Pendergast had killed Slade. They said it was suicide, but he knew that was a lie. Somehow, some way, Pendergast had managed it. Bad as the last ten years had been, the old man's final moments must have been awful, an unimaginable mental agony. He had seen Pendergast's manipulations of other people and he had no doubt the man had taken advantage of Slade in his dementia. It was murder--worse than murder.
The glass, trembling in his hand, shook out some drops on the table, and he placed it down hard. At least he knew with complete confidence that Slade hadn't betrayed him. The old man loved him like a son and--even in his madness and pain--would have kept his secret to the last. Some things transcend even lunacy.
He had once loved Slade, too, but that feeling had died twelve years ago. He had seen a flash of another side of Slade that was just a little too close for comfort; a little too reminiscent of his own brutal father and the rather diabolical research of his that Judson was only too aware of. Maybe that was the fate of all fathers and father figures--to disappoint, to betray, to shrink in stature as one grew older and wiser.
He shook his head. What a mistake it had all been; what a terrible, tragic mistake. And how ironic, upon reflection: when Helen had originally brought the idea to him, an idea she had literally stumbled on through her interest in Audubon, it had seemed almost miraculous--to him as well as to her. It could be a miracle drug, she'd said. You consult with a variety of pharmaceutical companies, Judson; surely you know the place to take it.And he had known. He knew where to secure the financial backing. And he knew the perfect company to develop the drug: Longitude, run by his graduate-school dissertation adviser, Charles Slade, now working in the private sector. He'd fallen under his old professor's charismatic spell, and the two had stayed in contact. Slade was the ideal person to develop such a drug--he was a creative and independent thinker, unafraid of risk, consummately discreet...
And now he was gone, thanks to Pendergast. Pendergast, who had stirred up the past, reopened old wounds, and--directly or indirectly--caused several deaths.
He grasped the glass and drained it in one rough motion, swallowing the whiskey without even tasting it. The side table that held the bottle and small glass also sported a brochure. Esterhazy took it up and thumbed through it. A grim feeling of satisfaction displaced his anger. The tasteful brochure advertised the refined pleasures of an establishment known as the Kilchurn Shooting Lodge in the Highlands of Scotland. It was a great stone manor house on a windswept fell overlooking the Loch Duin and the Grampian Mountains. One of the most picturesque and isolated in Scotland, the lodge offered excellent grouse and partridge shooting, salmon fishing, and stalking of red deer. They took only a select few guests, prided themselves on their privacy and discretion; the shooting could be guided or not, depending on preference.
Naturally, he would prefer the self-guided shooting.
Ten years before, Esterhazy and Pendergast had spent a week at Kilchurn. The lodge sat in the middle of a vast and wild estate of forty thousand acres, once the private hunting preserve of the lairds of Atholl. Esterhazy had been deeply impressed by the empty, rugged landscape, the deep lochs hidden in the folds of the land, the swift streams bursting with trout and salmon, the windswept moorlands and the forbidding Foulmire, the heather braes and wooded glens. A man could disappear forever in a land like that, his bones left to molder, unseen, lashed by wind and rain until nothing was left.
Taking another lazy sip of the single-malt, which had now warmed in his cradling palm, he felt calmer. All was not lost by any means. In fact, things had taken a turn for the better--for the first time in a long while. He laid the brochure aside and took up a short note, written in an old-fashioned copperplate hand on cream-colored, heavy laid paper. The Dakota New York City 24 April My dear Judson, I thank you most sincerely for your kind invitation. After some reflection I believe I will take you up on your offer, and gladly. Perhaps you are right that the recent events have taken a certain toll. It would be delightful to see Kilchurn Lodge again after so many years. A fortnight's holiday would be a welcome respite--and your company is always a pleasure. In answer to your question, I plan to bring my Purdey 16-bore, an H&H Royal over-and-under in .410 caliber, and a .300 H&H bolt-action for stalking deer. With affectionate regards, A. Pendergast
AUTHORS' NOTE
While most towns and other locations in Fever Dreamare completely imaginary, we have in a few instances employed our own version of existing places such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In such cases, we have not hesitated to alter geography, topology, history, and other details to suit the needs of the story.
All persons, locales, police departments, corporations, institutions, museums, and governmental agencies mentioned in this novel are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
Dear Reader, We have an important announcement to make: we will soon be launching an exciting new series of thrillers featuring a rather uncommon "investigator" by the name of Gideon Crew. We are having an absolutely amazing time writing the first novel in the series, which will be published in the winter of 2011. We're sorry we can't give you any information about this novel except its title: Gideon's Sword. We want to keep everthing else a surprise. Stay tuned to our website, www.prestonchild.com --we'll have more to tell you in the near future. We hasten to assure you that our devotion to Agent Pendergast remains undimmed and that we will continue to write novels featuring the world's most enigmatic FBI agent with the same frequency as before. Thanks again for your continuing interest and support. Best wishes, Douglas & Lincoln
GIDEON'S SWORD
Douglas Preston and Lincoln ChildComing Winter 2011
1
August 1988
Nothing in his twelve years of life had prepared Gideon Crew for that day. Every insignificant detail, every trivial gesture, every sound and smell, became frozen as if in a block of glass, unchanging and permanent, ready to be examined at will.
His mother was driving him home from his tennis lesson in their Plymouth station wagon. It was a hot day, well up in the nineties, the kind where clothes stick to one's skin and sunlight has the texture of flypaper. Gideon had turned the dashboard vents onto his face, enjoying the rush of cold air. They were driving on Route 27, passing the long cement wall enclosing Arlington National Cemetery, when the two motorcycle cops intercepted their car, one pulling ahead, the other staying behind, sirens flashing, red lights turning. The one in front motioned with a black-gloved hand toward the Columbia Pike exit ramp; once on the ramp, he signaled for Gideon's mother to pull over. There was none of the slow deliberation of a routine traffic stop--instead, both officers hopped off their motorcycles and came running up.