City of Endless Night (Pendergast #17)(87)
He headed down the stairwell into the darkness, one hand tracing along the wall, moving cautiously and silently, his heart thumping in anticipation of what was to come.
*
Pendergast had searched all the expected places without finding what he needed. Of course he hadn’t found it, he reflected bitterly; it was no longer there. The records had been removed years ago. A man like Ozmian wouldn’t leave dynamite like that lying around, even in a decaying and abandoned archive. He would have sent someone in to find and destroy it.
Pendergast’s search had revealed the organization of the archives, and it now occurred to him that, at the time when this part of King’s Park was finally investigated for malpractice and cruelty and subsequently shut down, there might be an appendix of files that escaped notice. They would, logically, be at the very end, rather than in their normal alphabetical and date-related places. He moved quickly to the last row of cabinets, in the farthest corner of the archives. Although still encrusted with rust, cobwebs, and mildew, these were slightly newer and of a different model. The drawers were also labeled differently. Evidently, the files within lay outside the established archiving system. After a quick search he came upon a drawer labeled:
RESTRICTED
INVESTIGATIONS REPORTS PERSONNEL GRIEVANCES
PENDING AG ORDER OF CLOSURE
It was locked, but a sharp twist in the keyhole with his knife broke the flimsy bolt. After sliding open the drawer with another loud screech of rusted metal, he riffled through the contents, his spidery fingers flying over the tabs and raising a small cloud of dust. Halting, he seized a fat file with some paperwork clipped to its outside edge. Suddenly he crouched, switching off his light and listening. When he had entered the archives, he had closed the rusty door at the far end of the room. It had just opened with a creak.
Ozmian had arrived.
This was catastrophic; he simply would not have the time he needed. Nevertheless, with infinite care, keeping his light off, he rose and moved through the blackness by feeling the cabinets as he went, making for the rear exit. A short journey across open space brought him to the cinder-block outer wall of the archive room, which he again followed by feel. There was a closed door somewhere along this wall, and he was not far from it. He waited, listening acutely. Was that the faint, whispery crunch of footfall on grit? Another faint sound, at the very limit of audibility, reached him; then another. Ozmian was creeping toward him in the dark.
Aiming the Les Baer, he waited. If he fired at the sound, he would probably miss, and the flash would give Ozmian a target for return fire. The risk was too great. The man had surely heard the opening of the last cabinet and knew Pendergast was in the room, but he probably did not know exactly where.
Pendergast remained at the wall, unmoving, hardly breathing. Another faint crunch of a footfall. This one was closer. He might just chance a shot, risky as it was. Aiming the gun into the darkness, he placed his finger on the trigger and waited for another sound; and then it came—the whisper of dust being compressed by a foot.
He fired two rapid shots even as he threw himself sideways, the double flash illuminating Ozmian about seventy feet down the adjacent aisle. Ozmian instantly returned fire, but the rounds slammed into the wall above Pendergast’s prone body, peppering him with concrete chips. Into the dark he fired five more times at Ozmian’s last location, again spacing his shots in anticipation of the possible ways he might move—but each flash showed Ozmian at a place where his shot was not, even as the man returned fire, forcing him to dive for cover into the next row of cabinets. In the vast echoing and re-echoing of shots in the cavernous space, Pendergast took the opportunity to sprint down the aisle, running in the dark; he found a row by touch, ran down that in turn, then wheeled into a new aisle and another row before coming to a halt, crouching and catching his breath when silence returned. Moving again with the utmost caution, he headed via a roundabout route back to the rear exit, feeling his way along; within minutes he found it, and—easing the door open with a creak—ducked through and slammed it behind him, even as he heard Ozmian firing at the sound, a round hitting the thick metal door but not penetrating it. There was a bolt here, and he thrust it home; that, at least, would buy him another few minutes to do what he had to do.
Flicking on his flashlight, he looked quickly through the files he had gleaned, page after page, until he stopped at one particular sheet. He slipped it out, tucked it in his pocket, glanced at the building plans…and then proceeded down the hall, not even bothering to tread lightly. At the far end, he came to a small green door, which he pushed open and then shut and locked behind him, even as he heard Ozmian trying to get through the archive door.
He had a great deal of work to do to prepare for Ozmian’s arrival.
63
STANDING AT THE door, Ozmian turned on his flashlight. This was a seriously fortified steel door, as was merited to protect these once-sensitive archives. Examining the lock, he saw the only recourse was to shoot through it, despite the expense of rounds that might necessitate.
He ejected the now-empty magazine, slapped in the second one, then positioned himself and aimed with both hands for the cylinder, letting his heart slow down. His quarry had once again put several rounds within inches of his head. That fusillade unnerved him, but it also meant—if his count was right—that his quarry had only one round left to his eight. He believed the man was now fully on the run and out of options. An ambush with only one shot was close to suicide. He checked his watch: twenty minutes until Pendergast’s pal D’Agosta was nothing more than hamburger on the walls of Building 44. No wonder he was losing it.