The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(159)

The flame had crawled up to the final edge; Pendergast opened his fingers, and the unburned corner flared into ash on its way to the turned earth. Gently, Pendergast pressed it into Mary Greene’s grave. When he stepped back, nothing remained but a black stain in the brown earth.

A brief, shocked silence followed.

Then Smithback put his head into his hands. “I can’t believe it. Did you bring us here just to see that?”

Pendergast nodded.

“Why?”

“Because what I have just done was too important to do alone. It was an action that required witnesses—if only for the sake of history.”

As Nora looked at Pendergast, she saw—behind the conflict still evident on his face—a bottomless sorrow, an exhaustion of spirit.

Smithback shook his head miserably. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve just destroyed the greatest medical advance ever made.”

The FBI agent spoke again, his voice low now, almost a whisper. “Can’t you see? This formula would have destroyed the world. Leng already had the answer to his problem right in his hand. Had he released this into the world, it would have been the end. He only lacked the objectivity to see it.”

Smithback did not reply.

Pendergast glanced at the writer for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze to the grave. His shoulders seemed to droop.

Nora had been standing back, watching, listening, without saying a word. Suddenly, she spoke.

“I understand,” she said. “I know how difficult that decision must have been. For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”

As she spoke, Pendergast’s eyes remained on the ground. Then, slowly, his gaze rose to meet her own. Perhaps it was her imagination, but the anguish in his face seemed to lessen almost imperceptibly at her words.

“Thank you, Nora,” he said quietly.