Relic (Pendergast, Book 1)

by Preston, Douglas

  “Keep near the front,” D’Agosta said to Bailey and McNitt, the two men on advance duty.

  He skipped ahead and did a quick visual through two side alcoves. Spooky exhibition, he thought. A very sophisticated haunted house, with all the trimmings. The dim lighting, for instance. Not so dim, though, that you couldn’t make out nasty little details. Like the Congo power figure, with its bulging eye sockets and torso riddled with sharp nails. Or the nearby mummy, vertical in a freestanding case, that was streaked with dripped blood. Now that, thought D’Agosta, is a little overdone.

  The crowd continued to spread out, and he ducked into the next set of alcoves. All clear.

  “Walden, how’d you make out?” D’Agosta radioed.

  “Lieutenant, I can’t find Spenser. He doesn’t seem to be around, and I can’t leave the entrance to find him with the crowd the way it is.”

  “Shit. Okay, I’m calling Drogan and Frazier over to help you.”

  D’Agosta radioed one of the two plainclothes units patrolling the party. “Drogan, you copy?”

  A pause. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “I want you and Frazier to back up Walden at the exhibition entrance, on the double.”

  “Ten-four.”

  He looked around. More mummies, but none with blood all over them.

  D’Agosta stopped, frozen. Mummies don’t bleed.

  Slowly, he turned around and started pushing past the eager phalanx of gawkers. It was just some curator’s sick little idea. Part of the exhibit.

  But he had to be sure.

  The case was surrounded by people, as were all the others. D’Agosta made his way through the crowd and glanced at the label: “Anasazi burial from Mummy Cave, Canyon del Muerto, Arizona.”

  The streaks of dried blood on the head and chest of the mummy looked like they had come from above. Trying to remain inconspicuous, he leaned as close to the case as possible and peered up.

  Above the mummy’s head, the top of the case was open, exposing a ceiling crawling with steam pipes and ductwork. A hand, a watch, and the cuff of a blue shirt protruded over the edge of the case. A small icicle of dried blood hung from the middle finger.

  D’Agosta backed into a corner, looked around, and spoke urgently into his radio.

  “D’Agosta calling Security Command.”

  “This is Garcia, Lieutenant.”

  “Garcia, I’ve got a dead body in here. We’ve got to get everybody out. If they see it and panic, we’re fucked.”

  “Jesus,” said Garcia.

  “Get in touch with the guards and Walden. Nobody else is to be allowed into the exhibition. You got that? And I want the Hall of the Heavens cleared in case there’s a stampede. Get everyone out, but don’t cause any alarm. Now get Coffey for me.”

  “Roger.”

  D’Agosta looked around, trying to spot Ippolito. His radio squawked.

  “Coffey here. What the hell is it, D’Agosta?”

  “We got a dead body in here. It’s lying on top of a case. I’m the only one who’s spotted it, but that could change at any moment. We’ve got to get everyone out while there’s still time.”

  As he opened his mouth to speak again, D’Agosta heard, over the noise of the crowd, “That blood looks so real.”

  “There’s a hand up there,” D’Agosta heard someone else say.

  Two woman were backing away from the case, looking up.

  “It’s a body!” one said loudly.

  “It’s not real,” the other replied. “It’s a gimmick for the opening, it has to be.”

  D’Agosta held up his hands, moving up to the case. “Please, everyone!”

  There was a brief, terrible, listening silence. “A body!” someone else screamed.

  There was a brief movement of the crowd, followed by a sudden stillness. Then, another scream: “He’s been murdered!”

  The crowd peeled back in two directions, and several people stumbled and fell. A large woman in a cocktail dress toppled backward onto D’Agosta, slamming him up against the case. The air was slowly forced out of his chest as the weight of more bodies pressed against him. Then he felt the case behind him start to give.

  “Wait!” he gasped.

  From the darkness above, something big slid off the top of the case and flopped onto the tight mass of people, knocking several more down. From his awkward angle, D’Agosta could only tell that it was bloody, and that it had been human. He didn’t think it had a head.

  Utter pandemonium broke out. The close space filled with screaming and shouting, and people started to run, clawing at each other, stumbling. D’Agosta felt the case topple. Suddenly, the mummy fell to the floor, with D’Agosta on top. As he grabbed the side of the case he felt glass slice into his palm. He tried to stand, but was knocked back into the case by the surging crowd.

  He heard the hiss from his radio, found it was still in his right hand, and raised it to his face.

  “This is Coffey. What the hell is going on, D’Agosta?”

  “We’ve got a panic on our hands, Coffey. You’re going to have to evacuate the Hall immediately, or—

  “Shit!” he roared as the radio was knocked from his hand by the surging crowd.

  45

  Margo watched dispiritedly as Frock shouted into an internal phone set in the granite walls of the Great Rotunda. Wright’s amplified speech poured out of the Hall of the Heavens, preventing Margo from hearing a word Frock said. Finally, Frock reached up, slamming the phone onto its cradle. He wheeled himself around to face her. “This is absurd. Apparently, Pendergast is in the basement somewhere. Or at least, he was. He radioed in about an hour ago. They refuse to contact him without authorization.”

  “In the basement? Where?” Margo asked.

  “Section 29, they said. Why he’s down there, or was down there, they refuse to say. My guess is they don’t know. Section 29 covers a lot of ground.” He turned to Margo. “Shall we?”

  “Shall we what?”

  “Go down to the basement, of course,” Frock replied.

  “I don’t know,” Margo said dubiously. “Perhaps we should get the authorization they need to summon him up.”

  Frock moved impatiently in his wheelchair. “We don’t even know who could give such authorization.” He stared at her, becoming aware of her uncertainty. “I don’t think you need worry about the creature confronting us, my dear,” he said. “If I’m right, it will be drawn to the concentration of people here at the exhibition. It’s our obligation to do whatever we can to prevent a catastrophe; we took that on when we made these discoveries.”

  Still Margo hesitated. It was one thing for Frock to speak in grandiose terms. He hadn’t been inside that exhibition. He hadn’t heard the stealthy padding of feet. He hadn’t run blindly in the screaming dark …

  She took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Since Section 29 was inside the Cell Two security perimeter, Margo and Frock had to show their IDs twice on their way to the proper elevator. Apparently, the curfew being suspended for the evening, guards and police officers were more concerned about detaining suspicious or unauthorized characters than restricting the movement of Museum employees.

  “Pendergast!” Frock shouted as Margo wheeled him out of the elevator into the dim basement corridor. “This is Doctor Frock. Can you hear me?”

  His voice echoed and died.

  Margo knew a little of the history behind Section 29. When the Museum’s powerplant had been located nearby, the area housed steam pipes, supply tunnels, and the subterranean cubbyholes used by troglodyte workers. After the Museum switched to a more modern power plant in the 1920s, the old works had been removed, leaving a series of ghostly warrens now used for storage.

  Margo wheeled Frock down the low-ceilinged hallways. Every so often, Frock would bang on a door or call Pendergast’s name. Each time, his shouts were greeted by silence.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” Frock said as Margo stopped for a
breather. Frock’s white hair was in disarray, and his tuxedo jacket was rumpled.

  Margo looked nervously around. She knew approximately where they were: somewhere, at the far end of the confusion of passages, lay the vast, silent space of the old powerhouse: a lightless, subterranean pantheon now used to hold the Museum’s collection of whale bones. Despite Frock’s predictions of the creature’s behavior, the shouting made her nervous.

  “This could take hours,” Frock said. “He may not be here anymore. Perhaps he never was.” He sighed deeply. “Pendergast was our last hope.”

  “Maybe the noise and confusion will frighten the creature, keep it in hiding, away from the party,” Margo said with a hope she didn’t feel.

  Frock rested his head in his hands. “Not likely. The beast must be driven by smell. It may be intelligent, it may be cunning, but like a human serial killer, when its blood lust is up it cannot control itself.”

  Frock sat up, his eyes filled with renewed vigor. “Pendergast!” he shouted again. “Where are you?”

  * * *

  Waters stood listening, his body tensed. He could feel his heart pounding, and he couldn’t seem to gulp enough air into his lungs.

  He’d been in plenty of dangerous situations before, been shot at, knifed, even had acid thrown at him once. Every time he’d been cool, almost detached, when he’d had to be. Now, one little thump and I’m panicking. He clawed at his collar. The air’s stuffy in this damn room. He willed himself to breathe slowly and deeply. I’ll just call Garcia. We’ll investigate together. And find nothing.

  Then he noticed that the rustling of feet overhead had changed its rhythm. Instead of the scraping and sliding he’d heard before, now he heard a constant drumming, like the sound of running feet. As he listened, he thought he heard a faint screaming. Dread flooded through him.

  There was another thump in the electrical room.

  Sweet Jesus, something big’s happening.

  He grabbed his radio. “Garcia? You copy? Requesting backup to investigate suspicious noises in the electrical systems room.”

  Waters swallowed. Garcia wasn’t responding on the regular frequency. As Waters holstered his radio, he noticed that the geek had stood up and was heading for the electrical room.

  “What are you doing?” Waters asked.

  “I want to see what that noise is,” the geek said, opening the door. “I think the air conditioner might have failed again.” He put his hand around the doorframe, feeling for a light switch.

  “Wait a minute, you,” Waters said. “Don’t—”

  Waters’s radio burst into static. “We got a stampede in here!” There was more static. “… All units, mobilize for emergency evacuation!” More static. “Can’t hold this crowd, we need backup now, now…”

  Jesus. Waters grabbed his radio, punched buttons. In an instant, all bands had been taken. He could hear something terrible happening right over his head. Shit.

  Waters looked up. The geek was gone, and the door to the electrical room was open, but the light inside was still off. Why was the light still off? Without taking his eyes from the open door, he carefully unshouldered his shotgun, pumped a slug into the chamber, and started forward.

  Carefully, he moved up to the edge of the door, looked around. Blackness.

  “Hey, you,” he said. “You in there?” As he moved inside the darkened room, he felt his mouth go dry.

  There was a sudden loud thump to his left, and Waters instinctively dropped to his knee and pumped three rounds, each one a flash of light and a deafening blast.

  There was a shower of sparks and a gout of flame licked upward, briefly illuminating the room with lambent orange light. The geek was on his knees, looking up at Waters.

  “Don’t shoot!” the geek said, his voice breaking. “Please, don’t shoot anymore!”

  Waters raised himself on trembling legs, ears ringing. “I heard a sound,” he cried. “Why didn’t you answer me, you stupid shit?”

  “It was the air conditioner,” the geek said, tears streaming down his face. “It was the air-conditioner pump failing, like before.”

  Waters backed up, feeling behind him for the wall switch. Gunpowder hung in the air like a blue fog. On the far wall, a large mounted box of metal was smoking from three large, ragged holes in its front casing.

  Waters hung his head, sank back against the wall.

  With a sudden pop, an electrical arc sliced across the ruined box, followed by a crackling and another shower of sparks. The acrid air grew foul. The lights in the Computer Room flickered, dimmed, brightened. Waters heard one alarm go off, and then another.

  “What’s happening?” he shouted. The lights dimmed again.

  “You destroyed the central switching box,” the geek cried, rising to his feet and running past him into the Computer Room.

  “Oh, shit,” Waters breathed.

  The lights went out.

  46

  Coffey shouted again into the radio. “D’Agosta, come in!” He waited. “Shit!”

  He switched to the Security Command channel. “Garcia, what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Garcia said nervously. “I think Lieutenant D’Agosta said there was a body in…” There was a pause. “Sir, I’m getting reports of panic in the exhibition. The guards are—”

  Coffey cut him off and switched the bands, listening. “We got a stampede in here!” the radio squawked.

  The agent switched back to Security Command. “Garcia, get the word out. All units, prepare for emergency evacuation procedures.” He turned to look across the Great Rotunda, through the east door into the Hall of the Heavens.

  A visible ripple passed through the crowd, and the background chatter began to die away. Over the sounds of the band, Coffey could hear clearly now the sound of muffled screams and the low thunder of running feet. The movement toward the exhibition entrance faltered. Then the crowd surged backward, rebounding like a pressure wave. There were some angry yells and confused shouts, and Coffey thought he heard crying. Again the crowd was still.

  Coffey unbuttoned his jacket, and turned toward the agents in the forward station. “Emergency crowd control procedures. Move out.”

  Suddenly the crowd surged backward, and a frenzy of shouting and screaming broke from the open door of the Hall. The band faltered, then fell silent. In an instant, everyone was running toward the exit to the Great Rotunda.

  “Go, you son of a bitch!” said Coffey, shoving one of his men in the back, holding his radio in his right hand. “D’Agosta, you copy?”

  As the crowd began to pour out of the Hall, the agents collided with the surging mass and were forced back. Thrusting himself from the roiling mass of bodies, Coffey backed away slightly, panting and cursing.

  “It’s like a tidal wave!” one of his men yelled. “We’ll never make it in!”

  Suddenly the lights dimmed. Coffey’s radio crackled again.

  “Garcia here. Listen, sir, all the security lights have gone red, the board’s lit up like a Christmas tree. The perimeter alarms are all coming on.”

  Coffey moved forward again, fighting to stand his ground against the crowd streaming past him. He could no longer see the other agents. The lights flickered a second time, and then he felt a low rumble from the direction of the Hall. Coffey looked up and saw the thick edge of the metal security door descending from a slot in the ceiling.

  “Garcia!” Coffey shouted into the radio. “The east door is coming down! Shut it off! Get it back up, for Chrissake!”

  “Sir, their controls indicate it’s still up. But something’s happening down here. All the systems are—”

  “I don’t give a fuck what their controls say. It’s coming down!” He was suddenly spun around by the fleeing crowd. The screaming was continuous now, a strange, banshee-like keening noise that raised the hair on a person’s neck. Coffey had never seen anything like it, never: smoke, emergency lights blinking, people running over other people, glassy panic in t
heir eyes. The metal detectors had been knocked over and the X-ray machines shattered as people in tuxedos and gowns went running out into the pouring rain, clawing past each other, stumbling and falling across the red carpet and onto the soaked pavement. Coffey saw little flashes on the steps outside the Museum, first a few, and then several.

  He yelled into his radio. “Garcia, alert the cops outside. Have them restore order, get the press the hell out of there. And have them get that door up, now!”

  “They’re trying, sir, but all the systems are failing. We’re losing power. The emergency doors drop independent of the power grid, and they can’t activate the fail-safe controls. Alarms are going off all over the place—”

  A man coming through nearly bowled Coffey over as he heard Garcia shout, “Sir! Total system failure!”

  “Garcia, where the fuck is the backup system?” He forced a path sideways and found himself pinned against the wall. It was no use, he wasn’t going to get inside through the stampede. The door was now halfway down. “Give me the technician! I need the manual override code!”

  The lights flickered a third time and went out, plunging the Rotunda into darkness. Over the screams, the rumble of the descending door continued relentlessly.

  * * *

  Pendergast ran his hand over the rough stone wall of the cul-de-sac, rapping a few places lightly with his knuckles. The plaster was cracking and flaking off in pieces, and the light bulb in the ceiling was broken.

  Opening the bag, he withdrew the yellow object—a miner’s hat—adjusted it carefully on his head and flicked its switch. Tilting his head, he ran the powerful beam of light over the wall in front of him. Then he pulled out the creased blueprints, directing the light onto them. He walked backward, counting his steps. Then, taking a penknife from his pocket, he placed its point into the plaster and gently twisted the blade. A piece of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell away, revealing the faint tracings of an ancient doorway.

  Pendergast jotted in his notebook, stepped out of the cul-de-sac, and paced along the hall, counting under his breath. He stopped opposite a stack of crumbling Sheet-rock. Then, he pulled it sharply away from the wall. The material fell with a crash and a great billowing of white dust. Pendergast’s light exposed an old panel set low in the wall.