City of Endless Night

59

Ozmian waited, the echo of the shot slowly fading away, until Pendergast opened his eyes once again.

“Oops. Missed.”

He saw no corresponding reaction in the man’s eyes.

“Shall I give you another ten-minute head start, or shall I end it now?”

He waited, but Pendergast made no answer.

“All right. I’m a sport. You get ten more. But please try to muster a little more cleverness. There will be no more second chances.” He glanced at his watch. “One hour and thirty-five minutes left in the hunt.” He gestured with the barrel of his gun toward Pendergast’s Les Baer, lying in the debris. “Go ahead. Pick it up — two fingers only — and be on your way. I’ll remain here for ten minutes to give you another head start.”

The quarry bent down, reaching for the gun.

“Easy now. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get off a shot before I blow your head apart.”

Picking up the gun with two fingers, Pendergast slid it into his waistband.

Ozmian pulled a key from his pocket and showed it to Pendergast. “I used some of that downtime, while you were out there on that ledge, retrieving a key to these rooms from the orderly’s desk.” Gun still trained on Pendergast, he unlocked the door and pushed it open, then tossed the key out of the window into the night. “There. Once again, we’re even; no advantages. And now: on your way. Ten minutes.”

Pendergast walked silently out of the room. At the door he turned and briefly locked eyes with Ozmian. To Ozmian’s surprise, the look of defeat had changed; there was something even worse in those eyes now, a kind of existential despair…or was it his imagination? And then the figure was gone.

Ozmian waited, taking the ten-minute break to concentrate his thoughts and ponder where Pendergast would go next and what he might do. He was sure that, this time, his quarry would not waste a precious ten-minute advantage staking out his presumed exit point. Would he lead him on a fast chase through the building, trying to arrange a double-back? Or would he try to set up another trap? Ozmian wasn’t sure what the man’s next move would be — animals under the pressure of a close stalk sometimes behaved in unpredictable ways. His only certitude was that Pendergast would try to upend the game, change the assumptions — and the thought gave him a tingle of anticipation.

Pendergast raced down the hallway and plunged down the stairwell, intent on putting as much distance between himself and Ozmian as possible. He could run faster than Ozmian could track, so the key would be to lay down a long trail and buy himself even more time. He emerged from the stairwell and ran along dark corridors, up stairs and then down again, from floor to floor, creating a long, random and maze-like tracking problem for his opponent.

As he ran, he made a supreme effort to suppress an uncharacteristic feeling of desperation. Even though he had anticipated the second chance, he had also been finessed twice now. He may have gained psychological insight, but how could he turn that to his benefit? He saw that his fundamental mistake had been to think he could play Ozmian’s game and beat him at it; that he could out-ratiocinate his opponent. He was playing a game of chess with a grand master, and he now realized — halfway through and fatally down by pieces — that he was surely going to lose.

Unless…

Unless he changed the game entirely. Yes: changed the game from chess to a game of…craps. A game of chance.

He remembered noting on his approach to Building 93 that the west wing had partially burned and was unstable. That would be an environment that offered the very unpredictability he sought.

His irregular journey carried him into a large space, and he stopped to catch his breath and consider his next move. He was somewhere in the back part of the hospital, once again on the first floor, and as he looked around he realized he was in some sort of arts-and-crafts room. Long plastic tables were strewn with half-finished projects, ravaged by time and rats. Pendergast quickly scanned the room for anything useful. A weaving lay decomposing on a small loom; childish watercolors were pinned to a corkboard; shriveled lumps of modeling clay half formed into grotesque shapes lay arranged on one table; warped plastic knitting needles with half-completed scarves lay on another. At the far end of the room, chairs were arranged around a bulbous 1950s television set, its picture tube exploded and lying in shards on the floor.

Pendergast swept up several half-finished scarves, pulled the knitting needles out of them, and tied them around his feet. As he walked on, he could see an improvement in the track he made: though still faintly visible, it was now more difficult to read amid the comings and goings of earlier travelers. He had no illusions: Ozmian could surely follow even this track, but it would take more care. That would buy Pendergast a little time.

Now he headed west, toward the ruined wing, moving as lightly as possible. As he passed room after room, one corridor after another, turn after turn, he began to pick up the acrid scent of an old fire. And then, passing a kitchen, he came to a hallway leading unmistakably into the burnt wing. He was now far enough from Ozmian to dare his flashlight; he flicked it on and aimed the beam into the blackened interior.

What he saw gave him pause. The walls were leaning and crooked; some had partially collapsed. Ceilings had caved in, leaving piles of charred wooden beams and spalled concrete pillars, exposing twisted snarls of rebar. And this was just the first floor — nine stories of building were stacked above, barely held up by these unstable walls. As he surveyed the damage, he realized the fire was not ancient — it had probably happened in the past year.

A homemade sign, written in silver marker on a blackened piece of plywood, had been hammered to an adjacent wall.

After a moment’s hesitation, Pendergast stepped into the dark, foul-smelling labyrinth.