The slickness of the walls allowed him to move farther back along the slight downslope as he pushed as deeply as he could into the niche.
And then he waited, listening, as the voices of the searchers waxed and waned, gradually growing closer. And then they grew all too clear: his pursuers were now in the chamber.
He was far back in darkness, too far for a flashlight to penetrate. He heard rattling sounds: they were jabbing a pole into the burial niches, trying to root him out. In a moment the pole came sliding into his own crawl space, knocking the bones aside, but he was too deep and the pole fell short. It prodded this way and that before finally withdrawing. He heard them probing in successive niches. Then, suddenly, their voices rose in both pitch and excitement. He heard the sound of retreating footsteps and then, quite quickly, their voices died away.
Silence.
Had they been called back to defend the Ville? It was the only possible explanation.
He waited a minute, then another, just to be safe. Then he moved to extricate himself from the niche. It was useless: he discovered that, in his panic, he had wedged himself in very tightly. Too tightly. A horrible sense of claustrophobia washed over him; he struggled to master it, to regulate his breathing. He wriggled again but he was firmly stuck. The panic threatened to surge back, stronger.
It couldn’t be. He’d gotten in; surely he could get out.
He bent his leg, wedged it between the ceiling and the floor, and tried to leverage himself out while pushing with his good hand. No luck. The walls were slippery with damp and slime and the pitch was slightly uphill. He struggled, grunting, his good hand scrabbling on the wetness. In a fresh wave of panic, he dug his nails into the moist earth and tried to push his way forward, breaking several of them in the process.
My God, he thought. I’m buried alive.
It was all he could do to keep from screaming.
69
It took Special Agent Pendergast ten minutes of wrong turns and doubling-back to reach the dumbwaiter leading up to the pantry. He pulled out the groaning, semi-conscious man, climbed in, and—by reaching through a panel in the top and grasping the cables—was able to haul himself up and out of the basement. When the dumbwaiter bumped to a stop against the shaft ceiling, Pendergast slid open the door and jumped out. From the church came the sounds of a loud disturbance, one that seemed to have drawn off all members of the Ville within earshot. That left him an escape route. He sprinted through the darkened rooms of the old rectory, out the side door, and down the crooked back alley. In less than five minutes he was once again in the woods of Inwood Hill Park. He shrugged out of the cloak and hood and dropped them on the leafy ground, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
“Hayward,” came the clipped answer.
“Pendergast here.”
“Now why does hearing your voice fill me with dread?”
“Are you in the vicinity of Inwood Hill Park?”
“I’m with Chislett and his men.”
“Ah, yes. Chislett. A testament to the ultimate futility of higher education. Now listen: D’Agosta is in the basements of the Ville. He might be in a difficult situation.”
A brief silence. “Vinnie? Inside the Ville? What the hell for?”
“I think you can guess—he’s looking for Nora Kelly. But I’ve just now realized Nora isn’t there. There’s a confrontation brewing—”
“It’s not just brewing. It’s fully brewed, and—”
Pendergast cut her off. “I think Vincent might need your help—and need it rather badly.”
A silence. “And what, exactly, are you up to?”
“No time for that, every minute counts now. Listen: there’s something inside the Ville, something they themselves unleashed. It attacked us.”
“Like a zombii?” came the sarcastic answer.
“A man—or, at least, a creature that was once a man, now transformed into something extremely dangerous. I repeat: Vincent needs help. His life might be in danger. Be careful.”
Without waiting for a reply, Pendergast snapped the phone shut. In the distance, through the trees, he could see moonlight sparkling off the Harlem River. There was a sound of a motor, and then a searchlight probed through the darkness: a police boat, cruising back and forth, belatedly on the watch for protesters coming from the west or north. Quickly, Pendergast sprinted through the woods toward the river. As he reached the edge of the trees he slowed to a walk, adjusted his torn suit, then sauntered out onto the marsh grass and down to the pebbled beach. He waved to the police boat, pulling out his FBI shield and brandishing it with the aid of his penlight.
The boat slowed, turned, then nosed into the cove, idling just off the shingle shore. It was a jet-propelled patrol boat, the NYPD’s latest model. Inside were a police sergeant and an officer of the marine unit.
“Who are you?” the sergeant asked, flicking the butt of a cigarette out into the water. He had a crew cut and a fleshy face with old acne scars, thick lips, a triple neck roll, and small triangular fingers. His partner, standing at the controls of the boat, looked like he spent most of his off-time in the gym. The muscles in his neck were as taut as the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. “Man, you look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
Pendergast returned his shield to his jacket pocket. “Special Agent Pendergast.”
“Yeah? FBI? Happens every time, eh, Charlie?” He nudged his partner. “The FBI arrive, too late with too little. How do you guys manage it?”
“Sergeant—?” Pendergast waded into the water, coming up to the gunwale of the boat and laying a hand on it.
“Ruined your shoes, pal,” said the sergeant, with another wry glance at his partner.
Pendergast glanced at the man’s nameplate. “Sergeant Mulvaney, I’m afraid I require the use of this boat.”
The sergeant stared at him, standing thigh-deep in the water, and cracked a smile. “You’re afraid you requiah the use of this boat?” he drawled. “Well, I’m afraid I requiah authorization to that effect. Because I can’t just give up police property to anyone, even J. Edgar Hoovah.”
The beefy partner rippled his muscles and snorted.
“Trust me, Sergeant, it’s an emergency. I hereby invoke Section 302(b)2 of the Uniform Code—”
“Ah, we got a lawyer here too! An emergency. My, my, what kind of emergency?” Mulvaney hiked up his belt, setting his cuffs and keys ajangle, and waited, his head cocked to one side.
“A life. In danger. This has been a charming exchange, but I’m afraid I don’t have any more time to bandy words with you, Sergeant. First and last warning.”
“Look, I’ve got my orders. Keep an eye on the seaward approach to the Ville. And I’m not giving up this patrol boat just because you say so.” The sergeant folded his hammy arms and smiled down at Pendergast.
“Mr. Mulvaney?” Pendergast leaned on the gunwale toward Mulvaney, as if to speak confidentially in his ear. Mulvaney crouched to hear; there came a quick movement, Pendergast’s fist arm shot upward into the cop’s solar plexus, and with an abrupt sigh of expelled air Mulvaney bent over the gunwale. With a quick twist Pendergast flipped him in the water, where he landed with a huge splash.
“What the fuck—?” The partner straightened up, staring, reaching for his gun.
Pendergast hauled the dripping officer to his feet, having relieved him of his gun, and aimed it at the marine officer. “Toss your weapons out onto the beach.”
“You can’t—”
The report of the gun caused the officer to jump.
“All right! Jesus.” The man removed his weapons and chucked them out on the shingle. “Is this FBI protocol?”
“Let me worry about protocol,” Pendergast said, still gripping the gasping Mulvaney. “What you need to do is get out of the boat. Now.”
The partner gingerly lowered himself into the water. In a flash Pendergast had vaulted into the cockpit. Pulling the shift into reverse, he backed the jet boat away from shore.
“So terribly sorry to discommode you gentlemen,” he called out, spinning the wheel and slamming the shift into forward. He gunned the engine with a roar and vanished around the curve of shore.
70
Summoning all the presence of mind he could muster, D’Agosta slowed his breathing and focused on his mission. He had to free Nora. Somehow, shifting focus away from being trapped helped calm him down. The problem wasn’t so much that he was stuck, but that the walls were so slippery; he simply couldn’t get a purchase, especially with only one good arm. He’d ruined his nails in a futile effort, but what he really needed was something sharp and strong that would bite into the walls and help pull him out.
Bite…
There, not six inches from his hand, was a human jawbone, sporting all its teeth. He squirmed desperately, just managing to move his good arm sufficiently to grasp the mandible. Then he twisted his body sideways and jammed the teeth of the jawbone into a crack in the roof of the niche; by simultaneously pulling and wriggling at the same time, he eventually managed to work himself free.
With enormous relief he crawled back out of the niche and stood up in the chamber, breathing heavily. Everything was silent. Apparently, the zombii and the hunting party had both fallen back to deal with the protesters.
He returned to the central passageway and cautiously used his lighter to examine its length. It ended in a cul-de-sac. There were other crude burial chambers to either side, excavated from the same heavy clay and shored up with timbers, but they looked nothing like the mortared stone walls in the video. Nothing he had seen so far, in fact, resembled that kind of construction—the very stone was different. He had to look elsewhere.
Retracing his steps, skirting the well, he found himself back in the area of the vaulted necropolis. Along the walls were many small iron doors that led into what were, apparently, family crypts; he investigated each in turn, but there was no sign of Nora.
With mounting frustration, he painstakingly retraced his steps by trial and error, ultimately returning to the central cryptorium. There he stood, trying to build a map of the cellars in his head, to mentally fill in the sections through which he’d moved half senseless. There were doors in all four directions; one led to the catacombs, another—he realized—to the dead-end passageway from which he’d recently emerged. That left two more to try.
He picked one at random and took it.
Again it opened into a tunnel. Immediately this one appeared to be more promising: the walls were of crude mortared stone. Not precisely like the stone in the video, but closer.
A foul stench wafted down this corridor. D’Agosta paused, flicking his lighter on briefly, trying to conserve its fuel. The passageway was filthy, the stones splattered with mud and oozing with mold and fungus, the floor giving way unpleasantly at his touch.
As he played the light around, from the darkness ahead he heard a faint muffled cry—short, high-pitched, and full of terror…
… Nora?
Holding the lighter before him, he sprinted down the corridor toward the sound.
71
Plock led the protesters on a spree, tearing through the church, upending altars and fetish-festooned shrines. When their priest fell, the rest of the robed men fell back in confusion to the shadows, greatly outnumbered and temporarily at a loss. Plock realized that they had the initiative; the key was to seize it and keep it. With the crowd following, he swept toward the central altar. Here, there was a bloody, gore-flecked post where the animal sacrifices obviously took place—and a fresh pool of blood that awaited their outrage.
“Destroy this place of slaughter!” Plock cried as the crowd began swarming onto the elevated platform that held the altar and slaughtering pen, smashing down the post, breaking open boxes, and tossing relics.
“Blasphemers!” boomed the deep voice of Bossong. He was standing above the body of the fallen priest, who was out cold and had been badly trampled by the mob. Bossong was not unscathed, either—as he began walking down the central aisle, a trickle of blood was evident on his forehead.
The Ville leader’s voice had a galvanizing effect on the robed crowds. They stopped retreating and paused in a kind of stasis. Knives appeared in some hands.
“Butcher!” screamed a protester at Bossong.
Plock realized that he had to keep the crowd moving, out of the church and into the rest of the Ville. A standoff here could quickly turn violent.
A robed congregant suddenly lunged forward with a shriek, slashing at a protester; there was a brief, violent struggle between the two that abruptly swelled into mob action, people from both groups rushing to the defense of their own. A ragged scream arose; someone had been knifed.
“Murderers!”
“Killers!”
The knot of people struggled and swirled, kicked and punched, all brown robes and khaki and pima cotton. It was an almost surreal sight. Within moments several were lying on the stone floor, bleeding.
“The animals!” cried Plock suddenly. He could hear and smell them, a muffled pandemonium behind a door at the head of the altar. “This way! Find and free the animals!” He dashed toward the door, pounded on it.
The leading edge of the crowd fell against the door, the battering rams once more appearing. It gave with a splintering crash and they poured beneath a stone archway, their way into the next room barred by a massive wrought-iron grate. On the other side was a scene from hell: dozens of baby animals, lambs, kids, calves—even puppies and kittens—locked in a huge stone chamber, the floor covered by a thin scattering of straw. The animals broke into a pathetic caterwauling, the lambs bleating, the puppies yipping.
For a moment Plock was speechless with horror. This was worse than anything he had imagined.
“Unbar these gates!” he cried. “Set free the animals!”
“No!” cried Bossong, as he struggled to approach, but he was shoved back and flung roughly to the floor.
The battering rams slammed into the iron grate, but it proved much sturdier than the wooden doors. Again and again they pounded the iron, the animals shrinking back and crying in terror.
“A key! Get a key!” cried Plock. “He must have one.” He pointed at Bossong, who was on his feet again and now struggling with several of the protesters.
The mob rushed Bossong, and he disappeared in the swirl to the sound of tearing cloth.
“Here!” A man held up an iron ring with keys. It was quickly passed forward, and Plock inserted the heavy ancient keys into the lock, one after another. One worked. He flung the gate wide.
“Freedom!” he cried.
The vanguard of the crowd rushed in and herded out the animals, trying to keep them together, but as soon as the creatures were past the gate they scattered in terror, racing about, their cries rising to the massive wooden beams and echoing in the large space.
The dust had risen and the church had become a hellish scene of struggle and flight, with the protesters clearly gaining the upper hand. The animals stampeded down the nave, leaping as the congregants tried to grab them, rapidly disappearing through every doorway and opening they could find.
“Now’s the moment!” screamed Plock. “Drive out these vivisectors! Drive them out! Now!”
72
The police speedboat, with Pendergast at the helm, tore down the Harlem River at fifty knots, curving around the northern tip of Manhattan Island and heading south. It flashed under a sequence of bridges: the West 207th Street Bridge; the George Washington Bridge; the Alexander Hamilton Bridge; the High Bridge; the Ma-combs Dam Bridge; the 145th Street Bridge; and finally the Willis Avenue Bridge. Here the Harlem River widened into a bay as it neared the junction with the East River. But instead of heading into the East River, Pendergast put the boat into a screaming turn and pointed it into the Bronx Kill, a narrow, foul creek separating the Bronx from Randall’s Island.
Reducing speed to thirty knots, he headed down the Bronx Kill—more an open sewer and garbage dump than a navigable waterway—the boat
throwing up a brown wake, the smell of marsh gas and sewage rising like a miasma. A dark railroad trestle rose up ahead and he passed underneath it, the diesel jet engine echoing weirdly as it went through the brief tunnel. Night had enveloped the bleak landscape and Pendergast grasped the handle of the boat’s spotlight, directing the beam at various obstacles ahead as the boat slalomed among half-sunken hulks of old barges, rotting pilings of long-vanished bridges, and the submerged skeletons of ancient subway cars.
Quite suddenly the Bronx Kill widened again to a broad bay, opening into upper Hell Gate and the northern end of the East River. The vast prison complex of Rikers Island loomed directly ahead, the infamous X-shaped cement towers, bathed in pitiless sodium lights, rising up against a black sky.
Pendergast increased speed and the boat quickly left Manhattan behind; the Midtown skyline receded as he pounded up the East River toward the opening to Long Island Sound. Now, passing between Stepping Stones Light and City Island, Pendergast arced into the Sound and opened the boat up full throttle. The wind roared past, spray flying behind, the little vessel smacking the chop, swaying from side to side as it rocketed up the Sound, the full moon flashing off the water. It was a quiet evening, with only a few boats out and about. The channel buoys glowed softly in the moonlight.
Cemetery Dance Page 33
