Crooked River(66)

“Good,” came the voice on the other end. “And you’ve answered your work phone: that will make things easier.”

Pendergast recognized the voice as that of ADC Pickett. But it was not quite that man’s normal voice: it sounded strained.

“I’ve just heard from our station in southern China. Specialist Quarles is dead.”

For the briefest moment, Pendergast went totally still. Then he reached for his glass. “Give me the details.”

“He fell from his suite at the Sofitel Foshan, in Guangdong Province. Chinese police and medical workers recovered the body and had already begun an investigation before Quarles’s credentials, and his assignment, were spotted as active by Langley. By the time we reached out to the Chinese authorities and completed the necessary diplomatic dance, the autopsy was complete. We were lucky to get one of our own forensic specialists in for an examination before the body was cremated and returned to the States.”

“And the findings?”

“The official Chinese verdict was death by blunt force trauma, consistent with a fall from the twentieth floor of a building. I’m sending you some encrypted images now.” There was a brief pause. “Suicide was presumed. The autopsy was quite thorough, and our expert had a difficult time finding evidence to the contrary. Quarles fell from his room, all right. But…”

“Yes?”

“Our expert noticed something unusual: the man’s esophagus was abraded.”

“Abraded?”

“That was the word our medical examiner used in his report, yes.”

“Will you send the report to me, please?”

“Just a moment.” Another pause. “The Chinese M.E. brushed it off as esophageal perforation due to a preexisting—let’s see—squamous cell carcinoma.”

“Anything else?”

“There was no time. He did what he could before the Chinese cremated the remains—as is their usual damnable practice, covering up any hint of foul play that might befall foreigners in China.”

“Do you have any images of the esophagus?”

“Sending it now.”

During this exchange, Constance had risen from her chair and walked to the railing of the deck, aperitif in hand, and was looking west across the beach. The sun was now an orange ball of fire kissing the sea horizon. Pendergast decrypted the messages on his phone, then quickly scrolled through the photographs. Quarles was barely recognizable as a human being, let alone as the short, fussy man with the Eton haircut he’d met in the M.E.’s office in Fort Myers not so many days ago. That was a tall building. He scrolled forward to the U.S. doctor’s report.

“It says here that both the mucosa and submucosa were involved, and that there was no indication of either eschar or debridement.”

“Agent Pendergast, you’re losing me with that medical terminology.”

Pendergast swiped ahead to the final image—the single picture their doctor had been able to take of Quarles’s esophagus.

“Traumatic injury or no, these are definitely not cancerous squamous cells,” he said.

Pickett sighed audibly. “Dr. Pendergast speaks—”

“The expert from the FTG I sent to China earlier this week did not have advanced esophageal cancer. That much I can tell you for a fact.”

“So what was it?”

“I’m saying exactly what our own medical expert is probably also implying, as diplomatically as possible under the circumstances. This damage to the esophagus wasn’t caused by cancer or a fall. It was caused by full-thickness burns.”

“Burns?”

“Third-degree, where tissue is destroyed down to the subcutaneous level.”

This pause was longer. “And you’re implying what, precisely?”

“That Specialist Quarles was tortured. A specially fitted gastroscope was inserted down his throat.”

“Specially…fitted?”

“Yes. They can be purchased if one knows where. Medical instruments that aren’t meant to heal but do the opposite. Gastroscopes can normally be fitted with lights, cameras, tiny scalpels for the taking of biopsies. But they can also be fitted with electric probes, cautery pens. A method of torture that leaves no visible exterior trace, only interior.”

“Good Lord.”

“Quarles called me three days ago. He said he thought he’d found the manufacturer of the shoes. It was a small company that furnished items to a limited list of clients—including a jobber that, fairly recently, had ordered three hundred pairs of our precise shoe.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He said that there had been some unusual requests involved. He also said that he felt this was a sensitive order, and that learning more might present problems.”

“And?”

“Sir, Quarles was as comfortable doing business in China as he was analyzing shoes and neckties in Huntsville. But he was not an agent, and his primary training was not in covert work. He thought he’d found the manufacturer and jobber. We wanted to identify the buyer, of course, but I told him to use his discretion, and that if he felt any danger, he should abandon the attempt and exfil the region immediately.”

“Did you get the name of the manufacturer or jobber?”

“Neither. There was no reason for him to tell me more at that point—for security reasons, if nothing else.”