Blue Labyrinth

Nothing.

Crossing out this video entry in turn, he selected, for a change of pace, a camera that covered the southern half of the Great Rotunda, four PM to five PM. With a practiced hand he cued the digital feedback to its begi

A thunderous roar from the planetarium beyond the far wall. Shouts and applause arose from the audience: the formation of the earth was taking place, all jets of flame and coronas of color and balls of fire. Deep-bass organ notes vibrated D’Agosta’s chair to a point where he almost fell out of it.

Shit. He shoved himself away from the screen with a brutal push. Enough was enough. Tomorrow morning, he’d go back to Singleton, eat crow, kiss ass, grovel, do whatever he had to do in order to be reassigned to that Upper East Side slasher murder.

Suddenly he froze. And then he scrambled back to the video screen, staring at it intently. He watched for perhaps thirty seconds. Then, fingers almost trembling with eagerness, he clicked the REWIND button, then watched the video play back, eyes just inches from the screen. Then he played it back again. And again.

“Mother of God,” he whispered.

There he was — the fake scientist.

He glanced at the printout of Bonomo’s facial reconstruction — taped to the side of Jimenez’s monitor — and then back to the screen. It was unmistakably him. He was wearing a lightweight trench coat, dark slacks, and slip-on rubber sneakers: the kind that made no noise when you walked. Not exactly standard attire for a scientist. D’Agosta watched as he came through the entrance doors, glanced around — apparently noting the location of the cameras — paid admission, then made his way through the security station and strolled across the Rotunda — against the exiting traffic — before disappearing out of view. D’Agosta played it back yet again, marveling at the man’s coolness, the almost insolent slowness of his walk.

Christ. This is it. He turned in excitement to a

“Pendergast!” he said in surprise.

“Vincent. I understand from Mrs. Trask that you, ah, have been asking after me. Urgently.” Pendergast looked around, his pale eyes taking in the room. “Box seats to the cosmos — how stimulating. What, pray tell, is going on?”

In his exhilaration, D’Agosta forgot his earlier a

“We found him!”

“God?”

“No, no — the fake Dr. Waldron! Right here!”

A look of what might have been impatience flitted across Pendergast’s face. “The fake who? I’m lost.”

Jimenez and Conklin crowded around the monitor as D’Agosta explained. “Remember, the last time you were here, you wondered about the visiting scientist Victor Marsala worked with? Well, his credentials were false. And now look: I’ve got eyes on him, entering the Museum at four twenty PM, on the very afternoon of the day Marsala was murdered!”

“How interesting,” said Pendergast, in a bored voice, already edging toward the door. He seemed to have lost all interest in the case.

“We did a facial composite,” said D’Agosta, “and here he is. Compare this guy on screen to the composite.” D’Agosta plucked the composite from the side of Jimenez’s monitor and held it toward him. “It’s a match. Take a look!”

“Delighted to hear the case is proceeding well,” said Pendergast, moving closer to the door. “I’m afraid my attention is now fully occupied on something else, but I’m sure things are in excellent hands—”

He paused as his eye fell on the portrait D’Agosta held out toward him. His voice died away, and he froze. A great stillness took hold while the agent’s features went as pale as death. He reached out, took the sheet, and stared at it, the paper making a rattling sound. Then he sank into an empty chair set against the wall, still clutching the paper and staring at it with great intensity.

“Bonomo did a damn good job,” D’Agosta said. “Now all we have to do is track down the son of a bitch.”

For a moment, Pendergast did not reply. When he did, his voice was low, sepulchral, as if emanating from the grave. “Remarkable indeed,” he said. “But there is no need to track him down.”

This stopped D’Agosta. “What do you mean?”

“I made this gentleman’s acquaintance recently. Quite recently, in fact.” And the hand holding the facial composite dropped very slowly as the sheet of paper slid to the dusty floor.

30

Lieutenant D’Agosta had never been in the gun room of Pendergast’s Riverside Drive mansion before. There were many rooms he’d never seen — the place seemed to go on forever. However, this room was a particularly welcome surprise. His father had been an avid collector of vintage firearms, and D’Agosta had picked up the interest to a somewhat lesser degree. As he looked around, he saw that Pendergast owned some rare pieces indeed. The room was not large, but was luxuriously appointed, with rosewood walls and a matching coffered ceiling. Two huge tapestries, obviously very old, hung opposite each other. The rest of the walls were taken up by recessed cabinets, with locked glass doors, that held an astonishing variety of classic weaponry. None of the guns seemed to be more recent than World War II. There was a Lee-Enfield .303 and a Mauser Model 1893, both in pristine condition; a rare Luger chambered in .45; a .577 Nitro Express elephant gun by Westley Richards with an inlaid ivory stock; a Colt .45 single-action revolver straight out of the Old West, with seven notches on its handle; and many other rifles, shotguns, and handguns D’Agosta didn’t recognize. He moved from cabinet to cabinet, peering inside and whistling appreciatively under his breath.

The room’s only furniture was a central table, around which half a dozen chairs were arranged. Pendergast sat at the head of the table, fingertips tented, his index fingers tapping against each other, cat’s eyes staring into nowhere. D’Agosta glanced from the weapons to the FBI agent. He’d been a

“Quite a collection you got here,” D’Agosta said.

It look Pendergast a moment to glance toward him; an even longer moment to answer. “The collection was assembled by my father,” he said. “Aside from my Les Baer, my own taste runs in other directions.”

Margo came into the room. A moment later, Constance Greene entered. Despite having a last name similar to Margo’s, Constance couldn’t have been more different. She was wearing an old-fashioned evening dress with bands of white lace at both the throat and wrists, which, D’Agosta thought, made her look like a character in a film. He admired her rich mahogany-colored hair. She was a beauty. A forbidding, even scary beauty.

When she saw D’Agosta, she gave him a nod.

D’Agosta smiled back. He didn’t know why Pendergast had assembled everyone like this, but no doubt he was about to learn.

Pendergast gestured for everyone to take a seat. As he did so, the faintest rumble of thunder from outside penetrated the thick walls. The big thunderstorm they’d been predicting for a couple of days had arrived.