Brimstone

{ 35 }

D'Agosta blew past the exit helixes of the George Washington Bridge and merged onto the express lanes, driving like hell. As the New Jersey Turnpike divided and the traffic began to thin a little, he seated the emergency bubble onto the dash, turned on its flasher, and began cranking the siren. Veering west onto I-80, he stomped hard on the pedal. The big engine of the pool sedan responded and they were soon rocketing along at a hundred miles an hour.

"Refreshing," murmured Pendergast.

The secure car-to-car frequency crackled into life. "This is 602. We've got a visual on the target. It's a TV van with a satellite dish, call letters WPMP, Hackensack, moving west on 80 near exit 65."

D'Agosta pushed his speed to one twenty.

Pendergast unhooked the mike. "We're just a few miles behind you. Hang back in another lane and keep out of sight. Over."

Everything had come together with remarkable speed. Pendergast had initiated a federal tail on Chait's cell signal, requisitioned a government vehicle, and put D'Agosta behind its wheel. The West Side Highway had been mercifully free of traffic, and it had taken them only ten minutes to clear Manhattan.

"Where do you think we're headed?" D'Agosta asked.

"Bullard mentioned a park. For now, that's all we know."

Out of the corner of his eye, D'Agosta noticed that, despite the speed, Pendergast had unbuckled his seat belt and was crouching forward. Now the agent was scratching his nails on the floor mat, rubbing his palms rapidly against it. D'Agosta had seen the man do strange things before, but this beat all. He wondered if he should ask, decided against it.

"Target leaving freeway at exit 60," the radio squawked. "Following."

D'Agosta slowed. Another minute, and he peeled off at the same exit.

"Target proceeding north on McLean."

"They're heading into Paterson," D'Agosta said. He'd never actually set foot in the city, though he'd passed it on the freeway countless times: a red-brick working town whose best days were probably about a hundred years gone. It seemed like a strange destination.

"Paterson," Pendergast repeated speculatively, wiping his dirty hands on his face and neck. "Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution."

"Birthplace? Looks more like death's door to me."

"It's a city with a vigorous history, Vincent. Some of the historical neighborhoods are still quite beautiful. However, I'm banking on the fact that those are not where we're headed."

"Target leaving McLean," the voice on the radio said. "Heading left onto Broadway."

D'Agosta tore up McLean Highway, using the siren to punch his way through two red lights. To their right lay the Passaic River, brown and sullen in the autumn light. As he turned onto Broadway, shabby-looking and decrepit, he killed the siren and snapped off the flasher. They were close now: very close.

"Sergeant," Pendergast said abruptly, "head into this strip mall on our right, please. We need to make a quick stop."

D'Agosta glanced at him in surprise. "We don't have time."

"Trust me, we do."

D'Agosta shrugged. The operation was nominally FBI and Pendergast was in charge: Hayward had made sure of that. The lead car was FBI and he himself was Southampton P.D., which would offend nobody. Interstate police rivalries would be kept at a minimum. At the appropriate moment-when it was too late for a bunch of unbriefed town cops to screw things up-Pendergast would call in the locals.

The mall was a collection of dingy, glass-fronted stores set back from a parking lot heaved and cracked by time. It was half abandoned, and D'Agosta wondered just what the hell Pendergast was up to. Here he'd made good time, and now the agent was squandering it.

"There," Pendergast said. "At the far end."

D'Agosta sped up to the last storefront. A yellow Dumpster stood out front, pitted and scarred with age. Even before the car had stopped, Pendergast was out, running into the store. D'Agosta swore, punched the steering wheel. They were going to lose five minutes at least. He was used to Pendergast's inexplicable behavior, but this was too much.

"Target heading into East Side Park," came the cool voice from the lead car. "There's some kind of event going on. Looks like model rockets or something."

D'Agosta heard shouting and saw Pendergast trotting out of the shop, a bundle of clothes slung over one arm and a couple of pairs of shoes clutched in the other. Moments later a fat woman came bursting out.

"Help!" she bellowed. "Police! I hope you're proud of yourself, robbing the Salvation Army. Shithead!"

"Obliged, ma'am," Pendergast said, crumpling a hundred-dollar bill and tossing it over his shoulder as he jumped into the backseat. D'Agosta laid on the gas, leaving a streak of rubber and a cloud of smoke.

"I daresay that was no more than a two-minute detour," Pendergast said from the rear of the car. Looking into the mirror, D'Agosta saw he was peeling off his jacket and tie.

"Two minutes is a long time in this business."

"I'll have to send the Salvation Army people a little something to make up for my lack of manners."

"They're heading into East Side Park."

"Very good. Drive around the park, if you please, and enter from the south. I need a few more moments."

D'Agosta drove past the park-a wall of greenery to his left, rising above a concrete retaining wall-and made a left onto Derrom Avenue. Despite their proximity to seedy, sorry-looking Broadway, the houses here were remarkably large and well tended, relics of the days when Paterson had been a model city of industry.

Pendergast intoned from the back:

"Eternally asleep,

his dreams walk about the city where he persists

incognito."

D'Agosta glanced again in the rearview mirror, almost jamming on the brakes in surprise when he saw a stranger staring back at him. But, of course, it was no stranger: it was Pendergast, transformed by some almost miraculous process of disguise.

"Have you ever read Paterson by William Carlos Williams?" the vagrant in the backseat asked.

"Never heard of it."

"Pity:

" Immortal he neither moves nor rouses and is seldom

seen, though he breathes and the subtleties of his

machinations

drawing their substance from the noise of the pouring

river

animate a thousand automatons."

D'Agosta shook his head and muttered to himself. He drove a few blocks, made another left, and entered the park beside a statue of Christopher Columbus.

East Side Park was an overgrown hillock of grass and the occasional shade tree, closely hemmed in on all four sides by houses. A lane wandered around its periphery, and D'Agosta eased the car onto it, passing a variety of pudding-stone outbuildings in various stages of disrepair. Concrete benches with green-painted wooden slats lined the roadway. Farther along, the lane veered in toward a height of land, which was crowned by a fountain surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. Several cars were parked along the curb here, including their own lead vehicle, making the already narrow road almost impassable. Ahead, D'Agosta could see the TV van. It had pulled onto the grass between a brace of tennis courts and a baseball field. On the field itself, a small knot of kids was shooting off model rockets, supervised by half a dozen parents. A man with a television camera was standing by the van, filming the event.

"This is an exceptionally well planned meeting, Vincent," Pendergast said as they drove slowly past. "They're meeting in the middle of a park. No chance of being ambushed. And they're surrounded by noisy children and the roar of rockets, which will defeat any long-range electronic surveillance. That man with the camera is their lookout, with a perfect reason to be staring every which way through a telephoto lens. Bullard has clearly trained his men well. Ah, pull over a minute, please, Vincent: here come the Chinese."

In the rearview mirror, D'Agosta could make out a long black Mercedes, absurdly out of place, cruising slowly up the park drive behind them. It pulled onto the grass across the tennis courts from the van. Two big men with shaved heads and dark glasses got out, looking around carefully. Then a third, smaller man exited and began walking across the grass toward the van.

"What dreadful lack of subtlety," said Pendergast. "It appears these gentlemen have been watching too much television."

D'Agosta eased the car forward, coming to a stop near the exit back onto Broadway. The hill fell away here and the trees were more numerous, blocking their car from view.

"Too bad I'm in uniform," he said.

"On the contrary: being in uniform, you will be the last one they suspect. I'm going to get as close as I can, see if I can learn more particulars about the meeting. You buy a donut and coffee over there"-he nodded to a dingy coffee shop across Broadway-"then wander into the park. Take a seat on one of the benches by the baseball diamond, where you'll have a clear line of fire should anything untoward occur. Let us hope, with these children around, that nothing of the sort occurs-but be ready for action regardless."

D'Agosta nodded.

Pendergast gave his eyes a vigorous rubbing. When his grubby hands fell away again, his eyes had lost their clear, silvery hue. Now they belonged to a tippler: uncertain, watery, red-rimmed.

D'Agosta watched Pendergast get out of the car and amble back up the rise. The agent was wearing a brown sport coat of dubious material, a faded stain between the shoulders; double-knit slacks a size too large; a pair of shabby Hush Puppies. His hair was several shades darker than usual-just how the hell had he managed that?-and his face was in need of a wash. He looked exactly like a man who was down but not quite out, clinging to a few shreds of respectability. And it wasn't just the clothes: his very gait had changed to a vague shuffle, his body language tentative, his eyes darting this way and that, as if prepared to ward off an unexpected blow.

D'Agosta stared another moment, marveling. Then he exited the car, bought a coffee and a glazed donut in the coffee shop across the street, and headed back into the park. As he crested the little rise and approached the diamond, he could see the shorter Chinese man getting into the back of the television van. His large companions were hanging back about forty paces, arms crossed.

There was a whooosh as a model rocket went off to scattered cheers and clapping. All eyes turned skyward; there was a pop and the rocket came drifting back, floating beneath a red-and-white-striped miniature parachute.

D'Agosta eased himself onto a bench across the diamond from the van. He slipped the lid off his coffee, pretending to watch the rockets go off. This was strange: the would-be cameraman was now calling the kids together, apparently to film them. D'Agosta wondered if the cameraman was Chait, Bullard's main man in New York. He decided otherwise: Chait was no doubt inside the van with the Chinese honcho.

He turned his attention back to Pendergast. The agent was strolling along the walkway near the van. He paused, fished a racing form out of the trash, shook it clear of debris, then stopped to chat with the cameraman. It looked like he might be asking him for money. The man scowled and shook his head, motioning Pendergast to move on. Then the man turned back toward the children, gesturing for them to line up with their rockets.

D'Agosta felt a knot tighten in his stomach. Why the hell was the man organizing the kids like that, anyway? Something did not feel right at all.

Meanwhile, Pendergast had seated himself on the bench next to the van, so close he could almost touch it, and was going through the racing form with a pencil stub, circling various horses and making notes.

Then-inexplicably-Pendergast stood up, went to the back door of the van, and knocked.

The cameraman came striding over immediately, gesticulating furiously, shoving Pendergast aside. D'Agosta resisted the impulse to reach for his gun. The back doors of the van opened; there was some loud talk; the doors slammed shut. The cameraman gestured angrily for Pendergast to move off, but instead, the agent shrugged and seated himself back down on the bench, returning to his study of the racing form, perusing it with languid ease, just as if he had all the money in the world to blow on the horses.

D'Agosta looked around. The two plainclothes FBI agents were strolling along the far side of the baseball diamond, talking. The Chinese goons didn't seem to have noticed them. Their attention was riveted on the van and what was going on inside. They seemed ready for something. Too ready. And there was the cameraman, still lining up the kids, as if he, too, was expecting something to happen at any moment.

D'Agosta felt an almost unbearable sense of apprehension. He asked himself why Bullard's men had gone to such trouble to place themselves in the midst of these kids. They had no inkling they were under surveillance. The tension was between them and their customers, the Chinese. He'd gathered as much from the wiretap, and now it was playing out here.

He started to calculate what would happen if the Chinese thugs pulled out weapons and opened fire on the van. The kids would be caught in cross fire. That's what it was all about: the kids were protection. Bullard's men were expecting a firefight: the cameraman was lining up the kids as a human shield.

D'Agosta dropped his coffee and donut and rose from the bench, hand on his piece. At the same moment, the back doors of the van flew open, and the little Chinese man got out as quickly and lightly as a bird. He began striding across the baseball diamond. He flicked his hand toward the two thugs-just the barest gesture-and broke into a run.

D'Agosta saw the two reach for their weapons.

Immediately, he dropped to one knee, steadied his grip on his handgun, and aimed. As soon as a weapon appeared-an Uzi, by the look of it-he squeezed off a round, and just missed.

Abruptly, all hell broke loose. There was the pop! pop! pop! pop! of semiautomatic-weapons fire. Kids scattering, grown-ups yelling, grabbing their kids and running in terror or throwing themselves to the ground. An Uzi appeared in the cameraman's hand, too, but before he could fire, he was struck in the chest by a hail of gunfire and flew backward, slamming against the side of the van.

D'Agosta fired a second time at the goon he'd missed, stopping him with a well-placed round to the knee. The other turned toward the unexpected fire, swinging his Uzi and spraying automatic fire across the outfield; Pendergast, shielding two children with his own body, coolly dropped the man with a shot to the head. As the man went down, his Uzi swung wildly, still firing; small clouds of dirt erupted in the grass before Pendergast; then the agent fell sharply back, pushing the children out of harm's way as a spray of blood suddenly darkened his arm.

"Pendergast!" D'Agosta screamed.

The goon D'Agosta hit refused to stay down. Now the man had rolled over and was firing on the van, the rounds whanging its side and sending chips of paint flying. A burst of fire came from its front seat; the Chinese goon went down again; and the van pulled away with a squeal of tires.

"Stop them!" D'Agosta yelled at the two agents. They were already up and running, firing futilely, their shots ringing off the van's armored sides.

Now the head Chinese had reached the black Mercedes. As it roared to life, the two agents turned their fire toward it, blowing out the back tires as the car swerved into the lane. A round hit the gas tank, and the vehicle went up with a muffled thump, a ball of fire roiling skyward as the car left the lane and rolled gently into a grove of trees. The door flew open and a burning man got out, took a few halting steps, paused, and slowly toppled forward. In the distance, the television van was careening out of the park, vanishing into the warren of streets to the west.

The park was bedlam: kids and adults scattered across the ground, cowering and screaming. D'Agosta rushed to where Pendergast had fallen, relieved beyond measure when he saw the FBI agent was sitting up. The two Chinese were dead, and the cameraman, who'd practically been torn in half, was obviously on his way out, too. But no civilians had been so much as scratched. It seemed a miracle.

D'Agosta knelt in the grass. "Pendergast, you all right?"

Pendergast waved, face ashen, temporarily unable to speak.

One of the other FBI agents came running up. "Wounded? We got wounded?"

"Agent Pendergast. The cameraman's beyond help."

"Backup and medical are on the way." And, in fact, D'Agosta could now hear sirens converging on the park.

Pendergast helped one of the children he'd protected-a boy of about eight-to a standing position. His father rushed over and clasped the child in his arms. "You saved his life," he said. "You saved his life."

D'Agosta helped Pendergast up. Blood was soaking through one side of his dirty shirt.

"That fellow winged me," Pendergast said. "It's nothing, a flesh wound. I lost my wind, that's all."

Slowly, hesitantly, people began converging on the park from the surrounding houses, crowding around the burning hulk of the Mercedes and the nearby corpse. Newly arrived cops were shouting, covering the corners, setting up a cordon, yelling at the gathering crowd to keep back.

"Damn," said D'Agosta. "Those fuckers from BAI were expecting a firefight."

"Indeed they were. And no wonder."

"What do you mean?"

"I overheard just enough to learn Bullard's men were calling the deal off."

"Calling the deal off ?"

"On the very eve of success, apparently. Now you can see the reason for the elaborate setup-the park, the children. They knew the Chinese would not be pleased. This was their attempt to avoid being shot to pieces."

D'Agosta glanced around at the carnage. "Hayward's gonna love this."

"She should. If we hadn't run that wiretap and been here to take down those shooters, I hate to think what might have happened."

D'Agosta shook his head and looked at the burning Mercedes, now being hosed down by a fire truck. "You know what? This case just keeps getting weirder and weirder."