The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [319]
“An unexpected pleasure to see you here,” the figure said in a low, dry voice as he caressed the scalpel. “But convenient. In fact, you’ve arrived just in time.”
Some primitive instinct of self-preservation, stronger even than the horror that had seized him, spurred Smithback into action. He spun and ran. But it was so dark, and the figure moved so blindingly fast…
Later—he didn’t know how much later—Smithback woke up. There was a torpor, and a strange, languorous kind of confusion. He’d had a dream, a terrible dream, he remembered; but it was over now and everything was fine, he would wake to a beautiful fall morning, the hideous fragmented memories of the nightmare melting away into his subconscious. He’d rise, dress, have his usual breakfast of red flannel hash at his favorite Greek coffeeshop, and slowly take on once again, as he did every morning, his mundane, workaday life.
But as his mind gradually grew more alert, he realized that the broken memories, the horrible hinted fragments, were not evaporating. He had somehow been caught. In the dark. In Leng’s house.
Leng’s house…
He shook his head. It throbbed violently at the movement.
The man in the derby hat was the Surgeon. In Leng’s house.
Suddenly, Smithback was struck dumb by shock and fear. Of all the terrible thoughts that darted through his mind at that terrible moment, one stood out from the rest: Pendergast was right. Pendergast was right all along.
Enoch Leng was still alive.
It was Leng himself who was the Surgeon.
And Smithback had walked right into his house.
That noise he was hearing, that hideous gasping, was his own hyperventilation, the suck of air through tape covering his mouth. He forced himself to slow down, to take stock. There was a strong smell of mold around him, and it was pitch black. The air was cold, damp. The pain in his head increased. Smithback moved his arm toward his forehead, felt it stop abruptly—felt the tug of an iron cuff around his wrist, heard the clank of a chain. What the hell was this?
His heart began to race, faster and faster, as one by one the holes in his memory filled: the endless echoing rooms, the voice from the darkness, the man stepping out of the shadows… the glittering scalpel. Oh, God, was it really Leng? After 130 years? Leng?
He tried to stand in automatic groggy panic but fell back again immediately, to a chorus of clinks and clatterings. He was stark naked, chained to the ground by his arms and legs, his mouth sealed with heavy tape.
This couldn’t be happening. Oh, Jesus, this was insane.
He hadn’t told anyone he was coming up here. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody even knew he was missing. If only he’d told someone, the pool secretary, O’Shaughnessy, his great-grandfather, his half-sister, anyone…
He lay back, head pounding, hyperventilating again, heart battering in his rib cage.
He had been drugged and chained by the man in black—the man in the derby hat. That much was clear. The same man who tried to kill Pendergast, no doubt; the same man, probably, who had killed Puck and the others. The Surgeon. He was in the dungeon of the Surgeon.
The Surgeon. Professor Enoch Leng.
The sound of a footfall brought him to full alertness. There was a scraping noise, then a painfully bright rectangle of light appeared in the wall of darkness ahead. In the reflected light, Smithback could see he was in a small basement room with a cement floor, stone walls and an iron door. He felt a surge of hope, even gratitude.
A pair of moist lips appeared at the iron opening. They moved.
“Please do not discompose yourself,” came the voice. “All this will be over soon. Struggle is unnecessary.”
There was something almost familiar in that voice, and yet inexpressibly strange and terrible, like the whispered tones of nightmare.
The slot slid shut, leaving Smithback in darkness once more.
All those Dreadful Little Cuts
ONE
THE BIG ROLLS-ROYCE GLIDED ITS WAY ALONG THE ONE-lane road that crossed Little Governors Island. Fog lay thick in the marshes and hollows,