Fever Dream (57 page)

Savannah, Georgia

J
UDSON ESTERHAZY RECLINED IN THE LIBRARY
of his house on Whitfield Square. It was a surprisingly chilly May evening, and a small fire lay dying in the hearth, scenting
the room with the aroma of burning birch.

Taking a sip of a fine Highland malt he had pulled out of his cellar, he rolled the peaty beverage around in his mouth before
swallowing. But the drink was bitter, as bitter as his feelings at that moment.

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

While most towns and other locations in
Fever Dream
are 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.

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.

“Follow us,” said one, leaning in the window. “Now.”

“What’s this all about?” Gideon’s mother asked.

“National security emergency. Keep up—we’ll be driving fast and clearing traffic.”

“I don’t understand—”

But they were already running back to their motorcycles.

Sirens screaming, the officers escorted them down the Columbia Pike to George Mason Drive, forcing cars aside as they went. They were joined by more motorcycles, squad cars, and finally an ambulance: a motorcade that screamed through the traffic-laden streets. Gideon didn’t know whether to be thrilled or scared. Once they turned onto Arlington Boulevard, he could guess where they were going: Arlington Hall Station, where his father worked for INSCOM, the United States Army and Intelligence Command.

Police barricades were up over the entrance to the complex, but they were flung aside as the motorcade pulled through. They went shrieking down Ceremonial Drive and came to a halt at a second set of barricades, beside a welter of fire trucks, police cars, and SWAT vans. Gideon could see his father’s building through the trees, the stately white pillars and brick façade set among emerald lawns and manicured oaks. It had once been a girls’ finishing school and still looked it. A large area in front had been cleared. He could see two sharpshooters lying on the lawn, behind a low hummock, rifles deployed on bipods.

His mother turned to him and said, fiercely, “Stay in the car. Don’t get out, no matter what.” Her face was grey and strained, and it scared him.

She stepped out. The phalanx of cops bulled through the crowd ahead of her and they disappeared.

She’d forgotten to turn off the engine. The air conditioning was still going. Gideon cranked down a window, the car filling with the sounds of sirens, walkie-talkie chatter, shouts. Two men in blue suits came running past. A cop hollered into a radio. More sirens drifted in from afar, coming from every direction.

He heard the sound of a voice over an electronic megaphone, acidic, distorted. “
Come out with your hands in view
.”

The crowd immediately hushed.

“
You are surrounded. There is nothing you can do. Release your hostage and come out now.
”

Another silence. Gideon looked around. The attention of the crowd was riveted on the front door of the Station, the large cleared area. That, it seemed, was where things would play out.

“
Your wife is here. She would like to speak to you.
”

A buzz of fumbled static came through the sound system and then the electronically magnified sound of a partial sob, grotesque and strange. “
Melvin?
” another choking sound. “
M
ELVIN
?”

Gideon froze.
That’s my mother’s voice,
he thought
.

It was like a dream where nothing made sense. It wasn’t real. Gideon put his hand on the door handle and opened it, stepping into the stifling heat.

“
Melvin…
” a choking sound. “
Please come out. Nobody’s going to hurt you, I promise. Please let the man go
.” The voice was harsh and alien—and yet unmistakably his mother.

Gideon advanced through the clusters of police officers and army officers. No one paid him any attention. He made his way to the outer barricade, placed a hand on the rough, blue-painted wood. He stared in the direction of Arlington Hall but could see nothing stirring in the placid façade or on the grounds. The building, shimmering in the heat, looked dead. Outside, the leaves hung limply on the oak branches, the sky flat and cloudless, so pale it was almost white.

“
Melvin, if you let the man go, they’ll listen to you.
”

More waiting silence. Then there was a sudden motion at the front door. A plump man in a suit Gideon didn’t recognize came stumbling out. He looked around a moment, disoriented, then broke into a run toward the barricades, his thick legs churning. Four helmeted officers rushed out, guns drawn; they seized the man and hustled him back behind one of the vans.

Gideon ducked under the barricade and moved forward through the groups of cops, the men with walkie-talkies, the men in uniform. Nobody noticed him, nobody cared: all eyes were fixed on the front entrance to the building.

And then a faint voice rang out from inside the doorway. “There must be an investigation!”

It was his father’s voice. Gideon paused, his heart in his throat.

“I demand an investigation! Twenty six people died!”

A muffled, amplified fumbling, then a male voice boomed from the sound system. “
Dr. Crew, your concerns will be addressed. But you must come out now with your hands up. Do you understand? You must surrender now.
”

“You haven’t listened,” came the trembling voice. His father sounded frightened, almost like a child. “People died and nothing was done! I want a promise.”

“
That is a promise.
”

Gideon was at the innermost barricade. The front of the building remained still, but he was now close enough to see the front door standing half open. It was a dream, a nightmare; at any moment he would wake up. He felt dizzy from the heat, felt a taste in his mouth like copper. It was a nightmare—and yet it was real.

And then Gideon saw the door swing inward and the figure of his father appear in the black rectangle of the doorway. He seemed terribly small against the elegant façade of the building. He took a step forward, his hands held up, palms facing forward. His straight hair hang down over his forehead, his tie askew, his blue suit rumpled.

“
That’s far enough
,” came the voice. “
Stop.
”

Melvin Crew stopped, blinking in the bright sunlight.

The shots rang out, so close together they sounded like firecrackers, and his father was abruptly punched back into the darkness of the doorway.

“Dad!” screamed Gideon, leaping over the barrier and running across the hot asphalt of the parking lot. “
Dad
!”

Shouts erupted behind him, cries of “Who’s that kid?” and “Hold fire!”