Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

She swam straight out, at a fast crawl, while he came on behind. After several minutes, he stopped. “Constance? Don’t go out too far!”

But she was still swimming intently, heading straight out into the channel. “Constance!”

She could not hear, it seemed, and kept on, heading toward one of the deeper channels. What was she doing?

“Constance!”

But now she was so far out all he could see was the little fluttering of white water as she swam. He felt a sudden grip of panic. Was she crazy? Was she going to kill herself? Such thoughts seemed absurd. Yet now he could barely see her — and even as he squinted, treading water, he realized he could no longer see her at all.

He turned and swam back, as fast as he could, for the dock. The Chris Craft was still cleated and he quickly pulled on his morning robe, untied the boat, jumped in, and started the engine. In a moment he was winging his way across the water, heading in the direction she had disappeared, his heart in his throat. The fast boat quickly closed the distance and soon he could see the splashing of her crawl. He throttled down, threw the engine into neutral, and drifted alongside her.

“Constance!”

She stopped swimming and looked over at him. “What is it?”

He tamped down his panic. He did not want her to think him worried. She had already expressed her irritation at his excessive hovering.

He gave her a forced smile and a wave. “Care for a ride back?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

She kicked her way over to the side of the boat and hauled herself into the rear cockpit, her body covered with water droplets flashing in the sun. Diogenes reached under the console, found a towel, and handed it back.

“You are quite the seal,” he said.

“I didn’t learn to swim until I was an adult,” she said, breathing hard and drying herself off, without the slightest self-consciousness. “But I caught up.”

“Indeed you did.”

Diogenes brought the boat in a broad arc, heading back to the island but not too directly. It was a glorious morning on the water.

“I have a little gift for you,” he said. “Back in the library. Or rather, in an alcove off the library.”

“Really? I don’t recall any alcove.”

“You shall see. Shall we say ten minutes?”

“Shall we say three hours? I’m rather fatigued from my swim.”

“Three hours? What about lunch?”

“I’d just as soon skip lunch today, thank you — especially after that large breakfast.”

“Very well, my dear.”

He tied up at the dock and they went back to the house. Constance went immediately upstairs and so did Diogenes, each to their separate wings. Diogenes wondered how long these sleeping arrangements would last. Not much longer, he hoped.

Deep in a thick cluster of mangroves at the western edge of Halcyon Key, in the heat of early afternoon, Flavia Greyling stirred in her camouflaged sleeping bag. It was not a restless stirring — the restlessness had died away some time ago. It was more the languid movement of someone who had come to an important decision and was now just marking time, waiting to carry it out.

At first she had been angry — so angry that a red mist hung over her vision as she’d piloted a course away from the island, and more than once the airboat had become hung up in the shallow waters of the wildlife refuge. But by the time she’d reached Marathon, the red mist had receded and she once again felt the calm anticipation she always experienced before an operation, like good hard concrete beneath her feet. Oh, she was still angry, of course — but now she was stone angry, and she knew the feeling well.

There was only one way she’d found to get past it.

She had visited a survivalist store on Marathon and — using a bit of the money Diogenes had given her in Miami — purchased a week’s worth of supplies: sleeping bag, waterproof tarp, plastic spade, drinking water, personal hygiene items, spare batteries, twelve-hundred-calorie Mayday snack bars in the inevitable apple-cinnamon, and two dozen MREs — chili mac, stroganoff, pasta fagioli — in individual Mylar pouches. At a gun shop down the street, she’d used her false identity papers to purchase a Glock 22, an extra clip, and two 50-round boxes of .40-caliber ammunition.

She’d gassed up the airboat, then — stealthily, approaching from the uninhabited side — returned to the island. Quickly, she’d found this heavy stand of mangroves, far from any structures save some maintenance buildings and an ancient smokestack. Here she had carefully hidden the airboat and made her bivvy. And then she had undertaken a protracted recon.

There was no further activity at the temple-like structure. Lights were on in the main house, but she had seen no movement. She felt certain, however, that Peter, or rather Diogenes, was inside. And so, too, was the bitch.

At first, her anger had been directed solely at Diogenes. All this time he’d lied to her, concealing his true identity, his secret life — this despite how close they’d become, how many dangers they’d faced together, how many challenges they’d overcome. Not only that, but he’d been with another woman — Constance Greene, no less, the one he had called a blackmailing slut that he’d nothing but contempt for.

All lies. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was unfair to pin this on him. Diogenes hadn’t deceived her out of malice, or some streak of cruelty. He’d done it to protect himself. He was threatened in some way — she was sure of it. He hadn’t told her much about his past, but she knew instinctively that something — some event or series of events — had hurt him terribly; had broken something inside him, something deep and fundamental.

This was something Flavia could understand.

It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t trust her. The fact was, he had trusted her — with his freedom, with his life — several times. It was just that he hadn’t been completely honest. Now that she knew his true identity, she could prove to him that there was no reason to hide anything from her; not anymore. She could help protect him from whatever it was that drove him to such secrecy.

But Constance Greene — she was a different story. Here was a woman who’d barged into his life, made herself comfortable in his most private of homes, and taken his love — the love that, Flavia knew in her heart of hearts, belonged to her alone. With Constance out of the way, the field would be clear. Oh, it might take time to win him over. But it would be worth it. Because Diogenes, she knew, was the one man in the world that she could ever feel anything for, save revulsion. They were soul mates; she knew it, and so would he — eventually. Once his head was cleared of that bitch.

But she had to be careful; she had to do this right. She could not allow Diogenes to view Constance as a victim, or — even worse — a martyr. Who knew what kind of web that girl had spun, what kind of mind games she was playing? And so she had to watch, and wait, and pick a time — a time of her own choosing.

Of course, there was still a chance things could go wrong. Diogenes might not understand what she was doing, or why, and come after her. She’d prepared herself — emotionally and physically — for the possibility. Hence the law enforcement magazines she’d purchased for the Glock — fifteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Sixteen rounds before she’d need to reload. If it became necessary, he’d fall in a hail of bullets.

But Flavia was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen. She, not Diogenes, was the conductor now — and she would see that things played out right. Then the whore would be dead — and she, Flavia, would be the woman in that strange gray-black temple.