Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

Coffey nodded.

They approached the cell door and one of the guards gave it several whacks with his riot stick. “Make yourself pretty, you got a visitor!”

Whang, whang! went the nightstick against the door. The guard removed his weapon and stood aside while the other unlocked the door and glanced in. “All clear,” he said.

The first guard holstered his weapon and stepped inside.

“How much time do you need?” Imhof asked.

“An hour should do it. I’ll have the guard call you when we’re done.”

Coffey waited until Imhof was gone, then he stepped into the small immaculate cell, followed by Rabiner. The second guard closed the door from the outside and locked it, preparing to stand watch.

The prisoner lay on the narrow bed, propped up on a thin pillow, dressed in a fresh jumpsuit so orange it almost glowed. Coffey was shocked by his appearance-head bandaged, one eye swollen shut and the other dark, the entire face a palette of black, blue, and green. Behind the puffy slit in the prisoner’s good eye, Coffey could see the glitter of silver.

“Agent Coffey?” the guard asked. “Do you want a chair?”

“No, I’ll stand.” He turned to Rabiner. “Ready?”

Rabiner had removed a microcassette recorder. “Yes, sir.”

Coffey folded his arms and looked down at the battered and bandaged prisoner. He grinned. “What happened to you? Try to kiss the wrong guy?”

No answer, but then, Coffey expected none.

“Let’s get down to business.” He took out a sheet of paper with his notations. “Roll the tape. This is Special Agent Spencer Coffey, in prison cell number C3-44 at Herkmoor Federal Correctional and Holding Facility, interviewing the prisoner identified as A. X. L. Pendergast. The date is March 20.”

A silence.

“Can you talk?”

To Coffey’s surprise, the man said, “Yes.” His voice was barely a whisper and a little thick on account of his puffy lips.

Coffey smiled. This was a promising beginning. “I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible.”

“Likewise.”

It seemed the softening up had worked even better than he had anticipated.

“All right, then. I’m going to return to my previous line of questioning. This time I expect a response. As I’ve already explained, the evidence puts you in Decker’s house at the time of the killing. It provides means, motive, and opportunity, and a direct link between you and the murder weapon.”

The prisoner said nothing, so Coffey continued.

“Point one: the forensic team recovered half a dozen long black fibers at the crime scene, which we found came from a highly unusual cashmere/merino blended Italian fabric made in the 1950s. An analysis of the suits in your wardrobe indicate that all of them were made from the same fabric, even the very same bolt of cloth.

“Point two: at the scene of the crime, we found three hairs, one with root. A PCR analysis proved it matched your DNA to a probability of error of one in sixteen billion.

“Point three: a witness, a neighbor of Decker’s, observed a pale-complected individual in a black suit entering Decker’s house ninety minutes before the murder. In no less than three photo lineups, he positively and categorically identified you as that person. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he is about as unimpeachable a witness as you could find.”

If the prisoner sneered momentarily, it happened so fast that Coffey wasn’t sure he had seen it at all. He took a moment to read the man’s face, but it was impossible to discern any kind of emotion in a face so swollen and bandage-covered. All he could really see of the man was the silver glitter behind the slitted eye. It made him uneasy.

“You’re an FBI agent. You know the ropes.” He shook the piece of paper at Pendergast. “You’re going to be convicted. If you want to avoid the needle, you’d better start cooperating, and cooperating now.”

He stood there, breathing hard, staring at the bandaged prisoner.

The prisoner gazed back. After a moment, he spoke.

“I congratulate you,” he said. His slurred voice sounded submissive, even obsequious.

“May I make a suggestion, Pendergast? Confess and throw yourself at the mercy of the court. It’s your only option-and you know it. Confess, and save us the shame of seeing one of our own dragged through a public trial. Confess, and we’ll get you transferred out of yard 4.”

Another brief silence.

“Would you consider a plea bargain?” Pendergast asked.

Coffey grinned, feeling a flush of triumph. “With evidence like this? Not a chance. Your only hope, Pendergast-and I repeat-is to store up a bit of goodwill with a nice, round confession. It’s now or never.”

Pendergast seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he stirred on the cot. “Very well,” he said.

Coffey broke into a smile.

“Spencer Coffey,” Pendergast went on, honeyed voice dripping with obsequiousness, “I have watched your progress in the Bureau for almost ten years, and I confess I’ve been amazed by it.”

He paused to breathe in.

“I knew from the beginning you were a special, even unique individual. You-what is the term?-nailed me.”

Coffey felt his smile broaden. This was good; this was the moment of humiliation against a hated rival that most people only dreamed about.

“Remarkable work, Spencer. May I call you Spencer? Peerless, I might even say.”

Coffey waited for the confession he was now certain was coming. The poor bastard thought flattering him would gain some sympathy. That’s what they all did: Oh, you’re so clever to have caught me. He gestured behind his back for Rabiner to move closer with the recorder, not to miss a word. The beauty of it was, Pendergast was only digging his own grave deeper. There would be no mercy, even with a confession: not for the man responsible for murdering a top FBI agent. A confession would shave ten years off his death-penalty appeals-that was all.

“I’ve been lucky enough to witness some of your work in person. For example, your performance during that harrowing night of the museum massacre many years ago, manning the mobile command station. That was truly unforgettable.”

Coffey felt a stirring of unease. He didn’t remember much from that awful night-to be truthful, it hadn’t been his best moment. But then, maybe he was just being too hard on himself, as usual.

“I remember that night vividly,” Pendergast went on. “You were in the thick of it, nerves of steel, barking orders.”

Coffey shifted. He wished the man would get on with the confession. This was getting a bit maudlin. Pathetic how quickly the man had been reduced to groveling.

“I felt bad about what happened afterward. You didn’t deserve that reassignment to Waco. It wasn’t fair. And then, when you mistook that teenager carrying home a prize catfish for a Branch Davidian terrorist with an RPG-well, that could have happened to anybody. Luckily, your first shot missed and your partner was able to tackle you before you squeezed off a second-although perhaps the teenager was in little danger, since I understand you came in dead last in your Firearms Training Unit at the Academy.”

The segue had happened so smoothly, Pendergast’s tone of voice never varying from its whining submissiveness, that it took Coffey a moment to realize the effusive praise had morphed into something else. The stifled snicker of the guard stung him to the quick.

“I happened upon a Bureau study of the Waco field office while it was under your benevolent leadership. It seems your office enjoyed being at the top of several lists. For example, the smallest number of cases successfully closed for three years running. The largest number of agents requesting transfers. The most internal investigations for incompetence or ethics violations. One could argue that your being transferred back to New York could not have come at a more convenient time. So nice to have an ex-U.S. senator for a father-in-law, Spencer, is it not?”