Blue Labyrinth

Barbeaux’s pacing quickened further. He was like a man possessed.

“I won’t go into all the sordid details of how I bested him. Suffice to say, I turned his own power against him. He was cocky. He had no sense of his vulnerability. And I think he’d grown a little soft between our first meeting and our second. I set up the most elaborate and meticulous plan of attack, briefed my men on it. All was in place. We lured Alban in with the promise of another meeting — one of reconciliation this time. He arrived, knowing all, feeling invincible, certain the meeting was a sham — and I spontaneously strangled him with a shoelace, on the spot. It was a sudden improvisation, with no malice aforethought. I had deliberately avoided thinking about when and how I would actually kill him. As such, it short-circuited his extraordinary ability to anticipate. By the way, the look of astonishment on his face was priceless.”

He rumbled a laugh, turned.

“And that was the greatest irony of all. I’d been racking my brains about how to lure you — the most suspicious and circumspect of people — into my trap. In the end, it was Alban himself who provided the bait. I put his own corpse into my service. I was out there, by the way, at the Salton Fontainebleau. If you only knew how much time, money, and effort it cost to stage that — right down to the cobwebs, the untouched dust, the rust on the doors. But it was worth it — because that was the cost of fooling you, luring you in. Watching you sneak in like that, thinking you’d gotten the upper hand — I’d have paid ten times as much to witness that! You see, it was I who pressed the button, released the elixir, poisoned you. And now, here we are.”

His face broke into another smile as he swung around again. “One other thing. It seems you have another son at school in Switzerland. Tristram, I believe. After you’re gone, I’ll pay him a little visit. I’m going to scrub the world clean of the Pendergast stain.”

Now Barbeaux halted, planting himself in front of Pendergast, massive jaw thrust forward. “Have you anything to say?”

For a moment, Pendergast was silent. Then he said something in a low, indistinct voice.

“What’s that?”

“I’m…” Pendergast halted, unable to muster the breath to continue.

Barbeaux gave Pendergast a short, brutal slap. “You’re what? Say it!”

“… Sorry.”

Barbeaux stepped back, surprised.

“I’m sorry for what happened to your son… for your loss.”

“Sorry?” Barbeaux managed to say. “You’re sorry? That doesn’t begin to cut it.”

“I… accept the death that is coming.”

Hearing this, Constance froze. An electric silence descended among the group. Barbeaux, clearly astonished, seemed to struggle to recover the momentum of his anger. And in the temporary silence, Pendergast’s silvery eye flickered toward Constance — for no more than an instant — and in that momentary look she sensed a message was being sent. But what?

“Sorry…”

Constance could feel, ever so slightly, the slackening of Shaved Head’s grip on her arms. He, like everyone else, had been intent on the drama unfolding between Barbeaux and Pendergast.

Suddenly Pendergast collapsed, going limp and dropping like a bag of cement toward the floor. The two men on either side jumped to catch his arms, but they were taken by surprise and thrown off balance as they tried to pull him back to his feet.

And in that instant, Constance knew her moment had come. With sudden violence she twisted free of Shaved Head and leapt into the darkness.

71

Slade held the blowpipe steady. His eyes narrowed slightly as he aimed.

In a sudden moment of desperation, Margo lunged forward, grabbed the end of the blowpipe, and gave a mighty puff of air into it. With a strangled cry Slade dropped the weapon and staggered back, hands at his throat, coughing and choking. As he spat out the two-inch dart, Margo ran past him, out of the cul-de-sac and into the maze of shelving in the storage room.

“Fucking hell!” He ran after her, voice strangled. A moment later she heard gunshots ring out, the rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls in front of her with jets of pulverized dust. The gun was incredibly loud in the enclosed space. He had abandoned all caution.

She sprinted back into the room full of whale eyeballs and paused for a second. Slade had cut off the main route out of the basement. The back exit was past a warren of rooms, many of them probably locked. On impulse, she veered off, chose one of the room’s other exits, and pulled its door open. As she did so, Slade came into view, swaying slightly in the faint light, then dropping awkwardly into firing position. Had the business end of the dart poisoned him? He looked stricken.

She flung herself sideways as a fusillade of bullets riddled the door. Ru

But even that would take time. She wasn’t going to escape the basement. She had to defeat him somehow — or at least keep him at bay long enough for help to arrive.

The corridor ended in a T-intersection and she turned left, Slade’s feet pounding loudly behind her. As she made the turn, she glimpsed back and saw him halt, fumbling more rounds into the magazine of his gun.

The main dinosaur lab, she knew, lay just ahead: it was large, with many possible places to hide. And it would have an inter-Museum phone that would allow her to call for help.

She reached the lab door — closed — jammed her key into the lock, and turned it, mumbling a prayer. It opened. She darted in, then slammed and locked the door behind her.

She palmed on the lights to orient herself. At least a dozen worktables were arrayed around the huge room, containing fossils in various stages of restoration or curation. In the center of the room, two huge dinosaur skeletons in the midst of assembly reared up: a famous “dueling dinosaurs” fossil set that, in a highly publicized coup, the Museum had recently acquired — a triceratops and a T. rex, locked in a death embrace.

She heard pounding on the door, shouting, and then shots being fired through the lock. She cast about but could see no phone. There had to be one somewhere. Or another exit, at least.

But she could see nothing. There was no phone, no other exit. And the multitude of hiding places she’d hoped for were not to be found.

So much for her plan.

A fusillade of shots punched the lock partway through the door. Slade was going to be inside the lab at any moment. And as soon as he was through, she’d be dead.

She heard him scream in rage… or was it pain? Was the poison working?

The two huge skeletons loomed above her like a grotesque jungle gym. Instinctually, she rushed up to the triceratops, grasped a rib, and began clambering, climbing hand over hand. The mount was far from complete, and the entire setup shivered and shook as she climbed. Her scramble dislodged smaller bones, which fell crashing to the floor. This was crazy; she’d be trapped up there, a sitting duck. But some instinct told her to keep climbing.

Gripping a spinal process, she pulled herself onto the backbone of the triceratops. Another series of shots punched the lock cylinder out entirely, sending it skidding across the floor. She could hear Slade heaving himself against the door, the metal plate that held the lock rattling, its bolts springing out. Another heave against the door and the plate sprang off.

Scrambling in desperation, Margo vaulted from one dinosaur skeleton to the other, climbing onto the higher, steeper backbone of the T. rex. Its massive head, the size of a small vehicle and studded with huge teeth, was not yet fully braced and welded into place with iron, and it shook and wobbled terrifyingly.