Brimstone

And then-as suddenly and silently as he had disappeared-Pendergast was back, a long plank in his hands. He laid it across the brushy opening, then turned to D'Agosta. "Beyond this, no talking unless absolutely necessary. Follow my lead."

D'Agosta nodded.

They crossed the wobbly plank, one after the other. On the far side, the brush was thicker, presenting a dark wall. Pendergast moved forward, probed with his sensor, sniffed. He briefly turned on the light, then turned it off again. They moved parallel to the brushy area, then veered into it on what appeared to be an animal trail.

The boars are saving our ass, D'Agosta thought.

They crept slowly through the thick brush. A brick wall loomed to their right: a blast wall, judging by its massiveness. In one place it had been knocked down by what D'Agosta guessed was an old explosion. They moved through this gap, still following the boar trail. D'Agosta could barely see Pendergast, and could hear even less: the man moved as silently as a leopard.

The trail petered out in a large meadow less overgrown than the others they had passed. Pendergast paused to reco

Pendergast slipped a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Turning back toward D'Agosta, and very carefully shielding a cigarette with his hands, he lit up. D'Agosta watched, astonished. Pendergast inhaled lazily, turned, and blew out a stream of smoke.

Not three feet in front of them, the drifting smoke revealed a brilliant beam of blue light: a laser. It was set just high enough to clear the back of a boar.

Pendergast got down on his stomach and began to slither forward through the tall grass, motioning D'Agosta to do likewise.

Slowly, painstakingly, they advanced across the field. Now and then Pendergast would take a drag on the concealed cigarette and blow a stream of smoke overhead, illuminating the laser beams that crisscrossed the field. Dark woods and ruins surrounded the verge of the meadow, and it was impossible to see where the beams were coming from. When the cigarette went out, he lit another.

In five minutes they were across. Pendergast ground out the stub of cigarette, rose, and moved at a crouch to an empty door frame, withdrawing his light and directing it inside. The beam briefly illuminated a long passageway, rooms fronted with metal bars facing each other across the corridor. To D'Agosta it looked almost like a prison. The ceilings had caved in, along with some of the walls, leaving a maze of broken masonry, beams, and tile.

Pendergast paused in the doorway to wave a handheld meter of some kind, then advanced cautiously. What was left of the edifice seemed about to collapse, and from time to time D'Agosta could hear the creaking and groaning of a beam or the rattle of falling plaster. As they moved through the vast crumbling space, the faint light ahead grew stronger, coming in through a row of shattered windows at the far end. Reaching the windows, they cautiously peered out.

An astonishing sight greeted D'Agosta's eyes. Beyond the ruined building was a double-chain-link fence, topped with concertina wire, enclosing a sweeping lawn swathed in light. A new building stood there behind trimmed shrubbery and flowers, a postmodern structure in glass, titanium, and white paneling, glowing like a crystal in the night. To the far right, D'Agosta could see a guardhouse and a gate in the fence.

They moved away from the window, and Pendergast sat against the wall. He seemed to be thinking. Several minutes passed before he roused himself and motioned D'Agosta to follow. Keeping low, they moved the length of the far wall and exited a side door. Thick brush and gooseberry bushes grew up to within about ten yards of the double fence, where the closely clipped lawn began.

They wormed their way into the brush and began crawling forward. Then D'Agosta felt Pendergast freeze. The sound of voices was rapidly approaching, along with the probing of a bright spotlight. D'Agosta flattened himself in the bushes, hoping to God his black outfit and face paint would keep him invisible. But the voices were getting close, too close; and they were loud; and the light was drawing ever nearer.

{ 53 }

D'Agosta lay motionless, hardly daring to breathe, while the beam of the spotlight lanced through the leaves and vines. The voices were even closer now, and he could make out what the men were saying. They were American. There were two of them, it seemed, and they were walking slowly along the i

". ....real bastard," came one of the voices. "If it weren't for the money, I'd go back to Brooklyn."

"The way things are going, we might all be heading back," replied the other.

"The fucker's gone crazy."

A grunt of assent.

"They say he lives in a villa once owned by Machiavelli."

"Who?"

"Machiavelli."

"He's that new tight end for the Rams, right?"

"Forget it." The light abruptly swiveled away, leaving sudden darkness in its wake. It was a handheld torch, D'Agosta realized, carried by one of the men.

The cigarette arced through the darkness, landing near D'Agosta's left thigh, and the men continued on.

Several minutes passed. Then, abruptly, Pendergast was at his side.

"Vincent," he whispered, "the security here is considerably more sophisticated than I had hoped. This is a system designed not just to thwart corporate espionage, but to keep out the CIA itself. We can't hope to get inside with the tools at hand. We must retreat and plan another avenue of attack."

"Such as?"

"I have developed a sudden interest in Machiavelli."

"I hear you."

They crept back the way they had come, through the groaning, ruined building. The trip seemed longer than before. When they were halfway through, Pendergast paused. "Nasty odor," he murmured.

D'Agosta smelled it, too. The wind had shifted, and the scent of decay reached them from a far room. Pendergast opened a shutter on the flashlight, allowing a faint illumination. The greenish light disclosed what had once been a small laboratory, its roof caved in. Below, several heavy beams lay crisscrossed on the ground, and-protruding from them-a rotting, partly skeletonized head of a boar, its tusks broken off into stubs.

"Booby trap?" whispered D'Agosta.

Pendergast nodded. "Designed as an unstable, rotting building." He let the shaft of green light fall here and there, finally pausing on a doorsill. "There's the trigger. Step on that and you bring down the works."

D'Agosta shivered, thinking how he'd blithely crossed this very threshold not ten minutes before.

They passed carefully through the rest of the building, warning creaks of wood sounding occasionally over their heads. Beyond lay the broad field. It looked to D'Agosta like a lake of blackness. Pendergast lit another cigarette, then knelt and moved forward cautiously, blowing smoke before him once again, until the first laser beam became visible, pencil-thin and glowing dully. Pendergast nodded over his shoulder, and they returned to the laborious work of crawling through the field, keeping under the beams.