Reliquary

by Douglas Preston

  There was a silence, punctuated only by the distant cacophony of horns.

  “But this thing can’t grow in saltwater,” Pendergast continued. “Can it, Dr. Green?”

  “No, of course not. The salinity…” A sudden terrible thought burned its way through Margo’s consciousness. “Oh, Jesus. How stupid of me.”

  Pendergast turned toward her, eyebrows raised.

  “The salinity,” she repeated.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Pendergast replied.

  “The only single-celled animal affected by the viral drug was B. meresgerii,” Margo continued slowly. “There’s one difference between B. meresgerii and the other organisms we tested with the drug. The agar plates for B. meresgerii were saline plates. B. meresgerii is a marine organism. It lives in a saline environment.”

  “So?” asked D’Agosta.

  “It’s a common way to activate a virus. Just add a small amount of saline solution to the viral culture. In the cold, fresh reservoir water, the plant stays dormant. But when those seeds hit the saltwater, it’ll activate the virus. And dump the drug into the ecosystem.”

  “The Hudson,” said Pendergast, “is tidal all the way up past Manhattan.”

  Margo dropped the plant and took a step back. “We saw what the drug did to just one microscopic organism. If it’s released into the ocean, God knows what the end result would be. The marine ecology could be totally disrupted. And the food chain is dependent on the oceans.”

  “Hold on,” said D’Agosta. “The ocean’s a pretty big place.”

  “The ocean distributes many seeds of freshwater and land-growing plants,” Margo said. “Who knows what plants and animals the virus will colonize and multiply in? And if the plant propagates in the ocean—or if the seeds find their way into estuaries and wetlands—it won’t make any difference.”

  Pendergast waded out of the water and slung the plant over his shoulder, its bulbous, knotted roots staining the narrow line of his shoulders.

  “We’ve got three hours,” he said.

  PART THREE

  HUT OF SKULLS

  It can be illustrative to view the various stratum of subterranean New York society in the same way one would view a geologic cross section, or a food chain showing devolvement from predator to prey. Highest on the chain are those who inhabit a twilight world between the underground and the surface; who visit soup kitchens, welfare offices, or even places of employment by day, only to return to the tunnels by night to drink or sleep. Next come the long-term, habitual, or pathologically homeless persons who simply prefer the dark, warm filth of the underground to the sunlit, often freezing filth of the city streets. Below them—often literally—are the multiple substance abusers and criminals who use the subway and railroad tunnels as havens or hideaways. At the bottom of the cross section are the dysfunctional souls for whom normal life “topside” has simply become too complex or painful to bear; they shun the homeless shelters and flee to dark places of their own. And of course there are other, less categorizable, groups that exist on the fringes of these main strata of underground society: predators, hard-core criminals, visionaries, the insane. This latter category comprises a growing percentage of the homeless, primarily due to the abrupt court-ordered closures of many state mental institutions in recent years.

  All human beings have the propensity to organize themselves into communities for protection, defense, and social interaction. The homeless—even the deepest, most alienated “moles”—are no exception. Those who have chosen to live in perpetual darkness below ground will still form their own societies and communities. Of course, society itself is a misleading term when dealing with the underground population. Society implies regularity and order; underground living is, by definition, disordered and entropic. Alliances, groups, communities come together and dissolve with the fluidity of mercury. In a place where life is short, often brutal, and always without natural light, the trappings and niceties of civilized society can fall away like so much ash under the least pressure of wind.

  L. Hayward, Caste and Society Beneath Manhattan

  (forthcoming)

  = 46 =

  HAYWARD PEERED DOWN the abandoned subway tunnel, toward the flashlights that played like emergency beacons across the low ceilings and wet stone walls. The Plexiglas riot shield felt bulky and heavy against her shoulder. To her right, she could sense Officer Carlin’s alert, calm presence next to her in the dark. He seemed to know his stuff. He’d know that the worst thing you could be below ground was cocky. The moles wanted to be left alone. And the only thing that inflamed them more than the sight of one policeman was the sight of many policemen, bent on rousting and eviction.

  At the front, where Miller was, there was lots of laughter and tough talk. Squad Five had already rousted two groups of upper-level homeless, fringe dwellers who had fled upstairs in terror before the thirty-strong phalanx of cops. Now they were all feeling like hot shit. Hayward shook her head. They had yet to encounter any hard-core mole people. And that was strange. There should have been a lot more homeless in the subway tunnels beneath Columbus Circle. Hayward had noticed several smoldering fires, recently abandoned. That meant the moles had gone to ground. Not surprising, with all the racket everyone was making.

  The squad continued down the tunnel, pausing occasionally while Miller ordered small teams off to explore alcoves and side passages. Hayward watched as the groups came swaggering back out of the dark, empty-handed, kicking aside garbage, holding their riot shields at their sides. The air was foul with ammoniac vapors. Even though they were already deeper than ordinary rousting parties ever went, the atmosphere of a field trip had not yet dissipated, and nobody was complaining. Wait until they begin to breathe hard, she thought.

  The spur tunnel came to an abrupt end and the squad proceeded, single file, down a metal staircase to the next level. Nobody seemed to know just where this Mephisto hung out, or the extent of the Route 666 community, the primary target of their roust. But nobody seemed to be worried about it. “Oh, he’ll come out of his hole,” Miller had said. “If we don’t find him, the gas will.”

  As she followed the rattling, jostling group, Hayward had the unpleasant sensation she was sinking into hot, fetid water. The staircase came out in a half-finished tunnel. Ancient water pipes, weeping with humidity, lined the rough-hewn rock walls. Ahead of her, the laughter tapered off into whispers and grunts.

  “Watch your step,” Hayward said, pointing her flashlight downwards. The floor of the tunnel was peppered with narrow boreholes.

  “Hate to trip over one of those,” Carlin said, his large head made even larger by the heavy helmet he wore. He kicked a pebble into the closest borehole, then listened until a faint rattle came reverberating up. “Must have fallen a hundred feet,” he said. “Hollow down there, too, by the sound of it.”

  “Look at this,” Hayward said under her breath, shining her light on the rotting wooden pipes.

  “A hundred years old if they’re a day,” Carlin replied. “I think—”

  Hayward put a restraining hand on his arm. A soft tapping was sounding in the heavy darkness of the tunnel.

  A flurry of whispers filtered back from the head of the squad. As Hayward listened, the tapping sped up, then slowed down, following its own secret cadence.

  “Who’s there?” Miller cried out.

  The faint sound was joined by another, deeper tapping, and then another, until the entire tunnel seemed filled with an infernal symphony of noise. “What the hell is it?” Miller asked. He drew his weapon and pointed it down the beam of his flashlight. “Police officers. Come out, now!”

  The tapping echoed on as if in mocking response, but nobody stepped into the flashlight beams.

  “Jones and McMahon, take your group ahead a hundred yards,” Miller barked. “Stanislaw, Fredericks, check the rear.”

  Hayward waited as the short details disappeared into the darkness, returning empty-handed a few minutes later.

&
nbsp; “Don’t tell me there’s nothing!” Miller shouted in response to the shrugged shoulders. “Somebody’s making that sound.”

  The tapping tapered off to a single, faint ditty.

  Hayward took a step forward. “It’s the moles, banging on the pipes—”

  Miller frowned. “Hayward, stow it.”

  Hayward could see that she had the attention of the others.

  “That’s how they communicate with each other, sir,” Carlin said mildly.

  Miller turned, his face dark and unreadable in the blackness of the tunnel.

  “They know we’re here,” Hayward said. “I think they’re warning the nearby communities. Sending out word they’re under attack.”

  “Sure,” said Miller. “You telepathic, Sergeant?”

  “Read Morse, Lieutenant?” Hayward challenged.

  Miller paused, uncertain. Then he guffawed loudly. “Hayward here thinks the natives are restless.” There was some brief, half-hearted laughter. The single tapping continued.

  “So what’s it saying now?” Miller asked, sarcastically.

  Hayward listened. “They’ve mobilized.”

  There was a long silence, and then Miller said loudly, “What a load of horseshit.” He turned to the group. “Forward on the double! We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

  As Hayward opened her mouth to protest, there was a soft thudding sound nearby. One of the men in the front ranks staggered back, groaning loudly and dropping his shield. A large rock bounced toward Hayward’s feet.

  “Formation!” Miller barked. “Bring your shields up!”

  A dozen flashlight beams swept the blackness around them, probing alcoves and ancient ceilings. Carlin approached the injured policeman. “You okay?” he asked.

  The cop, McMahon, nodded, breathing heavily. “Bastard got me in the stomach. My vest took the worst of it.”

  “Show yourselves!” Miller shouted.

  Two more rocks came winging out of the darkness, flitting through the flashlight beams like cave bats. One rocketed into the dust of the tunnel floor, and the other struck a glancing blow off Miller’s riot shield. There was a roar as the Lieutenant discharged his shotgun, the rubber pellets slapping off the rough ceiling.

  Hayward listened as the sound reverberated down the tunnels, finally dying into silence. The men were looking around restlessly, stepping from one foot to the other, already jumpy. This was no way to work a roust of this size.

  “Where the hell are they?” Miller said to no one in particular.

  Taking a deep breath, Hayward stepped forward. “Lieutenant, we’d better move right now—”

  Suddenly the air was full of missiles: bottles, rocks, and dirt came pelting out of the darkness ahead of them, a rain of garbage. The officers ducked, pulling their shields up to protect their faces.

  “Shit!” came a frantic cry. “Those bastards are throwing shit!”

  “Get organized, men!” Miller cried. “Give me a line!”

  As Hayward turned, looking for Carlin, she heard a nearby voice say, “Oh, my sweet Lord,” in a disbelieving whisper. She spun around to a sight that weakened her knees: a ragged, filthy army of homeless was boiling out of the dark tunnel from behind them in a well-planned ambush. In the lambent glow of the flashlights it was impossible to get a good count, but to Hayward it seemed there must be hundreds: screaming with rage, brandishing angle irons and pieces of rebar.

  “Back!” Miller cried, aiming at the mob. “Fall back and fire!” A fusillade of shots rang out, brief but impossibly loud in the confines of the tunnel. Hayward thought she could hear the slap of rubber bullets on flesh: several of the figures in the front rank fell, squealing in pain and tearing at their rags, thinking they’d been shot.

  “Off the pigs!” a tall, dirty mole with matted white hair and feral eyes cried out, and the crowd surged forward again. Hayward saw Miller retreat into the confused group of officers, barking contradictory commands. More shots rang out, but the flashlights were flickering wildly off the walls and ceiling and there was no way to get a bead. The moles were screaming, a wild, ululating cry that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

  “Oh, shit,” Hayward said in disbelief as she watched the mob surge through the flickering darkness and collide with the phalanx of police officers.

  “The other side!” she heard a cop cry out. “They’re coming from the other side!”

  There was a sound of shattering glass, and a flickering darkness descended, punctuated occasionally by muzzle flashes as more rubber bullets were fired, mingling with strange screams and cries. Hayward stood rooted in place amidst the chaos, disoriented by the lack of light, trying to get her bearings.

  Suddenly, she felt a greasy arm snake up between her shoulder blades. Immediately, her paralysis evaporated: dropping her shield and throwing her weight forward, she flipped the assailant over her shoulder, then stomped his abdomen viciously with a booted foot. She heard the man’s howl of pain rise above the hoarse screeching and the firing of the guns. Another figure came at her, rushing out of the blackness, and instinctively she assumed a defensive posture: low, weight on the back leg, left arm vertical before her face. She feinted, chopping with the left arm, then floored him with a roundhouse kick.

  “Holy shit,” came Carlin’s appreciative voice, as he waded in beside her.

  The darkness was now absolute. They were finished unless they could get some light. Quickly, Hayward fumbled at her belt, found an emergency flare, and yanked its firing string. The length of tunnel was bathed in an eerie orange light. Hayward looked around at the struggling figures in amazement. They were walled in on both sides by huge numbers of moles. There was a pop and a burst of light beside her: at least Carlin had the presence of mind to follow her example.

  Hayward held the flare aloft, scanning the melee, looking for a way to organize the men. Miller was nowhere to be seen. Picking up her shield and pulling her “ugly stick” from the leather scabbard, Hayward took some tentative steps forward. Two moles rushed forward, but judicious blows of her baton drove them back. Carlin, she saw, was beside her, a massive, intimidating presence in the dark, guarding her flank with his own baton and riot shield. Hayward knew that most of the underground homeless were malnourished or weakened by drug abuse. Though the flares had temporarily eroded the moles’ advantage, the greatest danger remained their superiority of numbers.

  Now other police officers were rallying around them, forming a line against one wall of the tunnel with their shields. Hayward could see the number of moles that had come up from behind was relatively small, and they were massing with the main group. The bulk of the police were re-forming on the far side of the mob, which was retreating back into the dark recess of the tunnel toward the stairway, screeching and throwing rocks. The only way out was to flank the mob, driving them up to the next level in the process.

  “Follow me!” she yelled. “Drive them toward the exit!” She led the officers toward the right flank of the mob, dodging rocks and bottles as she ran. The homeless surged back into the tunnel and Hayward fired over their heads, breaking their ranks. The rain of debris slowed as the mob began to run out of projectiles. The screaming and cursing continued fitfully, but their morale seemed to be broken, and Hayward watched with relief as the mob scrabbled back in disorder.

  She took a moment to catch her breath and size up the situation. Two cops were lying on the filthy floor of the tunnel, one cradling his head, the other apparently knocked senseless. “Carlin!” she called, nodding at the wounded men.

  Suddenly, there was a loud commotion in the retreating ranks of the mob. Hayward held the flare high, craning her neck for the source of the disturbance. There was Miller, marooned on the far side of the large group of moles. He must have fled back down the tunnel during the first attack, and been caught by the second ambush.

  Hayward heard a pop, saw a cloud of smoke, sickly green in the fitful glow of the flare. Miller, panicked, must have gone for the tear gas.
<
br />   Christ, that’s the last thing we need. “Masks!” she cried aloud. The gas billowed toward them in slow, lazy rolls, spreading along the floor like a poison carpet. Hayward fumbled with her mask, snugging the Velcro tight.

  Miller ducked out of the cloud, looking like an alien apparition in his mask. “Gas them!” came his muffled yell.

  “No!” Hayward began to protest. “Not here! We’ve got two men down!”

  She stepped forward as Miller, ignoring her, grabbed a canister from the belt of a nearby officer, popped the pin, and threw it toward the mob. Hayward watched one or two other canisters fly as the panicked men followed Miller’s example. There were more dull popping sounds, and the crowd of moles disappeared into the roiling clouds of smoke. Hayward could hear Miller directing other officers to drop their canisters down the boreholes that dotted the floor of the tunnel. “Smoke the bastards out,” Miller was saying. “If any more are hiding below, we’ll flush them with these.”

  Carlin looked up from the prone body of the policeman. “Stop, goddammit!” he roared.

  The clouds of gas were rising slowly now, spreading their vapor throughout the tunnel. All around, cops were kneeling, dropping canisters down the boreholes. Hayward could see the homeless streaming up the staircase, trying to get away from the gas. “Time’s up!” Miller yelled, his high-pitched voice breaking. “We’ve gotta get out of here!” Most of the policemen needed no more encouragement, and vanished into the clouds of gas.

  Hayward fought her way back toward Carlin, once again bending over the prone figure with McMahon. The other casualty was sitting up now, holding his gut and retching. The gas was creeping toward them.

  “Let’s back them up a bit,” Hayward said. “We can’t put a mask on this guy while he’s puking.” The conscious cop stood up slowly, swaying and holding his head. She led the officer away while Carlin and McMahon carried the unconscious man to a safer spot in the tunnel.