The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(139)

Kill him, the voice said again.

“What real work?” Fairhaven asked.

Still, Pendergast remained silent.

The merest spasm of doubt passed through Fairhaven, quickly suppressed. What was the man’s game? He was wasting his time, and there was no doubt a reason why he was wasting his time, which meant it was best just to kill him now. At least he knew the girl could not escape from the basement. He would deal with her in good time. Fairhaven’s finger tightened on the trigger.

At last, Pendergast spoke. “Leng didn’t tell you anything in the end, did he? You tortured him to no avail, because you’re still thrashing about, wasting all these people. But I do know about Leng. I know him very well indeed. Perhaps you noticed the resemblance?”

“What?” Again Fairhaven was taken off guard.

“Leng was my great-grand-uncle.”

It hit Fairhaven then. His grip on the weapon loosened. He remembered Leng’s delicate white face, his white hair, and his very pale blue eyes—eyes that regarded him without begging, without pleading, without beseeching, no matter how hideous it had become for him. Pendergast’s eyes were the same. But Leng had died anyway, and so would he.

So would he, the voice echoed, more insistently. His information is not as important as his death. This resource is not worth the risk. Kill him.

The man reapplied pressure to the trigger. At this distance, he could not miss.

“It’s hidden here in the house, you know. Leng’s ultimate project. But you’ve never found it. All along you’ve been looking for the wrong thing. And as a result, you will die a long, slow, wasting death of old age. Just like the rest of us. You cannot succeed.”

Squeeze the trigger, the voice in his head insisted.

But there was something in the agent’s tone. He knew something, something important. He wasn’t just talking. Fairhaven had dealt with bluffers before, and this man was not bluffing.

“Say what you have to say now,” said Fairhaven. “Or you will die instantly.”

“Come with me. I’ll show you.”

“Show me what?”

“I’ll show you what Leng was really working on. It’s in the house. Here, right under your nose.”

The voice in his head was no longer little; it was practically shouting. Do not allow him to continue talking, no matter how important his information may be. And Fairhaven finally heeded the wisdom of that advice.

Pendergast was leaning against the wall, off balance, his hands clearly in view. It would be impossible for the man, in the time it took to squeeze off one shot, to reach inside his suit and pull out a backup weapon. Besides, he had no such weapon; Fairhaven had searched him thoroughly. He took a fresh bead on Pendergast, then held his breath, increasing the pressure on the trigger. There was a sudden roar and the gun kicked in his hand. And he knew instantly: it had been a true shot.





FOUR




THE CELL DOOR STOOD OPEN, ALLOWING A FAINT LIGHT TO FILTER IN from the passageway beyond. Nora waited, shrinking back into the pool of darkness behind the cell door. Ten minutes. Pendergast had said ten minutes. In the dark, with her heart pounding like a sledgehammer, every minute seemed an hour, and it was almost impossible to tell the passage of time. She forced herself to count each second. A thousand one, a thousand two… Each count made her think of Smithback, and what might be happening to him. Or had happened to him.

Pendergast had told her he thought Smithback was dead. He had said this to spare her the shock of discovering it for herself. Bill is dead. Bill is dead. She tried to absorb it, but found her mind would not accept the fact. It felt unreal. Everything felt unreal. A thousand thirty. A thousand thirty-one. The seconds rolled on.

At six minutes and twenty-five seconds, the sound of a gunshot came, deafening in the confined spaces of the cellar.

Her whole body kicked in fear. It was all she could do not to scream. She crouched, waiting for the absurd skipping of her heart to slow. The terrible sound echoed and re-echoed, rumbling and rolling through the basement corridors. Finally, silence—dead silence—returned.

She felt her breath coming in gasps. Now it was doubly hard to count. Pendergast had said to wait ten minutes. Had another minute passed since the shot? She decided to resume the count again at seven minutes, hoping the monotonous, repetitive activity would calm her nerves. It did not.

And then she heard the sound of rapid footsteps ringing against stone. They had an unusual, syncopated cadence, as if someone was descending a staircase. The footfalls quickly grew fainter. Silence returned once again.

At ten minutes, she stopped counting. Time to move.

For a moment, her body refused to respond. It seemed frozen with dread.

What if the man was still out there? What if she found Smithback dead? What if Pendergast was dead, too? Would she be able to run, to resist, to die, rather than be caught herself and face a fate far worse?

Speculation was useless. She would simply follow Pendergast’s orders.

With an immense effort of will, she rose from her crouch, then stepped out of the darkness, easing her way around the open door. The corridor beyond the cell was long and damp, with irregular stone floor and walls, streaked with lime. At the far end was a door that opened into a bright room: the lone source of light, it seemed, in the entire basement. It was in that direction Pendergast had gone; that direction from which the shot had come; that direction from which she’d heard the sound of running feet.