Blue Labyrinth

Of course, Pendergast had no official status here. When Pendergast made his bizarre request, Angler had considered denying him access. After all, the agent had been uncooperative in the investigation to date. But Angler had done some checking up on Pendergast and learned that — while he was known in the Bureau for his unorthodox methods — he was also held in awe for his remarkable success rate. Angler had never seen a dossier so full of both commendations and censures. So in the end he decided it simply wasn’t worth trying to bar the man from the autopsy. After all, it was his son. And besides, he had a pretty good sense that Pendergast would have found a way to be present, no matter what he said.

The pathologist, Dr. Constantinescu, also seemed to know of Pendergast. Constantinescu looked more like a kindly old country doctor than a medical examiner, and the presence of the special agent had thrown him for a loop. He was as tense and nervous as a cat in a new house. Time and again, as he’d murmured his medical observations into the hanging mike, he’d paused, glanced over his shoulder at Pendergast, then cleared his throat and begun again. It had taken him almost an hour to complete the external examination alone — which was remarkable, given the almost total absence of evidence to discover, collect, and label. The removal of the clothing, photography, X-rays, weighing, toxicity tests, noting of distinguishing marks, and the rest of it had gone on forever. It was as if the pathologist was afraid of making the slightest mistake, or had a strange reluctance to get on with the work. The diener, who didn’t seem to be in on the story, was impatient, rocking from one foot to the other, arranging and rearranging instruments. Throughout it all Pendergast stood motionless, somewhat back from the others, the gown like a shroud around him, eyes moving from Constantinescu to the body of his son and back again, saying nothing, expressing nothing.

“No obvious external bruises, hematomas, puncture wounds, or other injuries,” the pathologist was saying into the microphone. “Initial external examination, along with X-ray evidence, indicates that death resulted from a crushing injury to the cervical vertebrae C3 and C4, along with possible lateral rotation of the skull, transecting the spinal column and inducing spinal shock.”

Dr. Constantinescu stepped back from the mike, cleared his throat yet again. “We, ah, we’re about to commence with the internal examination, Agent Pendergast.”

Still Pendergast remained motionless, save perhaps for the slightest inclination of his head. He was very pale; his features were as set as any Angler had seen on a man. The more he got to know this Pendergast, the less he liked him. The man was a kind of freak.

Angler turned his attention back to the body lying on the gurney. The young man had been in excellent physical condition. Staring at the corpse’s sleek musculature and lines graceful even in death, he was reminded of certain depictions of Hektor and Achilles in Black Figure pottery paintings attributed to the Antiope Group.

We’re about to commence with the internal examination. The body wasn’t going to be beautiful much longer.

At a nod from Constantinescu, the diener brought over the Stryker saw. Firing it up, the pathologist moved it around Alban’s skull — as it cut bone, the saw made a distinct, grinding whine that Angler hated — and removed the top of the head. This was unusual: in Angler’s experience, usually the brain was the last of the organs to be removed. Most autopsies began with the standard Y-incision. Perhaps it had something to do with the cause of death being a broken neck. But Angler felt a more likely cause was the other observer in the room. He stole a glance toward Pendergast. The man looked, if anything, even paler, his face more closed than ever.

Constantinescu examined the brain, carefully removed it, placed it on a scale, and murmured some more observations into the mike. He took a few tissue samples, handed them to the diener, and then — without looking over this time — spoke to Pendergast. “Agent Pendergast… are you pla

For a moment, silence. And then Pendergast replied. “There will be no viewing — or funeral. When the body is released I’ll make the necessary arrangements to have it cremated.” His voice sounded like a knife blade scraping against ice.

“I see.” Constantinescu replaced the brain in the skull cavity, and hesitated. “Before continuing, I should like to ask a question. The X-rays appeared to show a rounded object in the… deceased’s stomach. And yet there are no scars on the body to indicate old gunshot wounds or surgical procedures. Are you aware of any implants the body might have contained?”

“I am not,” Pendergast said.

“Very well.” Constantinescu nodded slowly. “I will make the Y-incision now.”

When nobody spoke, the pathologist took up the Stryker saw again, making cuts in the left and right shoulders and angling them down so they met at the sternum, then completing the incision in a single line to the pubis with a scalpel. The diener handed him a set of shears and Constantinescu completed the opening of the chest cavity, lifting away the severed ribs and flesh and exposing the heart and lungs.

Behind Angler’s shoulder, Pendergast remained rigid. A certain odor began to spread through the room — an odor that always stayed with Angler, much like the whine of the Stryker.

One after the other, Constantinescu removed the heart and the lungs, examined them, weighed them on the scale, took tissue samples, murmured his observations into the mike, and placed the organs in plastic bags for returning to the body during the final, reconstitution phase of the autopsy. The liver, kidneys, and other major organs were given the same treatment. Then the pathologist turned his attention to the central arteries, severing them and making quick inspections. The man was working rapidly now, the polar opposite of his dawdling with the preliminaries.

Next came the stomach. After inspection and weighing, photographing and tissue sampling, Constantinescu reached for a large scalpel. This was the part Angler really hated: examination of the stomach contents. He moved a little farther away from the gurney.

The pathologist hovered over the metal basin in which the stomach lay, working on it with gloved hands, now and then using the scalpel or a pair of forceps, the diener leaning in close. The smell in the room grew worse.

Suddenly there came a noise: a loud clink of something hard in the steel container. The pathologist audibly caught his breath. He murmured to the diener, who handed him a fresh pair of forceps. Reaching into the metal basin that held the stomach and its contents, Constantinescu lifted something with the forceps — something roundish, slick with opaque fluids — and turned to a sink, where he carefully rinsed it off. When he turned back, Angler saw to his vast surprise that what lay between the forceps was a stone, irregular in shape and just a little larger than a marble. A deep-blue stone — a precious stone.

In his peripheral vision, he saw that Pendergast had, finally, reacted.

Constantinescu held the stone up in the forceps, staring at it, turning it this way and that. “Well, well,” he murmured.

He put it into an evidence bag and proceeded to seal it. As he did so, Angler found that Pendergast had stepped to his side, staring at the stone. Gone was the remote, unreadable expression, the distant eyes. There was now a sudden hunger in them, a need, that almost pushed Angler back.

“That stone,” Pendergast said. “I must have it.”

Angler wasn’t quite sure he’d heard correctly. “Have it? That stone is the first piece of hard evidence we’ve come across.”

“Exactly. Which is why I must be given access to it.”