Brimstone

More laughter and the line went dead.

D'Agosta handed the phone back to the attendant. His face was on fire. The son of a bitch. The son of a bitch . It was illegal-wasn't it? Digging up that kind of personal information. Bullard had been speaking loudly, and D'Agosta wondered if his voice had carried as far as Pendergast. He swallowed, fought hard to master his rising rage.

"You're blocking the gate," said the man in the booth. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Sir."

"We'll drive around the block," Pendergast told the attendant, "and give Mr. Bullard time to change his mind."

"He's not going to change his mind."

Pendergast gave the attendant a long, sympathetic look. "You'll know when to step aside, I hope? For your own sake, of course."

"What do you mean?"

Without waiting for an answer, Pendergast put the Rolls in reverse and hit the gas, leaving a satisfying patch of rubber. He turned around in the parking lot, then nosed out onto State Street. He glanced over at D'Agosta. "Are you all right, Vincent?"

"I'm fine," D'Agosta said through gritted teeth.

Pendergast turned right and began circling the block. "Mr. Bullard, it seems, needs a firmer hand."

"Yeah."

Pendergast reached down with one hand and punched in a number on the in-dash cell phone.

A ring sounded over the speaker, then the phone was answered by a familiar voice. "Captain Hayward."

"Captain? It's Pendergast. We're going to need that subpoena and warrant I called you about this morning."

"On what grounds?"

"Refusal to cooperate. Imminent flight risk."

"Come on. Bullard's not some Colombian drug dealer or Middle Eastern terrorist. He's a leading American industrialist."

"Yes, with overseas accounts and overseas factories, who happens to be on his yacht, fueled to its maximum capacity and fully stocked for a transatlantic voyage. He can reach Canada, Mexico, South America, or Europe on one tank-take your pick."

There was a sigh. "He's an American. He's got a passport. He's free to leave."

"He's an uncooperative witness. He won't answer questions."

"A lot of people won't answer questions."

"Both Grove and Cutforth called him just before they were murdered. There's a co

Another irritated sigh. "This is just the kind of irregular operation that looks bad in court."

"He threatened Sergeant D'Agosta."

"He did?" Her voice sounded a little sharper.

"An implied blackmail threat over personal information he collected through Northern Health Atlantic Management, the HMO he owns."

So he did hear, D'Agosta thought.

"That right?" There was a pause. "All right, then, go ahead. The papers are all ready and just need to be signed."

"Excellent." Pendergast gave a fax number.

"Agent Pendergast?"

"Yes?"

"Don't make a hash of this. I care about my career."

"I care about it, too."

The fax peeled out of the tiny impact printer just as they rounded Pearl Street and headed back toward the yacht harbor. Driving slowly through the outer lot, Pendergast tore it from the printer and handed it to the VIP attendant.

"You again?" the man said as he took the fax.

Pendergast smiled, put his fingers to his lips. "Not a word to Bullard."

The man read the fax, handed it back. There was something in his face that, perhaps, didn't look entirely displeased at the turn of events.

"Time to step aside," said Pendergast quietly.

"Yes, sir."

They parked in the VIP lot, and Pendergast opened the trunk. He gestured to D'Agosta. "For you."

D'Agosta peered in. A federal-issue battering ram lay inside, black and ugly and about three feet long, the kind DEA agents used in drug busts.

"You got to be kidding."

"Firmness, my dear Vincent," said Pendergast, smiling faintly.

D'Agosta grabbed the ram by its two handles and hefted it out. They headed down the walkway to the central dock. Ahead and to one side, tethered in its own private slip, the yacht loomed bigger than life: white with three enclosed decks, dozens of smoked windows, and a co

"What about crew?" D'Agosta asked.

"My information is that Bullard's alone."

The private slip had its own dock behind a locked gate. Pendergast knelt before it, raising his hands to the lock. It looked to D'Agosta as if the FBI agent was just testing the lock to see if it might be ajar. Perhaps it was, because the gate swung open obediently in his hands.

"We need to be brisk ," said Pendergast as he rose.

D'Agosta humped himself forward, lugging the ram. Despite renewed sessions in the gym since the gunfight in the park, he was still out of shape, the ram weighed at least forty pounds, and his bruised limbs protested with each thudding step. The gangplank of the Stormcloud was up, but in the rear, a locked boarding hatch lay just at dock level. Pendergast stopped, plucked his custom Les Baer .45 from his jacket, and stepped back, gesturing toward the hatch.

"After you, Vincent," he said.

D'Agosta reached deep down in his memory. What had they taught him at the Academy? Don’t run at the door, swing it into the door. He took a deep breath, gripped the handles as tightly as he could, and heaved the ram forward. The door flew inward with a satisfying smack. Pendergast ducked inside, gun ready, and D'Agosta clambered in behind.

They were in a narrow corridor, with painted bulkheads along one side and smoked-glass windows along the other. Pendergast threw open a door set into the bulkheads, and suddenly they were in the grand salon of the boat, cocooned in plush cream carpeting with black lacquered tables piped in gold trim.

"FBI!" Pendergast barked. "Freeze!"

Bullard stood in the center of the room, wearing a pale blue warm-up suit, cigar in hand, with a look of complete astonishment and-it seemed to D'Agosta-momentary terror.

"Don't move!"

Bullard recovered immediately, his face reddening, the veins pulsing in his neck. Surprise gave way to ill-concealed rage. He raised the cigar to his thick lips, sucked in a lungful, exhaled. "So. The sorry fuck brought backup."

"Keep your hands in view," Pendergast warned as he advanced, gun aimed.

Bullard spread his hands. "Here's a scene for your next novel, D'Agosta. Bet you never saw anything like this boat in that slum you grew up in on Carmine Street, with a cheap, poolroom-hustling cop for a father and a mother who-"

D'Agosta rushed at the man but Pendergast was even quicker, interposing himself with lightning speed. "Sergeant, don't give him what he wants."

D'Agosta took a strangled breath. He could hardly breathe.

"Come on," Bullard sneered. "Let's see if there's anything at all hanging under that belly of yours. I'm sixty, and I could take your fat ass with one hand."

Pendergast held D'Agosta's gaze, shaking his head slowly. D'Agosta swallowed, stepped back.

Pendergast turned and fastened his silvery eyes on Bullard.

"And look at this, an undertaker playing FBI. White trash from the Deep South. Very white, it seems."

"At your service," Pendergast said quietly.

Bullard laughed and swelled like a black mamba, stretching the fabric of the warm-up suit. He still had his cigar tucked between two huge spatulate fingers, and now he stoppered the laugh by inserting it between his lips again and blowing a cloud of smoke in their direction.