Douglas Preston - Two Graves

If this was some novel interrogation technique, Weber thought, it was not going to work. “Brioni,” he replied.

“Brioni,” Pendergast repeated. “That’s good. Well made.”

Suddenly—again with speed that more resembled an explosion than movement—Pendergast shot up from his chair, leapt over the desk, and grabbed Weber by the throat. Dragging him backward with shocking strength, he threw up the sash of the nearest window and propelled the struggling Weber into it. In terror Weber grasped the window frames on both sides. He could hear the traffic on Peachtree Street twenty stories below, feel the updraft.

“I love the windows in these old skyscrapers,” Pendergast said. “They actually open. And you were right about the view.”

Weber clung desperately to the sides of the window, gasping with terror.

Reaching around with the butt of his gun, Pendergast smashed the fingers of Weber’s left hand, breaking bones, then pounded on his right. With a cry, Weber felt himself shoved backward into open space, his arms flailing uselessly, his legs still hooked over the windowsill. Pendergast prevented his fall by grabbing his tie, holding him out at arm’s length from the window.

Frantically Weber pressed his calves against the sill, choking and fighting to maintain a grip.

“A man should always know his wardrobe—and his wardrobe’s limitations,” Pendergast went on, his voice still light and conversational. “My Jay Kos ties, for example, are made of Italian sevenfold silk. As strong as they are beautiful.”

He gave Weber’s tie a rough jerk. Weber gasped as one leg began to slip from the sill. He scrabbled to regain his footing. He tried to speak, but the tie was choking him.

“Other manufacturers sometimes cut corners,” Pendergast went on. “You know, like single stitching, only two folds.” He gave the tie another tug. “So I want you to be sure of the quality of your tie before I ask you my question again.”

Jerk.

With a harsh sound, Weber’s tie began to rip. He stared at it, crying out involuntarily.

“Oh, dear,” Pendergast said, disappointed. “Brioni? I don’t think so. Perhaps you’ve been deceived by a forgery. Or you’ve been cutting corners, lying to me about your haberdashers.”

Jerk.

The tie was now torn halfway across its fat end. From the corner of his eye, Weber could see a crowd gathering below, pointing upward, distant shouts. He felt his head start to swim. Panic overwhelmed him.

Jerk. Rip.

“All right!” Weber screamed, scrabbling at Pendergast’s hand with his own broken and twisted fingers. “I’ll talk!”

“Make it quick. This cheap tie isn’t going to last much longer.”

“She’s, she’s leaving the country tonight.”

“Where? How?”

“Private plane. Fort Lauderdale. Pettermars Airport. Nine o’clock.”

With a final, brutal tug, Pendergast pulled Weber back into his office.

“ Scheiße! ” Weber cried as he sprawled across the floor, in a fetal position, cradling his ruined hands. “What if my tie had torn completely?”

The man’s smile simply widened. And suddenly Weber understood—this was a man as far on the edge as a person could be while remaining sane.

Pendergast withdrew a step. “If you’re telling the truth, and I recover her without incident, you don’t have to worry about seeing me again. But if you have deceived me, I’ll pay you another visit.”

In the act of turning toward the door, Pendergast stopped. He loosened his own necktie, unknotted it, threw it toward Weber. “Here’s the real thing. Remember what I said about cutting corners.” And with a final, cold smile, he slipped out of the office.

+ Forty-Five Hours

PETTERMARS AIRPORT. PENDERGAST HAD JUST UNDER SIX hours to go seven hundred miles.

A quick check of the local airports showed no feasible commercial flights and no chartered planes available on such short notice. He would have to make the trip by car.

He had flown into Atlanta and taken a cab from the airport. He would need to rent a vehicle. Locating a specialty rental agency a few blocks down Peachtree, he selected a brand-new storm-red Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. He contracted for a one-way trip to Miami, with full insurance coverage, at a staggering price.

Even though rush hour had not yet begun, the notorious Atlanta traffic was already choking the freeway interchanges. Merging onto I-75 south, Pendergast quickly pressed the accelerator to the floor, passing through a construction zone at high speed by sticking to the right-hand shoulder. As he had hoped, the ear-shattering roar of the Mercedes’s ferocious 563-horse engine attracted attention and helped clear the way for him. He blasted along the shoulder at close to a hundred miles an hour until he passed a speed trap.

Excellent.

A Georgia state trooper came shooting out from behind an embankment, sirens wailing and lightbar flashing. Pendergast pulled over so fast the cop almost rear-ended him. Even before the trooper could call in the license plate, Pendergast was out of the car with his shield held high, striding toward the trooper’s vehicle and motioning with his hand to lower his window.

Reaching the vehicle, Pendergast pushed his shield inside. “Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York office. I’m on an emergency mission of the highest priority.”

The trooper looked from Pendergast, to the shield, to the Mercedes, and back again. “Um, yes, sir.”

“I had to improvise the car. Listen to me carefully. I’m on my way to Pettermars Airport, outside Fort Lauderdale, by way of Interstates Seventy-Five, Ten, and Ninety-Five.”

The state trooper stared at him, struggling to keep up.

“I want you to radio ahead and authorize my rapid and unrestricted passage along this route. No stops. And no escorts—I’ll be traveling too fast. My vehicle is somewhat recognizable, so this should not be a problem. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. But our jurisdiction ends once you leave Georgia.”

“Have your commanding major call his counterpart in Florida.”

“But perhaps the FBI’s New York office—”

“As I said, this is an emergency situation. There’s no time. Just do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pendergast sprinted back to his car and laid a hundred yards of rubber getting back up to speed, leaving the state trooper sitting in a blue cloud.

By four o’clock Pendergast was past Macon, arrowing due south. Cars, road signs, scenery passed by in brief smudges of color. Suddenly, coming around a bend, he saw a line of red brake lights ahead: two semis were driving abreast, crawling up a hill, the one on the left trying to pass the one on the right by inching ahead up the rise, slowing everyone behind—a despicable act on a two-lane freeway.

Driving once again on and off the shoulder, flashing his lights, Pendergast passed the series of cars until he was directly behind the left-hand truck. It studiously ignored the blasts of his horn and the flashing of lights—if anything, it seemed to slow a little, out of spite.

The freeway curved to the right, and—as often happened—the truck in the slow lane began to drift into the shoulder. Pendergast used this opportunity to move himself back into the left-hand shoulder. As he anticipated, the trucker in front of him moved left as well, to block his passage. This was his chance. He decelerated slightly, then—switching the transmission into manual mode—he yawed abruptly right into the gap created between the two trucks, using his paddle shifters to scream from fifty miles per hour to ninety in three seconds, darting past the trucks and shooting forward onto the empty freeway ahead. He was rewarded by twin angry blasts of air horns.