Article: The success of Brimstone has...

The success of Brimstone has led to a certain amount of interest on the part of the public in Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To satisfy public demand, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child were able to persuade the reclusive FBI agent to agree to a brief interview—his very first. The interview took place at Pendergast’s apartment in the Dakota, Central Park West and 72nd Street, New York City, on August 31, 2004.

Pendergast: Gentlemen, welcome. Would you care for a sherry? I have a fine Amontillado aging in oak in the basement.

Child: Why, that would be very kind—

Preston: Linc, remember what we talked about...?

Child: [Sighs.] No, thank you, Agent Pendergast.

Pendergast: As you wish. I hope we can keep this short. I have neither the time nor the inclination to bandy civilities with a couple of writers, even ones as distinguished as yourselves [mordant smile].

Preston: We’ll try to keep it short. Let me begin by asking a fairly simple question: why do you always wear a black suit?

Pendergast: That kind of vapid query is precisely why I eschew interviews.

Child: Agent Pendergast, a lot of our readers are curious about your background and the history of your family. Can you tell us something about your parents, your Childhood and later education?

Pendergast: I would prefer to keep the questioning on a professional level. Suffice to say I was born and raised in New Orleans to an old family of French ancestry. After the loss of our family home by fire, in which my parents were killed, I attended Harvard University, from which I graduated summa cum laude in 1982.

Child: We never knew you went to Harvard.

Pendergast: There is much you two don’t know, despite all your pretensions to the contrary. And much you will never know.

Preston: What did you major in?

Pendergast: Anthropology.

Preston: That doesn’t seem like an obvious major for a future FBI agent.

Pendergast: On the contrary.

Child: You did graduate work, didn’t you?

Pendergast: Yes, at Oxford University. I have a dual Ph. D. in Classics and Philosophy, and I took firsts in both.

Preston: And then, I believe, you went into the Special Forces? We’ve heard rumors that you were engaged in a number of black ops.

Pendergast: If I was, I could hardly be expected to discuss them, could I?

Child: Getting back to your childhood, we know the Pendergast mansion was burned by a mob. Why?

Pendergast: [Long pause] The Pendergast family was, shall we say, eccentric, and not at all popular with the local folk—but it was my Great Aunt Cornelia who was the proximate cause.

Child: Cornelia? The one in the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane?

Pendergast: That is correct.

Preston: What did she do?

Pendergast: She was a chemist of no small talent, which is all I am going to say on that subject. I believe I’ve already made it clear that I would prefer to avoid personal topics. Mr. Preston, would you care to be questioned about that streak of mental instability in your own family? For example, I understand that your brother Richard—

Preston: [Loudly clearing his throat] The interview is about you, not me.

Pendergast: Quite.

Child: Moving on, I wonder if you would tell us about some of your more interesting cases.

Pendergast: Other than the ones which you have so regrettably sensationalized in your books? On a personal level, the most remarkable case I worked on was in Tanzania—the attacks of the red lion.

Preston: The ‘red lion’?

Pendergast: It was, according to the local tribal legend, a monstrous lion that attacked only at night; had an unquenchable hunger for human flesh. And it was of a color never before seen. The killings flared up while I was on a bushbuck hunting expedition with my wife. Over the space of five evenings, twenty-four people were killed, their livers eaten.

Child: How horrible. But I assume—since you call it a ‘case’—the murderer turned out to be human?

Pendergast: More or less.

Preston: More or less? What does that mean?

Pendergast: There are degrees of humanity, Mr. Preston. The two of you wrote up my recent case in Medicine Creek, Kansas; you should know that. In any case, the chief presented me with a brace of elephant tusks by way of thanks. [He nodded to a doorway]. They make a rather dramatic entrance to my study, don’t you think?

Child: Was this the same hunting expedition on which your wife accompanied you? Where you were charged by the Cape buffalo?

Pendergast: Yes. In fact, my wife was instrumental in working out some of the highly peculiar psychological aspects. It was our last case together.

Preston: If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to her?

Pendergast: (Stiffly) That question lies outside the bounds of this interview. Earlier, I said there are many things about me you will never know. The fate of my beloved wife is one of those. Now, gentlemen, if you don’t mind, this interview is over; Proctor will see you out.

Copyright © Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child