Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

Hayward tore away from the curb, made a U-turn, and drove the wrong way down Little West 12th, peeled right onto West Street, and rocketed uptown, cars braking and pulling off to the left and right as she flashed past, sirens screaming. If all went well, they would be at the museum no later than 8:20 P.M. D’Agosta sat in the passenger’s seat next to her, saying nothing. She glanced at Pendergast in the rearview mirror-face badly bruised, a freshly dressed cut along one cheek. He wore a ghostly expression, one she had never seen on his face before-or anybody else’s, for that matter. He had the look of somebody who had just peered into his own personal hell.

Hayward returned her gaze to the street ahead. She knew, in some profound way, that she had just crossed the Rubicon. She had done something that went against all her training, everything she knew about what it meant to be a good cop.

Funny how, at the moment, she didn’t seem to care.

A strange, uncomfortable silence hung over the three. She would have expected Pendergast to be peppering her with questions, or at least thanking her for not turning him in. Instead, he sat there wordlessly, the same awful expression on his bruised features.

“Okay,” she said. “Here it is. Tonight’s the big opening of the new exhibition at the museum. Everyone’s there: top museum brass, mayor, governor, celebrities, tycoons. Everyone. I tried to stop it, postpone it, but I got vetoed. Problem is, I didn’t-still don’t-have any really hard information. All I know is this: something’s coming down. And your brother, Diogenes, is behind it.”

She glanced at Pendergast again. But he did not respond, did not return the glance. He just sat there, withdrawn, detached. He might have been a million miles away.

The wheels squealed a little as she negotiated a city bus, then accelerated onto the West Side Highway.

“After the diamond heist,” she went on, “Diogenes vanished. I figure he already had an alter ego prepared and just stepped into it. I’ve done some sniffing around, and so has that journalist Smithback. We’re both convinced Diogenes’s alter ego is a staff member of the museum, probably a curator. Think about it: the diamond heist had to be an inside job, but he’s not the kind of guy to take in partners. That’s also how he managed to penetrate the security of the Sacred Images exhibition and attack Margo Green. Vinnie, you’d told me from the start Diogenes was working up to something big. You were right all along. And it’s going to happen tonight, at the opening.”

“You’d better bring Pendergast up to speed on the new exhibition,” D’Agosta said.

“After the fiasco with the diamonds, the museum announced it was going to reopen an old Egyptian tomb in its basement-the Tomb of Senef. Some French count gave them a ton of money to do it. It was obviously a way to distract public attention from the destruction of the diamond collection. Tonight’s the opening gala.”

“Name?” Pendergast asked. His voice was barely audible, as if emerging from deep within a sepulcher.

It was the first word Hayward had heard him utter. “I’m sorry?” she replied.

“The name of the count?”

“Thierry de Cahors.”

“Did anyone actually meet this count?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

When Pendergast lapsed back into silence, she continued. “Over the past six weeks, there’ve been two deaths associated with the reopening of the tomb, supposedly unconnected with each other. The first was a computer technician working inside the tomb, killed by his partner. The guy went crazy, murdered his pal, stuffed his organs into nearby ceremonial jars, and fled to the museum attics. Attacked a guard when they tried to flush him out. The second death was a curator named Wicherly, a Brit brought in specially to curate the show. He went nuts, tried to strangle Nora Kelly-you know her, Vinnie, right?”

“She all right?”

“She’s fine-in fact, she’s handling the opening tonight. Wicherly, on the other hand, was shot and killed by a panicked museum guard during the attack on Kelly. Now here’s the kicker: autopsies showed both aggressors suffered the exact same kind of brain damage.”

D’Agosta looked over at her. “What?”

“Both were working in the tomb just before they went psycho. But we went over everything with a fine-tooth comb, found nothing-no environmental or other cause. As I said, the official line is that the two deaths are unconnected. But I’m not buying the coincidence. Diogenes is planning something-I’ve felt it all evening. And when I saw her at the opening, I knew I was right.”

“Who?” Pendergast murmured.

“Viola Maskelene.”

Hayward sensed a sudden stillness behind her.

“Did you inquire as to how she happened to be there?” came the very cool voice from the backseat.

Hayward swerved around a lumbering garbage truck. “She was hired by the museum at the last minute to replace Wicherly.”

“Hired by whom?”

“The head of the Anthropology Department. Menzies. Hugo Menzies.”

Another pause, much briefer, before Pendergast spoke again. “Tell me, Captain, what’s the program for this evening?”

Pendergast seemed, in a way, to be waking up.

“Hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, seven to eight. The ribbon cutting and opening of the tomb, eight to nine. Dinner at nine-thirty.”

“Opening of the tomb-I assume that includes a tour?”

“A tour with a sound-and-light show. Nationally televised.”

“A sound-and-light show?”

“Yes.”

Pendergast’s voice-which had been so hollow and remote-was now laced with urgency. “For God’s sake, Captain, hurry!”

Hayward shot between two cabs that were stubbornly refusing to let her pass, clipping one bumper in the process. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw it fly upward, bouncing and flipping in a shower of sparks.

“What am I missing here?” D’Agosta asked.

“Captain Hayward is right,” Pendergast said. “This is it-the ‘perfect crime’ Diogenes boasted about.”

“Are you sure?”

“Listen carefully,” Pendergast said. He hesitated briefly. “I will only speak of this once. A wrong was done to my brother, many years ago. He was exposed-inadvertently, but exposed nevertheless-to a sadistic device. It was a ‘house of pain,’ its sole purpose to drive its victim insane or kill him from sheer fright. And now Diogenes-in the person of Menzies, whom he is no doubt posing as-will, through some hidden means of his own, re-create this at the opening tonight. Eli Glinn said it: Diogenes is motivated by a feeling of victimization. My brother wants to perpetrate the wrong done to him, but on a large scale. And, with a live television broadcast, the scale could be large indeed. This is what he has been building up to. All the rest was merely sideshow.”

He sank back in the rear seat and fell silent once again.

The car careened off the West Side Highway at the 79th Street exit ramp, then accelerated eastward toward the rear of the museum. In the distance ahead, all seemed calm-there were no flashing police lights, no hovering helicopters.

Maybe it hasn’t happened yet.

She tore right on Columbus, made the dogleg around 77th Street with a screeching of rubber, and flew onto Museum Drive, jamming on her brakes before a crush of idling limousines, taxis, and spectators. The squad car slewed sideways before the crowd and she leaped out, waving her badge, D’Agosta already in the lead, a one-man flying wedge.

“Captain Hayward, NYPD Homicide!” she cried. “Make way!”

The crowds parted in confusion, the slower ones scattered by D’Agosta, and in a moment they were at the velvet ropes. Without even pausing, D’Agosta knocked down a guard who had stepped in front of them. Hayward flashed her shield at the astonished police officers on duty and they sprinted up the carpeted steps toward the huge bronze doors of the museum.