Relic

by Douglas Preston

  “Go ahead!” Frock cried. “Don’t stay here on my account!”

  Pendergast smiled thinly. “It isn’t that, Doctor. It’s the inclement weather. You know how the subbasement floods during rainy spells. I heard someone on the police radio saying the rain outside has been approaching monsoon strength for the last hour. When I was sprinkling those fibers into the subbasement, I noticed the water was at least two feet deep and flowing quickly eastward. That would imply drainage from the river. We couldn’t get down there now even if we wanted to.” Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “If D’Agosta isn’t out by now—well, his chances are marginal, at best.”

  He turned toward Margo. “Perhaps the best thing would be for you two to stay here, inside the Secure Area. We know the creature can’t get past this reinforced door. Within a couple of hours, they are sure to restore power. I believe there are several men still trapped in Security Command and the Computer Room. They may be vulnerable. You’ve taught me a lot about this creature. We know its weaknesses, and we know its strengths. Those areas are near a long, unobstructed hallway. With you two safe in here, I can hunt it for a change.”

  “No,” said Margo. “You can’t do it by yourself.”

  “Perhaps not, Ms. Green, but I plan on making a fairly good imitation of it.”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said resolutely.

  “Sorry.” Pendergast stood by the open door to the Secure Area expectantly.

  “That thing is highly intelligent,” she said. I don’t think you can go up against it alone. If you think that because I’m a woman—”

  [412] Pendergast looked astonished. “Ms. Green, I’m shocked you would have such a low opinion of me. The fact is, you’ve never been in this kind of situation before. Without a gun, you can’t do anything.”

  Margo looked at him combatively. “I saved your ass back there when I told you to switch on your lamp,” she challenged.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  From the darkness, Frock said, “Pendergast, don’t be a Southern gentleman fool. Take her.”

  Pendergast turned to Frock. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own, Doctor?” he asked. “We’ll need to take both the flashlight and the miner’s lamp if we’re to have any chance of success.”

  “Of course!” Frock said with a dismissive wave. “I could use a bit of rest after all this excitement.”

  Pendergast hesitated a moment longer, then looked bemused. “Very well,” he said. “Margo, lock the doctor inside the Secure Area, get his keys and what’s left of my suit jacket, and let’s go.”

  Smithback gave the flashlight a savage shake. The light flickered, grew brighter for a moment, then dimmed again.

  “If that light goes out,” D’Agosta said, “we’re fucked. Turn it off; we’ll switch it on now and then to check our progress.”

  They moved through the darkness, the sound of rushing water filling the close air. Smithback led; behind him came D’Agosta, grasping the journalist’s hand—which, like the rest of him, had grown almost entirely numb.

  Suddenly, Smithback pricked up his ears. In the dark, he gradually became aware of a new sound.

  “You hear that?” Smithback asked.

  D’Agosta listened. “I hear something,” he answered.

  “It sounds to me like—” Smithback fell silent.

  “A waterfall,” D’Agosta said with finality. “But [413] whatever it is must be a ways off. Sounds carry in this tunnel. Keep it to yourself.”

  The group slogged on in silence.

  “Light,” said D’Agosta.

  Smithback turned it on, played it down the empty hall in front of them, then switched it off again. The sound was louder now; quite a bit louder, in fact. He felt a surge in the water.

  “Shit!” said D’Agosta.

  There was a sudden commotion behind them.

  “Help!” came a feminine voice. “I’ve slipped! Don’t let go!”

  “Grab her, somebody!” the Mayor shouted.

  Smithback snapped on the light and angled it quickly backward. A middle-aged woman was thrashing about in the water, her long evening dress billowing out across the inky surface.

  “Stand up!” the Mayor was shouting. “Anchor your feet!”

  “Help me!” she screamed.

  Smithback shoved the flashlight into his pocket and braced himself against the current. The woman was floating directly toward him. He saw her arm lash out and felt it wrap around his thigh in a viselike grip. He felt himself slipping.

  “Wait!” he cried. “Stop struggling! I’ve got you!”

  Her legs kicked out and wrapped around his knees. Smithback lost his grip on D’Agosta and staggered forward, marveling at her strength even as he was pulled off balance.

  “You’re dragging me under!” he said, toppling to his chest in the water and feeling the current sucking him downward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw D’Agosta wading in his direction. The woman clambered onto him in a blind panic, forcing his head under water. He rose up under her damp gown, and then it was clinging to his nose and chin, disorienting him, suffocating him. A [414] great lassitude began to sweep over him. He went under a second time, a strange, hollow roaring in his ears.

  Suddenly he was above the water again, choking and coughing. A dreadful shrieking was coming from the tunnel ahead of them. He was held in a powerful grip. D’Agosta’s grip.

  “We lost the woman,” D’Agosta said. “Come on.”

  Her shrieks echoed toward them, growing fainter as she was swept farther downstream. Some of the guests were shouting and crying directions to her, others sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Quick, everybody!” D’Agosta yelled. “Stay against the wall! Let’s move forward, and, whatever you do, don’t break the chain.” Under his breath, he muttered to Smithback, “Tell me you’ve still got the flashlight.”

  “Here it is,” Smithback said, testing it.

  “We have to keep going, or we’ll lose everybody,” D’Agosta muttered. Then he laughed a short, mirthless laugh. “Looks like I saved your life this time. That makes us even, Smithback.”

  Smithback said nothing. He was trying to shut out the horrifying, anguished screams, fainter now and distorted by the tunnel. The sound of roaring water grew clearer and more menacing.

  The event had demoralized the group. “We’ll be all right if we just hold hands!” Smithback heard the Mayor shout. “Keep the chain intact!”

  Smithback gripped D’Agosta’s hand as hard as he could. They waded downstream in the darkness.

  “Light,” said D’Agosta.

  Smithback switched on the beam. And the bottom dropped out of his world.

  A hundred yards ahead, the high ceiling of the tunnel sloped downwards to a narrow semicircular funnel. Beneath it, the roiling water writhed and surged thunderously, then plummeted abruptly into a dark chasm. Heavy mist rose, bearding the mossy throat of the pit with dark spray. Smithback watched, slackjawed, as all [415] his hopes for a best-seller, all his dreams—even his wish to stay alive—disappeared into the whirlpool.

  Dimly, he realized that the screaming behind him wasn’t screaming, but cheering. He looked back, and saw the bedraggled group staring upward, above his head. At the point where the curved brickwork of the ceiling met the wall of the tunnel, a dark hole yawned, perhaps three feet square. Poking out of it was the end of a rusty iron ladder, bolted to the ancient masonry.

  The cheering rapidly died away as the awful truth dawned.

  “It’s too fucking far to reach,” D’Agosta said.

  = 58 =

  They moved away from the Secure Area and stealthily climbed a stairwell. Pendergast turned to Margo, put a finger to his lips, then pointed to the crimson splashes of blood on the floor. She nodded: the beast had gone this way when it ran from their lights. She remembered that she’d been up this staircase just the day before with Smithback, evading the guard. She followed Pendergast as he flicked off the miner’s lamp, cautiously opened the fi
rst floor door, and moved out into the darkness beyond, the bundle of fibers clasped over his shoulder.

  The agent stopped a moment, inhaling. “I don’t smell anything,” he whispered. “Which way to Security Command and the Computer Room?”

  “I think we go left from here,” Margo said. “And then through the Hall of Ancient Mammals. It’s not too far. Just around the corner from Security Command is the long hallway Dr. Frock told you about.”

  Pendergast switched on the flashlight briefly and shone it down the corridor. “No blood spoor,” he [417] murmured. “The creature headed straight upstairs from the Secure Area-past this landing and right toward Dr. Wright, I’m afraid.” He turned toward Margo. “And how do you propose we lure it here?”

  “Use the fibers again,” she replied.

  “It didn’t fall for that trick last time.”

  “But this time we’re not trying to trap it. All we want to do is lure it around the corner. You’ll be at the other end of the hallway, ready to shoot. We’ll just leave some fibers at one end of the hall. We’ll make a—a what do you call it?—at the far end.”

  “A blind.”

  “Right, a blind. And we’ll be hiding there, in the dark. When it comes, I’ll train the miner’s light onto it and you can start shooting.”

  “Indeed. And how will we know when the creature has arrived? If the hallway is as long as Dr. Frock says it is, we may not be able to smell it in time.”

  Margo was quiet. “That’s tough,” she finally admitted.

  They stood for a moment in silence.

  “There’s a glass case at the end of the hall,” Margo said. “It’s meant to display new books written by the Museum staff, but Mrs. Rickman never bothered to have it filled. So it won’t be locked. We can put the bundle in there. The creature may be out for blood, but I doubt it’ll be able to resist that. It’ll make some noise prying open the case. When you hear the noise, you shoot.”

  “Sorry,” Pendergast said after a moment, “but I think it’s too obvious. We have to ask the question again: If I came across a setup like this, would I know it was a trap? In this case, the answer is yes. We need to think of something a little more subtle. Any new trap that uses the fibers as bait is bound to arouse its suspicions.”

  Margo leaned against the cold marble wall of the corridor. “It has an acute sense of hearing as well as smell,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  [418] “Perhaps the simplest approach is best. We use ourselves as bait. We make some noise. Talk loudly. Sound like easy prey.”

  Pendergast nodded. “Like the ptarmigan, feigning a broken wing, drawing off the fox. And how will we know it’s there?”

  “We’ll use the flashlight intermittently. Wave it about, shine it down the hall. We’ll use the low setting; it may irritate the creature, but it won’t rebuff it. But it will allow us to see it. The creature will think we’re looking around, trying to find our way. Then, when it comes for us, I switch to the miner’s light and you start shooting.”

  Pendergast thought for a moment. “What about the possibility of the creature coming from the other direction? From behind us?”

  “The hall dead-ends in the staff entrance to the Hall of Pacific Peoples,” Margo pointed out.

  “So we’ll be trapped at the end of a cul-de-sac,” Pendergast protested. “I don’t like it.”

  “Even if we weren’t trapped,” Margo said, “we wouldn’t be able to escape if you miss your shots. According to the Extrapolator, the thing can move almost as fast as a greyhound.”

  Pendergast thought for a moment. “You know, Margo, this plan might work. It’s deceptively simple and uncluttered, like a Zurbarán still life or a Bruckner symphony. If this creature devastated a SWAT team, it probably feels there isn’t much more that human beings can do to it. It wouldn’t be as cautious.”

  “And it’s wounded, which may slow it down.”

  “Yes, it’s wounded. I think D’Agosta shot it, and the SWAT team may have gotten one or two additional rounds into it. Maybe I hit it, as well; there’s no way to be sure. But, Margo, being wounded makes it infinitely more dangerous. I would rather stalk ten healthy lions than one wounded one.” He straightened his shoulders and felt for his gun. “Lead on, please. Standing here in [419] the dark with this bundle on my back makes me very uneasy. From now on, we use only the flashlight. Be very careful.”

  “Why don’t you give me the miner’s light, so you’ll be free to use the gun?” Margo suggested. “If we meet up with the beast unexpectedly, we’ll have to drive it away with the light.”

  “If it’s badly wounded, I doubt anything will drive it away,” replied Pendergast. “But here it is.”

  They moved quietly down the corridor, around a corner, and through a service door leading into the Hall of Ancient Mammals. It seemed to Margo that her stealthy footsteps echoed like gunshots across the polished stone floor. Row upon row of glass cases gleamed dully in the glow of the flashlight: giant elk, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves. Mastodon and wooly mammoth skeletons reared in the center of the gallery. Margo and Pendergast moved cautiously toward the Hall’s exit, Pendergast’s gun at the ready.

  “See that door at the far end, the one marked STAFF ONLY?” Margo whispered. “Beyond that is the corridor housing Security Command, Staff Services, and the Computer Room. Around the corner is the hallway where you can set up your blind.” She hesitated. “If the creature is already there ...”

  “... I’ll wish I’d stayed in New Orleans, Ms. Green.” Stepping through the staff entrance into Section 18, they found themselves in a narrow hallway lined with doors. Pendergast swept the area with his flashlight: nothing.

  “That’s it,” said Margo, indicating a door to their left. “Security Command.” Margo could briefly hear the murmur of voices as they passed. They passed another door marked CENTRAL COMPUTER.

  “They’re sitting ducks in there,” Margo said. “Should we—?”

  “No,” came the response. “No time.”

  [420] They turned the corner and stopped. Pendergast played his light down the hallway.

  “What’s that doing there?” he asked.

  Halfway down the hall, a massive steel security door flashed mockingly at them in the glow of the flashlight.

  “The good Doctor was mistaken,” Pendergast said. “Cell Two must cut this corridor in half. That’s the edge of the perimeter, there.”

  “What’s the distance?” Margo said in a monotone.

  Pendergast pursed his lips. “I’d guess a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five feet, at the most.”

  She turned to the agent. “Is that enough room?”

  Pendergast remained motionless. “No. But it’ll have to do. Come on, Ms. Green, let’s get into position.”

  The Mobile Command Unit was getting stuffier. Coffey unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie with a savage tug. The humidity had to be 110 percent. He hadn’t seen rain like this in twenty years. The drains were bubbling like geysers, the tires of the emergency vehicles up to their hubcaps in water.

  The rear door swung open, revealing a man wearing SWAT fatigues.

  “Sir?”

  “What do you want?”

  “The men would like to know when we’re going back

  “Going back in?” Coffey yelled. “Are you out of your mind? Four of your men were just killed in there, torn apart like frigging hamburger!”

  “But sir, there are people still trapped in there. Maybe we could—”

  Coffey rounded on the man, eyes blazing, mouth spewing saliva. “Don’t you get it? We can’t just go busting back in there. We sent men in not knowing what we were up against. We’ve got to get the power restored, get the systems back on line before we—”

  A policeman stuck his head inside the door of the van. [421] “Sir, we’ve just had a report of a dead body floating in the Hudson River. It was spotted down at the Boat Basin. Seems like it was flushed out of one of the big storm drains.”

 
“Who the fuck cares about—”

  “Sir, it’s a woman wearing an evening gown, and it’s been tentatively identified as one of the people missing from the party.”

  “What?” Coffey was confused. It wasn’t possible. “Someone from the Mayor’s group?”

  “One of the people trapped inside. The only women still unaccounted for inside apparently went down into the basement two hours ago.”

  “You mean, with the Mayor?”

  “I guess that would be right, sir.”

  Coffey felt his bladder weakening. It couldn’t be true.

  That fucking Pendergast. Fucking D’Agosta. It was all their fault. They disobeyed him, compromised his plan, sent all those people to their deaths. The Mayor, dead. They were going to have his ass for that.

  “Sir?”

  “Get out,” Coffey whispered. “Both of you, get out.” The door closed.

  “This is Garcia, over. Does anyone copy?” the radio squawked. Coffey spun around and jabbed the radio with his finger.

  “Garcia! What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, sir, except the power’s still out. But I have Tom Allen here. He’s been asking to speak with you.”

  “Put him on, then.”

  “This is Allen. We’re getting a little concerned in here, Mr. Coffey. There’s nothing we can do until power’s restored. The batteries are failing on Garcia’s transmitter, and we’ve been keeping it off to conserve juice. We’d like you to get us out.”

  Coffey laughed, suddenly, shrilly. The agents manning the consoles looked uneasily at one another. “You’d like me to get you out? Listen, Allen, you [422] geniuses created this mess. You swore up and down the system would work, that everything had a backup. So you get your own asses out. The Mayor’s dead, and I’ve already lost more men than I—hello?”

  “This is Garcia again. Sir, it’s pitch-black in here and we only have two flashlights. What happened to the SWAT team that was being sent in?”

  Coffey’s laughter stopped abruptly. “Garcia? They got themselves killed. You hear me? Killed. Got their guts hung up like birthday ribbons in there. And it’s Pendergast’s fault, and D’Agosta’s fault, and fucking Allen’s fault, and your fault, too, probably. Now, we’ve got men on this side working to restore the power. They say it can be done, it just may take a few hours. Okay? I’m gonna take that goddamn thing in there, but in my way, in my own sweet time. So you just sit tight. I’m not going to have more men killed to save your sorry asses.”