“Those doors are designed to retard cutting. You could do it, but it would take forever.”
“What about the subbasement? I’ve heard it’s like a frigging catacomb down there.”
“There might be ingress points from where you are, but on-line charts are down. And the area isn’t fully mapped. It would take time.”
“The walls, then. How about going through the walls?”
“The lower load-bearing walls are extremely thick, three feet in most places, and all the older masonry walls have been heavily reinforced with rebar. Cell Two only has windows on the third and fourth floor, and they’re reinforced with steel bars. Most of them are too small to climb through, anyway.”
“Shit. What about the roof?”
“All the cells are closed off, and it would be pretty tough—”
“Goddammit, Allen, I’m asking you the best way to get some men inside.”
There was a silence.
“The best way to get in would be through the roof,” came the voice. “The security doors on the upper floors are not as heavy. Cell Three extends above the Hall of the Heavens. That’s the fifth floor. You can’t enter there, though—the roof is shielded because of the radiography labs. But you could come in through the roof of Cell Four. In some of the narrower halls you might be able to blow a security door to Cell Three with one charge. Once you were in Cell Three you could go right through the ceiling of the Hall of the Heavens. There’s an access port for servicing the chandelier in the Hall ceiling. It’s sixty feet to the floor, though.”
“I’ll get back to you. Coffey out.”
He punched at the radio and shouted, “Ippolito! Ippolito, you copy?” What the hell was happening inside that Hall? He switched to D’Agosta’s frequency. “D’Agosta! This is Coffey. Are you reading me?”
He ran frantically through the bands.
“Waters!”
“Waters here, sir.”
“What happened, Waters?”
“There was a loud noise in the electrical room, sir, and I fired as per regulations, and—”
“Regulations? You fucking turkey, there’s no regulation for firing at a noise!”
“Sorry, sir. It was a loud noise, and I heard a lot of screaming and running in the exhibition and I thought—”
“For this, Waters, you’re dead. I’m gonna have your ass roasted and sliced up like luncheon meat on a platter. Think about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Outside there was a cough, sputter, and a roar as a large portable generator started up. The rear door to the Mobile Command Unit opened and several agents ducked in, their suits dripping. “The rest are on their way, sir,” one of them said.
“Okay. Tell them we’re having a crisis-control meeting here in the MCU in five minutes.”
He stepped out into the rain. Emergency services workers were moving bulky equipment and yellow acetylene tanks up the Museum steps.
Coffey ran back through the rain and up the steps into the debris-laden Rotunda. Medics clustered at the metal emergency door blocking the east entrance to the Hall of the Heavens. Coffey could hear the whine of a bone saw.
“Tell me what you’ve got,” Coffey asked the leader of the medical team.
The doctor’s eyes looked strained above his blood-flecked mask. “I don’t know the full extent of the injuries yet, but we’ve got several criticals here. We’re performing some field amputations. I think a few others might be saved if you can get this door open in the next half hour.”
Coffey shook his head. “Doesn’t look like that will happen. We’re gonna have to cut through it.”
An emergency worker spoke up. “We’ve got some heat-proof blankets we can lay across these people as we work.”
Coffey stepped back and raised his radio. “D’Agosta! Ippolito! Come in!”
Silence. Then, he heard a hiss of static.
“D’Agosta here,” came the tense voice. “Listen, Coffey—”
“Where have you been? I told you—”
“Shut up and listen, Coffey. You were making too much noise, I had to shut you off. We’re on our way to the subbasement. There’s a creature loose somewhere in Cell Two. I’m not kidding you, Coffey, it’s a fucking monster. It killed Ippolito and ran into the Hall. We had to get out.”
“A what? You’re losing it, D’Agosta. Get a grip, you hear me? We’re sending men in through the roof.”
“Yeah? Well, they’d better have some heavy shit ready if they plan on meeting up with this thing.”
“D’Agosta, let me handle it. What’s this about Ippolito?”
“He’s dead, slashed open, just like all the other stiffs.”
“And a monster did this. Okay, sure. Any other police officers with you, D’Agosta?”
“Yeah, there’s Bailey.”
“I’m relieving you of duty. Put Bailey on.”
“Fuck you. Here’s Bailey.”
“Sergeant,” Coffey barked, “You’re in charge now. What’s the situation?”
“Mr. Coffey, he’s right. We had to leave the Hall of the Heavens. We went down the back stairwell near the service area. There’s over thirty of us, including the Mayor. No shit, there’s really something in here.”
“Give me a break, Bailey. Did you see it?”
“I’m not sure what I saw, sir, but D’Agosta saw it, and Jesus, sir, you should see what it did to Ippolito—”
“Listen to me, Bailey. Are you gonna calm down and take over?”
“No sir. As far as I’m concerned, he’s in charge.”
“I just put you in charge!”
Coffey snorted and looked up, enraged. “The son of a bitch just cut me off.”
* * *
Outside in the rain, Greg Kawakita stood motionless amid a cacophony of yelling, sobbing, and cursing. He remained oblivious to the pelting rain that plastered his black hair to his forehead; the emergency vehicles that passed by, sirens shrieking; the panicky guests that jostled him as they ran past. Again and again he replayed in his mind what Margo and Frock had barked at him. He opened and closed his mouth, moved forward as if to reenter the Museum. Then, slowly, he turned, pulled his sodden tuxedo closer around his narrow shoulders, and walked thoughtfully into the darkness.
50
Margo jumped as a second gunshot echoed down the hall.
“What’s happening?” she cried. In the darkness, she felt Frock’s grip tighten.
Outside, they heard running steps. Then the yellow glow of a flashlight streaked by beneath the doorframe.
“That smell is growing fainter,” she whispered. “Do you think it’s gone?”
“Margo,” Frock replied quietly, “you saved my life. You risked your own life to save mine.”
There came a soft knocking at the door. “Who is it?” Frock asked in a steady tone.
“Pendergast,” a voice said, and Margo rushed to open the door. The FBI agent stood outside, a large revolver in one hand and crumpled blueprints in the other. His crisp well-tailored black suit contrasted with his dirt-streaked face. He shut the door behind him.
“I’m pleased to see you both safe and sound,” he said, shining his light first on Margo and then Frock.
“Not half as pleased as we are!” Frock cried. “We came down here searching for you. Were those shots yours?”
“Yes,” Pendergast said. “And I assume it was you I heard calling my name?”
“Then you did hear me!” Frock said. “That’s how you knew to look for us in here.”
Pendergast shook his head. “No.” He handed Margo a flashlight as he started unfolding his crumpled blueprints. Margo saw they were covered with handwritten notes.
“The New York Historical Society will be very unhappy when they see the liberties I’ve taken with their property,” the agent observed dryly.
“Pendergast,” Frock hissed, “Margo and I have discovered exactly what this killer is. You must listen. It isn’t a human being or any animal we know. Please, let me exp
lain.”
Pendergast looked up. “I don’t need any convincing, Doctor Frock.”
Frock blinked. “You don’t? You will? I mean, you will help us stop the opening upstairs, get the people out?”
“It’s too late for that,” Pendergast said. “I’ve been talking by police radio to Lieutenant D’Agosta and others. This power failure isn’t just affecting the basement, it’s affecting the entire Museum. The security system has failed, and all the emergency doors have come down.”
“You mean—” Margo began.
“I mean the Museum has been compartmentalized into five isolated cells. We’re in Cell Two. Along with the people in the Hall of the Heavens. And the creature.”
“What happened?” Frock asked.
“There was a panic even before the power went out and the doors came down. A dead body was discovered inside the exhibition. A police officer. Most of the guests managed to get out, but thirty or forty are trapped inside the Hall of the Heavens.” He smiled ruefully. “I was in the exhibition myself, just a few hours before. I wanted to get a look at this Mbwun figurine you mentioned. If I’d gone in by the rear exit instead of the front, perhaps I would have found the body myself, and prevented all this. However, I did get a chance to see the figurine, Doctor Frock. And it’s an excellent representation. Take it from somebody who knows.”
Frock stared, his mouth open.
“You’ve seen it?” Frock managed to whisper.
“Yes. That’s what I was shooting at. I was down around the corner from this storeroom when I heard you call my name. Then I noticed an awful smell. I ducked into a room and watched it go by. I came out after it and got off a shot, but it grazed off the thing’s scalp. Then the lights went out. I followed it around the corner and saw it grasping at this door, snuffling.” Pendergast flicked open the revolver’s cylinder, and replaced the two spent cartridges. “That’s how I knew you were in here.”
“My God,” Margo said.
Pendergast holstered his gun. “I got off a second shot at it, but I was having trouble aiming my weapon, and I missed. I came down this way to look for it, but the thing had vanished. It must have gone into the stairwell at the end of the corridor. There’s no other way out from this cul-de-sac.”
“Mr. Pendergast,” Frock said urgently. “Tell me, please: what did it look like?”
“I saw it only briefly,” Pendergast said slowly. “It was low, extremely powerful looking. It walked on all fours, but could rear upright. It was partially covered with hair.” He pursed his lips, nodded. “It was dark. But I’d say whoever made that figurine knew what he was doing.”
In the glow of Pendergast’s light, Margo saw a strange mix of fear, exhilaration, and triumph cross Frock’s face.
Then a series of muffled explosions echoed and reechoed above them. There was a brief silence, and then more reports, sharper and louder, boomed nearby.
Pendergast looked upward, listening intently. “D’Agosta!” he said. Drawing his gun and dropping the blueprints, he raced out into the corridor.
Margo ran to the door and shined the flashlight down the hallway. In its thin beam, she could see Pendergast rattling the stairwell door. He knelt to inspect the lock, then, standing, he gave the door a series of savage kicks.
“It’s jammed shut,” he said when he returned. “Those shotgun blasts we heard sounded like they came from inside the stairwell. Some of the shells must have bent the doorframe and damaged the lock. It won’t budge.” He holstered the gun and pulled out his radio. “Lieutenant D’Agosta! Vincent, can you hear me?” He waited a moment, then shook his head and replaced the radio in his jacket pocket.
“So we’re stuck here?” Margo asked.
Pendergast shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve spent the afternoon down in these vaults and tunnels, trying to determine how the beast was able to elude our searches. These blueprints were drafted well before the turn of the century, and they are complicated and contradictory, but they seem to show a route out of the Museum through the subbasement. With everything sealed off, there’s no other feasible way out for us. And there are several ways to access the subbasement from this section of the Museum.”
“That means we can meet up with the people still upstairs, then escape together!” Margo said.
Pendergast looked grim. “But that also means the beast can find its way back into the subbasement. Personally, I think that while these emergency doors may prevent our own rescue, they won’t hamper the beast’s movement much. I believe it’s been around long enough to find its own secret ways, and that it can move throughout the Museum—or, at least, the lower levels—practically at will.”
Margo nodded. “We think it’s been living in the Museum for years. And we think we know how and why it came here.”
Pendergast looked searchingly at Margo for a long moment. “I need you and Doctor Frock to tell me everything you know about this creature, as quickly as possible,” he said.
As they turned to enter the storeroom, Margo heard a distant drumming, like slow thunder. She froze, listening intently. The thunder seemed to have a voice: crying or shouting, she wasn’t sure which.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“That,” Pendergast said quietly, “is the sound of people in the stairwell, running for their lives.”
51
In the faint light filtering in through the barred laboratory window, Wright could barely make out the old filing cabinet. It was damned lucky, he thought, that the lab was inside the perimeter of Cell Two. Not for the first time, he was glad he’d kept this old laboratory when he’d been promoted to Director. It would provide them with a temporary safe haven, a little breathing room. Cell Two was now completely cut off from the rest of the Museum, and they were effectively prisoners. Everything, all the emergency bars, shutters, and security gates, had come down during the loss of power. At least that’s what he’d heard that incompetent police officer, D’Agosta, say.
“Someone is going to pay dearly for this,” Wright muttered to himself. Then they all fell quiet. Now that they had stopped running, the enormity of the disaster began to sink in.
Wright moved gingerly forward, pulling out one filecabinet drawer after another, fishing behind the folders until at last he found what he was looking for.
“Ruger .357 magnum,” he said, hefting it in his hands. “Great pistol. Excellent stopping power.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to stop whatever killed Ippolito,” said Cuthbert. He was standing near the laboratory door, a still figure framed in black.
“Don’t worry, Ian. One of these speedball bullets would perforate an elephant. I bought this after old Shorter was mugged by a vagrant. Anyway, the creature isn’t coming up here. And if he does, this door is solid oak two inches thick.”
“What about that one?” Cuthbert pointed toward the rear of the office.
“That goes into the Hall of Cretaceous Dinosaurs. It’s just like this one—solid oak.” He tucked the Ruger into his belt. “Those fools, going into the basement like so many lemmings. They should have listened to me.”
He rummaged in the file drawer again and pulled out a flashlight. “Excellent. Haven’t used this in years.”
He snapped it on and a feeble beam shot out, wavering as his hand shook a little.
“Not much juice left in that torch, I’d say,” Cuthbert murmured.
Wright turned it off. “We’ll only use it in an emergency.”
“Please!” Rickman spoke suddenly. “Please leave it on. Just for a minute.” She was sitting on a stool in the center of the room, clenching and unclenching her hands. “Winston, what are we going to do? We must have a plan.”
“First things first,” said Wright. “I need a drink, that’s Plan A. My nerves are shot.” He made his way to the far side of the lab and shone the light in an old cabinet, finally pulling out a bottle. There was a clink of glass.
“Ian?” asked Wright.
“Nothing for me,”
Cuthbert replied.
“Lavinia?”
“No, no, I couldn’t.”
Wright came back and sat down at a worktable. He filled the tumbler and drank it off in three gulps. Then he refilled it. Suddenly, the room was full of the warm, peaty scent of single-malt scotch.
“Easy there, Winston,” said Cuthbert.
“We can’t stay here, in the dark,” Rickman said nervously. “There must be an exit somewhere on this floor.”
“I’m telling you, everything’s sealed off,” Wright snapped.
“What about the Dinosaur Hall?” said Rickman, pointing to the rear door.
“Lavinia,” said Wright, “the Dinosaur Hall has only one public entrance, and that’s been sealed by a security door. We’re completely locked in. But you don’t need to worry, because whatever killed Ippolito and the others won’t be after us. It’ll go after the easy kill, the group blundering around in the basement.”
There was a swallowing sound, then the loud snack of glass hitting the table. “I say we stay here for another half-hour, wait it out. Then, we’ll go back down into the exhibition. If they haven’t restored power and unsealed the doors by then, I know of another way out. Through the exhibition.”
“You seem to know all kinds of hiding places,” Cuthbert said.
“This used to be my lab. Once in awhile I still like to come down here, get away from the administrative headaches, be near my dinosaurs again.” He chuckled and drank.
“I see,” said Cuthbert acidly.
“Part of the Superstition exhibition is mounted in what used to be the old Trilobite Alcove. I put in a lot of hours down there many years ago. Anyway, there was a passageway to the Broadway corridor behind one of the old trilobite displays. The door was boarded up years ago to make room for another display case. I’m sure that when they were building Superstition, they just nailed a piece of plywood over it and painted it. We could kick it in, shoot off the lock with this if necessary.”
“That sounds feasible,” said Rickman eagerly.
“I don’t recall hearing about any such door in the exhibition,” Cuthbert said dubiously. “I’m sure Security would have known about it.”
Relic (Pendergast, Book 1) Page 29