Blue Labyrinth

As she reached it, she saw that it was actually cradled in a metal understructure. Most of the bolt holes that had been drilled into the frame were still empty — no wonder it was shaking so precariously.

She swung her body around and, with her back to a metal girder, braced her feet against the side of the skull. There was always the possibility he might not see her up here.

A final heave on the door and it sprang open with a thud. Slade staggered in. He waved the gun about wildly, his steps uneven, drunken. He swiveled this way and that, and then looked up.

“There you are! Treed like a cat!” He took a few shaky steps and positioned himself underneath her, raising the gun with both hands, taking careful aim.

He looked like he had been poisoned — but not poisoned enough.

She gave a great heave with both feet, rocking the skull out of its cradle. It swayed up and paused at the edge for a moment, then toppled over and came down, crashing through the rib cage of the triceratops. She had a momentary glimpse of Slade, frozen like a deer in a car’s headlights, before the huge mass of petrified bones came down on him, knocking him to the ground. A second later the top part of the tyra

Margo clung precariously to the shuddering metal frame as more bones unraveled from the mount and fell clattering and tinkling to the floor. She waited, gasping for breath, until the violent rocking of the mount had settled. With infinite care, muscles trembling, she climbed down.

Slade was on the floor, arms flung wide, his eyes bugged open. The upper part of the T. rex skull had impaled him with its teeth. It was a horrifying sight. She stumbled backward, away from the carnage. As she did so, she remembered her bag. It had been instinctively clenched tight to her body throughout the ordeal. Now she unzipped it and looked inside. The glass plates holding the plant specimens were shattered.

She stared at the various dried plant remains, mingled with broken glass at the bottom of the bag. Oh Jesus. Will this suffice?

She heard a sharp voice and turned. Lieutenant D’Agosta stood in the doorway, two guards behind him, staring at the scene of carnage. “Margo?” he said. “What the hell?”

“Thank God you’re here,” she choked out.

He continued to stare, his eyes moving from her to the body on the floor. “Slade,” he said. It wasn’t phrased as a question.

“Yes. He was trying to kill me.”

“The son of a bitch.”

“He said something about getting a better offer. What the hell was going on?”

D’Agosta nodded grimly. “Working for Barbeaux. Slade listened in on our conversation in my office this afternoon.” He looked around. “Where’s Constance?”

Margo stared at him. “Not here.” She hesitated. “She went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.”

“What? I thought she was with you!”

“No, no. She went to get a rare plant from there—” She stopped as D’Agosta was already on his police radio, calling in a massive police response and paramedics to the botanic garden.

He turned back to her. “Come on — we’ve got to hurry. Bring your bag. I hope to hell we’re not already too late.”

72

Constance sprinted toward the far wall of the Palm House, two men in pursuit. Behind, she could hear Barbeaux shouting orders. It seemed he was sending other men out to encircle her and ensure she didn’t escape into the streets of Brooklyn.

But Constance had no intention of escaping.

She raced for the initial hole she had cut in the glass at the end of the hall and launched herself through it, the shrubbery outside checking her headlong fall. She rolled once and was immediately up and ru

Ahead of her lay the Lily Pool, shimmering peacefully in the moonlight. She took a hard left just before the pool and ran alongside it, heading away from the garden exit — the direction opposite what her pursuers would anticipate. That caused them to pause, reco

Circling around the domes of the Steinhardt Conservatory, Constance headed back toward the Aquatic House. She was making no attempt to hide her movements, speed being of the essence, and the three men could see her and were now swiftly closing in, trapping her against the Aquatic House.

She ran alongside the wall of glass, then slipped back through the second hole she had made, emerging into the flower-choked orchid garden. She ran through the foliage, stepped over the three dead bodies, circled the main pool, and exited the double glass doors and into the lobby. There she paused just long enough to scoop up the duffel she had hidden under a bench before darting into the Tropical Pavilion. This was the largest greenhouse in the garden: a vast space with a soaring, six-story glass dome enclosing a dense, humid jungle.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she ran to one of the giant tropical trees in the center of the pavilion, grasped at its lower branches, and then began to climb upward, limb over limb. Even as she climbed, she heard her pursuers enter.

She flattened herself on an upper limb, pulled open the duffel, and removed a small chemical case that lay within. Silently, she unlatched it. Inside were four little flasks of triflic acid — acid she had appropriated earlier that evening from Enoch Leng’s cache in the sub-basement of the Riverside Drive mansion. Each flask was nestled within foam rubber protective packing that she had fashioned to size. Now she took out one flask and carefully removed its glass stopper. She was careful to hold the flask away from her — even the fumes were deadly.

She could hear the men spreading out across the pavilion, their flashlight beams playing about, voices murmuring, radios crackling. The beams began to move into the trees. A voice called out: “We know you’re in here. Come out now.”

Silence.

“We’ll kill your pal Pendergast if you don’t show yourself.”

Cautiously, Constance peered over the edge of the heavy limb she was on. It was perhaps thirty feet from the ground, and the tree rose at least another thirty feet above her.

“If you don’t come out,” came the voice, “we’re going to start shooting.”

“You know Barbeaux wants me alive,” she said.

Locating her from her voice, the beams immediately flashed up into her tree, probing this way and that. The three men moved through the thick understory until they were under the tree, encircling it.

Time to show her face. She stuck her head out and looked down at them, face expressionless.

“There she is!”

She ducked back.

“Come down now!”

Constance did not reply.

“If we’ve got to come up and get you, that’ll piss us off. You really don’t want to piss us off.”

“Go to hell,” she said.

The men conferred in low, murmuring tones.

“Okay, Goldilocks, here we come.”

One grasped the lower branch and hoisted himself up, while another held a flashlight beam to illuminate the climb.

Constance peered over the swell of the branch. The man was climbing quickly, his face upturned, scowling and angry. It was Tattoo.

Good.

She waited until he was less than ten feet below her. Positioning the flask above the climbing man, she tipped it briefly, pouring out a precise stream of triflic acid. The stream struck Tattoo directly in the left eye. She saw, with interest, that the superacid cut into him like boiling water poured onto dry ice, issuing a great hissing cloud of vapor in the process. The man let out a single, gasping cough and then simply vanished from sight in the widening cloud. A moment later she heard his body crash through the branches and hit the ground, followed by the surprised expostulations of his compadres.