Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [21]
“And the funeral arrangements—?”
“There will be no funeral. The family attorney, Mr. Ogilby, will be in touch with you about disposition of the remains.”
“Very well.”
Pendergast looked around the room for a moment, as if committing its details to memory. Then he turned to D’Agosta. His expression was neutral, but his eyes spoke of sorrow, even desolation.
“Vincent,” he said. “We have a plane to catch.”
10
Zambia
THE SMILING, GAP-TOOTHED MAN AT THE DIRT airstrip had called the vehicle a Land Rover. That description, D’Agosta thought as he hung on for dear life, was more than charitable. Whatever it might have been, now it barely deserved to be called an automobile. It had no windows, no roof, no radio, and no seat belts. The hood was fixed to the grille by a tangle of baling wire. He could see the dirt road below through giant rust holes in the chassis.
At the wheel, Pendergast—attired in khaki shirt and pants, and wearing a Tilley safari hat—swerved around a massive pothole in the road, only to hit a smaller one. D’Agosta rose several inches out of his seat at the impact. He gritted his teeth and took a fresh hold on the roll bar. This is frigging awful, he thought. He was hot as hell, and there was dust in his ears, eyes, nose, hair, and crevices he hadn’t even known he had. He contemplated asking Pendergast to slow down, then thought better of it. The closer they came to the site of Helen Pendergast’s death, the grimmer Pendergast became.
Pendergast slowed just slightly as they came to a village—yet another sorry-looking collection of huts built of sticks and dried mud, baking in the noonday sun. There was no electricity, and a single communal well stood in the middle of the lone crossroads. Pigs, chickens, and children roamed aimlessly.
“And I thought the South Bronx was bad,” D’Agosta muttered more to himself than to Pendergast.
“Kingazu Camp is ten miles ahead,” was Pendergast’s reply as he stepped on the accelerator.
They hit another pothole and D’Agosta was again thrown in the air, coming down hard on his tailbone. Both arms were smarting from the inoculations, and his head hurt from the sun and vibration. About the only painless thing he’d endured in the past thirty-six hours was the phone call to his boss, Glen Singleton. The captain had approved his leave of absence with barely a question. It was almost as if he was relieved to see D’Agosta go.
Half an hour brought them to Kingazu Camp. As Pendergast maneuvered the vehicle into a makeshift lot beneath a grove of sausage trees, D’Agosta took in the trim lines of the photographic safari camp: the immaculate reed-and-thatch huts, the large canvas structures labeled DINING TENT and BAR, the wooden walkways linking each building to the next, the linen pavilions that sheltered comfortable deck chairs on which a dozen fat and happy tourists dozed, cameras dangling from their necks. Strings of tiny lights were strung along the rooflines. A generator purred off in the bush. Everything was done up in bright—almost gaudy—colors.
“This is straight out of Disney,” D’Agosta said, getting out of the vehicle.
“A great deal has changed in twelve years,” Pendergast replied, his voice flat.
They stood there a moment, motionless, without speaking, in the shade of the sausage trees. D’Agosta took in the fragrant smell of burning wood, the tang of crushed grass, and—more faintly—an earthy, animal muskiness he couldn’t identify. The bagpipe drone of insects mingled with other sounds: the whine of the generators, the cooing of doves, the restless mutterings of the nearby Luangwa River. D’Agosta shot a covert glance at Pendergast: the agent was stooped forward, as if he bore a terrific weight; his eyes glittered with a haunted fire, and—as he took in the scene with what seemed like a strange mixture of hunger and dread—a single muscle in his cheek twitched erratically. He must have realized he was being scrutinized, because the FBI agent composed himself, straightening up and smoothing his safari vest. But the strange glitter did not leave