the back with enormous force. With vast surprise, he realized he’d been shot. There was no pain, but he suddenly lost all strength; his hands released and he felt himself tumbling backward. Seconds later he landed in dark stagnant water that immediately closed over him, and all went black.

  45

  PENDERGAST SWUNG HIS arm down to grab Coldmoon again, but the agent, shot in the back, was already out of reach. Clinging to a root near the top of the hole, he saw Coldmoon hit the water below and instantly vanish into the swirling murk.

  A second shot rang out and he felt a massive thud strike the dirt beside his head. With a mighty heave he pulled himself up and out and rolled over into the cover of the ferns. As he did so, a third shot boomed out, the round snipping the greenery above his head as he dove behind a live oak. It was clear the shots were coming from somewhere inside the lodge, most likely the second floor. Even as he searched its façade, trying to locate the shooter, another shot rang out—and the head of the man crawling on the veranda disappeared in a gout of red and gray.

  Pendergast pulled out his Les Baer—at the same time realizing he’d lost his backup Glock in the collapse—and waited behind the tree. He counted to eight and then peered around for a moment before ducking back. All was now quiet. He could not see the shooter. Coldmoon remained at the bottom of the sinkhole, shot. Taking another quick look from behind the tree, Pendergast fired two rounds at the house, then slipped through the cover of ferns to get a glimpse into the sinkhole. He could see nothing but ribbons of sand and dirt slipping downward as the edges of the hole continued to crumble. No sound from Coldmoon.

  Anticipating another shot, he threw himself back toward the cover of the old oak, its knuckled branches twisted into gnarly, arthritic shapes. As he did so he heard another shot, this one so close it tore the shoulder pad from his jacket. But he managed to make out a flash of fire from an upper dormer window of the house; after killing the man on the veranda, the shooter had apparently gained elevation to get a better angle of fire. The man must have a scoped rifle, and clearly knew how to use it.

  Leaning against the tree, breathing hard, Pendergast considered his situation. As he did so, he heard two more shots and wondered briefly what the man was shooting at—until he heard the dull crump of an explosion and saw a pillar of fire rising from the direction of the dock. The shooter had just destroyed their airboat.

  It was obvious they’d walked into a trap. But how was that possible? Who had known they were coming here? They hadn’t even known of this location until that morning. Pendergast’s mind raced. The shooter had arranged this ambush in advance. That meant they hadn’t been followed: it could only be a person who knew they’d be examining the file on the Vance suicide/murder. That person would know they’d see Vance’s address. From there, it wasn’t much of a stretch to guess they’d want to interview the man.

  There was another possibility, of course: that John Vance was, in fact, Mister Brokenhearts—and they had surprised him in his lair. But in that case, who was the elderly man lying dead on the porch?

  Pendergast understood that he had only seconds to decide on a course of action. Movement in any direction would expose him to fire. The shooter was roughly a hundred yards away, which meant he was out of reach of Pendergast’s 1911 save for the luckiest of shots. And in an exchange of gunfire, he would be dead before he got lucky.

  To equalize the contest, Pendergast had to
get closer, get the shooter within range of his own firearm. And he had to do it fast.

  He burst from the cover of the tree, heading toward the house. Another shot rang out and he threw himself down behind another tree. Between him and the house there was now only open ground. He’d have to circle the lodge and come in from the back, where the cover was denser.

  But this was what the shooter would expect.

  Drawing on his past experience as a hunter of big game, Pendergast decided he should follow the example of the Cape buffalo: flee, drawing the shooter out of the house in pursuit, then circle back around and take him from behind.

  The island was quite narrow. In order to circle to the back, he would have to enter the water.

  Moving fast, he rolled out from cover and, aiming a suppressing shot at the dormer window, zigzagged back down the path, ducking from tree to tree. Shots rang out; he returned fire even as he felt a hard tug at his thigh just before making the final turn toward the dock. The airboat was burning, sending up a plume of black smoke that had the advantage of forming a field of cover. He took a second to examine his wound—flesh only, no bone or arteries involved. Sliding into the water—feeling its sting where the bullet had nicked his thigh—he kept low. The water was shallow, and the bottom mud too thick to allow him to move fast. Another shot rang through the trees as he worked his way to the end of the dock, the mud sucking at his feet, almost fatally slowing him down.

  At the far end of the dock, he took cover behind the furiously burning boat. Keeping it between him and the house, he waded farther out into the swamp to where the water was deep enough to immerse himself. He moved laterally, sinking deeper, using cypress roots as cover, staying low, his head just out of water.

  Movement; a swirl of water; and then, with a sharp glance to the right, Pendergast caught a glimpse of the nostrils and eyes of an alligator, sinking out of sight. The surface still rippled with underwater movement, however, and the ripples were coming straight at him.

  Pendergast kicked up and away from the mucky bottom and lashed out with his foot, making contact with the creature. It erupted from the water with terrifying speed, reptilian eyes fixed on him, long uneven lines of teeth gleaming as its mouth gaped wide, and Pendergast fired directly into the gullet, the round blowing off the back of its head. It fell backward into the water, thrashing in frantic death throes.

  Another shot came from the house, a gout of water spurting up to his left.

  Pendergast sank back down into the water and moved as quickly as he could, holding his breath and crawling along the bottom, eyes open, another round zipping past him and leaving a trail of bubbles. He took cover behind a cypress. At two hundred yards, the lodge did not have a direct view of the dock, but Pendergast’s thrashings would have been clearly heard and it was sheer luck he hadn’t been hit. His only choice was to move in a straight line, keeping the trees between him and the house, and increase his distance from the shooter.

  As he looked around, he saw another pair of eyes peek up from the brown water, and then another. A commotion began near the end of the dock: it was the gator he’d shot, being torn apart by its compatriots.

  The water got deeper, and soon he could swim freely underneath the surface. Grabbing the extra clip from his jacket and then letting the jacket go, he took a bearing toward the next tree, held his breath, and ducked under, swimming hard, eyes open in the muddy water. More distance, more intervening trees.

  The shots had now ceased; he was finally too deep in the trees and too far away for the shooter to waste rounds. But even as he caught his breath, he saw the ripple of another alligator coming at him, moving fast below the surface. He braced himself, thrust the muzzle of the gun underwater—and when he felt it make contact, pulled the trigger. The kick of the underwater shot almost tore the gun out of his hands, but it did the job: the reptile jerked sideways, coming up out of the water, its lower jaw partially torn away, and then it fell back, sinking in a cloud of blood.

  Keeping to the water, Pendergast began working his way around the island, circling at a distance. On the far side, a tongue of land extended out into the swamp, forming a sort of lagoon, at the head of which was a small cluster of ruined buildings. The peninsula was covered with slash pines, cattails, and strangler figs—thick brush that made for excellent cover. He worked his way toward the spit of land, keeping his head barely above water, alert for not only alligators but Florida panthers as well—common in the Everglades. No shots came: the shooter must have lost track of his location.

  He crawled to a muddy embankment thick with mangroves. Keeping low, he made his way along the edge of the water until he reached the tongue of land. He had to keep moving; keep his adversary guessing. Leaving the water, he scurried through the understory at a crouch, staying in the thickest areas, careful not to make any noise or disturb the vegetation more than absolutely necessary. He could just glimpse the ancient lodge from time to time through the cypress trees. Finally, the ruined structures came into view—metal sheds on stilts over the water; a corrugated boathouse; a mudbank covered with rotting fifty-five-gallon drums and abandoned equipment; a pair of decaying hoists; and the hull of an old wooden barge. And lying everywhere on the mudbank were dozens and dozens of fat alligators, crowded into the patches of sun, their armored backs glistening. They seemed to be asleep, but Pendergast knew that was merely a hunting strategy: they were alert and waiting for prey.

  His silvery eyes took it all in, along with the lines of posts in the water and rotten metal mesh that had once served as breeding cages. It was clearly an abandoned alligator farm. The ruins offered numerous hiding places and ambush points: an ideal spot for a man with a handgun facing off against one with a rifle. He paused in a cattail thicket, taking stock. If he could reach the cover of those sheds, he could change the rules of engagement. Everything depended on whether or not the shooter had truly lost track of his location—or was biding his time.

  Bursting from cover, ignoring the pain in his wounded leg, he sprinted across the open area toward the closest shed. Instantly, flashes of gunfire erupted from one of the ruined structures ahead, and Pendergast threw himself down, rounds thudding into the earth on all sides. Crawling frantically, he retreated to a muddy ditch, bullets humming, then worked his way back to the embankment and slid into the water, pausing just long enough to take a quick shot at the dark maw of the shed where the rounds had come from.

  The shooter had not lost track of his location. In fact, he’d anticipated what Pendergast would do and moved from his sniper’s nest to an ambush point in the old alligator farm.

  Using the embankment as protection, Pendergast moved through the water and came around a turn in the shore, where a fallen cypress lay. Just above and beyond would be the shed where the shooter had fired from. With exceeding caution, he raised his head and peered through the ferns. He saw movement between the sheds: the brief flicker of a person running. He raised his gun, but it was too long a shot and it would only give away his position. He noticed that the man had moved to a central point among the ruined sheds. Evidently, he was determined that Pendergast not reach any part of that area. He was clearly a man who knew the layout of the island. And every tactical move he’d made so far indicated a military or law enforcement background. Such as John Vance had.

  From his vantage point, Pendergast could see no way forward. The only option was to go back out into the water, using the fallen cypress as coverage, and circle farther around, looking for another approach. He had now taken the measure of his adversary, and the odds weren’t favorable. The shooter knew Pendergast would come to him; he knew time was on his side. As long as there was a possibility, no matter how remote, that Coldmoon was still alive, he had to deal with the shooter and get back to the sinkhole. The man with the rifle knew that as well as he did.

  He inched along the fallen tree, careful not to make ripples in the glassy sheet of water. At the end of the trunk, he peered around.

  The only way to determine
the current location of the shooter would be to encourage him to shoot. Which meant showing himself. Pendergast was now fairly sure, from the sound and the character of the rifle, that the man was firing a scoped Winchester 94, .30-30. It was a decent hunting rifle but not, by any means, a tactical combat weapon.

  Still working his way through the water, watching carefully for alligators and water snakes, he made for a particularly dense stand of trees. Using them as cover, he slid closer to the jumble of buildings, crawling along the bottom and keeping his head under water as much as possible. This was made a little easier by a line of underwater fence posts connected by wire mesh.

  He worked his way from three hundred yards to two hundred before the next shot came, this time whacking splinters off a tree trunk beside his head. That was useful information; he now knew the man had changed position into the main shed over the water and was firing at him from the darkness of an open door.

  Creeping forward with utmost caution, he closed in another fifty yards. The sliding doors of the shed were halfway open. Pendergast could not see where the shooter was positioned within the well of darkness beyond—and could only locate him by precipitating a shot, with its attendant muzzle flash. Even then, the target was still too far away for his sidearm to be effective. He had to get within fifty yards to be reasonably sure of a hit. The problem was, at fifty yards, with his 1911 up against a Winchester, he would be a dead man.

  The logic of the situation was dismayingly simple. He could not leave the island as long as there was a possibility Coldmoon was still alive. Even if he tried to swim away into the swamp, he was certain the shooter, whoever he was, had a second boat somewhere—probably inside the boathouse or one of the nearby sheds—which he would use to chase him down. Besides, if he tried that, chances were the alligators would get him long before a rifle did. He had no choice but to get the shooter, here and now.