Cold Vengeance

woman — she realized just how much she’d been clinging to the slender thread of hope her note had offered.

She sat down and leaned against the bulkhead. The hatch shut behind her, followed by a squeak of metal as it was dogged down.

It was pitch black in the space — even darker than the hold had been. The sound of waves lapping the hull filled the bilge, making her feel like she was underwater.

She felt ill, as if she might be sick. But if she was, the duct tape over her mouth would cause her to aspirate, to drown. She could not allow that to happen.

She shifted, trying to get comfortable and focus her thoughts on something else. She was, after all, used to dark, small spaces. This was nothing new, she told herself. Nothing new at all.

CHAPTER 64

AT TWO THIRTY IN THE AFTERNOON — THAT IS, just after rising — Corrie Swanson left her dorm room, hit the street, and headed for her cubby in the Sealy Library on Tenth Avenue. Along the way, she stopped at the local Greek coffee shop. It felt like winter all of a sudden, a cold wind blowing trash down the sidewalk. But the coffee shop was a warm oasis of dish clatter and shouted activity. She put down her money and slid out a copy of the Times from the middle of the pile on the counter, then bought a cup of coffee, black. She was turning to leave when her eye caught the headline in the Post:

Grisly Beheading in Riverside Park

With a sense of embarrassment she also took a Post. She had always looked on the Post as a paper for cretins, but it often covered the really gruesome crimes the Times primly shied away from, and it was her secret vice.

When she got to her cubby at the library, she sat down, looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and with a vague feeling of shame opened the Post first.

Almost immediately she straightened up, horrified. The victim was one Edward Betterton, on vacation in the city from Mississippi, whose body had been found in an isolated section of Riverside Park, behind a statue of Joan of Arc. His throat had been slashed so savagely, the head had almost been separated from the body. There was other, unspecified mutilation that might be signs of a gangland slaying, the Post said, although there were also indications it could have been a vicious mugging, with the pockets of the victim turned inside out and his watch, money, and valuables missing.

Corrie read the article a second time, more slowly. Betterton. This was awful. He didn’t seem like a bad guy — just off base. In retrospect she’d felt sorry about the way she had reamed him out.

But this brutal killing couldn’t be a coincidence. He’d been on to something — a drug operation, he’d said — even if he’d gotten the Pendergast angle all screwed up. What was the address of the house he’d told her about? She concentrated, feeling a sudden panic she wouldn’t remember — and then it came: 428 East End Avenue.

She put down the tabloid thoughtfully. Pendergast. How was he involved, exactly? Did he know about Betterton? Was he really working on his own, with no backup? Had he actually blown up a bar?

She had made a promise not to interfere. But checking something out — just checking it out — even Pendergast couldn’t call that “interference.”

CHAPTER 65

SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST WAITED IN A RENTED CAR on the circular drive above the Seventy-Ninth Street marina on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, examining through binoculars the yacht moored a few hundred feet offshore. It was the largest in the marina, close to one hundred and thirty feet, sleek and well appointed. As the afternoon wind shifted, the yacht swung on its mooring, revealing the name and hailing port painted on the stern.

Vergeltung

Orchid Island, Florida

A cold wind blew from the water, buffeting the car and raising whitecaps on the broad Hudson.

A cell phone, sitting on the passenger seat, began to ring. Pendergast lowered the binoculars to answer it. “Yes?”

“Is this my main Secret Agent Man?” came the whispery voice on the other end of the line.

“Mime,” Pendergast replied. “How are you faring?”

“Did you find the yacht okay?”

“I’m staring at it now.”

A pleased, raspy giggle sounded over the phone. “Ideal. Ideal. And do you think we, um, have a ringer?”

“Indeed I do, Mime — thanks to you.”

“Vergeltung. German for ‘vengeance.’ It was rather a challenge. But then again, that ghostnet of zombified PCs I’ve appropriated all over Cleveland has been rather idle of late. It was high time I put them to work on something useful.”

“I’d prefer not to know the details. But you have my thanks.”

“Glad I was able to be of more help this time around. Hang loose, homeboy.” There was a click as the line went dead.

Pendergast put the phone in his pocket and eased the car forward, heading down toward the entrance of the marina and up to the gate that led to the main pier. A man in a crisp uniform — an ex-cop, without doubt — leaned out of the adjoining guardhouse. “Help you?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Lowe, the general manager.”

“And you are?”

Pendergast removed his shield and let it dangle for a moment. “Special Agent Pendergast.”

“You got an appointment?”

“No.”

“And this is in reference to…?”

Pendergast simply stared at him. Then he suddenly smiled. “Is there going to be a problem? Because if there is, I’d like to know it now.”

The man blinked. “Just a moment.” He retreated and spoke into a phone. Then he opened the gate. “You can pull through and park. Mr. Lowe will be out in a moment.”

It took more than a moment. Finally, a tall, fit, nautical-looking man wearing a Greek fisherman’s cap emerged from the main marina building and came striding over, his breath condensing behind him in puffs. Pendergast stepped out of the car and stood waiting for him.

“Well, well. FBI?” said the man, extending his hand with a friendly smile, his blue eyes flashing. “What can I do for you?”

Pendergast nodded toward the moored yacht. “I’d like to know about that yacht.”

The man paused. “What’s the basis for your interest?” He continued to smile genially.

“Official,” said Pendergast, smiling in return.

“Official. Well now, that’s funny,” said the man. “Because I just called the New York field office of the FBI and asked them if a certain Special Agent Pendergrast was working on a case that involved the marina—”

“Pendergast.”

“Excuse me. Pendergast. They said you’d taken a temporary leave of absence and assured me you were not on any active case right now. So one must assume you’re moonlighting, flashing your badge under false pretenses. Which has got to be against FBI regulations. Am I right?”

Pendergast’s smile did not waver. “You’re right on all counts.”