The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(140)

She took a hesitant step forward, and then another, walking on trembling legs toward the brilliant rectangle of light.





FIVE




THE SURGEON COULD HARDLY BELIEVE HIS EYES. WHERE PENDERGAST should have been lying dead in a pool of blood, there was nothing. The man had vanished.

He looked around wildly. It was inconceivable, a physical impossibility… And then he noticed that the section of wall Pendergast had been leaning against was now a door, swiveled parallel to the stone face that surrounded it. A door he never knew existed, despite his diligent searches of the house.

The Surgeon waited, stilling his mind with a great effort of will. Deliberation in all things, he had found, was absolutely necessary for success. It had brought him this far, and with it he would prevail now.

He stepped forward, Pendergast’s gun at the ready. On the far side of the opening, a stone staircase led downward into blackness. The FBI agent obviously wanted him to follow, to descend the staircase whose end was hidden around the dark curve of the stone wall. It could easily be a trap. In fact, it could only be a trap.

But the Surgeon realized he had no choice. He had to stop Pendergast. And he had to find out what lay below. He had a gun, and Pendergast was unarmed, perhaps even wounded by the shot. He paused, briefly, to examine the pistol. The Surgeon knew something about weapons, and he recognized this as a Les Baer custom, .45 Government Model. He turned it over in his hands. With the tritium night sights and laser grips, easily a three-thousand-dollar handgun. Pendergast had good taste. Ironic that such a fine weapon would now be used against its owner.

He stepped back from the false wall. Keeping a watchful eye on the stairway, he retrieved a powerful flashlight from a nearby drawer, then darted a regretful glance toward his specimen. The vital signs were beginning to drop now; the operation was clearly spoiled.

He returned to the staircase and shone the flashlight down into the gloom. The imprint of Pendergast’s footsteps was clearly visible in the dust that coated the steps. And there was something else, something besides the footsteps: a drop of blood. And another.

So he had hit Pendergast. Nevertheless, he would have to redouble his caution. Wounded humans, like wounded animals, were always the most dangerous.

He paused at the first step, wondering if he should go after the woman first. Was she still chained to the wall? Or had Pendergast managed to free her, as well? Either way, she posed little danger. The house was a fortress, the basement securely locked. She would be unable to escape. Pendergast remained the more pressing problem. Once he was dead, the remaining resource could be tracked down and forced to take the place of Smithback. He’d made the mistake of listening to Pendergast once. When he found him, he wouldn’t make that mistake again. The man would be dead before he even opened his mouth.

The staircase spiraled down, down, corkscrewing endlessly into the earth. The Surgeon descended slowly, treating each curve as a blind corner behind which Pendergast might be lying in wait. At last he reached the bottom. The stairs debouched into a dark, murky room, heavy with the smell of mildew, damp earth, and—what? Ammonia, salts, benzene, the faint smell of chemicals. There was a flurry of footprints, more drops of blood. Pendergast had stopped here. The Surgeon shone his light on the nearest wall: a row of old brass lanterns, hanging from wooden pegs. One of the pegs was empty.

He took a step to one side, then—using the stone pillar of the staircase as cover—lifted his heavy flashlight and shone it into the gloom.

An astonishing sight met his eye. A wall of jewels seemed to wink back at him: a thousand, ten thousand glittering reflections in myriad colors, like the reflective surface of a fly’s eye under intense magnification. Suppressing his surprise, he moved forward cautiously, gun at the ready.

He found himself in a narrow stone chamber, pillars rising toward a low, arched ceiling. The walls were lined with countless glass bottles of identical shape and size. They were stored on oaken shelving that rose from floor to ceiling, row upon row upon row, crowded densely together, shut up behind rippled glass. He had never seen so many bottles in his life. It looked, in fact, like a museum of liquids.

His breath came faster. Here it was: Leng’s final laboratory. No doubt this was the place where he had perfected the arcanum, his formula for life prolongation. This place must hold the secret for which he had unsuccessfully tortured Leng. He remembered his feeling of disappointment, almost despair, when he’d discovered that Leng’s heart had stopped beating—when he realized he had pushed a little too hard. No matter now: the formula was right here, under his nose, just as Pendergast had said.

But then he remembered what else Pendergast had said: something about Leng working on something completely different. That was absurd, clearly a red herring. What could be bigger than the prolongation of the human life span? What else could this huge collection of chemicals be for, if not that?

He shook these speculations from his mind. Once Pendergast was dealt with and the girl harvested, there would be plenty of time for exploration.

He raked the ground with his light. There was more blood, along with a ragged set of footprints that headed straight through the corridor of bottles. He had to be careful, exceedingly careful. The last thing he wanted to do was begin shooting up these rows of precious liquids, destroying the very treasure he had strived so hard to find. He raised his arm, aimed the handgun, applied pressure to the grip. A small red dot appeared on the far wall. Excellent. Although the laser would not be sighted in precisely, it would nevertheless leave little margin for error.