Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker
Dark Revelations (36 page)
DARK
O
’Brian found the connection mere seconds before the news broke.
’Brian found the connection mere seconds before the news broke.
“Long shot here, but Timothy Porter—he’s based in London, and over the years he’s given many lectures on the Magna Carta, even going on tour with one of the copies. Could that be it?”
Natasha said, “It’s definitely him.”
“How do you know?”
“According to Reuters, he’s just been found dead in his office.”
“Fuck me,” O’Brian said. “Another hour on the clock and we could have . . .”
“That’s how he plays,” Natasha said. “There’s never enough time, with him just out of reach.”
“So was he shot or hung?” O’Brian asked.
“Both,” Natasha said.
Within minutes, the now-familiar Labyrinth video was uploaded to the usual mirror sites, spreading and trending globally within minutes. A dead criminal lawyer? This promised to be the most-watched Labyrinth video of all—a virtual snuff film starring the world’s most hated profession.
Within minutes . . .
Dark had a feeling that this, too, was a hands-on operation. Labyrinth had used one of his puppets to deliver the package, possibly even watching from a safe distance.
Dark had a feeling that this, too, was a hands-on operation. Labyrinth had used one of his puppets to deliver the package, possibly even watching from a safe distance.
Dark, feet on the table, staring at the ceiling, said, “Can you get me a list of Porter’s clients?”
“Why?” O’Brian asked. “Do you think you’re going to spot someone named L. Abyrinth, or something?”
“Can you do it?”
Of course O’Brian could do it. And when Dark compared the list with the list he’d received from the NYPD, one name popped out: “Trey Halbthin.”
Halbthin had been there, at the Epoch Hotel, in New York City, and was even interviewed by the police. The man presented diplomatic credentials, and explained he’d been there to meet “an old friend for coffee.” Nothing about him aroused suspicion; diplomats in New York City were common. And Trey Halbthin was also a longtime client of Timothy Porter’s, going back at least five years. Why would he kill his own lawyer?
“We might be dealing with another one of Labyrinth’s puppets,” Natasha said. “O’Brian, dig up everything you can on this Halbthin guy.”
“Already on it.”
“I think it’s him,” Dark said quietly, sketching with a pencil on a legal pad.
“Why? Why would he risk putting himself out there where he could risk capture?”
“I don’t think he’s worried about being captured anymore,” Dark said. “He’s headed for his endgame. And he’s practically announcing his identity.”
“How?”
Dark turned the legal pad toward Natasha. He’d written, in block letters:
TREYHALBTHIN
And then directly below it:
THE LABYRINTH
“An anagram,” Natasha said. “Another fake identity.”
“Well, if this identity is fake,” O’Brian said, reading from his monitor, “then it’s the best and most elaborate identity I’ve ever seen. It’s legit as legit gets, and goes back deep. This isn’t some schmo who filed a fake driver’s license application. And you want to know something else?”
“What?” Dark asked.
“He’s just cleared security at Heathrow, and he’s about to step onto a plane.”
“Where’s he going?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Okay, we need a virtual army platoon to intercept that flight when it lands,” Dark said. “I want a complete clampdown on the crew and passengers until we get there and sort through them one by one. Where’s Blair?”
Blair was in his office, staring at the images of Trey Halbthin that his team had pooled from a variety of databases around the world.
He looked at the chin, and the skin around the eyes, the shape of the ears.
My God.
It was
him.
him.
Once you trained your eyes to look past the plastic surgery and the makeup and the false hair plugs and everything else a trained agent uses to change his appearance, you could see it.
After all of these years of searching,
Blair thought,
there you are, right in front of me.
Blair thought,
there you are, right in front of me.
Why are you flying to Philadelphia?
What endgame do you have in mind for us?
Are you waiting for me to stop you?
Or do you want me there to watch as you stop the world?
chapter 73
LABYRINTH
R
ight now at Philadelphia International Airport there are many men in ill-fitting suits who I can only assume are a conglomeration of federal agents meant to detain me. They are looking for a man matching Trey Halbthin’s precise description, and right now I look nothing like Trey Halbthin.
ight now at Philadelphia International Airport there are many men in ill-fitting suits who I can only assume are a conglomeration of federal agents meant to detain me. They are looking for a man matching Trey Halbthin’s precise description, and right now I look nothing like Trey Halbthin.
Then again, I’m not even on the flight they’re tracking.
My “Trey Halbthin” identity did take that flight, but that was a matter of some simple hacking (airlines, like most American industries, leave gaping security holes in the most astonishing places) to attach that name to
another
individual who fit the general height, weight, hair, and eye color.
another
individual who fit the general height, weight, hair, and eye color.
An individual who, sadly, will probably spend the better part of the next month in a stuffy conference room as Homeland Security agents pick apart his life by the seams.
But one small pawn in a game this large means nothing.
It’s important that Blair and his team will be there for the end.
I arrive in Philadelphia via private jet under the cover of another identity.
It was a comfortable flight.
Spent most of it with my eyes shut and my mind preparing my final gifts to the world.
Hello, Damien.
Are you thinking about me?
Snow is falling on downtown Philadelphia as I make my way across Spruce Street and through the doors of Pennsylvania General and to the welcome desk.
I ask,
Can you help me?
They say (of course),
Yes, what can we do for you?
Of course they want to help me. I am smiling and wearing a suit and I am clean and well coiffed and white so of course they direct me to the president’s office down a hall and across a gorgeously manicured pathway.
Pennsylvania General was the first hospital in America. It is about to achieve another first.
Ground Zero of the New Order.
I do hope my pupil, Alain Pantin, is paying attention. He holds the key to everything. I simply need to show him the lock.
I hold the package close to my chest.
Inside my package is another riddle, of course, along with a cell phone with a timer app, ticking down the seconds until it all begins.
I’ve also gifted the hospital president with a small hand-carved wooden box packed with grave dirt. I’m a little disappointed that they won’t be able to pore over these clues like the others, because I spent a long time filling that little box with a few ounces of soil from Mount Vernon and Quincy and Charlottesville and Montpelier Station and Richmond and the Hermitage and Kinderhook and North Bend and Louisville and Buffalo and Concord and Lancaster and Springfield and Greeneville and New York City and Fremont and Cleveland and Albany and Princeton and Indianapolis and Canton and Oyster Bay and Arlington and Marion and Plymouth and West Branch and Hyde Park and Independence and Abilene and Stonewall and Yorba Linda and Simi Valley and Grand Rapids where I have even sometimes opened the caskets and looked at those dead presidents. Sometimes I touched their decayed faces. Sometimes let my touch linger for a while.
They were touchable when alive and they are even more touchable now.
I could have done anything to their bodies, absolutely anything I wanted, but instead I just gathered soil for my little box—a gift of presidents for the president.
It will go unappreciated.
Perhaps someday my biographers will try to unpack the mysteries of the coffin dirt, and perhaps they’ll team up with an expert or two and start the laborious and time-intensive task of separating the samples and tracing them back to their places of origin and once the familiar towns and cities start to register there will be a moment of shock.
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