Page 85 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

Pendergast inclined his head. “What’s the problem?”

Mrs. Trask set the beer in front of him, along with a frosty glass. D’Agosta poured it out while Pendergast took a sip of absinthe.

“The problem is, he’s taking over the meat of the case. In a day or two, he’ll be off to Ecuador on an undercover operation while I stay back here, running interference and basically twiddling my thumbs.”

Pendergast shifted in his seat. “Ecuador? Operation? You mystify me.”

“Coldmoon linked the museum murder to a homicide out in South Dakota and the theft of Indian artifacts. Looks like the two killings, his and mine, were part of a mopping-up process, and we’ve got a suspect—a really solid one. Problem is, he lives in Ecuador, apparently some hacienda way the hell up in the Andes. We’ve got to lure him back to the U.S. on some pretense in order to arrest him, because we can’t extradite. So the plan is for your pal Coldmoon to fly to Ecuador on a fishing expedition, while I cool my heels in New York, pretending we’re totally baffled. That might make the guy in Ecuador relax, but meanwhile my job will consist of taking abuse from all sides for not making any obvious progress.”

“I see. And you have no other cases of particular import at present?”

“We’ve always got other cases, but they’re all pieces of shit.”

“So you could potentially take some time off?”

“Well…workwise, it’s not a problem. But, I mean, Laura wants us to go somewhere, take a vacation. We really haven’t discussed it in detail.” He took another gulp of beer and waited for Pendergast to explain why he had summoned him.

A long silence as Pendergast stared into the fire. “I’m involved in something that I simply can’t do alone, and I require someone I can trust implicitly: someone who is utterly capable and reliable, and that I’ve worked with enough to know well. That is, of course, you. It—involves a journey.”

“Where?”

Another long silence. “Vincent, is it fair to say you’ve witnessed many strange things during our long and fruitful association?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“You are about to experience by far the strangest. I’m not quite sure how to explain this to you, so I’ll be as direct as possible. I only ask that you suspend your disbelief until I provide proof.”

“Okay,” said D’Agosta, lifting his beer for another sip.

“In the basement, I have a time machine.”

D’Agosta almost choked on his beer. He put the glass down, coughing.

“Constance used this machine without my knowledge or permission, and has gone back to 1880 to save her sister from death and, I believe, to kill her old guardian and nemesis, Dr. Leng.”

He looked steadily at D’Agosta, as if challenging him to doubt his words. D’Agosta could find no words.

“Youdorecall Dr. Leng, my dear Vincent?”

D’Agosta felt his skin crawl. “Jesus. Of course.” How could he forget the Surgeon, whose mass murders had terrorized New York? That was before the death of Bill Smithback, the reporter who covered the killings both new…and old. He stared at his beer as the details came back to him: Leng was an ancestor of Pendergast’s, and he’d discovered an elixir for prolonging life that required harvesting human body parts. Leng had lived in this very mansion before Pendergast inherited it following his death—and, in a cruel twist of fate, Leng had taken the innocent young Constance, first as a guinea pig, then as his ward, keeping her sequestered in the house and greatly slowing her aging process along with his own. It was only much later she’d learned that her older sister, Mary, had been a victim of the very experiments that kept her young.

Pendergast, he realized, was speaking again. “As you know better than almost anyone, Leng is exceedingly,supremelydangerous. Constance has already taken him on, alone, and I fear she will ultimately fail—and perish—in the attempt.”

It had finally happened, D’Agosta decided: Pendergast had snapped. He always knew genius and madness went hand in hand. It had been the same with his younger, implacably evil brother, Diogenes. Wherever Constance had actually gone, whatever had really taken place here—and it was obvious somethinghadtaken place—had pushed the FBI agent over the edge.

Pendergast rose. “Let me show you. It’s in the basement.”

“Uh, sure.” D’Agosta gulped down the rest of his Bud. If Pendergast had gone insane, there was no way to guess how he’d react if crossed—and D’Agosta didn’t want to step down into that basement without one last taste of beer.

The agent walked to a dim corner of the library, where the press of a concealed button caused a bookcase to swing outward. Beyond was a stone staircase descending into darkness. At the bottom, D’Agosta followed Pendergast through the mansion’s basement until they reached a large door, lined in metal, with a keypad beside it. Pendergast rapped on the door and it was immediately opened by Proctor. Another man was in the room, D’Agosta saw, wearing a white lab coat and standing beside a very large machine—if the wordmachinecould be used for the most outlandish contraption D’Agosta had ever seen, a monstrous contrivance that resembled something out of a sci-fi movie, joined in unholy alliance with the work of H. R. Giger.

Pendergast turned to the man in the lab coat. “Dr. Ferenc, you may begin.”

“Now, wait,” said D’Agosta as the man started messing with the dials and a low humming sound gradually filled the room. “What are you going to do?”

“Not me,we,” said Pendergast. “I am going to take you on a brief field trip into the past.”

“No,” said D’Agosta. “No way.” He wasn’t getting anywhere near that crazy device, which would surely electrocute them all—if not worse.

---