Brimstone

"And that is why I am here, my friends. Up in that beautiful building, towering so high over our puny heads, Lucifer showed his face to this great city and seized the soul of a man. A man named Cutforth. Revelation tells us that in the End Days, Lucifer will openly walk the earth. He has arrived. The death out on Long Island, the death right here: these are but the begi

Almost mechanically, without taking his eyes from Buck, Harriman slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and called the photo department, speaking very softly. It was Klein's shift, and he understood exactly what Harriman wanted. No caricature of a Bible-thumping preacher here. Just the opposite. Harriman would make the Reverend Buck look like a man the readers of the Post would respect: a man who seemed the most reasonable, thoughtful person alive.

And if you heard him speak, you might believe it yourself.

Harriman slipped the phone back into his pocket. This Reverend Buck might not know it yet, but soon-very soon-he was going to be page one news.

{ 52 }

The night was humid and fragrant. Crickets trilled in the close darkness. D'Agosta followed Pendergast along an abandoned railroad track between squalid-looking concrete apartments. It was midnight and the moon had just set, lowering a velvety cloak over the city.

The tracks ended, leaving only the railroad grade, which was crossed by a sagging chain-link fence ru

Following Pendergast, D'Agosta turned and walked along the fence for a few hundred yards until they reached a cluster of trees. In the center was a tiny clearing, carpeted with dead leaves and old chestnut burrs.

"We'll prep here," said Pendergast, setting down the bag he'd been carrying.

D'Agosta put down his own bag and took a few deep breaths. He was glad he'd begun working out after the chase through Riverside Park but wished he'd thought of it sooner. Pendergast didn't even seem winded.

Pendergast stripped off his suit, folding it up into neat packets which he stowed in his bag. Underneath he was wearing black pants and shirt. D'Agosta stripped down to a similar costume.

"Here." Pendergast tossed D'Agosta a jar of face paint, taking another for himself, and began blackening his face with the tips of his fingers.

D'Agosta began to apply the paint as he examined the perimeter fence. It looked about as low-security as you could get: rusty and leaning, with numerous rends and tears. He took off his shoes and pulled on another pair Pendergast had supplied him with: black and tight-fitting, with smooth soles.

Pendergast slipped out his Les Baer and began applying blacking to the gun. D'Agosta winced; it was a hell of a thing to do to such a beautiful firearm.

"You need to do the same, Vincent. A single glint, no matter how small, would be all their spotters need."

D'Agosta reluctantly removed his weapon and began blacking it.

"Undoubtedly you are wondering if all this is really necessary."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Pendergast tugged on a pair of black gloves. "The fence, as you've surely guessed, is deceptive. There are several rings of security. The first is purely psychological, which no doubt is one reason Bullard chose this site to begin with."

"Psychological?"

"The site was once Il Dinamitificio Nobel, one of Alfred Nobel's dynamite factories." Pendergast checked his watch. "One of the great ironies of history is that Nobel, who established the Nobel Peace Prize, made his fortune with what at the time was the cruelest invention in human history."

"Dynamite?"

"Exactly. Seventeen times more powerful than gunpowder. It revolutionized warfare. We're so used to mass killing, Vincent, that we've forgotten what war was like with only black powder, ca

"Right."

"Alfred Nobel had a patent on modern warfare. At the height of his success, he had hundreds of factories all over Europe making dynamite. These factories had to be built on large campuses like this one, because no matter how carefully they handled their materials, once in a while it went off, killing hundreds. He sited his factories in impoverished areas which would provide an endless source of desperate, expendable workers. This factory was one of his largest." He swept his hand toward the darkness beyond the fence.

"Nobel might have gone down in history as a thoroughly evil man had not a curious thing happened. In 1888 his brother died, and the newspapers of Europe mistakenly reported his brother's death as his own. 'The Merchant of Death Is Dead,' ran the headlines. Reading his own obituary shocked Nobel deeply, and made him realize how history would see him. His reaction was to establish the Nobel prizes-including the famed Peace Prize-as a way to redirect what would certainly have been the dreadful judgment of history on his life."

"Seems to have worked," muttered D'Agosta.

"Which brings me to the point. By the time this factory closed, hundreds of people had been killed in explosions. On top of that, many thousands had been devastated by some of the chemicals used in the manufacture of dynamite, chemicals that affected the brain. As a result, this is a cursed place. It is shu

"So Bullard's letting the rep of the place handle security for him," D'Agosta said. "Clever."

"It's a clever deterrent, at least for the locals. Nevertheless, there will be security, and probably quite sophisticated security at that. I can only speculate as to its nature-my inquiries, as you know, have not been fruitful. But I have a few tools that should aid us."

Pendergast removed a haversack from his bag and slung it over one shoulder. Reaching back into the bag, he removed several pieces of aluminum tubing and fitted them together, affixing a small disc to one end. He approached the fence, slowly moving the device back and forth. Reaching the fence, he bent down, sweeping the ground before him carefully. A small red light glowed faintly on the small disc.

Pendergast rose, stepped back. "As I suspected. There is a sixty-hertz alternating electromagnetic field, indicating electric current."

"You're saying that fence is electrified?" D'Agosta asked. "That old thing?"