Blue Labyrinth

“One of the guards found him in his cell, not half an hour ago. Suicide.”

Suicide. This case was a ball-buster. “Jesus, I can’t believe this.” Frustration put an edge to his voice that he didn’t intend. “Didn’t you have a suicide watch on him?”

“Of course. The full works: padded cell, leather restraints, fifteen-minute rotations. Just after the last check, he struggled out of the restraints — broke a collarbone in the process — bit off the big toe of his left foot, and then… choked on it.”

For a moment, D’Agosta was shocked into silence.

“I tried calling Agent Pendergast,” Spandau went on. “When I couldn’t reach him, I called you.”

It was true: Pendergast had vanished into thin air again. It was infuriating — but D’Agosta wasn’t going to think about that now. “Okay. Did he ever get lucid?”

“Just the opposite. After you left, what little lucidity he had vanished. He kept raving, saying the same things over and over.”

“What things?”

“You heard some of it. He kept mentioning a smell — rotting flowers. He stopped sleeping, was making a racket day and night. He’d been complaining about pain, too; not a localized pain, but something that seemed to affect his whole body. After you left, it grew worse. The prison doctor did some tests, administered meds, but nothing seemed to help. They couldn’t diagnose it. In the last twenty-four hours, he really started to go downhill. Nonstop raving, moaning, crying. I was making arrangements to have him transferred to the facility hospital when word of his death reached me.”

D’Agosta fetched a deep breath; let out a long, slow sigh.

“The autopsy is scheduled for later today. I’ll send you the report when I get it. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

“If I think of something, I’ll let you know.” And as an afterthought: “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t have better news for you.” And the line went dead with a click.

D’Agosta leaned back in his chair. As he did so, his eyes moved slowly — unwillingly — to the stack of files that covered his desk, all of which had to be copied for Slade.

Great. Just frigging great.

38

The Hilux, horn blaring, forced its way through the twisting alleyways of the favela like an elephant through a cane break. Sidewalk vendors had no choice but to retreat inside their building fronts; pedestrians and bicyclists either veered away down alleys or shrank into doorways. On more than one occasion, the rearview mirrors of the pickup scraped against buildings on either side. Pendergast’s abductors said nothing, merely covering him with their AR-15s. Always the vehicle climbed, moving determinedly up the switchbacks, past the structures that spread across the flanks of the hillside like a multicolored fungus.

At last they stopped at a small compound at the very highest point of the favela. Yet another armed man rolled open an improvised chain-link gate, and the Hilux drove into a small parking area. All four men got out of the pickup. One of them gestured with his rifle for Pendergast to do the same.

The agent complied, blinking in the harsh sunlight. The seemingly endless cluster of ramshackle sheds and improvised houses sprawled down the hillside below, eventually yielding to the more orderly streets of Rio proper and, beyond, the sparkling azure of Guanabara Bay.

The compound consisted of three buildings, functionally identical, different from the rest of the favela only in that they were in better repair. Several large, ragged holes in the central building had been patched over with cement and repainted. A generator stood in the courtyard, grinding away. At least a dozen cables of various colors looped overhead, fixed to various points on the roofs. Two of the men gestured for Pendergast to enter the central building.

The interior was dark, cool, and spartan. With the barrels of their semi-automatic weapons, the guards prodded him down a tiled corridor, up two flights of stairs, and into a large room that was clearly an office. Like the rest of the house, it was almost monastic in its lack of decor. There was a desk of some nondescript wood — flanked by more guards carrying more AR-15s — and a few hard wooden chairs. A crucifix hung on one of the painted cinder-block walls and a large flat-panel television on another. It was tuned to a soccer game, the sound muted.

Behind the desk sat a man perhaps thirty years old. He was dark-ski

The man glanced at them without bothering to examine either. “Pasporte.” He frowned. “Só isso? That’s all?”

“Sim.”

Pendergast was searched again, more thoroughly this time. The remainder of the wad of reais was recovered and placed on the desk in turn. But when they were done, Pendergast indicated with his chin something they’d missed in the hem of his jacket.

They searched it, found the crackle of a folded piece of paper. With a curse, one of them opened a flick knife and cut open the hem, removing a photograph. It was one taken of Alban after his death, retouched slightly to make it more life-like. They spread it open and laid it on the desk, next to the wallet and passport.

When the man saw the photograph, his entire expression changed from one of irritated boredom to shock and surprise. He snatched up the photograph and stared at it.

“Meu filho,” Pendergast repeated.

The man stared at him, stared at the photo, stared back at him with a searching expression. Only now did he pick up the other objects, first the passport, then the wallet, and examined each one carefully. At last, he turned to one of the guards. “Guarda a porta,” he said. “Niguen pode entrar.”

The guard walked over to the office door, shut and locked it, then stood before it, weapon at the ready.

The man behind the desk looked up at Pendergast again. “So,” he said in accented but excellent English. “You are the man who fearlessly enters the Cidade dos Anjos dressed like an undertaker, carrying a gun, and wandering about telling everyone that you are looking for your son.”

Pendergast did not reply. He merely stood before the desk, swaying slightly.

“I am amazed you survived. Perhaps because it was such a crazy thing to do, they assumed you were harmless. Now—” he tapped the photograph—“I realize you are anything but harmless.”

The man picked up the passport and the photograph and stood up. A large handgun could be seen shoved into the waistband of his shorts. He came around the desk and placed himself directly before Pendergast.

“You don’t look well, cada,” he said, apparently taking note of Pendergast’s pallor, the beading of sweat on his temples. He took another look at the passport and the photograph. “Nevertheless, a remarkable resemblance,” he said more to himself than to anyone else.

A minute passed in silence.

“When did you last see your son?” he asked.

“Two weeks ago,” Pendergast replied.

“Where?”

“Dead. On my doorstep.”

A look of shock, or pain, or perhaps both, briefly distorted the young man’s expression. Another minute passed before he spoke again. “And why are you here?”

A pause. “To find out who killed him.”

The man nodded. This was a motive he could understand. “And that is why you wander our favela, asking everyone about him?”