Cold Vengeance

“That’s correct,” said Ostrom.

“Who took care of the paperwork?”

“Dr. Felder.”

Pendergast shot Felder a hooded glance. He cringed.

The FBI agent took a long, searching look around the room. Then he turned once again to Lieutenant D’Agosta. “Vincent, this room — and this place — hold no further interest. We must focus on the note. Can you bring it out again, please?”

D’Agosta reached into his suit pocket and took out the photocopy Ostrom had made. Pendergast seized it and read it over, once, twice.

“The woman who delivered this,” he said. “There was no luck tracking her taxi?”

“Nope.” D’Agosta nodded at the note. “Not much to go on there.”

“Not much,” Pendergast said. “But perhaps, just enough.”

“I don’t understand,” the lieutenant said.

“There are two voices speaking in this note. One of them knows Constance’s ultimate destination — the other does not.”

“You’re saying that first voice is Poole’s. I mean Esterhazy’s.”

“Exactly. And you will note that, perhaps inadvertently, he allowed a certain phrase to escape, which Constance quotes. ‘Vengeance is where it will end.’ ”

“And?”

“Esterhazy was always overly pleased with his own wit. ‘Vengeance is where it will end.’ Isn’t that rather an odd construction, Vincent?”

“I’m not so sure, really. That’s the whole point of it: vengeance.”

Pendergast waved his hand impatiently. “What if he’s speaking not of an act, but an object?”

This was followed by a long silence.

“Esterhazy is taking Constance to some place named Vengeance. Maybe it’s an old family mansion. An estate. A business of some kind. That’s precisely the kind of pun Esterhazy would employ — especially in a moment of triumph, as no doubt he viewed this to be.”

D’Agosta shook his head. “That’s pretty thin. Who would name something Vengeance?”

Pendergast turned his silvery eyes on the skeptical policeman. “Do we have anything else to go on?”

D’Agosta paused. “No, I guess we don’t.”

“And would a hundred NYPD officers, beating bushes and knocking down doors, have any greater chance of success than I, following up this possible lead?”

“It’s a needle in a haystack. How can you possibly track such a thing down?”

“I know somebody who is exceptionally skilled in just this sort of thing. Let us go — time is short.”

He turned toward Felder and Ostrom. “We are ready to leave, gentlemen.”

As they departed, Pendergast walking so fast that Felder and Ostrom almost had to jog to keep up, the agent removed his cell phone and dialed.

“Mime?” he spoke into the phone. “It’s Pendergast. I have another job for you — another very difficult one, I’m afraid…” He spoke rapidly and softly all the way to the entrance hall, before shutting the phone with a slap. He turned toward Felder and Ostrom, and in a voice laced with irony said, “Thank you very much, Doctors, but we shall find our own way out.”

CHAPTER 63

SLOWLY, CONSTANCE REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS. It was very dark. She was aware of both nausea and a splitting headache. She stood still a moment, slumped forward, confused, as her head cleared. And then, quite suddenly, she recalled what had happened.

She tried to move, but found that her hands were handcuffed to a chain around her waist and her legs were bound to something behind her — this time, very firmly. Her mouth was covered by duct tape. The pitch-black air was damp and smelled of diesel fuel, oil, and mold. She could feel the gentle rocking and the sound of water slapping against a hull — she was on a boat.

She listened intently. There were people on board — she could hear muffled voices above. She stood quite still, trying to collect her thoughts, her heartbeat slow and steady. Her limbs were stiff and sore: she must have been unconscious for hours, perhaps many hours.

Time passed. And then she heard footsteps coming closer. A sudden crack of light appeared, and a moment later a bulb went on. She stared. Standing in the doorway was the man who called himself both Esterhazy and Dr. Poole. He stared back at her, his handsome face scored both by nervousness and the scratches she herself had inflicted. Behind him, in a tight hallway, she could see a second, shadowy figure.

He moved toward her. “We’re going to move you. For your own sake, please don’t try anything.”

She merely stared. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

Taking a knife from his pocket, he cut the layers of duct tape that affixed her legs to a vertical structural post in what was now clearly a hold. In another moment she was free.

“Come on.” He reached over and hooked his hand in one of her cuffed arms. She stumbled forward, feet numb, legs cramped, little sparks of pain shooting through them with each movement. He helped her get in front of him and eased her toward the tiny door. She stooped to go through it, Esterhazy following.

The shadowy figure stood outside — a woman. Constance recognized her: the red-haired woman from the adjoining garden. The woman returned her stare, coolly, a faint smile on her lips.

So Pendergast had not gotten the note. It had been futile. Indeed, it had apparently been some sort of ruse.

“Take the other arm,” Esterhazy told the woman. “She’s extremely unpredictable.”

The woman took her other arm, and together they escorted her down a passageway toward another, even smaller hatch. Constance did not resist, allowing herself to be pulled along, her head hanging down. As Esterhazy leaned forward to undog the hatch, Constance braced herself; then she turned quickly, ramming the woman violently in the stomach with her head. With a loud oof the woman fell back, crashing into a bulkhead. Esterhazy swung around and she tried to butt him as well, but he seized her in a powerful embrace and pinned her arms. The woman scrambled to her feet, leaned over Constance, pulled her head back by the hair, and slapped her hard across the face, once, twice.

“No need for that,” Esterhazy said sharply. He hauled Constance around. “You do what we say or these people will really hurt you. Understand?”

She stared back, unable to speak, still fighting to catch her breath.

He pushed her into the dark space beyond the hatch, then followed behind with the red-haired woman. They were in another hold, and in the floor was another hatch. Esterhazy loosened the hatch and opened it, revealing a dark, stagnant space. In the dim light, she could see that it was the lowest part of the bilge, where the hull came together in a V — no doubt in the bow area of the vessel.

Esterhazy merely pointed toward the dark, yawning mouth of the hatch.

Constance balked.

She felt a smack across the side of her head as the woman struck her hard with the flat of her palm. “Get down there,” the woman said.

“Let me handle this,” said Esterhazy angrily.

Constance sat down, placed her feet in the hole, and lowered herself slowly in. It was a bigger space than it looked. She glanced up to see the woman preparing to strike her again, this time with her fist. Esterhazy placed a less-than-gentle restraining hand on the woman’s arm. “That isn’t necessary,” he said. “I’m not going to say it again.”

A single tear welled up into Constance’s eye and she shook it away. She had not wept in more years than she could remember, and she would not let these people see her weep now. It must have been the shock of seeing the