Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

The water he drank had given him strength. He grasped the pack again. He had already jettisoned everything in favor of water, save for the knife, gun, compass, map, and a couple of energy bars. But he couldn’t eat now; that would only increase his thirst.

Struggling into a sitting position, he slid the straps of the pack over his shoulders. Now the trick was getting to his feet. Taking a few deep breaths, he summoned his mental strength and then, with a cry, stood up, staggering a bit but managing to steady himself.

One step at a time, one step at a time…

The two lions had separated and tracked him for the better part of three days, and in so doing had driven him from his planned route. The last day, he’d been forced to backtrack and circle so many times he had lost an exact knowledge of his position. Luckily the lions, being male and juvenile, were not good hunters. If they had been fully grown females, he would not have survived the attack. Even so, it had still taken a full magazine from his .45 to stop the first lion; but the second lion came on so fast he didn’t have a chance to reload and he had been forced to kill it with the knife.

He had been mauled on the left shoulder and bitten on the calf, but what had almost done him in was the physical blow from the lion’s final leap, which had hit him so hard he was knocked back unconscious. The lion was already fatally wounded with a knife thrust to the heart, blood pouring out. Proctor had initially woken with the hot, stinking lion partly covering him, surrounded by a pool of the lion’s coagulating blood. He’d managed to drag himself out from under the beast before slipping into unconsciousness again.

Finally reaching the shade of the tree, he removed his pack and sank down, his back against the trunk, head swimming. One more taste of water? He removed the canteen, gave it a little shake. No — he would have to wait until sunset before taking another sip, which he hoped would give him the strength to walk through the night. If he could only reach the Mopipi road, a passing motorist would eventually find him.

Reluctantly, he took out his KA-Bar and sliced open his shredded pant leg, in order to have a look at the bite wound. A row of punctured teeth marks oozed dark blood. He had abandoned the medical kit; there would be no treating this until he got out. At least the bleeding had mostly stopped. His shoulder wound was in a similar condition, not good, but not immediately life threatening, either. Infection was the major concern, but that wouldn’t set in for another twelve to twenty-four hours.

Once again, uninvited, the unbearable agony of his failure crept in, his every mistake and stupidity paraded before him.

Stop thinking. He lay back against the rough bark and closed his eyes.

He had to survive this. In fact, he was going to survive. He knew this for one very good reason: there was something he must do. Wherever Diogenes was, whatever his plan had been, Proctor was going to find him.

And kill him.

Rudy Spann sat in the small office on the fifth floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center they had appropriated for the Pendergast operation. He was wearing a wireless headset. His men had set up a small tactical center in the office and were manning various video screens and audio feeds. He paced the floor behind them, occasionally stopping at the window to gaze down on the street below.

Setting up the stakeout had been a piece of cake. They didn’t even need the special van, or teams positioned on rooftops and apartments. The street where the transfer would take place was around the back of the building, on Cardinal Hayes Place, a narrow lane overlooked by government buildings that no one could get into without clearance. So whoever came to make sure the Arsenault transfer took place was going to be on foot, on the street. It was a perfect place for the operation — maybe too perfect, as it might scare away whoever the kidnappers were sending to observe the transfer. They were relying on the stupidity of the kidnappers, and on this point at least Spann had come around to Longstreet’s way of thinking. Anyone who kidnapped a federal agent was taking a big risk to begin with. They were overconfident, and that would be their downfall. The real danger was them panicking and Pendergast getting smoked.

Longstreet’s setup, he had to admit, was extremely clever. And so it gnawed at him all the more that the man was about to bungle things so badly. Here they had a chance to take one of the kidnappers into custody — if he showed up — but Longstreet’s orders had been specific: simply ID him and let him go about his business. That went against all the rules of apprehension Spann had learned at Quantico, and in his FBI experience that followed. Just letting the guy walk away — what the hell was that all about? Arsenault was proving a tough nut to crack. If it were up to him, he’d apprehend this cocksucker and exploit his initial confusion and fear, scare the shit out of him, and get him to talk. Kidnapping a federal agent? He’d be looking at life in prison without parole, if he was lucky, and to get out of that the guy would send his own grandmother down the river. He’d fold in twenty minutes, tell them where Pendergast was, and this business would be wrapped up by the end of the day. But no — Longstreet just wanted to ID the guy and let him walk.

And on top of it, Longstreet wasn’t even there; he’d disappeared as he’d done before — gone for hours at a time — issuing his orders by phone or even sending encrypted emails from undisclosed locations. Who did he think he was, the damn vice president?

The guys manning the consoles were murmuring in their headsets to the rest of the team, which had staked out both ends of Cardinal Hayes, observing and videotaping everyone who came in or out. He listened to their terse, economical exchanges. These guys were professionals; Spann was proud of them.

He glanced at the clock. Three fifteen. The target would be arriving soon or not at all. It was a quiet afternoon, half an hour before the first government offices disgorged their workers. There were people walking back and forth, as always in Manhattan, but from his vantage point — and from the street-level camera feeds in front of him — they were pretty clearly not his man, or woman.

With Longstreet not there, Spann decided he was going to make a small adjustment to the plan. He wasn’t going to let the guy just up and walk; he’d have him tailed. See where he went, where his hidey-hole was. After all, that wasn’t actually contrary to Longstreet’s orders.

He raised his mike and gave the order: Tail the perp on foot. Two men only. Break off if he grabs a cab or calls an Uber. A cab or Uber would be traceable later, so no need to follow. And if an accomplice picked him up in a car, so much the better — they could snag the plates and run them within five minutes.

Three twenty-five. And now he saw a man turn the corner at the Pearl Street end and come walking down the lane. He was dressed in a nice suit, hair slicked back, tan and fit. He looked like a Wall Street stockbroker or hedge fund jackass. Having spent much of his life downtown, Spann knew those guys: they walked fast, really fast. They knew where they were going and were the kind who worked out every day, ate quinoa and kale, and jogged twenty miles a week.

But this guy was walking slow — way too slow. He was pretending to stroll along, smelling the flowers. On the far sidewalk.

He was their guy, dawdling, making sure that the Arsenault transfer was made as promised. Spann didn’t even have to say anything: the others had noticed him, too. He listened on his headset to their conversation.

“You see that guy?”