The Obsidian Chamber Read online

  His sitting room.

  I have a great many things to do…

  All of a sudden, everything came back to him in a mad rush. He struggled to rise; failed; tried again with still-greater effort, and this time managed to push himself to a sitting position. His body felt like a sack of meal.

  He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifteen AM. He’d been out just over thirty minutes.

  Thirty minutes. God only knew what might have transpired in that time.

  I have a great many things to do…

  With a heroic effort, Proctor staggered to his feet. The room rocked and he steadied himself against a table, shaking his head violently in an attempt to clear it. He paused just a moment, trying to collect both his physical and mental faculties. Then he opened the table’s single drawer, pulled out a Glock 22, and stuffed it into his waistband.

  The door to his set of rooms was open, the central hallway of the servants’ quarters visible beyond. He made for the open doorway, steadied himself against its frame, then lurched down the hall like a drunken man. Reaching the narrow back staircase, he grasped the railing tightly and half walked, half staggered down two flights of stairs to the mansion’s main floor. This effort, and the sense of extreme danger that enveloped him, combined to help sharpen his senses. He walked down a short corridor and opened the door at the end leading to the public rooms.

  Here he paused, preparing to call for Mrs. Trask. Then he reconsidered. Announcing his presence was inadvisable. Besides, Mrs. Trask had in all probability already left to visit her ailing sister in Albany. And in any case she was not the person in greatest danger. That person was Constance.

  Proctor stepped out onto the marble floor, preparing to enter the library, ride the elevator to the basement, and take whatever steps were necessary to protect her. But just outside the library he stopped again. He could see that, within, a table had been overturned, books and various papers spilling over the carpeting.

  He glanced around quickly. To his right, the mansion’s grand reception hall—its walls lined with cabinets full of strange displays—was a mess. A plinth had been knocked over, the ancient Etruscan cinerary urn previously displayed upon it shattered into pieces. The oversize vase of freshly cut flowers that always stood in the middle of the hall, its contents changed daily by Mrs. Trask, now lay broken on the marble floor, two dozen roses and lilies disarrayed in puddles of water. At the far end of the hall, at the doorway leading to the refectory gallery, one of the cabinet doors was wide open, canted to one side, half ripped from its hinges. It looked as if someone had grasped it in a frantic attempt to avoid being dragged away.

  All too clearly, these were signs of a terrific struggle. And they led—from the library, across the reception hall—directly toward the mansion’s front door. And the world beyond.

  Proctor ran across the hall. In the long, narrow room beyond, he could see that the refectory table—at which, until recently, Constance had been occupied with researching the Pendergast family history—was a riot of disorder: books and papers strewn about, chairs knocked over, a laptop computer upended. And at the far end of the room, where a foyer led to the front hall, was something even more disturbing: the heavy front door—which was rarely unlocked, let alone opened—stood ajar, admitting brilliant late-morning sunlight.

  As he took in these signs with mounting horror, Proctor heard—from beyond the open door—the muffled sound of a female voice, crying for help.

  Ignoring the still-receding dizziness, he raced down the room, pulling the Glock from his waistband. He ran under an archway, through the front hall, then kicked the front door wide and paused under the porte cochere beyond to reconnoiter.

  There, at the far end of the driveway, a Lincoln Navigator with smoked windows was idling, facing Riverside Drive. Its closest rear door was open. Just outside it was Constance Greene, her wrists bound behind her. She was facing away from him, struggling desperately; but there was no mistaking the bobbed cut of her hair and her olive Burberry trench coat. A man, also facing away from Proctor, had hold of her head and was just now pushing her violently into the rear seat and slamming the door behind her.

  Proctor raised his gun and fired, but the man leapt over the car’s hood and through the driver’s door, the shot going just wide. Proctor’s second shot ricocheted off the bulletproof glass, even as the car accelerated with a cloud of rubber and lurched onto Riverside Drive, the form of Constance, still struggling wildly, visible through the tinted rear window. The car roared down the avenue and out of range.

  Just before the assailant had leapt into the car, he had turned toward Proctor, and their eyes had met. There could be no mistaking the man’s features: his strange bichromatic eyes, the pale, chiseled face, the trim beard and ginger hair and look of cold cruelty…This was none other than Diogenes, Pendergast’s brother and implacable enemy, whom they had all believed dead—killed by Constance more than three years previous.

  Now he had reappeared. And he had Constance.

  The look in Diogenes’s eyes—the ferocity, the dark and perverse glitter of triumph—was so terrible that, for the briefest of moments, even the stoic Proctor was unmanned. But his paralysis lasted only a millisecond. Shaking off the dread and the sedative both, he took off after the car, running down the driveway and leaping over the trimmed border hedge with a single bound.

  2

  IN HIS YOUTH Proctor had been an exceptional runner—he’d set a record on the endurance course during his OSUT that still stood at Fort Benning, and he’d kept in peak condition ever since—and he pursued the Navigator at the top of his speed. It was now idling at a red light, a block and a half ahead. Proctor covered the distance in under fifteen seconds. Just as he neared the vehicle, the light turned green and the Navigator screeched ahead.

  Planting his feet on the asphalt, Proctor aimed his Glock at the vehicle’s rear tires and fired twice, first at the left, then at the right. The shots hit home, the rubber of both tires shivering from the impact. But even as he watched, they stiffened again with an explosive hiss. Self-inflating. The Navigator, Diogenes at the wheel, gunned around the vehicle ahead of it and accelerated up Riverside, weaving through traffic.

  Now Proctor turned and raced back toward the mansion, stuffing the gun back into his waistband and pulling out his cell phone. He had only limited knowledge of Pendergast’s contacts in the FBI and other federal agencies; besides, in this situation, calling the FBI would only slow things down. This was a matter for local police. He dialed 911.

  “Nine-one-one emergency response,” a cool female voice answered.

  Reaching the mansion, Proctor ducked through the front door and raced through the public rooms to the rear of the structure. For security and confidentiality, his cell phone was linked to a false name and address, and he knew this information would already be appearing on the operator’s screen. “This is Kenneth Lomax,” Proctor said, using the cover name, as he opened a false wall panel in the back corridor and snatched up a special bug-out bag he had prepared for precisely such an emergency. “I’ve just witnessed a violent abduction.”

  “Location, please.”

  Proctor gave the location as he stuffed the Glock in the bag, along with extra magazines of ammo. “I saw this man dragging a woman out of a house by her hair, and she was screaming for help at the top of her lungs. He threw her into a car and drove away.”

  “Description?”

  “Black Navigator with smoked windows, headed north on Riverside.” He gave her the license plate number as he grabbed the bag and ran through the kitchen toward the garage, where Pendergast’s ’59 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith was housed.

  “Please stay on the line, sir. I’m dispatching units to intercept.”

  Firing up the engine, Proctor peeled out of the driveway and turned north onto Riverside Drive, laying ten feet of rubber across the asphalt as he accelerated, running first one, then a second red light. Traffic was thin and he could see ahead for about half a mile. Peering t
hrough the hazy light, he tried to make out the Navigator, and thought he could just see it ten blocks ahead.

  Accelerating further, he dodged his way between taxis, then ran another light to the furious blatting of horns. He knew that, because it was a possible kidnapping, the 911 operator would notify the Detective Bureau after calling in the marked units. She would also want a lot more information from him. He tossed the cell phone into the passenger seat, line still open. Then he turned on the police radio installed under the dash.

  He accelerated further still, blocks shooting past in a blur. He could no longer see the Navigator ahead, even at the straightaway just before Washington Heights. The man’s most logical escape route would be the West Side Highway—but there were no entrances along this stretch of Riverside Drive North. He began to hear sirens; the police had responded quickly.

  Suddenly, in his rearview mirror, he saw the Navigator shoot out onto Riverside Drive from 147th Street, heading south. Diogenes, he realized, had ducked into the one-way street in the wrong direction and turned around.

  Lips compressed, Proctor sized up the traffic around him. Then he yanked the steering wheel sharply to the left. At the same time, he used the hand brake to lock the wheels, spinning the car around in a power slide. Another shriek of protesting horns and screeching of brakes from the surrounding traffic greeted this maneuver. He followed through the sliding turn, releasing the handbrake when the car completed a 180-degree rotation as he gunned the engine. The big car leapt forward. In the distance now, he could see flashing lights accompanying the wail of sirens.

  Five blocks ahead, he could see the Navigator swinging right onto West 145th. That made no sense: 145th quickly dead-ended in the parking lot of Riverbank State Park, the green space built—ironically—atop a sewage treatment plant sandwiched between the Hudson River and the West Side Highway. Did Diogenes have a fast boat waiting on the river?

  It was the work of half a minute to dodge through traffic and turn the Rolls sharply onto West 145th. But it was vital he understood what Diogenes intended before proceeding. He brought the car to an abrupt stop and, plucking a small but powerful pair of binoculars from his bag, surveyed the landscape ahead: first the road, then the parking lot and its adjoining service access lanes. There was no sign of any black Navigator. Where the hell had he gone?

  Proctor replaced the binoculars. As he did so, he saw out of his peripheral vision a disturbance in the brush to his right. The shoulder banked away sharply here, angling down toward the north–south ribbon of the West Side Highway. Foliage and saplings looked freshly cut; there was a thin, dissipating pall of dust—and fresh tire marks gouged into the dirt.

  Proctor raised the binoculars again. There, in the distance, was the Navigator, on the highway, moving north at high speed. He cursed. This set of maneuvers had again given Diogenes at least half a mile’s lead.

  Gunning the engine once more, he turned the Rolls off the road and made the lurching, precarious trip down the embankment and onto the highway, where he savagely merged into the oncoming traffic, then grabbed the cell phone off the passenger seat. “This is Kenneth Lomax. The suspect vehicle is now moving north on the West Side Highway, approaching the GWB.”

  “Sir,” the operator asked, “how can you be sure?”

  “Because I’m in pursuit.”

  “Don’t follow it yourself, sir. Let the police handle the situation.”

  Proctor rarely raised his voice, but he did so at this moment. “Then get some goddamned heat on that vehicle, and get it now.” He threw the phone back into the passenger seat, ignoring the responding chatter of the operator.

  He raced up the West Side Highway as it banked around the Hudson River Greenway, rising and falling with the contour of the land. He pushed the Rolls to over a hundred miles an hour, but he knew that Diogenes would be doing the same. Ahead and above arched the long slender span of I-95 as it passed over the George Washington Bridge. The Navigator was no longer in sight. Had Diogenes taken the exit helix and headed for New Jersey, or Long Island, or Connecticut? Or had he stayed on the highway, over the last brief nubbin of Manhattan, and gone north into Westchester?

  Proctor cursed again. He cycled through the police bands, heard the chatter of the marked units responding to the call to be alert for a black Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows heading north on the West Side Highway. Except that by now the Navigator—one way or another—would no longer be on the West Side Highway.

  The chase was over.

  3

  EXCEPT THAT IT wasn’t.

  At the last possible moment, following his gut, Proctor took the exit for the bridge, shearing across three lanes of traffic, barely able to keep the Rolls under control as it negotiated the sharp, walled ramp. He chose the lower level of the bridge because of its reduced truck traffic and, hence, greater maneuverability and speed. Crackled reports over the police radio were calling in their useless, negative findings. On the seat beside him, the 911 operator’s voice began to flutter above the threshold of hearing again. Proctor knew that, once the cops turned their attention away from the failed chase, the next person of interest would be himself. He did not have the time for unwanted questions or—worse—potential detainment. Reaching over, he picked up the cell phone, lowered his window, and tossed it out. He had other prepaid burner phones stowed in the bug-out bag.

  Reaching the far side of the bridge and New Jersey, he slowed to seventy as he passed the eastbound toll plaza; he did not want to get pulled over for speeding at such a critical moment. He negotiated the tangle of diverging freeways and headed for the I-80 Express westbound. Fifteen minutes later, he took Exit 65 from the interstate, making for Teterboro Airport.

  Proctor had surmised there were only two viable escape options open to Diogenes: to go to ground in some nearby safe house prearranged for the purpose, or to take Constance somewhere distant via private transportation. If Diogenes had gone to ground, it was too late to do anything about it. If he planned on taking her someplace far away, he could not risk staying in the Navigator. It would be impossible to drag a kidnap victim onto a commercial flight or some other form of public transportation—and his license plate was known. What remained as a destination was Teterboro: the closest airport capable of handling long-distance private aircraft.

  He turned onto Industrial Avenue and pulled the Rolls over to the curb beside the airport’s closest entrance. He scanned the line of nearby structures: the tower, a fire station, various FBO buildings. There was no sign of the Navigator, but that meant nothing: it could be already abandoned behind, or within, any of half a dozen hangars. Opening the driver’s door, he stepped out and quickly scanned the runways for taxiing planes—there were none—then peered up at the sky. A jet was climbing away, its gear retracting as he watched. But the airspace over the tristate area was full of planes: there was no way to be certain Diogenes was on that particular one.

  Not yet, at any rate.

  Getting back into the Rolls, he retrieved the vehicle’s laptop, accessed the Internet, and pulled up the diagram for Teterboro. Next, he checked the AirNav website for summary information on the airport: latitude and longitude, operational statistics, runway dimensions. Teterboro’s two runways were both about seven thousand feet in length, capable of handling nearly any size plane. He noted that the airport serviced around 450 aircraft a day, of which 60 percent were general aviation. Now he scrolled down the web page until he reached the fixed-base operator information: data on ground handling, avionics service, aircraft charters. He committed all this information to memory.

  Putting the Rolls into gear, he entered the airport proper and drove along the line of buildings until he reached one at the very head of runway 1. The building was a cavernous hangar with a large sign that read NORTH JERSEY FLIGHT TRAINING. Grabbing his bug-out bag, he jumped out of the car and ran toward the building. He glanced inside it briefly and continued past to the end of the runway itself. The flight school had half a dozen crappy Cessna 152
s parked directly on the tarmac. In the closest one, he noticed, two people were sitting: evidently a pilot and a student, going over the flight plan for an upcoming lesson.

  Fixing a worried look on his face, Proctor ran to the plane, waving at them to open their windows. The occupants looked out at him. From the expressions on their faces it was immediately evident who was the pilot and who was the student.

  “Can you help me?” Proctor asked, pitching his voice high and querulous. “Did you just see a man and a woman get on a plane here?”

  The men in the Cessna looked at each other.

  “The woman would have been young, early twenties, dark hair. The man would have been tall, trim beard, scar on one cheek.”

  “Mister, you shouldn’t be here without clearance,” said the pilot.

  Proctor directed his attention to the student: an older fellow who was clearly excited just to be sitting in the plane. “That was my boss,” Proctor said breathlessly, waving the bag. “He forgot this. I can’t reach him on his cell. It’s vitally important, he needs information from the documents in here.”

  “Yes, I saw them,” the student said. “They got on a plane maybe five minutes ago. It was waiting for them, right there, on the runway. The woman looked sick. She seemed to be staggering all over the place.”

  “What kind of a plane?” Proctor asked.

  The pilot frowned. “Sir, we can’t be giving—”

  But the student, clearly an enthusiast, spoke over him. “It was a twin-engine jet. A Lear. Don’t know the model.”

  “Yes,” Proctor said. “A Lear. That’s him, all right. Thank you so much, I’ll try to find some way to contact him.” The pilot opened his mouth to speak again, but before he could Proctor turned and jogged back past the flight school hangar.