Douglas Preston - Two Graves

“Do you have any idea what the hell happened back there in the park?” D’Agosta said to the curtain. “It’s all over the news, five people dead, homicide’s going crazy.”

“I have no time for explanations.”

“Sorry, but you’re not getting out of here without telling me what happened.” He took out his notebook.

“Very well. I will speak to you for the length of time it takes me to get dressed. And then I am getting out of here.”

D’Agosta shrugged. He’d take what he could get.

“It was a carefully planned— exceptionally carefully planned—abduction. They killed Judson and kidnapped my wife.”

“ They? Who?”

“A shadowy group of Nazis, or Nazi descendants, called Der Bund .”

“Nazis? Jesus, why?”

“Their motives are obscure to me.”

“I need details of exactly what happened.”

Pendergast’s voice came from behind the curtain. “I went to meet Judson and Helen at the boathouse, to take Helen and hide her from this group. Helen arrived at six, as agreed. I quickly became aware that we’d been set up. One of the model yachtsmen was acting suspicious. He didn’t know the first thing about boats, and he was nervous—sweating in the chill air. I drew on him and told him to stand up. That precipitated it.”

D’Agosta took notes. “How many were involved?”

A pause. “At least seven. The yachtsman. Two lovers on a park bench—they killed Judson. A would-be homeless man, who shot Proctor. Your CS people have probably already reconstructed the sequence of the firefight. There were at least three others: two joggers, who kidnapped Helen as she was trying to escape, and the driver of the ersatz cab they forced her into.”

Pendergast emerged from behind the screen. His usually immaculate suit was a mess: the jacket was covered with grass stains, and the lower part of one trouser leg was torn and crusted with dried blood. He stared at D’Agosta as he straightened his tie. “Good-bye, Vincent.”

“Wait. How the hell did this… this Bund learn about your meeting?”

“A most excellent question.”

Pendergast grabbed a metal cane and turned to leave. D’Agosta caught him by the arm. “This is nuts, you walking out of here like this. Isn’t there something I can do to help you?”

“Yes.” Pendergast plucked the notebook and pen from D’Agosta’s hand, opened the notebook, and quickly scrawled something. “This is the license plate of the cab Helen was abducted in. I managed to get all but the final two numbers. Put all your resources into finding it. Here’s the hack number, too, but my guess is it’s meaningless.”

D’Agosta took back the notebook. “You got it.”

“Put out an APB on Helen. It might be complicated, as she’s officially dead, but do it anyway. I’ll get you a photograph—it will be fifteen years old, use forensic software to age it.”

“Anything else?”

Pendergast gave a single, brusque shake of his head. “Just find that car .” And he stepped out of the room without another word, limping down the hall, accelerating as he went.

+ Twenty-Two Hours

AS D’AGOSTA DROVE WEST AWAY FROM NEWARK, HE FELT AS if he were stepping back in time to when he’d been a beat cop at the Forty-First Precinct of the old South Bronx. The dilapidated shops, the shuttered buildings, the ravaged streets—all were a reminder of less happy days. He drove on as the view outside the windshield grew steadily grimmer. Soon he reached the heart of the blight: here—in the midst of the densest megalopolis in America—entire blocks lay empty, their buildings burnt shells or piles of rubble. He pulled over at a corner and got out, service piece where he could get to it quickly. But then he saw, amid all the decay, a single building—standing like a lonely flower in a parking lot—with lace-curtained windows, geraniums, and brightly painted shutters: a spot of hope in the urban wasteland. D’Agosta fetched a deep breath. The South Bronx had come back; this neighborhood would, too.

He crossed the sidewalk and started across a vacant lot, kicking aside bricks. Pendergast had beaten him here: he could see the agent at the far end of the lot, beside the burned-out remains of a taxi, speaking to a uniformed police officer and what looked like a small CSI team. Pendergast’s Rolls-Royce was parked at the corner, spectacularly out of place on these impoverished streets.

Pendergast gave D’Agosta a curt nod as he approached. Other than the shocking paleness, the FBI agent now looked more like his old self. In the late-afternoon light, his trademark black suit was clean and pressed, his white shirt crisp. He had traded the ungainly aluminum cane for one of ebony, topped by a handle of carved silver.

“… Found it forty-five minutes ago,” the beat cop was telling Pendergast. “I was chasing some twelve-year-olds who’d been boosting copper wire.” He shook his head. “And here was this New York taxi. The license matched the one on the APB, so I called it in.”

D’Agosta turned his attention to the taxi. It was little more than a husk: the hood was gone, the engine cannibalized, the seats missing, dashboard scorched and partially melted, steering wheel broken in two.

The head of the CSI team approached from the far side of the vehicle. “Even before the vandals got to it, this was almost useless as evidence,” he said, pulling off a pair of latex gloves. “No paperwork or documentation. It was vacuumed and wiped down, all fingerprints removed. They employed a particularly aggressive accelerant. Anything the perps didn’t take care of, the fire would have.”

“The VIN?” D’Agosta asked.

“We’ve got it. Stolen vehicle. Won’t be of much use.” The man paused. “We’ll haul it back to the warehouse for a more thorough examination, but this smells like a professional cleanup job. Organized crime.”

Pendergast took this in without replying. Although the agent remained utterly still, D’Agosta could feel a sense of desperation, of ruthless drive, radiating from him. Then, abruptly, he drew a pair of latex gloves from a coat pocket, snapped them on, and approached the vehicle. Crouching over it, wincing briefly with pain, he circled once, then twice, spidery fingers running lightly over the scorched metal, glittering eyes taking in everything. As the others watched, he peered carefully into the engine space; the passenger compartment, front and back; the trunk. Then, as he began a third revolution, he pulled some small ziplock bags, a few sample tubes, and a scalpel from his pocket. Kneeling beside the front fender, his face creasing momentarily with the effort, he used the scalpel to scrape some shavings of dried mud into one of the bags, which he then sealed and returned to his pocket. Rising, he completed the third circuit, more slowly this time. Stopping at the right rear tire, he knelt again and—using a pair of forceps—plucked several small pebbles from the treads of the tire and placed them in a second bag. This, too, quickly disappeared into his pocket.

“That’s, uh, evidence,” the cop began.

Pendergast rose and turned toward the cop. He said nothing, but the cop took a step backward under the force of the FBI agent’s stare.

“Right. Keep us in the loop on that,” the cop muttered.

Still Pendergast skewered the man with his stare. He looked at the CSI team, each in turn, and then finally at D’Agosta. There was something accusatory in his gaze, as if they were guilty of some unnamed offense. Then he turned and began walking in the direction of the Rolls, limping slightly, using the cane for support.