Crooked River

38

Constance and Pendergast sat in deck chairs on the wide veranda, looking westward over the gulf, watching the sun slide toward the western horizon. Pelicans, seagulls, and sandpipers cruised across their line of vision, black spots against the pink and blue and gold. On a table next to the door sat Coldmoon’s police scanner, which he’d left behind when he went to Central America. It was on constantly, volume turned low, its background squawk like law enforcement Muzak. They had been relaxing for over an hour, and their conversation, despite its unhurried back-and-forth and occasional lapses into silence, had been of absorbing interest to them both. They had spoken of how Piranesi’s Carceri had managed to influence at least three disciplines — fine art, literature, and rectilinear geometry. The topic of geometry led them, indirectly, to a debate on the house they were currently inhabiting, and whether its symmetrical façade and numerous formal touches — transoms, coffered ceilings, rococo molding — truly qualified it as an example of shingle-style Victorian architecture. Once or twice, in the subtlest of ways, Pendergast had inquired how, exactly, Constance was spending her days; each time, the question was put off with equal delicacy.

“Peculiar, isn’t it,” Constance said, rather abruptly.

“What is that, my dear?” Pendergast asked. The conversation had moved on to whether Campari or Aperol made for a nobler aperitif.

“The way the sun sets over the sea. At first, it seems to drop so languorously, one can barely observe its transit. But then — as it nears the horizon — it accelerates, as if pulled by some invisible elemental force.”

“There’s a scientific explanation for that,” said Pendergast, sipping his Campari. “But I think I prefer your idea of the elemental force.”

“Sunset is time for the appreciation of elemental forces, not talk of science.”

Pendergast smiled slightly.

At that moment, his cell phone rang. He plucked it from the jacket of his suit pocket, examined the caller ID, which indicated nothing, then answered it. “Pendergast.”

“Good,” came the voice on the other end. “And you’ve answered your work phone: that will make things easier.”

Pendergast recognized the voice as that of ADC Pickett. But it was not quite that man’s normal voice: it sounded strained.

“I’ve just heard from our station in southern China. Specialist Quarles is dead.”

For the briefest moment, Pendergast went totally still. Then he reached for his glass. “Give me the details.”

“He fell from his suite at the Sofitel Foshan, in Guangdong Province. Chinese police and medical workers recovered the body and had already begun an investigation before Quarles’s credentials, and his assignment, were spotted as active by Langley. By the time we reached out to the Chinese authorities and completed the necessary diplomatic dance, the autopsy was complete. We were lucky to get one of our own forensic specialists in for an examination before the body was cremated and returned to the States.”

“And the findings?”

“The official Chinese verdict was death by blunt force trauma, consistent with a fall from the twentieth floor of a building. I’m sending you some encrypted images now.” There was a brief pause. “Suicide was presumed. The autopsy was quite thorough, and our expert had a difficult time finding evidence to the contrary. Quarles fell from his room, all right. But...”

“Yes?”

“Our expert noticed something unusual: the man’s esophagus was abraded.”

“Abraded?”

“That was the word our medical examiner used in his report, yes.”

“Will you send the report to me, please?”

“Just a moment.” Another pause. “The Chinese M.E. brushed it off as esophageal perforation due to a preexisting — let’s see — squamous cell carcinoma.”

“Anything else?”

“There was no time. He did what he could before the Chinese cremated the remains — as is their usual damnable practice, covering up any hint of foul play that might befall foreigners in China.”

“Do you have any images of the esophagus?”

“Sending it now.”

During this exchange, Constance had risen from her chair and walked to the railing of the deck, aperitif in hand, and was looking west across the beach. The sun was now an orange ball of fire kissing the sea horizon. Pendergast decrypted the messages on his phone, then quickly scrolled through the photographs. Quarles was barely recognizable as a human being, let alone as the short, fussy man with the Eton haircut he’d met in the M.E.’s office in Fort Myers not so many days ago. That was a tall building. He scrolled forward to the U.S. doctor’s report.

“It says here that both the mucosa and submucosa were involved, and that there was no indication of either eschar or debridement.”

“Agent Pendergast, you’re losing me with that medical terminology.”

Pendergast swiped ahead to the final image — the single picture their doctor had been able to take of Quarles’s esophagus.

“Traumatic injury or no, these are definitely not cancerous squamous cells,” he said.

Pickett sighed audibly. “Dr. Pendergast speaks—”

“The expert from the FTG I sent to China earlier this week did not have advanced esophageal cancer. That much I can tell you for a fact.”

“So what was it?”

“I’m saying exactly what our own medical expert is probably also implying, as diplomatically as possible under the circumstances. This damage to the esophagus wasn’t caused by cancer or a fall. It was caused by full-thickness burns.”

“Burns?”

“Third-degree, where tissue is destroyed down to the subcutaneous level.”

This pause was longer. “And you’re implying what, precisely?”

“That Specialist Quarles was tortured. A specially fitted gastroscope was inserted down his throat.”

“Specially... fitted?”

“Yes. They can be purchased if one knows where. Medical instruments that aren’t meant to heal but do the opposite. Gastroscopes can normally be fitted with lights, cameras, tiny scalpels for the taking of biopsies. But they can also be fitted with electric probes, cautery pens. A method of torture that leaves no visible exterior trace, only interior.”

“Good Lord.”

“Quarles called me three days ago. He said he thought he’d found the manufacturer of the shoes. It was a small company that furnished items to a limited list of clients — including a jobber that, fairly recently, had ordered three hundred pairs of our precise shoe.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. He said that there had been some unusual requests involved. He also said that he felt this was a sensitive order, and that learning more might present problems.”

“And?”

“Sir, Quarles was as comfortable doing business in China as he was analyzing shoes and neckties in Huntsville. But he was not an agent, and his primary training was not in covert work. He thought he’d found the manufacturer and jobber. We wanted to identify the buyer, of course, but I told him to use his discretion, and that if he felt any danger, he should abandon the attempt and exfil the region immediately.”

“Did you get the name of the manufacturer or jobber?”

“Neither. There was no reason for him to tell me more at that point — for security reasons, if nothing else.”

“Security? It sounds to me like when you had this conversation, it was already too late.”

“That has occurred to me as well.”

“Has it also occurred to you that if they, whoever they are, went to such lengths... then Quarles probably gave them what they wanted to know?”

“Yes.”

“He would have told them of our interest in who ordered the shoes, the name of his case agent. That is, you.”

“The real question is: how did they know how close he was? Quarles and I took level one classified precautions.”

“That is an important question. How do you want to proceed?” Pickett asked after a moment.

“I’d like to think about it overnight.”

“Okay. I think it’s safe to say this unfortunate development tells us one thing, at least: the people we’re dealing with are sophisticated and have a surprisingly long reach. I’m warning you officially to watch your six. And tell Coldmoon to do the same.”

“When I’m able to reach him, I will.”

The phone went dead, and Pendergast slipped it back into his pocket. The sun had sunk below the horizon now, leaving behind it an afterglow of the purest cinnamon. Constance had taken her seat again. Pendergast had made no attempt to hide his end of the conversation from her.

She finished her drink, put it on a nearby glass table. “You lost somebody,” she said.

“I’m afraid that’s too kind a way of putting it. Because of my instructions, somebody was tortured — and killed.”

Constance did not reply to this. Instead, she took his hand and they sat in silence as the light slowly faded.

“What was he, or she, like?” she asked at last.

“He was a courageous man who died in service.” A grim look flitted across Pendergast’s face. “One can offer no higher praise than that.”

After another moment of silence, he turned toward Constance. “I should warn you this news is more than just tragic. It could mean we’re in significant danger ourselves.”

“Oh?” Constance’s expression did not change. “In that case, there’s something we had better do right away.”

“What’s that?”

“See about getting dinner. I’m famished.”

They rose and — with Pendergast placing a partly affectionate, partly protective arm lightly around her waist — they made their way to the end of the porch, down the steps, and out toward the restaurants of Captiva Drive.