Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [157]
Pendergast raised his .45. “Tell me.”
“No, wait—” June began.
“Silence,” said Pendergast with quiet menace.
“That’s right,” breathed Slade, “silence. I ordered her killed. Helen—Esterhazy—Pendergast.”
“Charles, the man has a gun,” said June, her voice low but imploring. “He’s going to kill you.”
“Poppycock.” He raised a finger and twirled it. “We all lost somebody. He lost a wife. I lost a son. So it goes.” Then he repeated, with sudden intensity, in the same faint voice, “I lost a son.”
June Brodie turned toward Pendergast, speaking sotto voce. “You mustn’t get him talking about his son. That would set him back—and we’d made such progress!” A sob, immediately stifled, escaped her throat.
“I had to have her killed. She was going to expose us. Terribly dangerous… for all of us…” Slade’s eyes suddenly focused on nothing, widening as if in terror, staring at a blank wall. “Why are you here?” he murmured at nothing. “It isn’t time!” He slowly raised the whip up over his head and brought it down with a terrific smack on his own back, once, twice, three times, each blow causing him to stagger forward, the tatters of the torn suit jacket fluttering to the ground.
The blow seemed to snap him back to reality. He straightened, refocused his eyes. The room became very still.
“You see?” the woman said to Pendergast. “Don’t provoke him, for God’s sake. He’ll hurt himself.”
“Provoke? I intend to do far more than that.”
Pendergast’s menacing tone chilled Hayward. She felt trapped, helpless, vulnerable, stuck in the bed with IVs. She grasped the tubes, pressed down on her arm, and yanked them out. She swung up and out of bed, momentarily dizzy.
“I will handle this,” Pendergast told her.
“Remember,” Hayward replied, “you promised you wouldn’t kill him.”
Pendergast ignored her, facing the man.
Slade’s eyes suddenly went far away again, as if seeing something that wasn’t there; his mouth worked strangely, the dry lips twitching and stretching in unvoiced speech, of which Hayward gradually made out a rapid susurrus of words. “Go away, go away, go away, go away…” He brought the whip down again on his back, which again seemed to shock him into lucidity. Trembling, he fumbled—moving as if underwater, yet with evident eagerness—for the IV rack, located a bulb hanging from a tube, and gave it a decided press.
Drugs, she thought. He’s an addict.
The old man’s eyes rolled up white for a moment before he recovered, the eyes popping open again. “The story is easily told,” he went on in his low, hoarse voice. “Helen… Brilliant woman. A juicy piece of ass, too… I imagine you had some rollicking good times, eh?”
Hayward could see the gun in Pendergast’s hand shaking ever so slightly under the fierceness of his grip.
“She made a discovery…” Another gasp and Slade’s eyes defocused, staring into an empty corner, his lips trembling and whispering, unintelligible words tumbling out. His whip hand fluttered uselessly.
With a brisk step forward Pendergast slapped him across the face with shocking force. “Keep going.”
Slade came back. “What do they say in the movies? Thanks, I needed that!” The old man shook briefly with silent mirth. “Yes, Helen… Her discovery was quite remarkable. I imagine you could tell me most of the story already, Mr. Pendergast. Right?”
Pendergast nodded.
A cough erupted from the wizened chest, silent spasms racking his frame. Slade wheezed, stumbled, pressed the bulb again. After a moment he resumed. “She brought the discovery to us, the avian flu, through an intermediary, and Project Aves was born. She hoped a miracle drug might be the result, a creativity treatment. After all, it worked for Audubon—for a while. Mind enhancement. The ultimate drug…”
“Why did you give it up?” Pendergast asked. The neutral tone did not fool Hayward—the gun was still shaking in his hand. Hayward had never seen him so close to losing control.
“The research was expensive. Hideously expensive. We began to run out of money—despite all the corners we cut.” And he raised his hand