He stopped, listening. There was a blur of motion in his goggles, but it was too quick to get a bead. He pressed on, firing once again, pushing through narrow channels in the mangroves. The pressure of his approach was spooking the shooter; he heard louder crashing as the target moved hard and fast, trying to get away.
Another shot came tearing through the mangroves, clipping a branch by his shoulder, and Longstreet dropped into the water. It seemed the bastard wasn’t as spooked as he’d assumed. Two more shots, coming in high, and then more thrashing through vegetation as the target continued retreating. He wasn’t far away, and the noise made a fine target.
Longstreet rose, aimed carefully at the sound, and fired. There was a short cry and a final crash — and then silence.
Moving quickly, he bashed through a screen of mangroves — and came upon the shooter. He stared, incredulous: it was a young woman lying on her back, chest covered with blood, eyes open. For a second he thought it must be Constance Greene — but this was certainly not the woman whose picture had been in the briefing book. In fact, with a sudden shock, he knew who this was; the face was recognizable from mug shots and security videos he’d viewed. Flavia Greyling stared back at him with glittering, hate-filled eyes and, with her strength fading, tried to raise her gun, but he reached down and pulled it out of her hand. She held a wicked-looking knife with a green handle in the other. Grimacing with pain, she raised it as if readying it for a throw… and then collapsed back into the water.
His teammate came up behind him. “What the hell? A girl?”
“Yeah.” What the hell she’d been doing here on Halcyon, Longstreet couldn’t begin to imagine. This was turning into an absolute clusterfuck. Pendergast had been right, after all.
“She’s not target two, is she?”
“No.”
“Where’d she come from?”
“No idea. You get her out of this crap and to the pier, evac her on a Zodiac.”
“She’s dead.”
“Maybe. Just get her out and do your best. I’ve got to meet up with Team Blue at the main house.”
Longstreet pushed out of the mangroves and headed up the beach.
69
Longstreet jogged up the beach and soon arrived at the main house. It was already surrounded by Team Blue, and a hostage negotiator was on a megaphone telling everyone to get out, last warning. They were coming in and any resistance would be met with deadly force.
“Anyone in there?” Longstreet asked, coming up to the Blue leader.
“We don’t know. No shots fired, no sightings, no sounds. Could be empty.”
Longstreet nodded. Diogenes wasn’t in there, he knew it the minute he saw the house — a rambling wooden structure that would burn in five minutes, that offered no cover anywhere: a 9mm round would go straight through the entire building.
“Hit it with flash-bangs and go in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m moving on — I’ve got a special assignment to do.” Longstreet turned away. Diogenes and the woman were somewhere else. The assault on the house would be a perfect diversion, allowing him to track them down when they least expected it. As he moved away, he heard the man on the megaphone announcing that their last opportunity to come out had expired; and a moment later came the sound of shattering glass and the muffled booms of the flash-bangs.
Moving stealthily through the mangroves, away from the main action, Pendergast supported Constance while keeping Diogenes in front, at gunpoint. His brother moved slowly, as if in a fog. They proceeded with stealth, maintaining the deepest cover. Ahead, he could see a second fire through the trees; it was, he knew, the caretaker’s cottage. A moment later he peered into the clearing surrounding the house. It was indeed on fire, having been cleared and taken. The fat copy of Ulysses now lay in the sand, along with numerous footprints. The SWAT team had moved on, leaving the area empty.
“Keep moving,” Pendergast said, gesturing toward the trail that led from the cottage to the beach.
“Where are we going?” Diogenes asked.
Pendergast did not answer. They moved along the trail and, a few moments later, came out at the edge of the beach. Pendergast paused to reconnoiter. It was empty. An FBI Zodiac was tied up at the pier, opposite the main house. He could see two people loading the wounded on stretchers into the boat. Shortly the boat’s engine fired up and it left the dock, speeding southwest. The rest of the activity now seemed confined to the main house.
They walked on, keeping to the deepest shadows of the trees hanging over the edge of the sand. About two-thirds of the way up the long beach, Pendergast halted. Just offshore lay the string of tiny mangrove islands dotting the shallows.
“Aloysius.”
To Pendergast’s astonishment, a figure of a man emerged from the edge of darkness. Longstreet. A gun was in his hand.
“After our last conversation, I should have figured you’d find your own way down here,” Longstreet said.
Pendergast remained silent.
“I’m not sure what you’re up to,” said Longstreet, “but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you dropped that 1911 of yours into the sand.”
Pendergast dropped his gun.
“You may have forgotten honor, and our oath, but I haven’t.” Longstreet stepped forward and pointed his gun at Diogenes. “Now is the moment,” he said. “Prepare to die, you bastard.”
There was a long silence.
This seemed to unnerve Longstreet. He glanced at Pendergast. “He killed Decker.”
More silence.
“I’ll drop him, we’ll get our stories straight, and nobody will be the wiser.”
Constance spoke. “No.”
Longstreet ignored her. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“No!” Constance cried, suddenly lunging at Diogenes and pushing him sideways just as the gun went off, the round missing. She placed herself in front of Diogenes.
“For fuck’s sake, get her out of my way,” Longstreet said to Pendergast.
Pendergast looked at him. “My answer is also… no.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You will not kill him.”
“We swore an oath! He murdered Decker. You yourself said killing him was the only way!”
“He’s my brother.”
Longstreet stared at him, speechless.
“I’m sorry,” said Pendergast. “It’s… family.”
“Family?”
“You have to be a Pendergast, perhaps, to understand. I’m guilty of terrible crimes against my brother. I’m the reason he is the way he is. I realize now that if I’m party to killing him, I won’t be able to live with myself — and I mean that in the most literal way possible. I’ll have no choice but to end my own life.”
Longstreet looked back and forth between the brothers incredulously. “Son of a bitch, if this doesn’t take the cake.”
“H, please. Don’t kill my brother. He’ll disappear and you’ll never hear from him again. You have my word.”
At this, Diogenes laughed sarcastically, grotesquely. “For the love of God, don’t listen to him. Kill me! I want to die. Oh do man up, frater, and tell your pal to pull the trigger!” A choking sob escaped his lips, even as his laugh continued.