Reliquary

by Douglas Preston

  Mephisto lunged again.

  “Hold him, for Chrissakes,” Horlocker snapped, stepping out of reach. Then he turned back to Pendergast. “Now, let me see if I understand this,” he said with insulting sweetness, the parody of a father humoring a foolish son. “You want to blow up the Astor Tunnels. Do I have it right?”

  “Not the tunnels so much as the exits from the tunnels,” Pendergast replied, oblivious to the sarcasm. “It is critical that we stop any water draining from the Reservoir from reaching the open ocean. But perhaps we can accomplish both ends: cleanse the Astor Tunnels of their inhabitants while preventing the reovirus from escaping. All we have to do is hold the water for forty-eight hours and let the herbicide do its work.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Margo watched as Mephisto went still.

  “We can send in a team of divers up the spillways from the river,” Pendergast went on. “The route to the Astor outflow is relatively straightforward.”

  Horlocker shook his head.

  “I’ve studied the system carefully. When the Astor Tunnels fill, the overflow will channel into the West Side Lateral. That’s what we’ll have to block with explosives.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Horlocker said, lowering his head and resting it on the knuckles of one hand.

  “But then again, that may not be enough,” Pendergast went on, paying no attention to Horlocker now, thinking out loud. “To be certain, we’d also need to seal the Devil’s Attic from above, as well. The charts show that the Bottleneck and its drainage tubes are a closed system all the way up to the Reservoir, so all we have to do to keep the water trapped inside is to seal any escape routes immediately below it. That will also prevent the creatures from riding out the flood in an air pocket somewhere.”

  Horlocker looked blank. Pendergast found a scrap and paper and swiftly drew a diagram. “Don’t you see?” he asked. “The water will pass through the Bottleneck, here. The second team will descend from the surface and block any exit paths directly beneath the Bottleneck. Several levels deeper is the Devil’s Attic and the spillways that vent to the river. The SEAL team will set their charges in the spillways.” He looked up. “The water will be trapped in the Astor Tunnels. There will be no escape for the Wrinklers. None.”

  A low wheeze escaped from the manacled figure, raising the hairs on Margo’s neck.

  “I’ll have to lead the second team, of course,” Pendergast went on calmly. “They’ll need a guide, and I’ve already been down once before. I’ve got a crude map, and I’ve studied the city plans for the works closer to the surface. I’d go by myself, but it will take several men to carry the plastique.”

  “It won’t work, Judas,” Mephisto rasped. “You’ll never make it down to the Devil’s Attic in time.”

  Horlocker suddenly looked up, slamming his fist to the table. “I’ve heard enough,” he snapped. “Playtime’s over. Pendergast, I’ve got a crisis on my hands. So get out.”

  “Only I know the tunnels well enough to get you in and out before midnight,” Mephisto hissed, staring intently at Pendergast.

  Pendergast returned the gaze, a speculative expression on his face. “You’re probably correct,” he replied at last.

  “Enough,” Horlocker snapped at the group of officers who had brought Mephisto in. “Get him downtown. We’ll deal with him once the dust has settled.”

  “And what would be in it for you?” Pendergast asked Mephisto.

  “Room to live. Freedom from harassment. The grievances of my people redressed.”

  Pendergast gazed at Mephisto almost meditatively, his expression unreadable.

  “I said, get the man the hell out,” Horlocker roared.

  The cops pulled Mephisto to his feet and began to drag him toward the exit.

  “Stay where you are,” Pendergast said. His voice was low, but the tone was so commanding the officers instinctively stopped in their tracks.

  Horlocker turned, a vein pulsing in his temple. “What’s this?” he said, almost in a whisper.

  “Chief Horlocker, I’m taking custody of this individual, under the authority vested in me as a federal agent of the United States government.”

  “You’re bullshitting me,” Horlocker replied.

  “Pendergast!” Margo hissed. “We’ve got barely two hours.”

  The agent nodded, then addressed Horlocker. “I’d like to stay and bandy civilities, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of time,” he said. “Vincent, please get the handcuff key from these gentlemen.”

  Pendergast turned toward the knot of policemen. “You, there. Release this man into my custody.”

  “Don’t do it!” Horlocker shouted.

  “Sir,” one of the officers said, “you can’t fight the Feds, sir.”

  Pendergast approached the bedraggled figure, now standing beside D’Agosta and rubbing his manacled wrists. “Mr. Mephisto,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t know what role you played in today’s events, and I can’t guarantee your personal freedom. But if you help me now, perhaps we can rid this city of the killers that have been preying on your community. And I will give my personal guarantee that your demands for homeless rights will be given a fair hearing.” He held out his hand.

  Mephisto’s eyes narrowed. “You lied once,” he hissed.

  “It was the only way I could make contact with you,” said Pendergast, continuing to hold out his hand. “This isn’t a fight between the haves and have-nots. If it was once, it isn’t anymore. If we fail now, we all go down: Park Avenue and Route 666 alike.”

  There was a long pause. At last, Mephisto nodded silently.

  “How touching,” said Horlocker. “I hope you all drown in shit.”

  = 50 =

  SMITHBACK PEERED through the rusting steel grid of the catwalk floor, down into the brick-lined shaft that ran away into vertiginous darkness beneath his feet. He could hear Waxie and the rest—far below him—but he couldn’t see what they were up to. Once again, he fervently hoped that this wouldn’t turn into a wild-goose chase. But he’d followed Waxie all this way; he might as well stick around and see just what the hell was up.

  He moved forward cautiously, trying to catch a glimpse of the five men below him. The rotten catwalk hung down from the underside of a gigantic bowl of pitted metal, moving in a long gentle arc toward a vertical shaft that seemed to head for the center of the earth itself. The catwalk sagged with his every movement. Reaching a vertical ladder, he craned his neck out into the chill space and looked downward. A bank of floodlights shone into the shaft, but even their power was inadequate to penetrate deeply into the gloom. A tiny thread of water came from a crack in the vault above and spiraled down through empty space, disappearing silently into the darkness. There was a pinging noise coming from above, like the creaking of a submarine hull under pressure. A steady rush of cold, fresh air blew up from the shaft and stirred the hair on his forehead.

  In his wildest dreams, Smithback could not have imagined that such a strange, antique space existed beneath the Central Park Reservoir. He knew that the enormous metal ceiling above him must actually be the drainage basin at the lowest level of the Reservoir, where its earthen bed met the complex tangle of storm drains and feeder tunnels. He tried not to think of the vast bulb of water hanging directly over his head.

  He could see the team in the dim spaces below him now, standing on a small platform abutting the ladder. Smithback could vaguely make out a complicated tangle of iron pipes, wheels, and valves, looking like some infernal machine out of an Industrial Age nightmare. The ladder was slimy with condensation, and the tiny platform far below him had no railing. Smithback took a step down the ladder, then thought better of it and retreated. As good a vantage point as any, he thought, curling up on the catwalk. From here, he could see everything that went on, but remain virtually invisible himself.

  Flashlights were licking across the brick walls far below him, and the policemen’s voices, rumbled and distorted, floated up to him. He recognized Waxie
’s basso profundo from the evening he’d spent in the Museum’s projection booth. The fat cop seemed to be speaking into his radio. Now he put his radio away and turned to the nervous-looking man in shirt sleeves. They seemed to be arguing bitterly about something.

  “You little liar,” Waxie was saying, “you never told me that you couldn’t reverse the flood.”

  “I did, I did,” came a high-pitched whine in response. “You even said you didn’t want it reversible. I wish I’d had a tape recorder, because—”

  “Shut up. Are these the valves?”

  “They’re here, at the back.”

  There was a silence, then the groaning protest of metal as the men shifted position.

  “Is this platform safe?” came Waxie’s voice from deep within the pit.

  “How should I know?” the high-pitched voice replied. “When they computerized the system, they stopped maintaining—”

  “All right, all right. Just do what you have to do, Duffy, and let’s get out of here.”

  Smithback inched his nose farther into space and peered down. He could see the man named Duffy examining the nest of valves. “We have to turn all these off,” came his voice. “It closes the Main Shunt manually. That way, when the computer directs the Reservoir to drain, the shunt gates will open, but these manual valves will contain the water. Works on the siphon principal. If it works at all. Like I said, it’s never been tried.”

  “Great. Maybe you’ll win the Nobel Prize. Now do it.”

  Do what? Smithback wondered. It sounded as if they were trying to prevent the Reservoir from being drained. The thought of millions of cubic feet of water thundering down from above was enough to swivel his eyes toward the exit far over his head. But why? Computer glitch of some kind? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound worth leaving the biggest riot in a hundred years for. Smithback’s heart began to sink; this was definitely not where the real story was.

  “Help me turn this,” Duffy said.

  “You heard him,” Waxie snapped at the policemen. From his perch, Smithback could see two of the tiny figures gripping a large iron wheel. There was a faint grunting. “It ain’t moving,” one of the policemen announced.

  The man named Duffy bent closer, inspecting. “Somebody’s been messing around here!” he cried, pointing. “Look at this! The shaft’s been packed with lead. And over here, these valves have been broken off. Recently, too, by the looks of it.”

  “Don’t give me any of your bullshit, Duffy.”

  “Look for yourself. This thing is shot to hell.”

  There was a silence. “Shit on a stick,” came Waxie’s fretful voice. “Can you fix it?”

  “Sure we can. If we had twenty-four hours. And acetylene torches, an arc welder, new valve stems, and maybe a dozen other parts that haven’t been manufactured since the turn of the century.”

  “That isn’t good enough. If we can’t stop that shunt from opening manually, we’re screwed. You got us into this fix, Duffy. You’d damn well better get us out.”

  “To hell with you, Captain!” the shrill voice of Duffy echoed up. “I’ve had all I’m going to take. You’re a stupid, rude human being. Oh, yes, I forgot: fat, too.”

  “That’s going in my report, Duffy.”

  “Then be sure you put in the part about being fat, because—”

  There was an abrupt silence.

  “You smell that?” asked one of the-policemen on the ladder.

  “What the hell is it?” came another voice.

  Smithback sniffed the cool, moist air, but could smell nothing but damp brick and mildew. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Waxie said, grabbing the ladder and hoisting himself up the rungs.

  “Just a minute!” came the voice of Duffy. “What about the valve?”

  “You just told me it couldn’t be fixed,” Waxie said without looking down.

  Smithback heard a faint rattling sound from the deeper darkness of the pit.

  “What was that?” Duffy asked, his voice cracking.

  “Are you coming?” Waxie yelled, hauling his ungainly body up the ladder, one rung at a time.

  As Smithback watched, Duffy took a look over the platform edge, hesitating. Then he turned back and began to scramble up the ladder behind Waxie, followed by the uniformed policemen. Smithback realized that in five minutes, they’d reach the catwalk. By then he’d have to be gone, making that long crawl back up the gangway and out of sight. And with jack shit to show for his pains. He turned to go, hoping he hadn’t missed the rest of the riot, wondering where Mrs. Wisher was by now. Jesus, what a bad call, he thought ruefully. Can’t believe my instincts let me down. With his luck, that prick Bryce Harriman was already…

  A sound echoed up from below: the protesting squeal of rusty hinges, the loud booming of an iron grating being slammed.

  “What was that?” Smithback heard Waxie yelp.

  Smithback turned back and looked down the ladder. He could see the figures on the ladder below him, suddenly motionless. Waxie’s last question was still echoing and rumbling, dying away in the shaft. There was silence. And into the silence came the sound of scrabbling on iron rungs, mingled with strange grunts and wheezes that raised the hairs on Smithback’s nape.

  Flashlight beams played downwards from the group on the ladder, revealing nothing.

  “Who is it?” Waxie cried again, peering down.

  “There’re some people coming up the ladder,” one of the policemen said.

  “We’re police officers!” Waxie yelled, his voice suddenly shrill.

  There was no answer.

  “Identify yourselves!”

  “They’re still coming,” the policeman said.

  “There’s that smell again,” came another voice, and suddenly it hit Smithback like a hammer: an overripe, goatish odor that brought back like a physical blow the nightmare hours he’d spent in the bowels of the Museum, eighteen months before.

  “Unholster your weapons!” Waxie yelled in a panicky voice.

  Now Smithback could see them: dark shapes moving quickly up the ladder from the depths, wearing hoods and dark cloaks that billowed behind them in the updraft.

  “You hear me down there?” Waxie cried. “Stop and identify yourselves!” He twisted his thick form on the ladder and looked down at the officers. “You men, wait here. Find out their business. If they’re trespassers, give them citations.” He turned and began scrambling desperately up the ladder again, Duffy at his heels.

  As Smithback watched, the strange figures passed the platform and approached the stationary cops. There was a pause, then what to Smithback appeared to be a struggle, the dim light making it look oddly like a graceful ballet. The illusion vanished with the roar of a 9-millimeter, deafening in the confined space, rolling up and down the brick shaft like thunder. Then the echoes were drowned out by a scream, and Smithback saw the lowest policeman detach from the ladder and plunge into the shaft, one of the figures still clinging to him. The attenuated screams of the officer echoed up from the pit, slowly vanishing into nothing.

  “Stop them!” Waxie cried over his shoulder, toiling up the ladder. “Don’t let them come!”

  As Smithback watched in frozen horror, the shapes came ever more swiftly, the metal ladder clattering and groaning under their weight. The second cop fired wildly at the figures, then he was grabbed by the leg and yanked with horrible strength from the ladder rung. He hurtled downwards, firing his revolver again and again, the muzzle flashing as he pin-wheeled into the darkness. The third policeman turned and began climbing with panicky speed.

  The dark figures were swarming upward now, two rungs at a time, climbing with long, loping movements. One of the figures passed through the beam of a spotlight, giving Smithback a glimpse of something thick and moist shining briefly in the reflected glow. Then the lead figure caught up with the policeman and made a wide, slashing movement across the back of the retreating man’s legs. He screamed and twisted on the ladder. The figure pulled himself level with the
officer, then began tearing at his face and throat while the rest of the hooded figures scrambled past.

  Smithback tried to move but seemed unable to tear his gaze away from the spectacle beneath him. In his panic to climb the ladder, Waxie had slipped and was clutching to one side, trying to gain a purchase with his scrabbling feet. Duffy was coming up quickly beneath him, but several of the dark figures were right behind.

  “It’s got my leg!” Duffy screamed. There were unmistakable sounds of thrashing and kicking. “Oh, my God, help me!” The hysterical voice echoed and reechoed crazily through the dim space.

  As Smithback watched, Duffy shook himself free with a strength born of terror and scrambled up the ladder past the struggling Waxie.

  “No! No!” Waxie yelled in desperation, trying to kick away the grasping hands of the closest figure and knocking back its hood in the process. Smithback jerked his head back instinctively at the sight, but not before his brain had registered something out of his worst nightmare, worse for being vague in the dim light: narrow lizard’s pupils, thick wet lips, great creases and folds of extra skin. It suddenly dawned on him that these must be the Wrinklers Mephisto had referred to. Now he knew why.

  The sight broke Smithback’s paralysis, and he began scrambling up the catwalk. Behind him, he could hear Waxie firing his service piece—there was a roar of pain that almost turned Smithback’s limbs to jelly—two more quick shots in rapid succession—then Waxie’s rising, blubbering scream of anguish, suddenly truncated to a horrifying wet gurgle.

  Smithback half ran, half scuttled up the catwalk, trying to keep the sense of overwhelming fear from paralyzing him once again. Behind him, he could hear Duffy—God, he hoped it was Duffy—sobbing and scrambling up the iron rungs. I’ve got a good head start, he thought; the figures still had nearly one hundred feet of ladder to climb. For a moment, he considered going back to help Duffy, but it was the work of an instant to realize there was nothing he could do. Just give me the luxury of living to regret running away, he thought hysterically, and I won’t ask for anything, ever ever again.