'Accept your fate,' the man with the flashlight said. 'Taste the product of your success.'
Schmidt struggled, desperate, yanking his arms, straining to escape the rigid hands of his captors.
'Destiny, mein Herr. We must all confront it.' The man with the container raised it again toward Schmidt's clamped jaws.
Again Schmidt jerked his face away.
'Well,' the man with the flashlight said, disappointed. 'That leaves us no choice.' With relentless strength, he tugged Schmidt downward. The other men helped him, using their knees along with their hands to force Schmidt onto his back, straining to keep their prisoner's thrashing face pointed toward the murky, fog-and-smoke-clogged sky.
The man with the container knelt and pressed a nerve behind Schmidt's ear.
Schmidt screamed reflexively.
At once, another man rammed a funnel into Schmidt's mouth, clamped it firmly between his lips, watched the container being raised toward the funnel, and nodded as foam, slime, sludge, and sewage were poured down Schmidt's throat.
'Perhaps, in one of your future lives, you'll be more responsible,' the man said. That is, if we're successful, if anyone has a chance for a future life.'
Later…
After the corpse was discovered and the autopsy was performed…
The medical examiner debated about the primary cause of death. In theory, Schmidt had drowned.
But the chemicals that filled his stomach and swelled his lungs were so toxic that, before he drowned, his vital organs might easily have failed from instant shock.
TWO
Craig, you were with me. You heard me talk about Joseph! You saw what was in his bedroom. If the killers followed both of us, to protect their secret, they might come after you!
Remembering Tess's warning when she'd phoned him at One Police Plaza, Craig squirmed against his seatbelt and directed his troubled eyes toward the smog beyond the window of the Trump Shuttle 727 about to land at Washington National Airport.
Come after me! he thought.
Until Tess had mentioned it, that possibility hadn't occurred to him. He recalled – and had meant – what he'd replied. Let the sons of bitches try. The truth was, he would welcome a confrontation. Anything to stop the madness. Anything to save-!
Keep running, Tess! he thought. Be clever! Don't take chances! Soon. I'll be there soon!
Prior to leaving One Police Plaza, he'd phoned the security personnel at LaGuardia's Trump Shuttle terminal to alert them that he was a police officer who'd be bringing credentials, that he'd be prepared to fill out all the forms and comply with all the complex procedures, including an interview with the pilot, that allowed him to carry his handgun aboard this plane. On the way to the airport, he and Tony had done their best to make sure they weren't being followed, although in the chaos of noon-hour traffic that was almost impossible.
Now, concealing his gesture from the passenger next to him, Craig kept his right hand beneath his suitcoat, his fingers clutched around the.38 caliber, Smith and Wesson revolver's handle. Not that it mattered. If there was trouble, it certainly wouldn't happen during the flight. Certainly not shooting. Too dangerous. The bullets would rupture the fuselage and depressurize the cabin, at the risk of causing the jet to crash. All the same, the feel of the weapon gave him confidence.
As casually as his nerves would allow, Craig glanced around. No passenger seemed to care about him.
Good, he thought. Just keep control. He strained to reassure himself. You've taken every precaution you could think of. You're in the flow now! You're committed! You've got to go with whatever happens!
Still, he hadn't noticed the gray-eyed man ten seats behind him, who appeared to nap, thus hiding the color of his eyes, and who, under various names, had bought a ticket for every Trump Shuttle flight from LaGuardia to Washington National Airport since the woman had disappeared last night.
Not that the gray-eyed man had intended to use all the tickets. Instead he'd waited, unobtrusively watching the terminal's entrance, in case the woman's detective-friend arrived. One of his counterparts had kept a similar watch at the Pan Am shuttle terminal.
About to give up hope, abruptly seeing his target get out of a police car, the gray-eyed man – pulse speeding – had strolled inside the terminal, passed through the security checkpoint, presented the ticket for his flight, and boarded the jet before the detective did. In that way, he followed the detective paradoxically from in front and almost surely prevented the target from suspecting he had company.
Yes, the woman had escaped last night. But thanks to the onboard phone, which the gray-eyed man had asked a flight attendant to bring to him, he'd been able, using guarded expressions, to alert additional members of his team that the detective was en route to Washington National Airport, presumably to rendezvous with the quarry.
The woman.
She was dangerous. She knew too much.
So – it had to be assumed – did the determined detective, who showed far too great an interest in the woman.
When the two came together, they would both be silenced, the photographs would be destroyed, and the covenant would at last again be protected.
THREE
'Evil,' Priscilla Harding said.
The stark word caught Tess's attention.
She, Priscilla, and Professor Harding had moved from the kitchen to a downstairs study in the Victorian house near Georgetown in Washington. Now that Priscilla's insulin had taken effect and her blood sugar was stabilized by the lunch she'd eaten, the elderly woman seemed ten years younger. Her eyes looked vital. She spoke with strength, although her cadence was slow and deliberate, as if by habit she used the lecture style she'd perfected during her many years as a professor.
But Tess didn't have time for a lecture. She needed to know about the statue right now. Hurry! She had to meet Craig .
Priscilla noticed her impatience and sighed. 'Stop looking at your watch. Sit down, Tess, and listen carefully. This isn't something I can condense, and if you're in as much trouble as you described, your life might very well depend on an absolute understanding of what I'm about to tell you.'
Tess hesitated. Suddenly tired, she obeyed, sinking toward a leather chair. 'I apologize. I know you're trying to help. I'll do my best to… If this is complicated, I'd better not… In fact, I don't dare try to rush you. Tell it your way.'
Nonetheless Tess felt her muscles ache from tension as she watched Priscilla take several thick books from a shelf and place them on a desk.
'"Evil",' Tess said. 'You mentioned "evil".'
Priscilla nodded. 'Evil is the central dilemma in Christian theology.'
'I'm afraid I… What does that have to do with…?'
'Think about it. How do you reconcile the existence of evil with the traditional concept of a benign, all-loving, Christian God?'
Tess frowned in rigid confusion. 'Really, I still don't understand.'
Priscilla raised an arthritis-swollen, wrinkled hand. 'Just listen. We know that evil exists. We encounter it every day. We hear about it on the radio. On TV. We read about it in the newspapers. Moral evil in the form of crime, cruelty, and corruption. Physical evil in the form of disease. Cancer. Muscular dystrophy. Multiple sclerosis.' Priscilla's voice dropped. 'Diabetes.'
She hesitated, then sat despondently behind the desk.
Brooding, Priscilla continued. 'Of course, some deny the existence of, even the concept of, evil. They claim that crime is merely the result of poverty, inadequate parental guidance, or lack of education, et cetera. They place both the causes and the blame on society, or in the case of someone so repugnant as a serial killer, they attribute the killer's violence to insanity. They also refuse to consider that diseases have theological implications. To them, cancer is a biological accident or the consequence of substances in the environment.'