Still Pendergast did not reply.
“For the love of God, we have to get moving! It’s the only way Helen will survive. Everything I’ve done has been to keep Helen alive, because she…” He paused. “I even sacrificed my other sister, damaged as she was. You have to understand. This is not just about you, or about Helen, anymore. It’s bigger than that. I’ll explain all, but right now we need to save Helen.” His voice broke into a sob, quickly suppressed. He seized Pendergast’s jacket. “Can’t you see this is the only way?”
Pendergast rose, put the gun away.
But Constance, who had been silent, now spoke. “Aloysius, don’t trust this man.”
“The emotion is genuine. He’s not lying.” Pendergast took the wheel, throttled up, and directed the boat northeastward, toward Fire Island. He glanced toward Esterhazy. “When we land, you will take me directly to Helen.”
Esterhazy hesitated. “It can’t work like that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve taught her over the years to — take extreme precautions. The same precautions that saved her life in Africa. A phone call won’t do, and surprising her with you would be too dangerous. I have to go to her myself — and bring her to you.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Not yet. We must find a way to expose and destroy the Covenant. It’s either them or us. Helen and I know a great deal about them, and you’re a master at strategy. Together we can do this.”
Pendergast paused. “How long do you need to get her?”
“Sixteen, maybe eighteen hours. We should meet in a public place where the Covenant won’t dare act, and from there go directly underground.”
Another low murmur from Constance. “He’s lying, Aloysius. Lying to save his own beggarly self.”
Pendergast laid a hand on hers. “While you are right that his instincts for self-preservation are excessive, I believe he is telling the truth.”
She fell silent. Pendergast went on, “My apartments at the Dakota contain a secure area, with a secret back door to get out when necessary. Across Central Park from the Dakota is a public area called Conservatory Water. It’s a small pond where they sail model boats. Are you familiar with it?”
Esterhazy nodded.
“It isn’t that far from the zoo,” Constance observed acidly.
“I’ll be waiting in front of the Kerbs Boathouse,” Pendergast said, “at six o’clock tomorrow evening. Can you get Helen there by then?”
Esterhazy glanced at his watch: just past eleven. “Yes.”
“The transfer to me will take five minutes. The Dakota is just across the park.”
Ahead, Esterhazy could see the faint blinking of the Moriches Inlet light and the line of the Cupsogue Dunes, white as snow under a brilliant moon. Pendergast turned the tender toward it.
“Judson?” Pendergast said quietly.
Esterhazy turned to him. “Yes?”
“I believe you’re telling the truth. But because the matter is so close to me, I might have misjudged you. Constance seems to think I have. You will bring Helen to me as planned — or, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, your remaining existence on this planet will prove nasty, brutish, and short.”
CHAPTER 79
New York City
CORRIE HAD SPENT THE FIRST PART OF THE EVENING helping her new friend clean the place and cook a tray of lasagna — while keeping an eye on the building next door. Maggie had left at eight PM to work at the jazz club, and she wouldn’t be home until two in the morning.
Now it was almost midnight and Corrie was finishing her third cup of coffee in the tiny Pullman kitchen while contemplating her kit. She had read, then re-read, her tattered copy of the underground classic MIT Guide to Lock Picking, but she feared that the new locks on the house might be of the kind that had serrated drivers, almost impossible to pick.
And then there was that lead alarm tape she’d noticed. It meant that even if she picked the lock, opening the door would generate an alarm. Opening or breaking a window would do the same. On top of that, despite the appearance of advanced decrepitude, there might be motion detectors and laser alarms scattered throughout the place. Or maybe not. No way to know until she was inside.
… Inside? Was she really going to do this? Before, all she’d been considering was an external recon. Somehow, over the course of the evening, her plans had unconsciously changed. Why? She had made a promise to Pendergast to stay out of things — but at the same time, she had a deep, instinctual feeling that he was unaware of the full scope of the danger facing him. Did he know of what these drug dealers had done to Betterton and that Brodie couple? These were bad, bad guys.
And as for herself — she was no fool. She would do nothing whatsoever to endanger herself. The house at 428 East End Avenue gave every impression of being deserted — there were no lights on inside at all. She’d been watching the place all day: nobody had come or gone.
She was not going to step over the line of her promise to Pendergast. She wasn’t going to tangle with drug smugglers. All she would do was get her ass in the house, look around for a couple of minutes, and go. At the first sign of trouble, no matter how small, she’d get the hell out. If she found anything of value, she’d take it to that pumped-up chauffeur Proctor and he could pass it on to Pendergast.
She glanced at her watch: midnight. No point waiting any longer. She folded up the lock picks and tucked them in her knapsack, along with the other gear: a small portable drill with bit-sets for glass, wood, and masonry, a glass cutter, suction cups, a set of wires, wire strippers and tools, dental mirrors and picks, a couple of small LED lights, a stocking for her face in case there were video cameras, gloves, Mace, lock oil, rags, duct tape, and spray paint — and two cell phones, one hidden in her boot.
She felt a certain mounting excitement. This was going to be fun. Back in Medicine Creek, she’d often performed break-ins like this — and it was probably a good idea to keep her hand in, not let herself grow stale. She wondered if she was really cut out for a career in law enforcement or if she shouldn’t think about becoming a criminal instead… Then again, many people in law enforcement did have a sort of perverse attraction to criminality. Pendergast, for one.
She exited the kitchen onto the tiny back patio, which was surrounded on all sides by an eight-foot brick wall. The garden was overgrown, and several pieces of cast-iron lawn furniture were arranged around the patio. The lights of the surrounding rear windows cast enough illumination for her to see while sheltering her from prying eyes.
Selecting the darkest section of brick wall abutting 428, she placed a piece of lawn furniture against it, climbed onto it, then pulled herself over the wall and slipped into the backyard of the abandoned house. It was completely overgrown with ailanthus trees and sumac: even more perfect cover. She pulled a rickety old table over to the wall she’d just scaled, then moved ever so slowly through the overgrowth toward the back of the house. Absolutely no lights or signs of activity within.
The patio door was of metal and sported a relatively new lock. She crept forward, knelt, and opened her lock-pick set, selecting a tool. She inserted the pick and bounced it off the tumblers, rapidly establishing that this would be a very difficult lock to pick. Not for Pendergast, perhaps, but certainly for her.
Better look for an alternative.
Creeping along the back of the house, she spied some low basement windows in sunken wells along the rear wall. She knelt and shone a light into the closest one. It was filthy, almost opaque, and she reached down with a rag and began wiping it. Gradually she cleaned it well enough to see through, and saw that metal alarm tape had also been placed on this window.