Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

“Of course.”

“Do you have a pen?”

D’Agosta searched his jacket pockets, feeling Hayward’s eyes on him. “Got it.”

“Very good.” Pendergast gave him the number of the cell phone. “Now listen. On the left column outside the front door, five feet above the ground, you’ll find a hidden compartment. Inside is a keyless entry pad. Enter the following code to disable the alarms and unlock the door: 315-514-17-804-18.”

D’Agosta scrawled down the numbers. “Okay.”

“Please hurry, Vincent. I am most concerned.”

“I’ll call you from the house. But I’d really like to know where you’ve been these last weeks—”

He realized he was talking to a dead phone: Pendergast had hung up.

“Vinnie—?” Laura began, then stopped. She said nothing more; she did not need to. D’Agosta could read conflicting emotions in her face; relief that Pendergast was alive, but concern about what it meant — and how the man might, yet again, draw D’Agosta into some fresh and dangerous case.

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I know. I’ll be careful.”

Then D’Agosta rose, gave her a kiss, drained his cup, and hurriedly exited the apartment.

AS HE DROVE across town, D’Agosta just couldn’t believe that anything was really amiss at the Pendergast mansion. He’d spoken with Proctor not three weeks earlier about the search for the missing agent, and he knew from personal experience that the reserved, taciturn chauffeur- cum -bodyguard was as capable and resourceful as any man could be. Nothing untoward was likely to go down on his watch. Mrs. Trask and Constance often didn’t answer the phone, neither had cell phones, and Proctor kept strange hours.

He pulled the unmarked car into the porte cochere and got out. It was quarter past eight, and the big house looked asleep. A dark passenger van was idling at the curb, an UBER placard in its window, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything: the driver could be on break or waiting for a fare in one of the adjoining buildings.

All was quiet; the only sound was the light ring of his heels against stone as he approached the front door. After a brief search he located the small hatch concealing the hidden entry pad, which sprang open when he pressed it. Pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket, he entered the code. There was a muted click as the massive front door unlocked.

D’Agosta put his hand on the knob, turned it, pushed inward. With a whisper, the door opened. Ahead lay the front hall, and beyond it the long refectory, lying in the deeply woven shadows of early morning. Leaving the door open and walking into the refectory, he opened his mouth to call for Constance Greene, who — he imagined — was probably having a cup of tea in the library right about now.

Then, thinking better of it, he hesitated. Something about the oppressive silence of the place unsettled him.

And then he realized something. No lights had been turned on, and there were few external windows in this section of the mansion. He himself was a dark figure in a dark room. If Proctor saw him unexpectedly, without warning, a dim silhouette, the man might take some quick, precautionary measure that would prove unpleasant. He retreated to the shadows of a wall and considered the situation.

Should he have rung the doorbell? To the best of his recollection, there wasn’t one — besides, if something was amiss, the last thing he wanted was to sound the alert.

He pulled out his cell phone, consulted the list of contacts, found Proctor’s number, and dialed it. It rang eight times before cutting off; there was no voice mail.

D’Agosta shook his head. This was crazy; he was letting himself get the heebie-jeebies. He slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket and walked down the length of the refectory to the grand reception hall. This large and elegant space was somewhat better lit, and he stopped to take in the mellow glow of the wooden display cases that lined the walls, the various treasures ranged behind glass or seated upon decorous wall shelves. To his right stood the double doors that led into the library. He’d approach them, then announce his presence with a discreet knock.

As he walked across the marble floor, a man stepped into the room from a dark passage in the far wall. He was dressed in a dark-gray suit and carried an expensive, slab-sided suitcase in one hand. Even as D’Agosta took in the salient details — tall, slender, reddish hair, neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard — he felt himself freeze in shock and disbelief.

He knew this man; knew him, if not from the photographs and reconstructions Pendergast had shown to him, then from the clear resemblance to the man’s brother. It can’t be , he thought. It’s impossible.

The man, obviously recognizing him as well, looked just as surprised, the expression quickly controlled. “Ah, the lieutenant,” he said quietly, but with an unpleasant edge to his voice.

D’Agosta knew the voice, as well: it was a voice he had heard coming out of the semi-darkness of the Iron Clock, the railroad turntable far beneath the streets of Midtown Manhattan, during a tense confrontation almost four years ago.

Diogenes Pendergast.

All this flashed by in a single, incredulous heartbeat. Then the man began to move — but he was encumbered by the heavy case, which he dropped, and D’Agosta beat him to it. In a moment he had his gun out and pointed, dropping into a combat stance.

“Hands in sight,” he said.

Slowly, Diogenes withdrew the hand that had been slipping under the lapel of his jacket, then raised his arms, stepping back into a beam of sunlight, which cut across his face, illuminating a scar on one cheek and his eyes: one silver, one green.

Now there was movement from the darkness behind Diogenes and Constance Greene came into view. She halted abruptly.

D’Agosta nodded to her. “Get behind me, Constance.”

For an instant Constance did not move. Then, with absolute composure, she walked across the room, past Diogenes — his hands in the air — and moved behind D’Agosta.

“This is what’s going to happen now,” D’Agosta said, keeping the gun fixed on Diogenes. “I’m going to call for backup. And then we’re just going to wait for it to arrive — the three of us. If you move your hands; if you move any part of your body; if you speak; if you so much as twitch, I’m going to put a bullet in your brain, and—”

There was a sudden explosion against the base of his skull. Brilliant white light flooded his vision — and then it turned to black as he collapsed to the floor.

For a moment Diogenes blinked at the tableau before him, and then at Constance, wearing an elegant fawn-colored dress and an old-fashioned but stylish hat, its veil pinned up. A handbag remained slung across one shoulder. As he looked at her, and what she had done to protect him, he felt an extraordinary swelling of emotion. He lowered his arms, recovering his equilibrium. “That was Ming dynasty,” he said.

She stepped forward, gazing down at D’Agosta. The vase she’d just employed lay in shards across the lieutenant’s motionless back.

“I never cared for the man,” she murmured.

When Diogenes began to reach into his jacket, she spoke quickly. “He is no threat to us. And there’s to be no taking of lives — remember?”

“But of course, my dear, I was only removing my handkerchief.” He smiled, pulled it out, and dabbed his pale brow before tucking it back in. “Let me get the trunk and we’ll be on our way.”

He turned and disappeared into the dark interior of the mansion.

A commotion in his hospital room roused D’Agosta out of a narcotic torpor. He felt confused, in a fog. There was a faint but steady ringing in his ears and a dull headache at the back of his skull. The room swam as if underwater.