Brimstone

Fosco ran a hand over his device, then laid it on the table next to him. "As you know, Mr. Pendergast, I'm a tinkerer. I love a challenge. It's quite simple to build a microwave transmitter that would deliver the necessary wattage. The problem was the power supply. But I. G. Farben, a German company which my family was co

D'Agosta glanced at the microwave device. It looked almost silly, like a cheap prop to an old science fiction movie.

"It would never work as a weapon of war: the top theoretical range is less than twenty feet, and it takes time to do its work. But it suited my purposes perfectly. I had quite a time working out the kinks. Many pumpkins were sacrificed, Sergeant D'Agosta. At last, I tested it on that old pedophile in Pistoia-the one whose tomb you examined. There was a bit of a meltdown-the human body takes a lot more heating than a pumpkin. I rebuilt the device with improvements and used it more successfully on the terrorized Grove. It wasn't quite enough to set the man on fire, but it did the job. Then I arranged the scene to my satisfaction, packed up, and left, locking everything and turning the alarm back on. With Cutforth it was even simpler. As I said, my man Pinketts had rented the apartment next door and was undertaking 'renovations.' He made a marvelous elderly English gentleman, poor man, all bent over and muffled up against the chill."

"That explains why they couldn't identify a suspect from the security video cams," D'Agosta said.

"Pinketts used to be in the theater, which frequently comes in handy for my purposes. In any case, the weapon works beautifully through walls made of drywall and wooden studs. Microwaves, my dear Pendergast, have the marvelous property of penetrating drywall like light through glass, as long as there is no moisture or metal. There could of course be no metal nails in the wall between the two apartments, because metal absorbs microwaves and would heat up and cause a fire. So Pinketts opened our side of the wall, removed the nails, and replaced them with wooden dowels. When it was all over, he put our side of the wall back up. The whole operation was disguised as part of the remodeling job. Pinketts himself did the honors on Cutforth while I was at the opera with you. What better alibi than to contrive to spend the evening of the murder with the detective himself!" Fosco heaved in silent mirth.

"And the smell of sulfur?"

"Sulfur burned with phosphorus in a censer, injected through the wall at cracks around the molding."

"How did you burn the images into the wall?"

"The hoofprint in Grove's house was done directly, focusing the microwave. The image in Cutforth's apartment had to be done indirectly-Pinketts couldn't get into the apartment-by focusing the device against a mask. That was a little trickier, but it worked. Burned the image right through the wall. Brilliant, don't you think?"

"You're sick," said D'Agosta.

"I am a tinkerer. I like nothing more than solving tricky little problems." He gri

Fosco raised the ungainly thing, slid its leather strap over his shoulder, aimed it at the pumpkin, adjusted some knobs. Then he pressed a rudimentary kind of trigger. D'Agosta stared in horrified fascination. There was a humming noise in the capacitor-that was all.

"Right now the device is working up from its lowest setting. If that pumpkin were our victim, he would begin to experience a most awful crawling sensation in his guts and over his skin about now."

The pumpkin remained unaffected. Fosco turned a knob, and the humming went up a notch.

"Now our victim is screaming. The crawling sensation has gotten unbearable. I imagine it's like a stomach full of wasps, stinging endlessly. His skin, too, would start to dry and blister. The rising heat within his muscles would soon cause the neurons to begin firing, jerking his limbs spasmodically, causing him to fall down and go into convulsions. His internal temperature is soaring. Within a few more seconds he'll be thrashing on the ground, biting off or swallowing his tongue."

Another tick of the dial. Now a small blister appeared on the skin of the pumpkin. It seemed to soften, sag a bit. A soft pop, and the pumpkin split open from top to bottom, issuing a spurt of steam.

"Now our victim is unconscious, seconds from death."

There was a muffled boiling sound inside the pumpkin, and the fissure widened. With a sudden wet noise, a jet of orange slime forced itself from the split, oozing over the floor in steaming rivulets.

"No comment necessary. By now, our victim is dead. The interesting part, however, is yet to come."

Blisters began swelling all over the surface of the pumpkin, some popping with little puffs of steam, others breaking and weeping orange fluid.

Another tick of the dial.

The pumpkin split afresh, with a second rush of boiling pulp and seeds squeezing out in a hot viscous paste. The pumpkin sagged further and darkened, the stem blackening and smoking; more fluid and seeds oozed from the cracks along with jets of steam. And then suddenly, with a sharp popping sound, the seeds began to explode. The pumpkin seemed to harden, the room filling with the smell of burned pumpkin flesh; then, with a sudden paff! , it burst into flame.

"Ecco! The deed is done. Our victim is on fire. And yet, if you were to place your hand on the stone next to the pumpkin, you would find it barely warm to the touch."

Fosco lowered the device. The pumpkin continued to smolder, a flame licking the stem, sizzling and crackling as it burned, a foul black smoke rising slowly.

"Pinketts?"

The servant, without missing a beat, picked up a bottle of acqua minerale from the di

"Marvelous, don't you think? And yet it's much more dramatic with a human body, I can assure you."

"You're one sick fuck, you know that?" said D'Agosta.

"This man of yours, Pendergast, is begi

"Clearly a man of many virtues," Pendergast replied. "But I think this has gone on long enough. It is time for us to get to the remaining business at hand."

"Quite, quite."

"I have come here to offer you a deal."

"Naturally." Fosco's lip curled cynically.

Pendergast glanced at the count a moment, his looks unreadable, letting the silence build. "You will write out and sign a confession of all that you have told us tonight, and you will give me that diabolical machine as proof. I will escort you to the carabinieri, who will arrest you. You will be tried for the murders of Locke Bullard and Carlo Va

Fosco listened, an incredulous smile developing on his face. "Is that all? And what will you give me in exchange?"

"Your life."

"I wasn't aware my life was in your hands, Mr. Pendergast. It seems to me it's the other way around."

D'Agosta saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. Pinketts had withdrawn a 9mm Beretta and had it trained on them. D'Agosta's hand moved toward his own weapon, unstrapped the keeper.