Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

He turned and strolled across the small piazza at the far end of the bridge, then took a right on Via Santo Spirito and an immediate left onto Borgo Tegolaio. There he paused to look in the rear display window of one of the fine antique shops that fronted on Via Maggio, stuffed with gilt candlesticks, old silver saltcellars, and dark still lifes.

He waited until he was sure that she had observed him-he caught just a glimpse of her through a double reflection in the shop window. She was carrying a Max Mara bag, and for all the world looked like one of the swinish American tourists who visited Florence in mindless shopping herds.

Constance Greene, just where he wanted her.

The rain slackened. He furled his umbrella but remained at the shop window, examining the objects with apparent interest. He watched her distant, almost unreadable reflection, waiting for her to move forward into the sea of umbrellas and thus lose sight of him for a moment.

As soon as she did so, he burst into a run, sprinting silently up Borgo Tegolaio, his raincoat flying behind him. He ducked across the street and darted into a narrow alley, Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti; tore along its length; then took another left, racing down Via Toscanella. Then he ran across a small piazza and continued down Via dello Sprone until he had made a complete circuit and come back around to Via Santo Spirito, some fifty yards below the antique shop where he had dallied moments earlier.

He paused just short of the intersection with Via Santo Spirito, catching his breath.

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

He forced his mind back to business, angry at the whispered voice that never gave him peace. When she saw he was no longer on the street, she would assume-she would have to assume-that he had taken a right turn down the tiny alley just beyond the antique shop: Via dei Coverelli. She would think him ahead of her, walking in the opposite direction toward her. But, like the Cape buffalo, he was now behind her, their positions reversed.

Diogenes knew Via dei Coverelli well. It was one of the darkest, narrowest streets in Florence. The medieval buildings on both sides had been built out over the street on arches of stone, which blocked the sky and made the alley, even on a sunny day, as dim as a cave. The alley made a peculiar dogleg as it wormed past the back of the Santo Spirito church, two ninety-degree turns, before joining Via Santo Spirito.

Diogenes trusted in Constance’s intelligence and her uncanny research abilities. He knew she would have studied a map of Florence and considered deeply the momento giusto in which to launch her attack on him. He felt sure that she would see the Coverelli alleyway as an ideal point of ambush. If he had turned down Coverelli, as she must believe, then this would be her chance. All she had to do was backtrack, enter Coverelli from the other end, and then wait in the crook of the dogleg for Diogenes to arrive. A person lurking in that dark angle could not be seen from either opening of the alleyway.

All this Diogenes had already thought out, the day before, on the plane ride to Italy.

She did not know that he had already anticipated her every action. She did not know that his flanking dash in the other direction would turn the tables. He would now be approaching her from behind, instead of from the front.

The hunter is now the hunted.

The Rolls tore across the upper deck of the Triborough Bridge, the skyline of Manhattan rising to the south, slumbering in the predawn. Proctor drove effortlessly through the traffic-heavy even at 4:00 A.M.-leaving drivers in his wake, their angry horns Doppler-shifting downward as he passed.

Pendergast sat in the back, in disguise as an investment banker on a business trip to Florence, equipped with the appropriate documents supplied by Glinn. Next to him sat D’Agosta, silent and grim.

“I don’t get it,” D’Agosta said at last. “I just don’t understand how Diogenes could call this a perfect crime.”

“I do understand-and rather too late,” Pendergast replied bitterly. “It’s as I explained on the ride to the museum last night. Diogenes wanted to inflict on the world the pain that had been inflicted on him. He wanted to re-create the… the terrible Event that ruined his life. You recall I mentioned he had been victimized by a sadistic device, a ‘house of pain’? The Tomb of Senef was nothing less than a re-creation of that house of pain. On a grand and terrible scale.”

The Rolls slowed for the tollbooth, then accelerated again.

“So what was going on in the tomb, then? What happened to all those people?”

“I’m not yet sure precisely. But did you notice that some of the victims were walking with a peculiar, shuffling gait? It put me in mind of the neurological effect known as drop foot, which sometimes afflicts people suffering from brain inflammation. Their ability to walk is impaired in a very specific manner, making it difficult to lower their feet smoothly to the ground. And if you ask Captain Hayward to inspect the tomb, I feel certain she will find powerful lasers hidden among the strobe lights. Not to mention a superfluity of fog machines and subwoofers far beyond anything the original design called for. It seems Diogenes engineered a combination of strobe light, laser, and sound to induce lesions in a very particular part of the brain. The flashing lasers and sound overwhelmed the ventromedial cortex of the brain, which inhibits violent and atavistic behavior. Victims would lose all inhibition, all sense of restraint, prey to every passing impulse. The id unleashed.”

“It’s hard to believe that light and sound could actually cause brain damage.”

“Any neurologist will tell you that extreme fear, pain, stress, or anger can damage the human brain, kill brain cells. Post-traumatic stress disorder in its extreme form does, in fact, cause brain damage. Diogenes simply brought that to its ultimate conclusion.”

“It was a setup from the very beginning.”

“Yes. There was no Count of Cahors. Diogenes fronted the money for the restoration of the tomb. And the ancient curse itself provided just the kind of flourish that Diogenes delights in. Clearly, he secretly installed his own version of the show, a hidden version unknown to the technicians and programmers. He tested it first on Jay Lipper, then on the Egyptologist, Wicherly. And recall, Vincent, his ultimate aim was not just the people in the tomb: a live feed was going out over public television. Millions could have been affected.”

“Unbelievable.”

Pendergast bowed his head. “No. Utterly logical. His aim was to re-create the terrible, unforgivable Event… for which I was responsible.”

“Don’t start blaming yourself.”

Pendergast looked up again, the silvery eyes suddenly dark in his bruised face. He spoke in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself. “I am my brother’s creator. And all this time, I never knew it-I never apologized or atoned for what I did. That is something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

“Forgive me for saying it, but that’s a load of crap. I don’t know much about it, but I do know what happened to Diogenes was an accident.”

Pendergast went on, voice even lower, almost as if he hadn’t heard. “Diogenes’s entire reason for existence is I. And, perhaps, my reason for existence is him.”

The Rolls entered JFK Airport and drove along the circulation ramp toward terminal 8. As it pulled up to the curb, Pendergast leaped out and D’Agosta followed.

Pendergast hefted his suitcase, grasped D’Agosta’s hand. “Good luck on the hearing, Vincent. If I don’t return, Proctor will handle my affairs.”

D’Agosta swallowed. “Speaking of returning, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”