Douglas Preston: Brimstone

Fosco placed the torch carefully into an iron wall mounting. "I beg your pardon for the scant accommodation. Still, these chambers are not without their natural charm. You'll notice the white webwork that gleams from the cavern walls? It's nitre, my dear Pendergast-you of all people should appreciate the literary allusion. And thus understand what is to follow."

And to underscore this, the count slipped his hand into his waistcoat and slowly withdrew a trowel.

Staring at it, Pendergast's dull, drug-heavy eyes gleamed briefly.

"Aha!" the count cried, pleased. "It is not lost on you! Let us then proceed with all haste." And turning to one side, he swept away a heap of tumbled bones, revealing a large quantity of freshly slaked mortar.

Using the trowel, he laid a thick line of mortar along the front lip of the recess. Then he moved to one of the piles of collapsed brick and, two at a time, brought the bricks back to the niche, laying them carefully in a line atop the mortar. Within a few minutes, the first course of bricks was in place and Fosco was troweling another layer of mortar along its top.

"How wonderful these bricks are!" he said as he worked. "They are many centuries old, made from the very clay of the hillside. See how massive: none of your trifling English bricks for Fosco! I've called for a great deal of lime in the mortar-nearly two parts lime to each part sand-but then I want your final habitation to be as strong as possible. I want it to last through the ages, my dear Pendergast. I want it to last until the final trump is sounded!"

Pendergast said nothing. But his drug-clouded eyes had cleared. They watched Fosco work with an almost feline stoicism-if, Fosco reflected, stoicism was the correct word. Finishing the second course of bricks, he paused to return the gaze.

"I've been preparing this for some time," he said. "Quite some time, in fact. You see, ever since our first meeting-at the memorial service for Jeremy Grove, when we had our little disagreement over the Ghirlandaio panel-I realized you were the most formidable opponent I had ever faced."

He paused, waiting. But still Pendergast said nothing, did not move except to blink his eyelids. And so Fosco returned to his work and-with the energy of a sudden surge of anger-laid the third, fourth, and fifth course of bricks.

When he laid the last brick of the sixth course in place, he paused once more. The brief anger had passed and he was again himself. The wall reached now to Pendergast's waist. Throwing back the tails of his coat, Fosco perched daintily on the old pile of bricks to rest. His gaze fell almost kindly on the prisoner.

"You'll note I'm laying the bricks in Flemish bond, alternating the headers with the stretchers," he said. "Beautiful, is it not? I could have been a mason, perhaps, had I so chosen. Of course, building such a wall is time-consuming. Consider it my final gift. My parting gift. You see, once the last brick is in place, it will not take long-perhaps a day, perhaps two, depending on how much air seeps through these ancient walls. I am no sadist. Your death will not be unduly prolonged-though I imagine slow suffocation in the dark might not be quite as merciful as one would hope. It cannot be helped."

He sat for a moment, catching his breath. Then he went on, his voice now almost meditative.

"Do not think, Signor Pendergast, I take this responsibility lightly. I realize that by entombing you here, I rob the world of a great intellect. It will be a duller place without you. However, it will also be safer, for me and those like me: men and women who would prefer to pursue their destinies unfettered by laws devised by their inferiors."

He glanced into the recess. With the wall half complete, the niche lay in deepest shadow. Only the gaunt lines of Pendergast's bloodied face reflected in the torchlight.

The count looked at him quizzically. "Still nothing? Very well: let us continue." And he pulled himself to his feet.

The next three tiers were laid in silence. Finally, as Fosco put the last brick of the ninth course in position and smoothed fresh mortar across its top, Pendergast spoke. The wall had reached the level of his pale eyes, and his voice echoed hollowly inside the new-made vault.

"You must not do this," he said. His voice had none of its usual creamy, almost lazy precision.

This, Fosco knew, was a side effect of the phenobarbital. "But my dear Pendergast, it is done!" He troweled off the mortar and returned to the brick pile.

The tenth course was half laid before Pendergast spoke once more. "There is something I must do. Something unfinished, of great importance to the world. A member of my family is in a position to do great harm. I must be allowed to stop him."

Fosco halted, listening.

"Let me complete that task. Then I will return to you. You . you may then dispose of me as you see fit. I give you my word as a gentleman."

Fosco laughed. "Do you take me for a fool? I am to believe you shall return, willingly, like Regulus to Carthage, to meet your end? Bah! Even if you do keep your word, when should I expect you? Twenty or thirty years from now, when you have grown old and tired of life?"

No answer came from the darkness of the niche.

"But this task you mention. It intrigues me. A family member, you say? Give me more details."

"Free me first."

"That is impossible. But come-I see we are simply bandying words. And I weary of this task." And more quickly now, Fosco finished the tenth course and started on the eleventh and last.

It was when only a single stone remained to be fitted and mortared into the wall that Pendergast spoke again. "Fosco"-the voice was faint, sepulchral, as if emerging from the deepest recesses of a tomb-"I ask you, as a gentleman and a human being. Do not place that brick."

"Yes. It does seem a shame." And Fosco hefted the final brick in his hand. "But I'm afraid the time has come for us to part. I thank you for the pleasure of your company these last few days. I say to you, no tarrivederla, butaddio. " And he forced the last stone into place.

As he smoothed away the last bit of excess mortar, Fosco heard-or thought he heard-a sound from the tomb within. A low moan, or exhalation of breath. Or was it just the wind, crying through the ancient catacombs? He pressed his head to the freshly laid wall and listened intently.

But there was nothing further.

Fosco stepped back, kicked a pile of scattered bones into position before the wall, then grabbed the torch and made his way hastily through the rat's nest of tunnels to the ancient stairwell. Reaching it, he began to climb-a dozen steps, two dozen, three-heading for the surface and the warm evening sunlight, leaving the restless netherworld of shadows far behind.

{ 85 }

D'Agosta sat silently in the backseat of the car as it moved up the winding mountain road. The countryside was as beautiful as it had been two days before: the hills clad in autumn raiment, shining rust and gold under the early morning sun. D'Agosta barely noticed. He was staring up at the cruel-looking keep of Castel Fosco, just now rising into view above its spar of gray rock. Merely seeing the castle again brought a chill not even the convoy of police cars could allay.

He shifted the weight of the canvas bag from one leg to the other. Inside was Fosco's diabolical weapon. The chill evaporated before the furious, carefully controlled anger that burned within him. D'Agosta tried to channel that anger: he'd need it for the encounter to come. The maddening, excruciating twelve-hour delay was finally over. The paperwork, the warrant, had finally come through; the bureaucracy had been satisfied. Now he was back here, on the enemy's home ground. He had to stay calm, stay in control. He knew he had only one shot to save Pendergast-if indeed Pendergast was still alive-and he wasn't going to blow it by losing his cool.