Jimmy Fox - Nick Herald 02 - Lineages and Lies (27 page)

As he glanced through some faxes and letters and notes of phone messages in his tray, his mind turned to the events of the evening. The play at Freret University had been fairly well produced, and the dinner afterward at a new restaurant in the Garden District had been superb. He had even enjoyed being with his cousin, who was his usual companion on such social outings, his costume of heterosexuality. Normally such a bitter spinster, she had actually shown some spark of jollity tonight. She’d even told a very funny dirty joke, for heaven’s sake!

Nowell suspected nothing until he heard the crash. He was making his way through the lobby at that moment and stopped cold, wondering if he’d actually heard anything at all.

Yes! Of course!
He was sure he’d heard something, and he was sure also that the lobby alarm had
not
been on, that the front door had not been bolted as it should have been. There was nothing wrong with his memory or his hearing. His enemy was here. That meddling fool, Herald!

Nowell cursed himself for thinking that he could buy him off, that Herald would at least be within reach every day. Joscelyn and D’Hiver had been right. How humiliating it will be to have to admit it—again.

It must be finished. Completely. Now!

He rapidly entered his code into the computer, yanked at the door until it unlatched, and then ran into the main reading room. He ignored the sharp pain in his protesting knee. Peripherally, he noticed the spotlights; but that might have been anybody’s oversight, Florita or one of the others being careless in their haste to leave.

The accidental lighting enhanced the drama of the sculpted scene. Stopping almost involuntarily, he felt a sudden upwelling of emotion.
What beauty, what sacrifice!
Only he could save the Society now. The only truth that mattered was the meaning the myth had for him and other Society members. The
Allégorie
legend was the anchor of their lives.

Where would Herald be? Nowell listened, motionless, still struggling with the alcohol for control of his senses. Perhaps he was wrong after all, and was merely allowing himself to be spooked by paranoia.

He ascended the left spiral staircase with some difficulty, and finally reaching the gallery, stood vigilant in the shadows.

Nothing. His certainty again wavered.

He walked to the hallway leading to his office and switched on the lights. He saw the shattered bust on the floor. Moving closer to examine it, he noted the bunched-up rug. The green light glowed from his office keypad.

He hurried into his office. The panel behind his desk was open, as was the safe door. The silver case with the book was gone! And so were Bluemantle’s memoirs!

Preston Nowell loosed a primal, bloodcurdling howl of rage that echoed throughout the building.

Was Herald alone? No. Jillian Vair was probably with him, guiding him with her knowledge—his employees had mentioned seeing Herald and the girl together. Joscelyn and D’Hiver had not counted on such stubbornness from her. The thought that his two elders could make an error in judgment gave him a moment’s pale pleasure.

The intruders must still be in the building, trapped up here on the second level. Surprise was on his side. The back service door had a separate, automatic fire-exit alarm, and that wasn’t sounding. They would try to get out the front door, maybe at this very moment, as he stood sweating, calculating. He had to catch them. He had to kill them.

His favorite rifle was his Mark V Weatherby .270 Magnum. He went for it, without a second thought. He opened the glass cabinet, removed the gun, shouldered it quickly to refamiliarize himself with the weight and handling. The crisp scope would only be in the way, tonight. As he took a box of cartridges from a drawer, he had flashing recollections of past great hunts
in the Swiss Alps, east Africa, and the American West. It was a sweet-shooting, powerful rifle that had brought down the medium-sized trophies magnificently mounted on these very walls—impala, springbok, ibex, wild boar, antelope. He slid back the bolt and efficiently fed three cartridges down into the receiver and magazine; then he chambered a fourth round with a satisfyingly decisive return of the bolt. He reached for extra cartridges from the box, but hesitated. No: a fine marksman should need no more than two shots to do the job, one for each of them. He anticipated returning the two extras to the box after he’d taken care of the bloody kill site.

He ran down the hall, hunting his human prey.

CHAPTER 26

H
awty had never felt so helpless, so weak, so downright handicapped, damnit, as much as she detested the word! The frustration of everyday existence lived at arm’s length was nothing compared with this: her friends were in mortal danger, and there was hardly anything she could do.

Or was there? She had to try.

She rammed the joystick of her chariot forward, crossed the deserted street, bounced violently and painfully over the lip of the driveway Nowell had entered, and raced up the porch handicapped ramp to the front door of the library. At a less dangerous moment she would have complimented the Society on being proactive for the differently abled. But now the safety of her friends was paramount in her mind. Should she call the police? They wouldn’t get here in time.

It was up to her.

She could see that the deadbolt was open, but the doorknob’s automatic latch bolt wasn’t. That Nowell dude had looked a little drunk to her, a bit unsteady on his feet; he must have forgotten to turn the deadbolt once he’d entered. Good
thing! She used her Freret ID on the old-fashioned latch. Slid it in, sawed in and out, up and down. The technique worked perfectly. She wouldn’t laugh at Nick and his unorthodox methods ever again, she vowed to herself and God, if only she could save him and Jillian.

At the computer, she quickly figured out how to employ Florita’s ID code, which Nick had shared with her as they planned tonight’s heist.

She stealthily opened the door to the big reading room; and though she didn’t know exactly how she was going to help her friends, she felt capable of miracles.

CHAPTER 27

“Y
our office,” Jillian said, barely louder than her rapid breaths.

“No. That’s the first place he’ll look,” Nick countered.

They were crouching behind a unit of bookshelves, to the left of the Rare Documents Room, which was sealed for the night behind its forbidding metal doors. This was as far as they had been able to get, when Nowell bounded up the nearer staircase and into the hall leading to his office, and then moments later, out again. Nick remembered that there was an elevator behind them, somewhere in the dark; but it wouldn’t do them much good. Too slow, too noisy. They’d never make it.

They heard Nowell walking rapidly. Nick put a finger to his lips. Their lungs demanded oxygen but they tried to breathe as little as possible. Peering between shelves and books, they saw Nowell stride into their slice of vision. He limped noticeably, but nonetheless was a frightening sight, especially with that damn elephant gun or whatever he was carrying, Nick thought. Their vantage point, and the long shadows the features of his face cast, made him seem gigantic, monstrous, deadly. He was surely heading for Nick’s office, across the gallery.

A moment later, they heard sounds echoing from the other hallway: keys jangling, a door opening, the flick of a light switch, silence. Then slow footsteps on carpet and bare floor. Watchful steps punctuated by the squeaking of expensive shoe leather.

Nowell was stalking them. He would flush them like quail eventually, Nick realized through the suffocating net of descending fear, even if it took all night. He had the time and the gun. The only chance was to rush him, giving Jillian a slim hope of escape.

Jillian’s right earring fell to the floor with a startling clamor. It rocked into silence as they both stared at it. Nick had never been an expert on women’s jewelry, but just now he had a marked preference for pierced over clip.

Jillian had reached an unbearable level of terror. She stopped an urge to scream by jamming her chin and mouth into his shoulder.

“Come out, Nick,” Nowell said, moving toward the dark study alcove, his jungle training evident in the toe-heel, well-balanced gait he used.

If the guy’s hurting, he doesn’t show it now. Adrenaline of the predator masking his pain.

“There’s no need to make this more difficult than it has to be.” Nowell’s face was completely in shadow. “You’ve lost. Take it like a man.”

How sporting and refined, how deadly! A commando in double-breasted pinstripe.
Nick made a mental note to laugh about that incongruity another day, if he survived.

“Okay. I have your word you won’t shoot?” Nick shouted, pushing Jillian further into the darkness. “Keep this, and keep
quiet,” he whispered, sliding the case holding the massive book to her.

“Yes, you have my word. Come out into the light. Put your hands on top of your head.”

Jillian argued with frantic, silent gestures, but Nick ignored her. He left their hiding place as directed, passing out of the deep shadows into the ambient glow from the spotlights shining on the sculpture grouping downstairs. Nowell followed him with the black hole of the barrel. Nick walked rashly toward the Rare Documents Room, farther than he knew he should; he was trying to turn Nowell away from Jillian’s hiding place.

“That’ll be far enough, Nick,” cautioned Nowell, apparently unrattled. “Who else is back there?”

He’s too good at this
. “No one,” said Nick.

“You’re not telling me the truth.” He listened, turning his head slowly as if he were an owl, fine-tuning his radar-like hearing, listening for forest rodents. He didn’t seem fully satisfied, but was in no position to check just now.

“Hey, you should know,” Nick said, talking fast, hoping to distract him, to engage his mind. “Aren’t you the expert on lies? Lineages and lies? You and your fellow Captain-Directors down through the years. Turned the Society into an industry, made millions, right? Suckered countless people, for generations, people who were simply curious about their family history.”

“It isn’t the money. Not really … you can’t possibly understand.”

To Nick he sounded like an overgrown kid, pleading for an adult’s absolution, even though he knew he was beyond punishment.

“No, I don’t understand why people like you would kill for genealogy,” Nick said, “and faked genealogy at that. I’ve heard of some defensible reasons to take a life: faith, patriotism, revenge, jealousy. But genealogical delusion? Uh-uh, Preston. You’re all just plain bonkers, sick. You’re not part of some splendid epic battle in which honor is at stake: you’re murdering the past, perverting the very essence of genealogy, which is to bring the past to life, to enhance the lives of the living—”

“Stop it!”

“And even though Bluemantle couldn’t expose you, there’ll be someone next year, and the year after that, and the year after that—”

“Stop it! Shut-up! Shut-up!”

“The story of the
True Faith
’s further adventures as the
Allégorie
is now public record.”

Nick heard the rifle’s safety click off.

But Nowell did not fire. He ran his shaking left hand over his brow, calming himself.

He turned slightly, so that the light grazed his damp face. Nick saw not remorse or confusion, but a recognition of defeat, the look of a commanding officer, dutiful strategist to the end, who knows his cause is doomed, no matter how long the battle rages. But he would never give up the flag.

The safety clicked on again.

“I’m going to put you in there,” Nowell said decisively.

“What, shooting me here too much of a mess, Preston? Worried someone will hear the shots? You need to be careful. You’re already on thin ice. You don’t want another awkward
episode, like Nelson on the boat, huh, or the poor guy who jumped you at the seminar, or Mr. Montenay? In the Rare Documents Room I’ll suffocate in the anoxic atmosphere. How very tidy.”

“A tragic, unavoidable incident, I’m afraid,” Nowell said. “You broke in to steal some of our priceless collection. Your unsavory reputation will make that highly believable. Somehow you gained access to the room, and you were trapped. It’ll look like an accident, a lapse in security, a malfunction of a promising prototype for document conservation. The modified atmosphere is pumped out automatically at 6
A.M.
, but you’ll be dead long before then. Safety projections indicate an individual will lapse into coma within a minute.”

“Too many coincidences, Preston. My death will be too close to home to get away with. The others—”

“Yes, yes, I killed them! Is that what you want to hear? I killed them, and a few more, or at least I arranged their deaths, as in Hugh Montenay’s case. Not something I enjoy admitting. Please believe me. I really didn’t know what the job entailed, when I first took it. You see, it seemed so dignified, so civilized, so thoroughly at odds with the madness in which I’d spent the preceding years of my life … Vietnam.”

He was silent a moment. Reliving firefights in the jungle? Nick suspected so.

“You mentioned motives,” Nowell said, “but you omitted self-defense. Woodrow, Nelson, the others, and now you. All of you threatened the existence of the Society, pushed us too far. I do not kill for pleasure. People, that is. This”—he looked at
the rifle as if it were the embodiment of what he was about to do—“is about survival.”

“What a nimble dance of reasoning,” Nick said.

“Move three steps to your left.” Nowell meant business. “And please don’t assume that I would not shoot you. You’re right that I would prefer a neater way, but I’ll most certainly do it.”

His hands still atop his head, Nick took three steps to his left. Nowell then moved to the keypad and began punching in a code. The doors folded over each other, and Nick felt the cool, dry air inside the Rare Documents Room hit his neck.

“Everything in there is a lie, isn’t it?” Nick said. Nowell almost answered. “Hey, I’m a dead man, anyway, Preston. I’d like to know before the end. Do that for me, at least. A fellow genealogist.”