Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

And it was then that his eye fell on the far wall of the cave. The rocky floor was particularly uneven here, sloping down into deeper darkness.

Someone was lying, motionless, on the floor.

Raising the barrel of his shotgun, Hazen moved forward. There was a rough table of stone nearby, littered with moldy objects. Nearby were some empty burlap bags. And beyond, sprawled across the floor, was the figure, maybe asleep.

Shotgun ready, he approached the stone table with the utmost care. Now that he was closer, he realized that the objects on the table weren’t covered in mold after all. Instead, they appeared to be dozens of little knots of black hair: dark tufts of whiskers; curly locks, bits of scalp still attached; kinky clumps of hair and God only knew what else besides. The image of Gasparilla’s scalped and stripped head came to mind. He pushed it away, focusing his attention back on the figure, which on closer inspection didn’t look asleep after all. It looked dead.

He crept forward, tension abruptly knotting as he realized the body was gutted. Where the belly should be, there was a hollow cavity.

Oh, my God. Another victim.

He approached, hands slippery on the butt stock, stiff-legged with horror. The body had been arranged, its clothes mostly torn away, only a few ragged pieces left, its face covered with dried blood. It was gangly, not much more than a kid.

His arm shaking almost beyond his ability to control it, Hazen stopped and, taking his handkerchief, wiped the blood and dirt off the face.

Then he froze, handkerchief on the cold skin, a storm of revulsion and overwhelming loss erupting within him. It was Tad Franklin.

He staggered, felt himself sway.

Tad. . .

And then everything burst out of him at once, and with a howl of grief and fury he began turning, around and around and around, pumping the shotgun in every direction, while he raged at the darkness, the fiery blasts punctuated again and again by the sound of the shattering stalactites that fell like showers of crystal rain.

Seventy-Three

“W hat was that?” Weeks asked, screwing up his face, blinking rapidly against the dark.

“Somebody firing a twelve-gauge.” Pendergast remained still, listening. Then he glanced at Weeks’s gun. “Have you been trained in the proper use of that weapon, Officer?”

“Of course,” Weeks sniffed. “I got a Distinguished Shooting in my unit at Dodge Academy.” As it happened, there had been only three cadets in the K-9 unit at the time, but Pendergast didn’t have to be told everything.

“Then chamber a round and get ready. Stay on my right at all times and pace me exactly.”

Weeks rubbed the back of his neck; humidity always gave him a rash. “It’s my informed opinion that we should get some backup before proceeding further.”

Pendergast spoke without bothering to look over his shoulder. “Officer Weeks,” he said, “we’ve heard the crying of the killer’s intended victim. We’ve just heard shooting. Is it really your informed opinion we have the time to wait for backup?”

The question lingered briefly in the chill air. Weeks felt himself flushing. And then another faint cry—high, thin, clearly female—echoed faintly through the caverns. In a flash Pendergast was off again, moving down the tunnel. Weeks scrambled to follow, fumbling with his shotgun.

The crying seemed to rise and fall as they moved on, becoming fainter from time to time before growing louder again. They had entered a section of the cave that was drier and more spacious. The level floor was partially covered by large patches of sand, riddled with bare footprints.

“Do you know who the killer is?” Weeks asked, unable to completely hide his querulous tone.

“A man. But a man in form only.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Weeks didn’t like the way the FBI agent always seemed to speak in riddles.

Pendergast bent briefly to examine the footprints. “All you need to know is this: identify your target. If it is the killer—and you will know it, I can assure you— then shoot to kill. Do not trouble yourself with any niceties beyond that.”

“You don’t have to be nasty.” Weeks fell silent when he saw the look that Pendergast darted at him.

A man in form only. The image of that, that thing —it hadn’t looked much like a man to him—raising one of the thrashing dogs and tearing off its limbs came unbidden into Weeks’s mind. He shivered. But Pendergast paid no attention, moving ahead with great swiftness, gun in his hand, only pausing infrequently to listen. The sounds seemed to have died away completely.

After a few minutes, Pendergast stopped to consult the map. Then, under his guidance, they retraced their steps. The sounds returned briefly, then faded away once again. Finally, Pendergast dropped to his knees and began examining the tracks, moving back and forth for what seemed an interminable length of time, peering closely, his nose sometimes mere inches from the sand. Weeks watched him, growing more and more restless.

“Below,” Pendergast said.

Pendergast squeezed through a crack along the edge of one wall, then dropped into a narrow space that descended steeply. Weeks followed. They inched along for a while, arriving shortly at a veritable ants’ nest of natural boreholes in the cave wall, some with frozen rivers of flowstone erupting from their mouths. Pendergast played his light across the honeycombed face for a moment, selected one of the holes, and then—to Weeks’s consternation—crawled into it. The opening was dank and wet-looking, and Weeks considered protesting, but decided against it as Pendergast’s light abruptly vanished. Scrambling after Pendergast down the sharply descending passage, Weeks half jumped, half tumbled into a tunnel so heavily used that a trail had been worn in the soft limestone of its bed.

He clambered to his feet, brushing the mud from his clothes and checking his shotgun. “How long has the killer been living down here?” he asked, staring at the track in disbelief.

“Fifty-one years this September,” said Pendergast. Already, he was moving again, following the trail down the narrow corridor.

“So you know who it is?”

“Yes.”

“And just how the heck did you figure that out?”

“Officer Weeks, shall we save the colloquy for later?”

Pendergast flew down the passageway. The crying had stopped, but now the FBI agent seemed sure of the way . . .

And then, quite suddenly, they came to a standstill. Ahead, a huge curtain of crystallized gypsum flowed from a rend in the ceiling, completely blocking the passageway. Pendergast shone his light onto the floor of the passage, and Weeks noticed that the heavy track had disappeared. “No time,” Pendergast murmured to himself, angling his light back down the tunnel, up over the walls and ceiling. “No time.”

Then he took a few steps back from the curtain of gypsum. He seemed to be counting under his breath. Weeks frowned: maybe he’d been right the first time and Pendergast wasn’t such a good choice to be tagging along with, after all.

Then the agent paused, moved his head close to the wall, and called out, “Miss Swanson?”

To Weeks’s surprise, there was a faint gasp, a sob, and then a muffled shout: “Pendergast? Agent Pendergast? Oh, God—”

“Be calm. We’re coming to get you. Is he around?”

“No. He left . . . I don’t know how long ago. Hours.”

Pendergast turned to Weeks. “Now’s your chance to be useful.” He moved back to the curtain of gypsum, pointed. “Direct a shotgun blast at this spot, please.”

“Won’t he hear?” said Weeks.