Frock looked at it with a mixture of fear and fascination. “Margo, that’s brilliant,” he said. “The Kothoga must have built a whole ceremonial facade around this plant, its harvest and preparation—no doubt to appease the creature. And no doubt that very beast is depicted in the figurine. But how did it get here? Why did it come?”
“I think I can guess,” Margo said, her thoughts racing. “Yesterday, the friend who helped me search the crates told me he read of a similar series of murders in New Orleans several years ago. They’d occurred on a freighter coming in from Belém. My friend located the shipping records of the Museum crates, and he found that the crates were on board that ship.”
“So the creature was following the crates,” said Frock.
“And that’s why the FBI man, Pendergast, came up from Louisiana,” Margo replied.
Frock turned, his eyes burning. “Dear God. We’ve lured some terrible beast into a museum in the heart of New York City. It’s the Callisto Effect with a vengeance: a savage predator, bent on our destruction this time. Let’s pray there’s only one.”
“But just what kind of creature could it be?” asked Margo.
“I don’t know,” Frock answered. “Something that lived up on the tepui, eating these plants. A bizarre species, perhaps surviving since the time of the dinosaurs in tiny numbers. Or perhaps the product of a freak turn of evolution. The tepui, you see, is a highly fragile ecosystem, a biological island of unusual species surrounded by rain forest. In such places, animals and plants can develop strange parallels, strange dependencies on each other. A shared DNA pool—think of it! And then—”
Frock was silent.
“Then!” he said loudly, slapping his hand on the arm of the wheelchair. “Then they discover gold and platinum on that tepui! Isn’t that what Jörgensen told you? Shortly after the expedition fell apart, they fired the tepui, built a road, brought in heavy mining equipment. They destroyed the entire ecosystem of that tepui, and the Kothoga tribe with it. They polluted the rivers and swamps with mercury and cyanide.”
Margo nodded vigorously. “The fires burned for weeks, out of control. And the plant that sustained this creature became extinct.”
“So the creature started on a journey, to follow these crates and the food it so desperately craved.”
Frock fell into silence, his head settling on his chest.
“Dr. Frock,” Margo finally said quietly. “How did the creature know the crates had gone to Belém?”
Frock looked at her and blinked. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “That’s strange, isn’t it?”
Suddenly Frock was gripping the sides of the wheelchair, rising up in his excitement. “Margo!” he said. “We can find out exactly what this creature is. We have the means right here. The Extrapolator! We’ve got the creature’s DNA: we’ll feed it into the program and get a description.”
Margo blinked. “You mean the claw?”
“Exactly!” He wheeled around to the lab’s workstation and his fingers began moving over the keys. “I had the printout Pendergast left us scanned into the computer,” he said. “I’ll load its data into Gregory’s program right now. Help me set things up, will you?”
Margo took Frock’s place at the keyboard. In a moment, another message flashed:
ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 55.30 minutes.
Hey, Margo, this looks like a big job. Why don’t you send out for pizza? The best place in town is Antonio’s. I recommend the green chili and pepperoni. Shall I fax them your order now?
The time was quarter past five.
40
D’Agosta watched with amusement as two burly workmen unrolled a red carpet between two lines of palm trees in the Museum’s Great Rotunda, out through the bronze doors and down the front steps.
That’s gonna get rained on, he thought. It was dusk, and outside D’Agosta could see big thunderheads piling up to the north and west, rising like mountains above the wind-lashed trees along Riverside Drive. A distant roll of thunder rattled the artifacts in the Rotunda’s preview case, and a few stray drops began to pelt the frosted glass of the bronze doors. It was going to be a monster storm—the satellite picture on the morning news left no doubt. That fancy red carpet was going to get soaked. And a lot of fancy people along with it.
The Museum had closed its doors to the public at five o’clock. The beautiful people wouldn’t be arriving until seven. The press was there already: television vans with satellite uplinks, photographers talking loudly to each other, equipment everywhere.
D’Agosta spoke into his police radio, giving orders. He had close to two dozen men stationed strategically around the Hall of the Heavens and in other areas inside and outside the Museum. It was lucky, he thought, that he’d finally figured out his way around much of the place. Already, two of his men had become lost and had to be radioed back out.
D’Agosta wasn’t happy. At the four o’clock briefing, he had requested a final sweep through the exhibition. Coffey had vetoed it, as well as heavy weapons for the plainclothes and uniformed men inside the party. Might scare the guests, Coffey had said. D’Agosta glanced over toward the four walk-through metal detectors, equipped with X-ray conveyor belts. Thank God for those, at least, he thought.
D’Agosta turned and, once again, looked around for Pendergast. He hadn’t been at the briefing. In fact, D’Agosta hadn’t seen him since the meeting with Ippolito that morning.
His radio crackled.
“Hey, Lieutenant? This is Henley. I’m here in front of the stuffed elephants, but I can’t seem to find the Marine Hall. I thought you said—”
D’Agosta cut him short, watching a crew testing what had to be the biggest bank of lights since Gone with the Wind. “Henley? You see the big doorway with the tusks? Okay, just go through that and take two hard rights. Call me when you’re in position. Your partner is Wilson.”
“Wilson? You know I don’t like partnering with a woman, sir—”
“Henley? There’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Wilson’s gonna be carrying the twelve-gauge.”
“Wait a minute, Lieutenant, you’re—”
D’Agosta snapped him off.
There was a loud grinding sound behind him, and a thick steel door began to descend from the ceiling at the north end of the Great Rotunda. They were starting to seal the perimeter. Two FBI men stood in the dimness just beyond the doorway, short-barrel shotguns not quite concealed beneath their loose suit jackets. D’Agosta snorted.
There was a great hollow boom as the steel plate came to rest on the floor. The sound echoed and reechoed through the Hall. Before the echo faded, the boom was duplicated by the descending door at the south end. Only the east door would be left up—where the red carpet ended. Christ, thought D’Agosta, I’d hate to see this place in a fire.
He heard a loud voice barking at the far end of the Hall and turned to see Coffey, pointing his scurrying men in all directions.
Coffey spotted him. “Hey, D’Agosta!” he shouted, gesturing him over.
D’Agosta ignored him. Now Coffey came swaggering up, his face perspiring. Gizmos and weapons D’Agosta had heard about but had never seen were dangling off Coffey’s thick service belt.
“You deaf, D’Agosta? I want you to send two of your men over here for a while and watch this door. Nobody goes in or out.”
Jesus, thought D’Agosta. There are five FBI guys just hanging around in the Great Rotunda, picking their noses. “My men are tied up, Coffey. Use one of your Rambos over there. I mean, you’re deploying most of your men just outside the perimeter. I have to station my forces inside to protect the guests, not to mention the traffic duty outside. The rest of the Museum’s going to be almost empty, and the party will be underpatrolled. I don’t like that.”
Coffey hitched up his belt and glared at D’Agosta. “You know what? I don’t give a shit what you don’t like. Just do your job. And keep a channel open for me.” He strode off.
41
The CRT on the computer went blank, and another message came up:
COMPLETED: DO YOU WANT TO PRINT DATA, VIEW DATA, OR BOTH (P/V/B)?
Margo hit the B key. As the data marched across the screen, Frock wheeled his chair to a stop and brought his face close to the screen, his ragged breath misting the terminal glass.
SPECIES: Unidentified
GENUS: Unidentified
FAMILY: 12% match to Pongidae; 16% match to Hominidae
ORDER: Possibly primata; 66% common genetic markers lacking; large standard deviation.
CLASS: 25% match to Mammalia; 5% match to Reptilia
PHYLUM: Chordata
KINGDOM: Animalia
Morphological characteristics: Highly robust
Brain capacity: 900-1250cc
Quadrupedal, extreme posterior-anterior dimorphism
Potentially high sexual dimorphism
Weight, male, full grown: 240-260 kg
Weight, female, full grown: 160 kg
Gestation period: Seven to nine months
Aggressiveness: extreme
Estrus cycle in female: enhanced
Locomotor speed: 60-70 kph
Epidermal covering: Anterior pelt with posterior bony plates
Nocturnal
Frock scanned the list, running his finger down.
“Reptilia!” he said. “There are those gecko genes appearing again! It appears that the creature combines reptile and primate genes. And it has posterior scales. They must also be from the gecko genes.”
Margo read down the list of characteristics as they became more and more obscure.
Gross enlargement and fusion of metacarpal bones in rear limb
Probable atavistic fusion of forelimb No. 3 & 4 digits
Fusion of proximal and middle phalanx on forelimb
Extreme thickening of calvaria
Probable 90% (?) negative rotation of ischium
Extreme thickening and prismatic cross-sectioning in femur
Nasal cavity enlarged
Three (?) highly involute conchae
Enlarged olfactory nerves and olfactory region of cerebellum
Probable external mucoid nasal glands
Reduced optic chiasm, reduced optic nerve
Frock slowly backed himself away from the monitor.
“Margo,” he said, “this describes a killing machine of the highest order. But look how many ‘probables’ and ‘possibles’ there are. This is a hypothetical description, at best.”
“Even so,” said Margo, “it sounds an awful lot like the Mbwun figurine in the exhibition.”
“No doubt. Margo, I particularly want to direct your attention to the brain size.”
“Nine to twelve hundred and fifty cubic centimeters,” Margo said, retrieving the printout. “That’s high, isn’t it?”
“High? It’s unbelievable. The upper limit is within human range. This beast, whatever it is, appears to have the strength of a grizzly bear, the speed of a greyhound, and the intelligence of a human being. I say appears; so much of this is conjecture on the part of the program. But look at this cluster of traits.”
He stabbed his finger at the list.
“Nocturnal—active at night. External mucoid nasal glands—that means it has a ‘wet’ nose, possessed by animals with a keen scent. Highly involute conchae—also a trait of animals with enhanced olfactory organs. Reduced optic chiasm—that is the part of the brain that processes eyesight. What we have is a creature with a preternatural sense of smell and very poor eyesight that hunts nocturnally.”
Frock thought for a moment, his brows contracted.
“Margo, this frightens me.”
“If we’re right, the whole idea of this creature frightens me,” Margo replied. She shuddered at the thought that she’d been working with the fibers herself.
“No, I mean this cluster of olfactory traits. If the program’s extrapolation is to be believed, the creature lives by smell, hunts by smell, thinks by smell. I’ve often heard it said that a dog sees an entire landscape of smell, as complex and beautiful as any landscape we see with our eyes. But the olfactory sense is more primitive than sight, and as a result, such animals also have a highly instinctual, primitive reaction to smell. That is what frightens me.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“In a few minutes, thousands of people will be arriving in the Museum. They will be congregating together in an enclosed space. The creature will be smelling the concentrated hormonal scent of all these people. That may very well irritate or even anger it.”
A silence settled in the lab.
“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, “you said that a couple of days elapsed from the locking up of the crates and the first killing. Then, another day to the second killing. It’s been three days since then.”
“Go on,” said Frock.
“It just seems to me the creature may be desperate by now. Whatever effect the thalamoid hormones have on the beast must have worn off—after all, those brain hormones are a poor substitute for the plant. If you’re right, the creature must be almost like a drug addict unable to get a fix. All the police activity has kept it lying low. But the question is—how long can it wait?”
“My God,” said Frock. “It’s seven o’clock. We must warn them. Margo, we must stop this opening. Otherwise, we might as well be ringing the dinner bell.” He moved toward the door, motioning her to follow.
HE WHO WALKS ON ALL FOURS
PART THREE
42
As seven o’clock neared, a tangle of cabs and limousines formed outside the Museum’s west entrance. Elegantly dressed occupants emerged gingerly, the men in near-identical dinner jackets, the women in furs. Umbrellas jousted as the guests rushed up the red carpet toward the Museum’s awning, trying to avoid the pelting rain that was already turning the sidewalks to streams and the gutters to rushing rivers.
Inside, the Great Rotunda, accustomed to silence at this advanced hour, was resounding with the echoes of a thousand expensive shoes crossing its marble expanse between the rows of palm trees leading to the Hall of the Heavens. The Hall itself held towering stands of bamboo in massive tubs festooned with violet lights. Clusters of drooping orchids had been artfully fixed to the bamboo, recalling tropical hanging gardens.
Somewhere deep inside, an invisible band briskly played “New York, New York.” An army of waiters in white tie threaded their way expertly through the crowd, carrying large silver platters crowded with champagne glasses and ranks of hors d’oeuvres. Streams of incoming guests joined the ranks of Museum scientists and staff already grazing on the free food. Spotlights, muted blue, caught the glitter of long sequined evening dresses, strings of diamonds, polished gold cufflinks, and tiaras.
Almost overnight, the opening of the Superstition Exhibition had become the preferred event among fashionable New York. Coming-out balls and fund-raising dinners took a backseat to the chance to see, firsthand, what all the fuss was about. Three thousand invitations had gone out and five thousand acceptances had come back.
Smithback, wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo with the twin faux pas of wide, spiked lapels and a frilled shirt, peered into the Hall of the Heavens, scanning for familiar faces. At the far end of the hall, a giant platform had been erected. Along one side was the elaborately decorated entrance to the exhibition, currently locked and guarded. A massive dance floor in the center was quickly filling up with couples. Once inside the hall, Smithback immediately found himself surrounded by innumerable conversations, all conducted at a painfully high volume.
“… that new psychohistorian, Grant? Well, she finally fessed up yesterday, told me what she’s been working on all this time. Get this: She’s trying to prove that the wanderings of Henry the Fourth after the second crusade were really just a fugue state brought on by acute stress response. It was all I could do to keep from telling her that…”
“… that new research assistant of mine? You know, the one with the enormous hooters? Well, yesterday she was standing by the autoclave, see, and she dropped this test tube full of…”
Smithback took a deep breath and made the plunge, cutting a path toward the hors d’oeuvres tables. This is going to be great, he thought.
* * *
Outside the main doors of the Great Rotunda, D’Agosta saw more rapid-fire flashing from the group of photographers, as yet another VIP came through the door, a wimpy handsome guy with an emaciated-looking woman clinging to each arm.
He stood where he could keep an eye on the metal detectors, the people coming in, and the throngs moving through the single door into the Hall of the Heavens. The floor of the Rotunda was slick with rainwater, and the coatcheck counter was stowing umbrellas briskly. In a far corner, the FBI had set up its forward security station: Coffey wanted a ringside seat from which to monitor the evening’s events. D’Agosta had to laugh. They had tried to make it inconspicuous, but the network of electrical, telephone, fiber-optic, and ribbon cables snaking out like an octopus from the station made it as easy to ignore as a bad hangover.
There was a rumble of thunder. The tops of the trees along the Hudson River promenade, new leaves still budding, were sawing about wildly in the wind.
D’Agosta’s radio hissed.
“Lieutenant, we got another argument over at the metal detector.”
D’Agosta could hear a shrill voice in the background. “Surely you know me.”
“Pull her aside. We gotta keep this crowd moving. If they won’t go through, just pull ’em out of the line. They’re holding things up.”
As D’Agosta holstered his radio, Coffey walked up with the Museum’s Security Director in tow. “Report?” Coffey asked brusquely.
Relic (Pendergast, Book 1) Page 24
