Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [78]
Pendergast turned. “Thank you, Joanie. We’ll work alone. Please shut the door on your way out.”
The girl nodded and retreated up the stairs.
Pendergast walked over to one of the brick walls. “Vincent,” he said, resuming his usual voice, “unless I am much mistaken, about twelve feet beyond this lies another wall: that of Arne Torgensson’s basement. And in between we should find a section of the old aqueduct, in which, perhaps, the good doctor has hidden something.”
D’Agosta dropped the tool sack on the ground with a thump. “I figure we got two minutes, tops, before that jackass upstairs calls his boss and the shit hits the fan.”
“You employ such colorful expressions,” Pendergast murmured, examining the brick wall with his loupe and rapping on it with a ball-peen hammer. “However, I think I can buy us some more time.”
“Oh, yeah? How?”
“I’m afraid I must inform our managerial friend that the situation is even more dire than we first thought. Not only must the shop be closed to customers—the workers themselves must vacate the premises until we complete our inspection.”
Pendergast’s light tread up the stairs receded quickly into silence. D’Agosta waited in the cool, dry darkness. After a moment an irruption of noise sounded from above: a protest, raised voices. Almost as quickly as it started, the noise ceased. Pendergast reappeared on the landing. Carefully closing and locking the door behind him, he descended the stairs and walked over to the bag of tools. Reaching into it, he pulled out a short-handled sledgehammer and handed it to D’Agosta.
“Vincent,” he said with a ghost of a smile, “I yield the floor to you.”
36
AS D’AGOSTA HEFTED THE SLEDGEHAMMER, PENDERGAST bent close to the ancient wall, rapping first on one stone, then another, all the while listening intently. The light was dim, and D’Agosta had to squint to see. After a few moments, the FBI agent gave a low grunt of satisfaction and straightened up.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a brick near the middle of the wall.
D’Agosta came over, gave the sledgehammer a practice swing like a batter on deck.
“I’ve bought us five minutes,” Pendergast said. “Ten at most. By then our managerial friend will undoubtedly be back. And this time he may bring company.”
D’Agosta swung the sledgehammer at the wall. Though he missed the indicated spot by a few bricks, the iron impacted the wall with a blow that shivered its way through his hands and up his arms. A second blow struck truer, and a third. He set down the sledgehammer, wiped his hands on the back of his pants, got a better grip, and returned to work. Another dozen or so heavy blows and Pendergast gestured for him to stop. D’Agosta stepped back, panting.
The agent glided up, waving aside a pall of cement dust. Playing a flashlight over the wall, he rapped on the bricks again, one after another. “They’re coming loose. Keep at it, Vincent.”
D’Agosta stepped forward again and gave the wall another series of solid blows. With the last came a crumbling sound, and one of the bricks shattered. Pendergast darted forward again, cold chisel in one hand and hammer in the other. He felt briefly along the sagging wall, then raised the hammer and applied several carefully placed strikes to the surrounding matrix of mortar and ancient concrete. Several more bricks were jarred loose, and Pendergast pried away others with his hands. Dropping the chisel and hammer, he played his