The woman nodded.
“The guards will stay, as well. Just to make sure nothing untoward occurs.” He turned and barked out an order. “Corporal, go fetch a parang, freshly sharpened, and bring it to the lab. Smartly.”
A soldier saluted, then exited.
The general smiled at Pendergast. “In our testing, we supplied the subjects with all kinds of weapons: sharp, dull, pieces of metal, saws—the sorts of objects that might be close at hand to someone seized with BIID. Sometimes they would botch the job, with the kind of results you can imagine. A razor-sharp parang is the most compassionate instrument under the circumstances. Normally our subjects simply bleed to death or are put out of their suffering, but in this case we’ll give Dr. Gladstone emergency medical care to save her life.”
“How humane of you.”
“And now, I will take my leave.”
Pendergast turned his attention to the window. Gladstone was in the middle of the lab, above the drain, still immobile in her wheelchair. She looked utterly terrified. The doctor was standing to one side, an eager look on his face, with the two orderlies on the other, waiting. Once again the doctor removed and cleaned his glasses.
Pendergast turned his face toward Alves-Vettoretto. The woman returned his look with a cool one of her own.
“Isabel, you’ve made quite the journey. The last time I saw you was in a most elegant New York office, where you were counselor to a wealthy entrepreneur—now deceased, alas. How interesting to find you here, deep in the swamps of Florida, surrounded by a band of mercenary soldiers.”
The woman merely arched her eyebrows.
“I see you are following your own excellent advice in not conversing with me. Even so, I hope you won’t mind if I say a few words.”
No response, save to look away.
Pendergast went on, his voice gentle. “I can’t help but admire you. You are the ultimate survivor.”
Still no response.
“I imagine you must have experienced a serious betrayal at some point in your career,” he said quietly. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have expected you to adopt the general’s views.”
She stroked her pearls.
“I made a mistake back there, however, in saying you were military. I think ‘government’ would be more accurate. Most likely CIA.” He peered at her with curious intensity. “Iraq?”
Her lips tightened.
“I can guess how it went. They were all killed, weren’t they?”
No reaction.
“You were a good handler. I imagine you became quite close to them and their families.”
She stroked her pearls again, this time with a faint nervousness.
“They learned to trust you, and you them. But when the U.S. pulled out, ISIS moved in and killed all the operatives and informants—along with their families. It’s an old story.”
“How do you know this?” she finally asked in a low voice.
“You tried to save them,” he went on. “But they were abandoned by the administration, refused the promised exit visas. This is the source of your disillusionment.”
Now she turned to him. “If you don’t stop playing Svengali, I’ll have the soldiers gag you, as well.”
“And no one in the CIA was willing to help. They told you, It’s war. People die. I heard similar words, once upon a time in a former career.”
“So what?” Alves-Vettoretto said with sudden vehemence. “People do die in war. End of story.”
“In the great sweep of history, those lives hardly matter. That’s what you were told—correct? Warfare is about winning and losing. Morality should never be a factor in warfare.”
“Of course it shouldn’t,” she said. “The goal is to kill.”
“Which brings me to this weapon of yours,” said Pendergast. “It is, in its own way, admirable in its simplicity. Its capacity to leave the infrastructure intact…if a bit sticky.”
“What’s the difference between a land mine blowing an enemy’s leg off, or forcing them to chop it off themselves?”
“Both are equally appalling.”
“That’s right, and it’s gross hypocrisy to pretend to be horrified by this drug, when war itself is all about killing, burning, and maiming. You think this is somehow less humane than napalming a village, burning everyone alive?”
“Napalm is certainly as cruel, if not more so.” Pendergast’s voice was calm, almost hypnotic.
“So why not cooperate? I’m only here because this drug is going to end warfare as we know it.”
“That’s what Alfred Nobel said when he invented dynamite. But you overlook one thing.”
“Which is?”
“You can choose not to participate in the cruelty of war.”
“You mean, be a pacifist? Now, there’s a lame philosophy if ever there was one.”
“An individual doesn’t have to be a pacifist to oppose the stupidities of war. You, for example. You have the choice to opt out. You don’t have to be here, in this room, observing this depraved act of cruelty.”
She shook her head. “You’re not making any headway with me, Pendergast, so save your breath.”
A muffled sound came from Gladstone, a moan as she tried to speak with the gag on. And then another. She was starting to twist in her bonds, snorting, moaning, shaking her head. He could see her eyes had changed. They were wider, deeper, and they carried an odd, chilling look.
“In that case,” Pendergast told Alves-Vettoretto in a low tone, “you’ll find the next half an hour most instructive.”
The general returned. “Ah, just in time!” He sat down as if in a movie theater, leaned forward, and pressed the intercom button. “Doctor, please remove her gag.”
63
PAMELA GLADSTONE SAT in the gleaming white laboratory, bound to the wheelchair. Her lips tingled faintly from the tape the doctor had just pulled away. He’d done it carefully, to cause as little discomfort as possible. Odd how such a demon of a man could nevertheless act with a doctor’s habitual gentleness.
Somehow the gag had been the worst, worse even than the binding of her arms and legs. She opened her mouth wide, gulping in air, then willing herself to stop hyperventilating. The desperate need to cry out abated. The racing of her heart slowed…but only slightly.
Over the last several hours, Gladstone had felt herself veering between mounting terror and a detached disbelief. Everything had happened so fast—the sudden flight, that awful chase through the swamp, the spotlights and stutter of machine guns, Wallace’s horrible death, the helicopter ride…and now this.
She had always prided herself on her courage and independence. Back there she’d put on as brave a show as possible. But this injection…She hoped desperately it was some ruse to force them to talk. Despite the terror of the last few hours, one thought had kept her going: that somehow Pendergast would save them. She had sensed from the beginning that he was a man of rare competence. But now Pendergast had been taken away and only the doctor and his orderlies remained, watching her and waiting…waiting. And her wheelchair had been placed in the middle of the room…where the tiled floor sloped slightly down to a large, gleaming industrial drain.