There was one thing, however, she did have left. Sliding open the bottom drawer of her desk, and lifting out a folder purposely mislabeled “Personal Correspondence,” she removed the original, eleventh-century letter that had been hidden in the bestiary. As she held its fragile pages in her hand, she felt that maybe the label wasn’t so misleading after all. It did feel as though it had been written to her, as if she were its most appropriate and appreciative audience. No one would ever have known it even existed had it not been for Beth’s sleuthing. And if it hadn’t been for her breach of professional ethics now, the letter would once again be in the possession of its rightful owner, on its way back to Bel-Air… and oblivion. She knew she should feel guilty about the ethical questions — her training in New York and London had always stressed the highest professional standards — but if she were perfectly honest with herself, she felt instead as if she had saved something precious from an all-consuming fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Even though he knew it wasn’t true, the funny thing about the al-Kalli estate was that it had been laid out as if it were designed to withstand an assault. There was only one road that led up to it, it commanded the high ground from all sides, it was surrounded by a stone wall with only one other entrance apart from the main gate. Still, there were plenty of things Greer saw that could use improvement. For instance, there was no reason not to place some razor wire atop the back and side walls; yes, there were all kinds of codes and property restrictions for Bel-Air homeowners, but if you didn’t actually ask permission, it couldn’t be refused, right? And if you concealed the wire with some vines and shrubbery — which wasn’t hard — what was the problem? That back gate, the one where Greer had first penetrated the grounds, also needed some serious attention. It should have had a dual-focus, night-vision surveillance camera mounted above it, and the feed should go either to a control center in the main house or at least to the front gate, which was manned twenty-four hours anyway. Greer had mentioned a few of these things to al-Kalli, who’d simply said, “Do what you think is necessary,” and then kind of brushed him aside. Greer had the sense that something else was really on his mind.
He could guess what it was. It was that weird damn menagerie he kept. The place gave Greer, a guy who had seen plenty of bad shit in his time, the creeps. From the outside, you couldn’t hear or see or smell a thing; it was sealed up tighter than a drum. But at least once a day, Greer felt he ought to look in as part of his routine patrol. This morning, he’d found that paleontologist, Carter Cox, in there with Rashid. Rashid, in his usual white coat, was trying to explain something about one of the animals — the one that had spat the green crap on Greer’s neck — and Cox, Greer could tell, was just waiting for him to finish with the blather so he could tell him what was really up.
“The air,” Cox finally said, “is very pure — I understand that.”
“We have the best filters, imported from Germany,” Rashid rattled on, “they are made for nuclear facilities.”
Cox had glanced over at Greer, nodded, then replied to the indignant Rashid. “The air is too pure,” Carter said. “That’s part of the problem.”
“How can good air be bad?” Rashid challenged him.
“These creatures have very elaborate breathing mechanisms,” he said. “They actually need to act as their own filters, to take in and process the particulate matter. It acts as a kind of stimulant.”
Rashid looked baffled.
“It keeps their airways and lungs clear and operative.”
“The humidity does that,” Rashid said. “We keep a constant level in the facility at all times.”
Cox looked increasingly impatient. Greer had the feeling this Rashid guy was putting up nothing but resistance. “The saichania—”
“The basilisk,” Rashid corrected him.
“Okay, the basilisk is capable of humidifying the air for itself. It needs to do that. If the air comes in too wet, it just gets wetter once the basilisks take a breath, which is why they’re having so much trouble with their respiration.”
Greer wondered how Cox could know any of this. And yet he had the sense that he did. And even Greer could see that these animals were in a bad way. They lumbered around in their pens like they were drunk; they dropped clumps of fur on the carefully raked ground; the bird — if you could call that massive flying contraption a bird — left bright red feathers floating in its wake. Greer could never wait to get back outside again and clear his own lungs; the place smelled vaguely like an animal shelter where he’d worked one summer as a kid.
But those animals had been regularly put down.
When he was done with his rounds of the estate, Greer usually hung out on the grounds for a while; he wanted to look like he was earning his money and not just taking pay-offs to keep his mouth shut. And he thought, if he put his mind to it, he might actually be able to make something of this gig; he had a natural bent for security concerns (having broken into plenty of houses up until now), and if he did this right, maybe he could think about setting up his own kind of Silver Bear operation. He could hire other vets, even a couple of the guys he knew from the rehab clinic, line up a bunch of rich clients, and then just sit back and collect the money. Wouldn’t Sadowski be pissed about that?
He’d been looking for Sadowski ever since those other fine Sons of Liberty — Tate and Florio — had tried to take him down in the parking lot at the VA. And now that he’d done pretty much everything he could do today at the estate, he figured he’d stop off at the Blue Bayou and see if he could stir up a little trouble there. He was dying to show Sadowski that he was on top of his game and not backing down.
The nice thing about the Bayou was that, no matter what time you came in, it was always midnight inside. The lights were low, except on the runway, and the music was loud, and the bartender Zeke always had a wide selection of choice pharmaceuticals. Greer took a stool, ordered a beer, and looked around at the few lame oddballs hanging around at this hour. On the runway, a girl with long blonde hair was down on all fours, with her ass high in the air, swaying to Aerosmith’s “Crazy.”
“Haven’t seen you around as much,” Zeke said, mopping up a wet spot on the bar.
“Been working.”
Zeke laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Why did everybody think the very idea was such a big damn joke?
“Haven’t seen much of your old pal, either,” Zeke added.
“You mean Sadowski?”
“Yeah. Maybe he’s moonlighting somewhere.”
Possible. “He’s got so many talents,” Greer said evenly, “it’s hard to say.”
“Ginger says he’s got something big going down.”
“She does, huh?” That was interesting. “She here by any chance?”
Zeke looked around the place. “She must be in back.” The Blue Room. “With a customer.”
Greer could wait. He drank his beer, watched the blonde girl skillfully play an old man until he’d dropped probably his whole month’s social security on the stage, and wondered what Sadowski’s big operation was. Were the Sons of Liberty planning a Bring-the-Family Fourth of July barbecue?
Ten minutes later, he saw a geeky guy with masking tape on his glasses — what was it with these guys, hadn’t they ever even heard about Scotch tape? — being led out of the back room by his hand; Ginger was wearing an electric blue tube top, a matching thong, and glittering blue platform shoes. She was self-conscious, he knew, about her height and always liked to add a few inches.