Brimstone

{ 74 }

When D'Agosta entered Pendergast's hotel suite, he found the agent at breakfast. The table was set with assorted fruits, breakfast rolls, and the inescapable and inevitable tiny espresso. Pendergast was nibbling daintily at poached eggs and reading what looked like a set of faxed documents. For a brief moment, D'Agosta thought of the earlier meal they'd shared, back in Southampton, when this case was still brand-new. It seemed a distant memory indeed.

"Ah, Vincent," Pendergast said. "Come in. Would you care to order something?"

"No, thanks." Although it was a beautiful morning and sunlight gilded the rooms, D'Agosta felt as if a threatening cloud was hanging over them both. "I'm surprised you've got an appetite."

"It's important I take some refreshment now. I'm not sure how long it will be until my next meal. But that shouldn't stop you: come, have a croissant. These Alsatian plum preserves from Fauchon are delightful." He put the faxes aside and picked up La Nazione .

"What's that you were reading?"

"Some faxes from Constance. I'll need all the, ah, ammunition I can gather for what's to come. She has proven most helpful."

D'Agosta stepped forward. "I'm coming with you," he said grimly. "I want to get that straight here and now so there won't be any questions later."

Pendergast lowered the paper. "I assumed you'd make such a demand. Let me remind you the invitation was for me alone."

"I doubt that fat-assed count would have any objections."

"You're probably right."

"I've come all this way. I've been shot at more than once, lost the end of a finger, almost been pushed off a cliff, almost been driven off a cliff."

"Right again."

"So don't expect me to spend the evening relaxing by the pool with a few cold ones while you're in Fosco's lair."

Pendergast smiled faintly. "I have one more errand to run before leaving Florence. Let's discuss it then."

And he raised the paper once again.

Two hours later, their car stopped on a narrow street in Florence, outside a vast, austere building of rough stone.

"The Palazzo Maffei," Pendergast said from behind the wheel. "If you wouldn't mind waiting here a moment? I won't be long." He got out of the car, approached a brass plaque of door buzzers set into the facade, scanned the names, and pressed one. A moment later, a muffled voice rasped over the intercom. Pendergast answered. Then the great door buzzed open and he vanished inside.

D'Agosta watched, curious. He'd picked up enough Italian to know that what Pendergast said into the intercom hadn't sounded right. It sounded more like Latin, to tell the truth.

Getting out of the car, he crossed the narrow street and examined the buzzers. The one Pendergast pressed was labeled simply Corso Maffei . This told D'Agosta nothing, and he returned to their rental car.

Within ten minutes, Pendergast emerged from the building and got back into the driver's seat.

"What was that all about?" D'Agosta asked.

"Insurance," Pendergast replied. Then he turned to look intently at D'Agosta. "The chances of success in this venture are not much better than fifty-fifty. I have to do this. You do not. I would personally prefer it if you didn't come."

"No way. We're in this together."

"I see you are determined. But let me just remind you, Vincent, that you have a son and what appear to be excellent prospects for advancement, promotion, and a happy life ahead of you."

"I said , we're in this together."

Pendergast smiled and laid a hand on his arm-a strangely affectionate gesture from a man who hardly ever showed affection. "I knew this would be your answer, Vincent, and I am glad. I have come to rely on your common sense, your steadiness, and your shooting ability, among other excellent qualities."

D'Agosta felt himself unaccountably embarrassed and he grunted a reply.

"We should reach the castle by midafternoon. I'll brief you on the way."

The road running south from Florence into Chianti wound through some of the prettiest country D'Agosta had ever seen: hills striped with vineyards turning yellow in fall colors, and pale gray-green olive groves; fairy-tale castles and gorgeous Renaissance villas sprinkled on hills and ridges. Beyond loomed a range of forested mountains, dotted here or there with a grim monastery or an ancient bell tower.

The road loosely followed the ridges above the Greve River. As they passed over the Passo dei Pecorai, the town of Greve came into view far below, lying in a low valley along the river. As they came around another bend in the road, Pendergast pointed a finger at his side window. "Castel Fosco," he said.

It stood on a lonely spar of rock far up in the Chiantigian hills. From this distance, it looked to D'Agosta like a single massive tower, crenellated and time-worn, rising above the forest. The road turned, dipped, and the castle disappeared. A moment later Pendergast turned off the main road, and after a confusing series of turns onto ever-smaller lanes, they arrived at a mossy wall with an iron gate. The marble plaque beside it read Castel Fosco. The open gate was rotten and rusted, and it seemed to have settled crookedly into the very ground itself. An ancient dirt road ran up from the gate through some vineyards, climbing a steep hillside and disappearing over the brow of the hill.

As they wound their way up the hillside, Pendergast nodded toward the terraced vineyards and groves that lined the road. "A rich estate, apparently, and one of the largest in Chianti."

D'Agosta said nothing. Every yard they drove farther into the count's domain seemed to increase the sense of oppression that hung over him.

The road topped the ridge and the castle came into view again, much closer now: a monstrous stone keep perched on a crag far up the mountainside. Built into one side of the keep was a later, yet still ancient, addition: a graceful Renaissance villa with a pale yellow stuccoed exterior and red-tile roofs. Its rows of stately windows stood in strong contrast to the grim, almost brutal lines of the central keep.

The entire structure was surrounded by a double set of walls. The outermost was almost completely in ruins, consisting mostly of gaps of tumbled stone, broken towers, and crumbling battlements. The inner curtain was in much better repair and acted as a kind of retaining wall to the castle itself, its enormous ramparts providing fields of level ground around the exterior. Beyond the castle, the slopes of the mountain rose yet another thousand feet into a wild, forested amphitheater, jagged outcrops forming a serrated semicircular edge against the lowering sky.

"Over five thousand acres," said Pendergast. "I understand it dates back more than a millennium."

But D'Agosta did not reply. The sight of the castle had chilled him more than he cared to admit. The sense of oppression grew stronger. It seemed insane, walking into the lion's den like this. But he'd learned to trust Pendergast implicitly. The man never did anything without a reason. He'd outfoxed the sniper. He'd saved them from death at the hands of Bullard's men. He'd saved their lives many times before, on earlier cases. Pendergast's plan-whatever it was-would work.

Of course it would work.