Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(173)



Esposito spoke at last, his voice neutral. “My men looked into the Stylo. It was returned to Eurocar at 13:00 yesterday. The chit was signed by A. X. L. Pendergast, paid for with an American Express card belonging to Pendergast. A Special Agent A. X. L. Pendergast had a reservation on a flight to Palermo at 14:30 from Firenze Peretola. We’re still trying to find out whether he was, in fact, on that flight. The airlines these days are so difficult . . .”

“Of course it will appear he was on the flight! Can’t you see what Fosco’s game is?”

“Sergeant—”

“It’s all bullshit!” D’Agosta said, rising from his chair. “Orchestrated by Fosco! Just like he walled up the passageway, disguised the apartment. Just like he’s planned every f*cking thing!”

“Sergeant, please,” Esposito said quietly. “Control yourself.”

“You said yourself we were dealing with a determined man!”

“Sergeant.” The voice was firmer.

D’Agosta stood, almost out of his mind with rage, frustration, and grief. Fosco had Pendergast’s credit card. What did it mean? And now the bastard was slipping through his fingers. Pendergast was gone, vanished. He made an almost superhuman struggle at control—if he lost it, he would never have another chance. He had to find a chink in the count’s armor. “He’s not in the castle, then. They’ve taken him into the woods, up on the mountain. We’ve got to search the area.”

Esposito puffed thoughtfully on the cigar, waiting for D’Agosta to finish. Then he spoke. “Sergeant D’Agosta. In your story, you claim the count killed four people to get back a violin—”

“At least four people. We’re just wasting time here! We have to—”

Esposito raised a hand for silence. “Excuse me. You claim the count killed these men with that device you’re carrying.”

“Yes.” D’Agosta tried to control his breathing.

“Why don’t you show it to the count?”

D’Agosta pulled the microwave device from the bag.

“My goodness,” Fosco said, staring with great interest. “What is that?”

“The sergeant tells us it is a microwave weapon,” Esposito said. “Designed by you, and used by you, to burn to death Mr. Locke Bullard, a peasant from Abetone, and two other people back in the United States.”

Fosco looked first at the colonnello, then at D’Agosta, astonishment and then—pity?—on his face. “The sergeant says this?”

“Correct.”

“A machine, you say? That zaps people, turns them into smoking piles of ash? That I built?” He spread his hands, astonishment on his face. “I should like to see a demonstration.”

“Sergeant, perhaps you’d care to demonstrate the device for us and the count?”

D’Agosta looked down at the weapon, turned it over in his hands. Fosco’s skeptical tone went unrefuted by the colonnello, and no wonder: the device looked almost cartoonish, a Flash Gordon confection.

“I don’t know how to use it,” D’Agosta said.

“Try,” said Esposito, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

It occurred to D’Agosta that if he could get it working, it might be his only chance to turn the tide. It was his last chance.

He pointed it toward the fireplace hearth, where—as if placed as a deliberate challenge—sat a fresh pumpkin. He tried to clear his mind, tried to remember precisely what Fosco had done before. He turned a knob, pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He spun more dials, pressed a button, aimed, pulled the trigger.

Still nothing.

For all he knew, it had been damaged during the escape, when he tossed it into the bushes. He fiddled with the dials, pulling the trigger again and again, hoping for the low hum he’d heard during the demonstration. But the machine remained silent, cold.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” said Esposito quietly.

Slowly, very slowly, D’Agosta replaced it in the canvas bag. He could hardly bring himself to look at the colonnello. The man was staring at him, his face a mask of skepticism. No, not just skepticism: pure disbelief, anger—and pity.

From over Esposito’s shoulder, Fosco also stared. Then—very slowly and deliberately—Fosco reached into his collar, drew out a chain with a medallion at the end, and draped it carefully over his shirtfront, patting it familiarly with a plump hand.

With a sudden, burning shock of recognition, D’Agosta recognized the medallion: the lidless eye over a phoenix rising from the ashes. Pendergast’s own chain. Fosco’s private message was all too terribly clear.

“You bastard—!” And D’Agosta lunged for the count.

In a moment, the carabinieri leaped on D’Agosta and pulled him back, restraining him against a far wall of the library. The colonnello quickly placed himself between D’Agosta and Fosco.

“The son of a bitch! That’s Pendergast’s chain! There’s your proof! He killed Pendergast and took it!”

“Are you all right?” Esposito asked the count, ignoring D’Agosta.

“Quite all right, thank you,” Fosco said, sitting back and smoothing his capacious front. “I was startled, that is all. To settle the question once and for all, so there can be no doubt—” He turned the disc over, and there, on the reverse of the medallion, evidently worn by time, was an intricate engraving of the count’s own crest.

Douglas Preston & Li's Books