Dark Revelations (30 page)

Read Dark Revelations Online

Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker

But he is in my control now.
And I have his next present.
Holding on to him with one hand, I reach up.
Unzip the mouth.
And I say,
Seven out of eleven alleles.
chapter 56
 
DARK
 
“
S
even out of eleven alleles.”
The words made no sense.
None
of this made sensetoto
Dark. Why was Labyrinth leaving him to dangle out of this window, the hard granite of Edinburgh’s High Street four stories below? Why hadn’t he just killed him? Dark reached out with his boots to find some kind of foothold, something to lean against so he could use the leverage and pull this fucker out of the window, too.
The man above him, wearing the Sqweegel mask, kept at it.
“Seven out of eleven alleles, Steve Dark. Do you know what that means?”
“Fuck you.”
“That means there’s enough for a genetic match, Steve Dark.”
Dark knew that. He was trained in forensic science. But what was this son of a bitch trying to say? This was a hell of a time for a basic lecture on DNA comparisons.
Then he remembered the second gun—the Derringer Hans Roeding had given him. Tucked in his waistband, at the small of his back. He could feel its weight.
Labyrinth continued,
“Tom Riggins ran the test. He told me so. Scraped the sample from under your dead wife’s fingernails and ran it through.”
Don’t listen to him. Just pull an arm free. Yank it free and reach around and wrap your hand around the grip of the gun and bring it up and blow his fucking head apart inside that latex mask....
“Tom Riggins told you there was no match. That Sqweegel was a mystery man. But you know what? Tom Riggins told a little white lie there. He found a match. Seven out of eleven alleles.”
Dark ripped his right hand free and felt a jagged piece of glass run up the inside of his forearm. The cut was deep and burned immediately. Didn’t matter.
Don’t focus on the pain. Focus on the gun.
“Where are you going?” Labyrinth asked, his face twisting beneath the mask in an expression of mock hurt. “Don’t you want to hear who was the match, Steve Dark? Seven out of eleven alleles?”
Don’t listen.
Dark plucked the gun from his waistband.
“It was you, Steve Dark.”
Dark pointed the gun at Labyrinth’s face and said, “Fuck you,” before pulling the trigger. At the same moment Labyrinth released his grip on his left arm and Dark began to plunge toward the ground, still pointing the gun, wondering why the shot hadn’t whipped the motherfucker’s head back, so Dark fell and fired again, and again—
were the bullets just passing through him like a ghost?!
—and then the earth rushed up to meet him.
chapter 57
 
DARK
 
H
ans Roeding was first on the scene, and found Dark’s unconscious body on the sidewalk outside Buchan’s Close. He checked Dark’s vitals. Still a pulse, still strong, but unconscious. He took the warm Derringer from his hand. The Glock was nowhere in sight.
Must have dropped it inside,
he thought.
 
When O’Brian and Natasha arrived a minute later, Roeding had already smashed his way into the close and was reporting that Labyrinth—if the person who attacked Dark
was
Labyrinth—was nowhere to be found. Blair coordinated with local police to organize a manhunt throughout Edinburgh, as well as teams checking rails, airports, and all major roadways, but Global Alliance realized such a plan was futile. Labyrinth was a master planner. There was no doubt he had multiple exit scenarios all gamed out, and had simply chosen one of them. They had no description. Even if they did, there was a good chance that Labyrinth had already altered his appearance.
 
Natasha volunteered to accompany Dark to a secure wing of the world-renowned Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris. Blair arranged for a private room, which had the advantage of being inside a high-security wing with security supplied by Global Alliance itself. If Dark resumed consciousness, there was a chance he could give some kind of description of Labyrinth.
She sat on the stiff bench in the back of the chopper, staring at Dark’s face. His eyes darted back and forth under his lids at a frighteningly rapid pace, so much so that Natasha was at times convinced he was going to have a seizure. His face was bloody and bruised, too. Dark didn’t just fall from four stories up—he’d fought with Labyrinth. Maybe he was lucky enough to have gotten a few shots in....
Of course.
Natasha Garcon’s area of expertise was not forensic science—not by any stretch—but she had observed enough to know how to take samples for later analysis. She raided the back of the ambulance for a scalpel, tweezers, scissors, sterile cloth squares, and plastic bags. Then she gently held Dark’s left hand as she swabbed for samples.
Labyrinth had never left forensic material at any scene, but maybe Dark had pushed him hard enough to make a mistake.
His fingers twitched in her hands. It felt like both yesterday and forever since his hands had caressed her body.
chapter 58
 
RIGGINS
 
Quantico, Virginia
 
T
he morning after his assault, Tom Riggins woke up and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should just eat his gun and be done with the whole thing. Or start drinking now to take the edge off the ache he felt from the top of his head to the soles of his shoes. Sure, drinking. Just the thing his fractured mind needed right now . . .
That he wasn’t dead was a miracle in itself. He could have been snuffed so damn easily....
But what
had
happened?
Riggins’s memory felt like a TV that continued to switch channels every two or three seconds, never lingering long enough on an image to make sense of it. Riggins had experienced plenty of alcohol-induced blackouts, but never anything like this. The inside of his skull felt like it had been cracked open and somebody had scraped his brains out with a paring knife, leaving behind nothing more than some stringy, pulpy tissue.
But the truth was—and this hurt the most:
He’d let himself become a target.
This was the very thing he’d caution Special Circs recruits against—opening yourself up, revealing something about yourself, giving your prey a reason to turn around and start hunting
you
. Such a fucking
rookie
mistake. As if Riggins needed further proof that his career was over, that he was no longer circling the drain but actually clogged down inside of it, with the rest of the shit.
Riggins climbed off his own dirty carpet, shuffled to the kitchen, turned on the tap, leaned over, cupped some cold water into his mouth. Rinse, spit. The inside of his mouth felt like the striking surface on a matchbook. That fucker had shot him up with something fierce. Some kind of truth serum, because Riggins had a fractured memory of talking. Talking a lot. Nonstop talking. And Riggins was
not
a talker.
It came back to him now. His assailant—if it was this “Labyrinth” freak—had been asking him about Steve Dark.
A billion questions about Steve Dark.
Christ, what had he said?
The drugs were one thing. But not everything. It was the patter, too, the way Labyrinth smacked your brain in one direction, then another. Not torture so much as extremely aggressive therapy. The drugs simply made it difficult to keep your mouth shut and block your ears.
Riggins was halfway to the bathroom when the phone rang. He reversed course and picked up the receiver to hear a woman’s voice.
“Agent Riggins?”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Natasha Garcon. We met in New York, at the Epoch Hotel.”
“Right,” Riggins said. “Don’t think we were properly introduced. What happened? Is he okay?”
“No, he’s not. He suffered a fall in Edinburgh.”
“A what? And where?”
“He’s still out. I just . . . I just thought you should know. Dark told me he didn’t have any family, besides you. And his daughter.”
Even after the events of the past twelve hours, Riggins was genuinely startled to hear that Dark would ever refer to him as a member of his family.
 
And equally startled to find himself, just a few hours later, preparing for a red-eye to Paris. No official orders, no official okay from the FBI. Just his own plastic buying a wildly expensive one-way ticket. Riggins sat in the terminal bar, slamming bourbons as fast as the bartender could pour them. He opted to drink himself stupid before flights, because in his opinion, there was nothing worse than flying. As he waited for his flight, he called Constance.
“I need to know what Global Alliance is.”
“Riggins? Jesus . . .”
“And a check on someone named Natasha. Can you do that for me? I know, you’re busy, but . . .”
Constance sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s a last name?”
“What do you think? Gar . . . something. Garces? Garcin? She said it too fast. But if you find Global Alliance, you’ll find her.”
“Where are you, Riggins?”
“Trying to do the right thing, but probably making things a whole lot fucking worse. In other words, the usual. I’ll call you in seven hours.”
chapter 59
 
RIGGINS
 
Paris, France
 
F
lying to France was nothing compared with making his way to Steve Dark’s hospital room at the Pitié-Salpêtrière.
Hell,
Riggins thought.
I can hardly pronounce the name of the damned place.
When he landed Riggins called Natasha Garcon—who was surprised to learn that he’d traveled all this way. Still, she was able to speak to the staff and put Riggins’s name on the clearance list. The guards at the security checkpoint were more thorough than his last colonoscopy. And even then, they insisted on accompanying Riggins up to Dark’s room, their guns drawn, ready to shoot to kill if Riggins took one step out of place. They didn’t care that he worked for the FBI; they didn’t care
how
far back he went with the patient. They were employed by this Global Alliance, and they were paid not to take any chances.

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