Blue Labyrinth

“The thought was crossing my mind.”

Slade frowned. “But why would Pendergast be involved in something like that?”

“Who knows? The guy’s a cipher. But I bet I know why Alban went to Adirondack. And why he was killed.”

Slade went silent again, listening.

“Alban knew about the massacre. There’s even a good chance he was there: remember, Pendergast said the only time he met his son was in the jungles of Brazil. What if Alban was blackmailing both his father, Pendergast, and his contact at Red Mountain about what he knew? And so together, they engineered his death.”

“You’re saying Pendergast bumped off his own son?” Slade said. “That’s cold, even for Pendergast.”

“Blackmailing your father is pretty cold, too. And look at Pendergast’s case history — we know what he is capable of. It may be a theory, but it’s the only answer that fits.”

“Why drop the body off on Pendergast’s own doorstep?”

“To throw the police off the real scent. That whole business with the turquoise, the supposed attack on Pendergast in California — another smokescreen. Recall how uncooperative and disinterested Pendergast was at first. He only warmed up when I began to zero in on Alban’s movements.”

There was another brief silence.

“If you’re right, there’s only one thing we can do,” Slade said. “Go to Red Mountain. Talk to this Barbeaux directly. If there’s a rotten apple in his company, selling arms on the side and pocketing the profits — or perhaps directly involved in mercenary activities — he’d want to know.”

“That’s risky,” Angler replied. “What if Barbeaux’s the one who’s dirty? That would be like walking right into a lion’s den.”

“I’ve just finished checking him out.” Slade patted his workstation. “He’s as pure as the wind-driven snow. Eagle Scout, decorated Army Ranger, deacon at his church, never a breath of scandal or a rap sheet of any kind.”

Angler thought a moment. “He would be the best person to launch a quiet investigation into this. Into his own company. And if he’s dirty — despite the Eagle Scout badge — it would put him off guard, smoke him out.”

“My thought exactly,” Slade replied. “One way or another, we’d learn the truth. As long as our initial approach was kept quiet.”

“Okay. We’ll offer to keep it quiet if he makes a good-faith effort. Will you put the necessary paperwork through, notify the team of where we’re going, who we’ll be interviewing, and when we’ll be returning?”

“Already on it.” And Slade turned back toward his workstation.

Angler put the map aside and stood up. “Next stop,” he said in a low voice, “Adirondack, New York.”

49

For the second time in less than a week, Lieutenant D’Agosta found himself in the gun room of the mansion on Riverside Drive. Everything was the same: the same rare weaponry on display, the rosewood walls, the coffered ceiling. The other attendees were the same, as well: Constance Greene, dressed in a soft organdy blouse and pleated skirt of dark maroon, and Margo, who gave him a distracted smile. Conspicuous in his absence was the owner of the mansion, Aloysius Pendergast.

Constance took a seat at the head of the table. She seemed even more of a cipher than usual, with her stilted ma

D’Agosta eased into one of the leather chairs that surrounded the table, a sense of foreboding filling his mind.

“My guardian, our friend, is unwell — indeed, he is extremely sick.”

D’Agosta leaned forward. “How sick?”

“He is dying.”

This was greeted with a shock of silence.

“So he was poisoned, like the guy in Indio?” D’Agosta said. “Son of a bitch. Where’s he been?”

“In Brazil and Switzerland, trying to learn what happened to Alban and why he himself was poisoned. He had a collapse in Switzerland. I found him in a Geneva hospital.”

“Where’s he now?” D’Agosta asked.

“Upstairs. Under private care.”

“My understanding is that it took users of Hezekiah’s elixir months, years, to sicken and die,” Margo said. “Pendergast must have received an extremely concentrated dose.”

Constance nodded. “Yes. His attacker knew he would get only a single chance. It’s also a fair assumption — based on his even quicker decline — that the man who assaulted Pendergast in the Salton Fontainebleau, and is now dead in Indio, got an even stronger dose.”

“That fits,” Margo said. “I got a report from Dr. Samuels in Indio. The dead man’s skeleton shows the same unusual compounds I discovered in Mrs. Padgett’s skeleton — only in much more concentrated amounts. It’s no wonder the elixir killed him so fast.”

“If Pendergast is dying,” D’Agosta said, rising, “why the heck isn’t he in a hospital?”

A narrow stare met his look. “He insisted on leaving the Geneva hospital and flying home via private medical transport. You can’t legally hospitalize someone against his will. He insists there’s nothing anyone can do for him and he will not die in a hospital.”

“Jesus,” said D’Agosta. “What can we do?”

“We need an antidote. And to find that antidote, we need information. That’s why we’re here.” She turned to D’Agosta. “Lieutenant, please tell us the results of your recent investigations.”

D’Agosta mopped his brow. “I don’t know how relevant some of this is, but we traced Pendergast’s attacker to Gary, Indiana. Three years ago, he was a guy named Howard Rudd, family man and shop owner. He got into debt with the wrong people and vanished, leaving his wife and kids. He appeared two months ago with a different face. He’s the guy who attacked Pendergast and probably killed Victor Marsala. We’re trying to account for that gap in his history — where he was, who he was working for. Brick wall so far.” D’Agosta glanced at Margo. She had said nothing, but her face was pale.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Constance spoke again. “Not quite.”

D’Agosta looked at her.

“I’ve been compiling a list of Hezekiah’s victims, on the assumption that a descendant was responsible for the poisoning. Two victims were Stephen and Ethel Barbeaux, a married couple, who succumbed to the effects of the elixir in 1895, leaving three orphaned children, including a baby who was conceived while Ethel was taking the elixir. The family lived in New Orleans, on Dauphine Street, just two houses down from the Pendergast family mansion.”

“Why them, in particular?” said D’Agosta.

“They have a great-grandson, John Barbeaux. He’s CEO of a military consulting company called Red Mountain Industries — and a wealthy and reclusive man. Barbeaux had a son — an only child. The youth was a musical prodigy. Always of delicate health, the boy fell ill two years ago. I haven’t been able to learn much about the details of the illness, but it apparently baffled an entire corps of doctors and specialists with its unusual symptoms. A titanic medical effort failed to save his life.” Constance looked from Margo to D’Agosta and back again. “The case was written up in the British medical journal Lancet.”

“What are you saying?” D’Agosta asked. “That the poison that killed John Barbeaux’s great-grandparents jumped down through the generations to kill his son?”

“Yes. The boy complained of the stink of rotten flowers before he died. And I’ve found a scattering of other similar deaths in the Barbeaux family, going back generations.”

“I don’t buy it,” said D’Agosta.

“I do,” said Margo, speaking for the first time. “What you’re suggesting is that Hezekiah’s elixir caused epigenetic changes. Such changes can and do get passed down the generations. Environmental poisons are the leading cause of epigenetic changes.”

“Thank you,” said Constance.

Another brief silence settled over the room.