Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(80)

The videoconference room was small, built just for him. The technician was there—why were they all weaselly men with goatees?—hunched over the keyboard. He rose when Bullard entered, bumping his head on a bulkhead in his haste. “Everything’s set, Mr. Bullard. Just press—”

“Get out.”

The man got out, leaving Bullard alone. He locked the door behind him, keyed in the passphrase, waited for the prompt, keyed in another. The screen flickered into life, split down the center into two images: the COO of Bullard Aerospace Industries in Italy, Martinetti; and Chait, his head man in the States.

“How’d it go yesterday?” Bullard asked.

The hesitation told Bullard there’d been a f*ckup.

“The guests came with firecrackers. There was a party.”

Bullard nodded. He’d half expected it.

“When they learned there was no cake, the party began. Williams had to leave suddenly. The guests all left with him.”

So the Chinese had killed Williams and got their asses shot off in return.

“Another thing. The party got crashed.”

Bullard felt a sudden constriction in his gut. Now, who the hell had done that? Pendergast? Christ, Vasquez was taking his precious time. Bullard had never met a man quite so dangerous. But if it was Pendergast, how had he learned about it? The files in the seized computer were strongly encrypted, no way they could have been cracked.

“Everybody else got home safely.”

Bullard barely heard this. He was still thinking. Either their phones had been tapped or the feds had an informer in his top five. Probably the former. “There’s a bird in the tree, maybe,” Bullard said, speaking the prearranged code that indicated a phone tap.

This was greeted with silence. Hell, he almost didn’t care anymore. Bullard turned to the image of his Italian COO. “You have the item ready and packed for traveling?”

“Yes, sir.” The man spoke with difficulty. “May I ask why—?”

“No, goddamn you to hell, you may not!” Bullard felt rage abruptly take him; it was like a seizure, beyond his control. He glanced over at the image of Chait. The man was listening, face expressionless.

“Sir—”

“Don’t ask me any questions. I’ll get the item when I arrive, and that’ll be it. You’ll never speak of it again, to me or anyone.”

The man went pale and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Mr. Bullard, after all the work we’ve done and the risks we’ve taken, I have the right to know why you are killing the project. I speak to you respectfully as your chief operating officer. I have only the good of the company at heart—”

Bullard felt the rage grow inside him like a heat, so intense it seemed to powder the very marrow of his bones. “You son of a bitch, what did I just tell you?”

Martinetti fell silent. Chait’s eyes flickered this way and that, nervously. He was wondering if maybe his boss wasn’t going crazy. It seemed a fair enough question.

“I am the company,” Bullard went on. “I know what’s for the good of the company and what isn’t. You mention this again and ti faccio fuori, bastardo. I’ll kill you, you bastard.”

He knew no self-respecting Italian would stand for such an insult. He was right. “Sir, I hereby tender my resignation—”

“Resign, motherf*cker, resign! And good riddance!” Bullard brought his fist down on the keyboard, again and again. On the fifth blow, the screen finally winked off.

Bullard sat for a long time in the darkened room. So the feds had been expecting them in Paterson. That meant they knew about the planned transfer of missile technology. Once, that would have been a di-saster, but now it seemed almost irrelevant. At the last minute, the crime had been abandoned. The feds had jack and it would stay that way. BAI was clean. Not that Bullard gave a shit; he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Fact was, the feds knew nothing about what was really going on. He had gotten away just in time. Grove and Cutforth—Grove and Cutforth, and maybe Beckmann, too. They had to die; it was inevitable. But he was still alive and that’s what counted.

Bullard realized he was hyperventilating. Christ, he needed air. He stumbled up from the console, unlocked the door, mounted the stairs. In a moment he was back on the flying bridge, staring eastward into blue nothingness.

If only he could just sail off the edge of the world.





{ 40 }


D’Agosta heard the faint squawking of a radio and looked up through the dense undergrowth. At first, nothing could be seen through the riot of vegetation. But within a few minutes, he began to catch distant flashes of silver, glimpses of blue. Finally a cop came into view—just a head and shoulders above the dense brush—forcing his way through the bracken. The cop spied him, turned. Behind him were two medics carrying a blue plastic remains locker. They were followed by two other men in jumpsuits, lugging a variety of heavy tools. A photographer came last.

The cop shouldered his way through the last of the brush—a local Yonkers sergeant, small and no-nonsense—and stopped before them.

“You Pendergast?”

“Yes. Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Baskin.”

“Right. This the grave?”

“It is.” Pendergast removed some papers from his jacket. The cop scrutinized them, initialed them, stripped off the copies, and handed the originals back. “Sorry, I need to see ID.”