Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [17]
“When did you find out?” he ventured to ask.
“This afternoon.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
Pendergast did not answer immediately, glancing out the window as the Rolls turned sharply onto 72nd Street, heading toward the park. He placed the empty brandy glass—which he had been holding, unheeded, the entire uptown journey—back into its position in the tiny bar. Then he took a deep breath. “Twelve years ago, Helen and I were asked to kill a man-eating lion in Zambia—a lion with an unusual red mane. Just such a lion had wreaked havoc in the area forty years before.”
“Why did you get asked?”
“Part of having a professional hunting license. You’re obligated to kill any beasts menacing the villages or camps, if the authorities request it.” Pendergast was still looking out the window. “The lion had killed a German tourist at a safari camp. Helen and I drove over from our own camp to put it down.”
He picked up the brandy bottle, looked at it, put it back into its holder. The big car was now moving through Central Park, the skeletal branches overhead framing a threatening night sky. “The lion charged us from deep cover, attacked me and the tracker. As he ran back into the bush, Helen shot at him and apparently missed. She went to attend to the tracker…” His voice wavered and he stopped, composing himself. “She went to attend to the tracker and the lion burst out of the brush a second time. It dragged her off. That was the last time I saw her. Alive, anyway.”
“Oh, my God.” D’Agosta felt a thrill of horror course through him.
“Just this afternoon, at our old family plantation, I happened to examine her gun. And I discovered that—on that morning, twelve years ago—somebody had taken the bullets from her gun and replaced them with blanks. She hadn’t missed the shot—because there was no shot.”
“Holy shit. You sure?”
Now Pendergast looked away from the window to fix him with a stare. “Vincent, would I be telling you this—would I be here now—if I wasn’t absolutely sure?”
“Sorry.”
There was a moment of silence.
“You just discovered it this afternoon in New Orleans?”
Pendergast nodded tersely. “I chartered a private jet back.”
The Rolls pulled up before the 72nd Street entrance of the Dakota. Almost before the vehicle had come to a stop Pendergast was out. He strode past the guardhouse and through the vaulted stone archway of the carriage entrance, ignoring the fat drops of rain that were now splattering the sidewalk. D’Agosta followed at a jog as the agent strode across a wide interior courtyard, past manicured plants and muttering bronze fountains, to a narrow lobby in the southwest corner of the apartment building. He pressed the elevator button, the doors whispered open, and they ascended in silence. A minute later the doors opened again on a small space, a single door set into the far wall. It had no obvious locking mechanism, but when Pendergast moved his fingertips across the surface in an odd gesture D’Agosta heard the unmistakable click of a deadlock springing free. Pendergast pushed the door open, and the reception room came into view: dimly lit, with three rose-painted walls and a fourth wall of black marble, covered by a thin sheet of falling water.
Pendergast gestured at the black leather sofas arrayed around the room. “Take a seat. I’ll be back shortly.”
D’Agosta sat down as the FBI agent slipped through a door in one of the walls. He sat back, taking in the soft gurgle of water, the bonsai plants, the smell of lotus blossoms. The walls of the building were so thick, he could barely hear the opening peals of thunder outside. Everything about the room seemed designed to induce tranquility. Yet tranquil was the last thing he felt. He wondered again just how he’d swing a sudden leave of absence—with his boss, and especially with Laura Hayward.
It was ten minutes before Pendergast reappeared. He had shaved and changed into a fresh black suit. He also seemed more composed, more like the old Pendergast—although D’Agosta could still sense a great tension under the surface.
“Thank