“Everyone’s in place,” D’Agosta said, removing the cigar and examining the soggy end. “I’ve got four plainclothes circulating in the party. Four uniforms patrolling the perimeter with your men. Five controlling traffic outside, and five supervising the metal detectors and the entrance. I got uniformed men inside the hall. Two of them will follow me into the exhibition when the ribbon’s cut. I got one man in the computer room, one man in the Security Control Room…”
Coffey squinted. “These uniformed men going into the exhibition with the crowd. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“It’s nothing formal. I just want us to be at or near the front of the crowd as they go through. You wouldn’t let us do a sweep, remember?”
Coffey sighed. “You can do your thing, but I don’t want a goddamn escort service. Unobtrusive, not blocking the exhibits. Okay?”
D’Agosta nodded.
He turned toward Ippolito. “And you?”
“Well, sir, all my men are in place, too. Exactly where you wanted them.”
“Good. My base of operations will be here in the Rotunda during the ceremony. Afterward, I’ll deploy. Meanwhile, Ippolito, I want you up front with D’Agosta. Get up there near the Director and the Mayor. You know the routine. D’Agosta, I want you to stay in the background. No glory-boy shit, don’t fuck up your last day. Got it?”
* * *
Waters stood in the cool of the computer room, bathed in neon light, his shoulder aching from the heavy shotgun. This had to be the most boring assignment he’d ever caught. He glanced at the geek—he had started thinking of him as that—tapping away at the computer. Tapping, tapping, for hours the guy had been tapping. And drinking Diet Cokes. Waters shook his head. First thing in the morning, maybe he should ask D’Agosta for a rotation. He was going crazy in here.
The geek scratched the back of his neck and stretched.
“Long day,” he said to Waters.
“Yeah,” said Waters.
“I’m almost done. You won’t believe what this program can do.”
“You’re probably right,” said Waters without enthusiasm. He checked his watch. Three more hours until his relief.
“Watch.” The geek hit a button. Waters moved a little closer to the screen. He peered at it. Nothing, just a bunch of writing, gibberish that he supposed was the program.
Then, the image of a bug appeared on the screen. At first it was still. Then it stretched its green legs and started walking across the lettering on the screen. Then another animated bug appeared on the screen. The two bugs noticed each other, and moved closer. They started screwing.
Waters looked at the geek. “What is this?” he asked.
“Just watch,” the geek said.
Soon, four bugs were born, and they started screwing. Pretty soon the screen was full of bugs. Then, the bugs began to eat the letters on the screen. In a couple of minutes, all the words on the screen were gone, and there was nothing left but bugs walking around. Then, the bugs started eating each other. Soon, nothing was left but blackness.
“Pretty cool, huh?” the geek said.
“Yeah,” said Waters. He paused. “What does the program do?”
“It’s just…” the geek looked a little confused. “It’s just a cool program, that’s all. It’s doesn’t do anything.”
“How long did it take you to write that?” asked Waters.
“Two weeks,” said the geek proudly, sucking air through his teeth. “On my own time, of course.”
The geek turned back to his terminal, and the tapping resumed. Waters relaxed, leaning against the wall nearest the Computer Room door. He could hear the faint sounds of the dance band over his head, the thump of the drums, the low vibration of the basses, the whine of the saxophones. He thought he could even hear the sounds of thousands of footsteps, shuffling and sliding. And here he was, stuck in this psycho ward with nothing but a key-tapping geek for company. The biggest excitement he had was when the geek got up for another Diet Coke.
At that moment, he heard a noise from inside the electrical systems room.
“You hear that?” he asked.
“No,” said the geek.
There was another long silence. Then, a definite thump.
“What the hell was that?” said Waters.
“I dunno,” said the geek. He stopped typing and looked around. “Maybe you ought to go take a look.”
Waters ran his hand over the smooth buttstock of his shotgun and eyed the door leading to the electrical room. Probably nothing. Last time, with D’Agosta, it had been nothing. He should just go in there and check things out. Of course, he could always call for backup from Security Command. It was just down the hall. His buddy Garcia was supposed to be in there … right?
Perspiration broke across his brow. Instinctively, Waters raised an arm to wipe it off. But he made no move toward the electrical room door.
43
As Margo rounded the corner into the Great Rotunda, she saw a scene of pandemonium: people shaking off drenched umbrellas, chattering in small and large groups, the racket of their conversations adding to the din from the reception beyond. She pushed Frock up to a velvet rope strung beside the metal detectors, a uniformed policeman standing watchfully next to it. Beyond, the Hall of the Heavens was flooded with yellow light. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling, sending flashing rainbows everywhere.
They displayed their Museum IDs to the policeman, who obediently opened the rope and let them through, checking Margo’s carryall as he did so. As Margo passed by, the cop gave her a funny glance. Then she looked down, and understood: She was still dressed in jeans and a sweater.
“Hurry,” said Frock. “Up front, to the lectern.”
The lectern and podium were on the far end of the hall, near the entrance to the exhibition. The hand-carved doors were chained, and the word SUPERSTITION was formed by an arc of crude bone-like letters across the top. On either side were wooden stelae, resembling huge totem poles or the pillars of a pagan temple. Margo could see Wright, Cuthbert, and the Mayor gathered on the platform, talking and joking, while a sound man fiddled with the nearby mikes. Behind them stood Ippolito amid a gaggle of administrators and aides, talking into his radio and gesturing furiously at someone out of sight. The noise was deafening.
“Excuse us!” bellowed Frock. Reluctantly, people moved aside.
“Look at all these people,” he yelled back at Margo. “The pheromonal level in this room must be astronomical. It will be irresistible to the beast! We’ve got to stop this right now.” He pointed to one side. “Look—there’s Gregory!” He gestured to Kawakita, standing by the edge of the dance floor, drink in hand.
The Assistant Curator worked his way toward them. “There you are, Dr. Frock. They’ve been looking for you. The ceremony’s about to start.”
Frock reached out and gripped Kawakita’s forearm. “Gregory!” he shouted. “You’ve got to help us! This event has got to be cancelled, and the Museum cleared at once!”
“What?” said Kawakita. “Is this some kind of joke?” He looked quizzically at Margo, then back at Frock.
“Greg,” said Margo over the commotion, “we’ve discovered what’s been killing people. It’s not a human being. It’s a creature, a beast. It’s nothing we’ve ever come across before. Your Extrapolation program helped us to identify it. It feeds on the packing fibers in the Whittlesey crates. When it can’t get those, it needs the human hypothalamus hormones as a substitute. We believe it must have a regular—”
“Whoa! Hold on. Margo, what are you talking about?”
“Dammit, Gregory!” Frock thundered. “We don’t have any more time to explain. We’ve got to get this place cleared now.”
Kawakita backed up a step. “Dr. Frock, with all due respect…”
Frock clutched his arm harder and spoke slowly and deliberately. “Gregory, listen to me. There is a terrible creature loose in this Museum. It needs to kill, and it will kill. Tonight. We must get everyone o
ut.”
Kawakita backed up another step, looking toward the podium. “I’m sorry,” he said over the noise. “I don’t know what this is all about, but if you’re using my extrapolation program for some kind of joke…” He prized his arm free of Frock’s gasp. “I really think you should go up to the platform, Dr. Frock. They’re waiting for you.”
“Greg—” Margo tried to say, but Kawakita had moved away, looking at them speculatively.
“To the podium!” said Frock. “Wright can do it. He can order this place evacuated.”
Suddenly they heard a drumroll and a fanfare.
“Winston!” shouted Frock, rolling into the open space in front of the platform. “Winston, listen! We’ve got to evacuate!”
Frock’s final words hung in the air as the fanfare faded away.
“There is a deadly beast loose in the Museum!” Frock shouted into the silence.
A sudden murmur arose in the crowd. Those closest to Frock backed away, looking at each other and muttering in low tones.
Wright glared at Frock while Cuthbert quickly separated himself from the group. “Frock,” he hissed. “What in bloody hell are you doing?” He bounded off the platform and came over.
“What is the matter with you, Frock? Have you gone mad?” he said in a vicious whisper.
Frock reached out. “Ian, there is a terrible beast loose in the Museum. I know we’ve had our differences, but trust me, please. Tell Wright we’ve got to get these people out. Now.”
Cuthbert looked at Frock intently. “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” the Scotsman said, “or what your game is. Perhaps it’s some desperate eleventh-hour attempt to derail the exhibition, to turn me into a laughingstock. But I will tell you this, Frock: If you make one more outburst, I will have Mr. Ippolito forcibly remove you from these premises and I will see to it that you never set foot in here again.”
“Ian, I beg of you—”
Cuthbert turned and walked back to the podium.
Margo laid a hand on Frock’s shoulder. “Don’t bother,” she said quietly. “They’re not going to believe us. I wish George Moriarty were here to help. This is his show, he must be around somewhere. But I haven’t seen him.”
“What can we do?” Frock asked, trembling with frustration. The conversations around them resumed as the guests near the podium assumed some kind of joke had taken place.
“I guess we should find Pendergast,” Margo said. “He’s the only one with enough clout to do something about this.”
“He won’t believe us, either,” Frock said, dispiritedly.
“Maybe not right away,” Margo said, wheeling him around. “But he’ll hear us out. We’ve got to hurry.”
Behind them, Cuthbert signalled for another drumroll and fanfare. Then he walked over to the podium and held up his hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he cried out. “I have the honor to introduce to you the Director of the New York Museum of Natural History, Winston Wright!”
Margo looked around as Wright took the podium, smiling and waving to the crowd.
“Welcome!” he cried out. “Welcome my friends, fellow New Yorkers, citizens of the world! Welcome to the unveiling of the greatest museum show ever mounted!” Wright’s amplified words echoed through the Hall. A tremendous burst of applause rose to the domed ceiling.
“We’ll call security,” said Margo. “They’ll know where Pendergast is. There’s a bank of phones out in the Rotunda.”
She began to push Frock toward the entrance. Behind her, she could hear Wright’s voice booming through the PA system: “This is a show about our deepest beliefs, our deepest fears, the brightest and the darkest sides of human nature…”
44
D’Agosta stood behind the podium, watching Wright’s back as he addressed the listening crowd. Then he grabbed his radio. “Bailey?” he said in a low tone. “When they cut that ribbon, I want you and McNitt to get in ahead of the crowd. Just behind Wright and the Mayor, but ahead of everyone else. You got that? Blend in as much as possible, but don’t let them push you out of the way.”
“Roger, Loo.”
“When the human mind evolved to understand the workings of the universe, the first question it asked was: What is life? Next, it asked: What is death? We’ve learned a lot about life. But, despite all our technology, we’ve learned very little about death and what lies beyond…”
The crowd was rapt, listening.
“We have sealed the exhibition so that you, our honored guests, will be the first inside. You will see many rare and exquisite artifacts, most on display for the first time ever. You will see images of beauty and ugliness, great good and ultimate evil, symbols of man’s struggle to cope with and comprehend the ultimate mystery…”
D’Agosta wondered what that business with the old curator in the wheelchair had been. Frock, the name was. He’d shouted something, but then Cuthbert, the honcho of the event, had sent him off. Museum politics, worse even than down at One Police Plaza.
“… most fervent hope that this exhibition will launch a new era at our Museum: an era in which technological innovation and a renaissance in the scientific method will combine to reinvigorate the interest of the museum-going public in today’s…”
D’Agosta scanned the room, mentally spot-checking his men. Everyone seemed to be in place. He nodded to the guard at the exhibition entrance, instructing him to remove the chain from the heavy wooden doors.
As the speech ended, a roar of applause filled the vast space once again. Then Cuthbert returned to the podium.
“I want to thank a number of people…”
D’Agosta glanced at his watch, wondering where Pendergast was. If he was in the room, D’Agosta would have known it. Pendergast was a guy that stuck out in a crowd.
Cuthbert was holding up an enormous pair of scissors, which he handed to the Mayor. The Mayor grasped one handle and offered the other to Wright, and the two of them walked down the platform steps to a huge ribbon in front of the exhibition entrance. “What are we waiting for?” said the Mayor facetiously, drawing a laugh. They snipped the ribbon in half to an explosion of flashbulbs, and two of the Museum guards slowly pulled open the doors. The band swung into “The Joint Is Jumpin’.”
“Now,” said D’Agosta, speaking fast into his radio. “Get into position.”
As the applause and cheers echoed thunderously, D’Agosta walked briskly forward along the wall, then ducked past the doors into the empty exhibition. He did a quick scan inside, then spoke into his radio. “Clear.” Ippolito came up next, scowling at D’Agosta. Arm in arm, the Mayor and the Director stood in the doorway, posing for the cameras. Then, beaming, they walked forward into the exhibition.
As D’Agosta moved deeper into the exhibition ahead of the group, the cheering and applause grew fainter. Inside, it was cool and smelled of new carpeting and dust, with a faint unpleasant odor of decay.
Wright and Cuthbert were giving the Mayor a tour. Behind them, D’Agosta could see his two men, and behind them a vast sea of people, crowding in, craning their necks, gesturing, talking. From D’Agosta’s perspective within the exhibition, it looked like a tidal wave. One exit. Shit.
He spoke into his radio. “Walden, I want you to tell those Museum guards to slow down the flow. Too many goddamn people are crowding in here.”
“Ten-four, Lieutenant.”
“This,” said Wright, still holding the Mayor’s arm, “is a very rare sacrificial gurney from Mesoamerica. That’s the Sun God depicted on the front, guarded by jaguars. The priests would sacrifice the victim on this table, cut out the beating heart, and hold it up to the sun. The blood flowed down these channels and collected here at the bottom.”
“Impressive,” said the Mayor. “I could use one of those up in Albany.”
Wright and Cuthbert laughed, the sound reverberating off the still artifacts and display cases.
* * *
Coffey stood in the forward security station, legs apart, hands o
n hips, his face expressionless. Most of the guests had arrived, and those who hadn’t were probably not going to venture out. It was raining in earnest now, sheets of water cascading onto the pavement. Across the expanse of the Rotunda, through the east door, Coffey could clearly see the festivities in the Hall of the Heavens. It was a beautiful room, with coruscating stars covering the velvety black dome that floated sixty feet overhead. Swirling galaxies and nebulae glowed softly along the walls. Wright was speaking at the podium, and the cutting ceremony would be starting soon.
“How’s it look?” Coffey asked one of his agents.
“Nothing exciting,” the agent said, scanning the security board. “No breaches, no alarms. Perimeter’s quiet as a tomb.”
“The way I like it,” Coffey replied.
He glanced back into the Hall of the Heavens in time to see two guards pulling open the huge doors to the Superstition Exhibition. He’d missed the ribbon cutting. The crowd was moving forward now, all five thousand at once, it seemed.
“What the hell do you think Pendergast is up to?” Coffey said to another of his agents. He was glad Pendergast was out of his hair for the time being, but he was nervous at the thought of the Southerner wandering around, beholden to no one.
“Haven’t seen him,” came the response. “Want me to check with Security Command?”
“Naw,” Coffey said. “It’s nice without him. Nice and peaceful.”
* * *
D’Agosta’s radio hissed. “Walden here. Listen, we need some help. The guards are having a hard time controlling the flow. There’s just too many people.”
“Where’s Spenser? He should be floating around there somewhere. Have him bar the entrance, let people out but not in, while you and the Museum guards set up an orderly line. This crowd has to be controlled.”
“Yes, sir.”
The exhibition was filling up quickly now. Twenty minutes had gone by and Wright and the Mayor were deep inside the exhibition, near the locked rear exit. They’d moved quickly at first, keeping to the central halls and avoiding the secondary passages. But now, Wright had stopped at a particular exhibit to explain something to the Mayor, and people were streaming past them into the exhibition’s farthest recesses.
Relic (Pendergast, Book 1) Page 25
