Douglas Preston - White Fire

“No.” Corrie sobbed, reaching out for Stacy. “Don’t go.”

“Have to.” She gently put Corrie’s hand to her side. “I can’t keep Dirtbag under control and help you, too. It’s better if you don’t walk. Give me ten minutes, tops.”

It seemed a lot shorter than ten minutes. Corrie heard the roar of a diesel, then saw a cluster of moving headlamps stabbing through the murk, approaching fast, pulling up to the mine entrance in a swirling cloud of snow. A strange, pale figure emerged — Pendergast? — and she felt herself suddenly in his arms, lifted bodily as if she were a child again, her head cradled against his chest. She felt his shoulders began to convulse, faintly, regularly, almost as if he was weeping. But that was, of course, impossible, as Pendergast would never cry.

The brilliant winter sun streamed in the window and lay in stripes across Corrie’s bed at the Roaring Fork Hospital. She had been given the best room in the hospital, a corner single on a high floor, the large window overlooking most of the town and the mountains beyond, everything wreathed in a magical blanket of white. This was the view Corrie had awoken to after the operation on her hand, and the sight had cheered her considerably. That was three days ago, and she was set to be discharged in two more. The break in her foot had not been serious, but she had lost her little finger. Some of the burns she’d suffered might scar, but only slightly, and only, they had told her, on her chin.

Pendergast sat in a chair on one side of the bed and Stacy sat in another. The foot of the bed was covered in presents. Chief Morris had been in to pay his respects — he’d been a regular visitor since her operation — and after inquiring about how Corrie was feeling and thanking Pendergast profusely for his help in the investigation, he’d added his own gift (a CD of John Denver’s greatest hits) to the pile.

“Well,” said Stacy, “are we going to open them, or what?”

“Corrie shall go first,” said Pendergast, handing her a slim envelope. “To mark the completion of her research.”

Corrie tore it open, puzzled. A computer printout emerged, covered with columns of crabbed figures, graphs, and tables. She unfolded it. It was a report from an FBI forensic lab in Quantico — an analysis of mercury contamination in twelve samples of human remains — the crazed miners she’d found in the tunnels.

“My God,” Corrie said. “The numbers are off the charts.”

“The final detail you require for your thesis. I have little doubt you will be the first junior in the history of John Jay to win the Rosewell Prize.”

“Thank you,” Corrie said, and then hesitated. “Um, I owe you an apology. Another apology. A really big one this time. I messed up, well and truly. You’ve helped me so much, and I just never really appreciated it the way I should have. I was an ungrateful—” she almost said a bad word but amended it on the fly— “girl. I should have listened to you and never gone up there alone. What a stupid thing to do.”

Pendergast inclined his head. “We can go into that some other time.”

Corrie turned to Stacy. “I owe a big apology to you, too. I’m really ashamed that I suspected you and Ted. You saved my life. I really don’t have the words to thank you…” She felt her throat close up with emotion.

Stacy smiled, squeezed her hand. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Corrie. You’re a true pal. And Ted…Jesus, I can hardly believe he was the arsonist. It gives me nightmares.”

“On one level,” Pendergast said, “Roman wasn’t responsible for what he did. It was the mercury in his brain, which had been poisoning his neurons since he was in his mother’s womb. He was no more a criminal than were those miners who went mad working in the smelter and ultimately became cannibals. They are all victims. The true criminals are certain others, a family whose malevolent deeds go back a century and a half. And now that the FBI is on it, that family will pay. Perhaps not as brutally as Mrs. Kermode did, but they will pay nonetheless.”

Corrie shuddered. Until Pendergast had told her, she hadn’t any idea that, the whole time she’d been shackled to the pump, Mrs. Kermode had been in the building as well, out of sight, handcuffed to the far side of the engine — probably unconscious after being beaten up by Ted. Oh, God, will I take care of that bitch , he’d said…

“I was in such a hurry to escape the flames, I never even saw her,” Corrie said. “I’m not sure anyone deserves to be burned alive like that.”

The expression on Pendergast’s face indicated he might disagree.

“But there’s no way Ted could have known that Kermode and the Staffords were responsible for his own madness — was there?” Corrie asked.

Pendergast shook his head. “No. Her end at his hands was poetic justice, nothing more.”

“I hope the rest of them rot in prison,” said Stacy.

After a silence, Corrie asked, “And you really thought Kermode’s burnt body was mine?”

“There was no question in my mind,” Pendergast replied. “If I’d been thinking more clearly, I might have realized that Kermode was potentially Ted’s next victim. She represented everything he despised. That entire auto-da-fé up on the mountain was arranged for her, not for you. You just fell into his lap, so to speak. But I do have a question, Corrie: how did you undo the handcuffs?”

“Aw, they were crappy old handcuffs. And I’d tucked my picks into the space between the inner and outer glove when I was trying to pick the lock into the mine — because, as you of all people know, you have to use several tools simultaneously.”

Pendergast nodded. “Impressive.”

“It took me a while to remember I even had the tools, I was so terrified. Ted was…I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The way he shifted from screaming rage to cold, calculated precision…God, it was almost more frightening than the fire itself.”

“A common effect of mercury-induced madness. And that perhaps explains the mystery of the bent pipes in the second fire—”

Stacy said hastily, “Um, let’s open the rest of the presents and stop talking about this.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for anyone,” said Corrie.

“You were otherwise engaged,” said Pendergast. “And while I’m on the subject, given what also happened to you in Kraus’s Kaverns back in Medicine Creek, in the future I would advise you to avoid underground labyrinths, especially when they are tenanted by homicidal maniacs.” He paused. “Incidentally, I’m very sorry about your finger.”

“I suppose I’ll get used to it. It’s almost colorful, like wearing an eye patch or something.”

Pendergast took up a small package and examined it. There was no card, just his name written on it. “This is from you, Captain?”

“Sure is.”

Pendergast removed the paper, revealing a velvet box. He opened it. Inside, a Purple Heart rested on satin.

He stared at it for a long time. Finally he said: “How can I accept this?”

“Because I’ve got three more and I want you to have it. You deserve a medal — you saved my life.”

“Captain Bowdree—”

“I mean it. I was lost, confused, drinking myself into oblivion every evening, until you called out of the blue. You got me here, explained about my ancestor, gave me purpose. And most of all…you respected me.”

Pendergast hesitated. He held up the medal. “I will treasure this.”

“Merry Christmas — three days late.”

“And now you must open yours.”

Stacy took up a small envelope. She opened it and extracted an official-looking document. She read it, her brow furrowing. “Oh, my God.”