Douglas Preston - Cold Vengeance

She realized — with a faint tickle of fear — that if this work was ongoing, it could pick up again at any time.

These were the only documents remaining in the house. Pendergast would no doubt want to see them. Quickly and quietly, she moved over to the stacks of paper, examining them. Most dated back to World War II and were on Nazi letterhead, complete with swastikas and old-style German lettering. She cursed her inability to read German as she ploughed through the documents, being careful to maintain them in their correct order and piles, trying to root out any that might prove to be of special interest.

As she worked her way down through the stacks, shifting papers and only examining one or two out of each huge batch, she realized that the documents on the bottom were more recent than those on top. She turned from the older documents and focused on these newer ones. They were all in German and it was impossible to ascertain their significance. Nevertheless, she collected those documents that looked most important: the ones with the most stamps and seals, along with others that were stamped in large red letters:

STRENG GEHEIM

Which to her eyes looked a whole lot like a TOP SECRET stamp.

Suddenly her eye caught a name on one of the documents: ESTERHAZY. She recognized it immediately as the maiden name of Pendergast’s late wife, Helen. The name was sprinkled throughout the document, and as she sorted through the documents directly below, she found others with that name on it as well. She collected them all, stuffing them into her knapsack.

And then she came across a batch of documents that were not in German, but some in Spanish and — she guessed — the rest in Portuguese. She could muddle through Spanish, at least, but most of these papers seemed pretty dull: invoices, requisitions, lists of expenses and reimbursements, along with a lot of medical files in which the names of the patients were blacked out or recorded by initials only. Nevertheless she stuffed the most significant-looking ones into her knapsack, now full almost to bursting…

She heard the creak of a floorboard.

Immediately, she froze, adrenaline flooding her body. She paused, listening intently. Nothing.

Slowly, she closed her knapsack and stood up, careful to make no noise. The door was open only a crack, and a dim light filtered through. She continued listening and — after a moment — heard another creak. It was low, barely audible… like a cautious footfall.

She was trapped, in the attic, with only one narrow staircase leading down. There were no windows, no place to go. But it would be a mistake to panic; it might just be her overactive imagination. She waited in the dim light, every sense on high alert.

Another creak, this one higher and closer. No imagination: someone was definitely in the house — and they were coming up the stairs.

In her excitement over the papers, she’d forgotten to keep utterly silent. Had the person on the stairs heard her?

With exquisite care, she moved across the room to the closet standing open on the far side. She managed to get there without creaking any of the floorboards. Easing herself in, she pulled the door almost but not quite closed and then crouched down in the darkness. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast she feared the intruder might hear it.

Another stealthy creak, and then a faint groan. The door to the room was being opened. She peered out from the closet, hardly daring to breathe. After a long period of silence, a figure moved into the room.

Corrie held her breath. The man was dressed in black, wearing round smoked glasses, his face obscure. A burglar?

He walked to the center of the room, stood there, and finally removed a pistol. He turned toward the closet, raised the gun, and aimed at the closet door.

Corrie began to fumble desperately in her knapsack.

“You will come out, please,” the strongly accented voice said.

After a long moment, Corrie stood up, swung the door open.

The man smiled. He thumbed off the safety and took careful aim.

“ Auf Wiedersehen ,” he said.

SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST SAT ON A LEATHER COUCH in the reception room of his Dakota apartment. The cut on his cheek had been cleaned and was now just a faint red line. Constance Greene, dressed in a white cashmere sweater and a pleated, knee-length skirt the color of coral, sat beside him. A soft light filled the room from behind scallop-shaped agate fixtures arrayed just below the ceiling molding. The room was windowless. Three of the walls were painted a deep rose. The fourth was entirely of black marble, over which fell a thin sheet of water, gurgling quietly into the pool at the base, in which floated clusters of lotus blossoms.

An iron pot of tea sat on a table of Brazilian purpleheart, along with two small cups filled with green liquid. The two conversed in low tones, barely audible above the hush of the waterfall fountain.

“I still don’t understand why you let him go last night,” Constance was saying. “Surely you don’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust him,” Pendergast replied. “But in this matter, I believe him. He was telling me the truth about Helen, there in the Foulmire — and he’s telling the truth now. Besides—” he went on in an even lower tone—“he knows that, if he doesn’t keep his promise, I’ll track him down. No matter what.”

“And if you don’t,” Constance said, “I will.”

Pendergast glanced at his ward. A cold hatred flickered briefly in her eyes — a flicker he had seen once before. This, he realized immediately, was going to be a serious problem.

“It’s half past five,” she said, glancing at her watch. “In half an hour…” She paused. “How do you feel, Aloysius?”

Pendergast did not answer immediately. At last he shifted on the couch. “I must confess to a most disagreeable sensation of anxiety.”

Constance looked at him, her face full of concern. “After twelve years… if it’s true that your… your wife cheated death, why has she never contacted you? Why this — forgive me, Aloysius — but why this monstrous, overarching deception?”

“I don’t know. I can only assume it has to do with this Covenant that Judson mentioned.”

“And if she is still alive… Would you still be in love with her?” Her face flushed slightly and she looked down.

“I don’t know that, either,” Pendergast replied in a tone so low even Constance barely heard it.

A phone on the table rang and Pendergast reached for it. “Yes?” He listened a moment, replaced the phone in its cradle. He turned to her. “Lieutenant D’Agosta is on his way up.” He paused a moment, then continued: “Constance, I must ask you: if at any time you have reservations, or can’t bear being incarcerated any longer, let me know and I will fetch the child and clear all this up. We don’t have to… follow the plan.”

She silenced him with a gentle gesture, her face softening. “We do have to follow the plan. And anyway, I’m happy going back to Mount Mercy. In a queer way I find it comforting to be there. I don’t care for the uncertainty and busyness of the outside world. But I will say one thing. I realize now that I was wrong — wrong to look at the child as your brother’s son. I should have thought of the boy, from the very start, as the nephew of my… my dearest guardian.” And she pressed his hand.

The doorbell rang. Pendergast rose and opened the door. D’Agosta stood in the entranceway, his face drawn.

“Thank you for coming, Vincent. Is everything prepared?”

D’Agosta nodded. “The car’s waiting downstairs. I told Dr. Ostrom that Constance was on her way back. The poor bastard just about collapsed with relief.”