Reliquary

= 49 =

D’AGOSTA REMOVED the unlit cigar from his mouth, picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue, and examined the sodden end with distaste. Margo watched as he patted his pockets for a match, then, finding none, caught her eye and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. She shook her head no. D’Agosta turned toward Horlocker, began to open his mouth, then obviously thought better of it. The Chief had a portable radio plastered to one ear, and he didn’t look happy.

“Mizner?” he was shouting. “Mizner! You copy?”

There was a faint, lengthy squawking that Margo assumed must be Mizner.

“Just subdue and arrest the—” Horlocker began.

More faint squawking.

“Five hundred? From underground? Look, Mizner, don’t give me this shit. Why aren’t they on the buses?”

Horlocker stopped again to listen. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Pendergast sitting on the edge of a table, leaning against a mobile radio unit, seemingly engrossed in an issue of the Policeman’s Gazette.

“Riot control, tear gas, I don’t give a rat’s ass how you do it… marchers? What do you mean, they’re fighting with the marchers?” He lowered the phone, looked at it as if in disbelief, then raised it to his other ear. “No, for Chrissakes, don’t use gas anywhere near the marchers. Look, we got most of the Twentieth and Twenty-second underground, the Thirty-first is manning the checkpoints, Uptown is laid wide open as a… no, forget it, tell Perillo I want a wildfire meeting with all the deputy chiefs in five minutes. Bring in staff from the outer boroughs, off duty, meter cops, whatever. We need more manpower applied to that spot, you hear me?”

He punched the phone angrily and grabbed at another on the desk in front of him. “Curtis, get the Governor’s office on the phone. The evac went south, and some of the underground homeless we were clearing from the area around the Park are rioting. They’ve run straight into that big march on Central Park South. We’ll have to call in the Guard. Then contact Masters, we’re going to need a Tactical helicopter, just in case. Have him get the assault vehicles from the Lexington Avenue armory. No, forget that, they may not be able to make it through. Contact the Park substation instead. I’ll call the Mayor myself.”

He hung up the phone, more slowly this time. A single bead of sweat was making its slow traverse down a forehead that had gone from red to gray in a matter of moments. Horlocker looked around the command center, seemingly blind to the scurrying cops, the transmitters crackling on countless bands. To Margo, he looked like a man whose entire world had suddenly imploded.

Pendergast carefully folded the Gazette and placed it on the table beside him. Then he leaned forward, smoothing his pale blond hair with the fingers of his right hand.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, almost casually.

Uh-oh, Margo thought.

Pendergast glided forward until he stood directly in front of the Chief. “I’ve been thinking that this situation is simply too dangerous to leave in the hands of one man.”

Horlocker closed his eyes for a minute. Then, as if making a tremendous effort, he raised them to Pendergast’s placid face.

“Just what the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

“We’re relying on Squire Waxie to manually shut the Reservoir valves and stop the drainage process.”

“So?”

Pendergast put a finger to his lip, as if he was about to whisper a secret. “Not to be indelicate about this, but Captain Waxie has not proven himself to be—well, the most reliable of errand boys. If he fails, the catastrophe will be complete. The Mbwun lilies will be shunted through the Astor Tunnels and out to the open sea. Once exposed to salinity, the reovirus will be unleashed. It could alter the ecology of the oceans significantly.”

“More than that,” Margo heard herself blurt. “It could insert itself into the food chain, and from there…” She fell silent.

“I’ve heard this story before,” Horlocker said. “It doesn’t get any better the second time around. What’s your point?”

“What we in the Bureau call a redundant solution,” Pendergast said.

Horlocker opened his mouth to speak just as a uniformed officer signaled from a comm desk. “Captain Waxie for you, sir. I’ll patch him through on the open line.”

Horlocker picked up the phone again. “Waxie, what’s your status?” He stopped to listen. “Speak up, I can’t hear you. The what? What do you mean, you’re not sure? Well, take care of it, goddammit! Look, put Duffy on. Waxie, you hear me? You’re breaking up. Waxie? Waxie!”

He slammed the phone into its cradle with a shattering crash. “Get Waxie back on the horn!” he yelled.

“May I continue?” Pendergast asked. “If what I just heard is any indication, time is short. So I’ll be brief. If Waxie fails and the Reservoir is drained, we must have a backup plan in place to prevent the plants from escaping into the Hudson.”

“How the hell are we going to do that?” D’Agosta asked. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. The Reservoir is scheduled to dump in just over two hours.”

“Can we just stop the plants from escaping somehow?” Margo asked. “Place filters over the exit pipes, or something?”

“An interesting thought, Dr. Green,” Pendergast said, glancing toward her with his pale eyes. He paused briefly. “I’d imagine that 5-micron filters would be sufficient. But where would we find them manufactured to the proper dimensions? And what about the tolerances required to withstand the tremendous water pressure? And how could we be certain we had located every exit?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid the only solution that time allows is to seal the exits from the Astor Tunnels with high explosive. I’ve studied the maps. A dozen charges of C-4, accurately placed, should be sufficient.”

Horlocker swiveled himself toward Pendergast. “You’re crazy,” he said matter-of-factly.

There was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the center, and Margo looked over to see a group of policemen half running, half stumbling in from the concourse beyond. Their uniforms were disheveled and muddy, and one of the officers had a nasty cut on his forehead. In their midst, struggling wildly, was an incredibly dirty man wearing a ragged corduroy suit. His long gray hair was matted and streaked with dirt and blood. A large turquoise, necklace hung from his neck, and a heavily stained beard hung down to his handcuffed wrists.

“We got the ringleader!” one of the cops panted as they tugged the struggling man toward the Chief.

D’Agosta stared incredulously. “It’s Mephisto!” he cried.

“Oh?” Horlocker said sarcastically. “A friend of yours?”

“Merely a social acquaintance,” Pendergast replied.

Margo watched as the man named Mephisto stared from D’Agosta to Pendergast. Suddenly, the piercing eyes flooded with recognition, and his face turned dark.

“You!” he hissed. “Whitey! You were spies. Traitors! Pigs!” He struggled with a sudden, terrible strength, breaking free of his captors for a moment only to be tackled to the floor and pinned again. He grappled and strained, raising his manacled hands. “Judas!” he spat in Pendergast’s direction.

“Frigging lunatic,” Horlocker said, looking toward the group wrestling on the tiled floor.

“Hardly,” Pendergast replied. “Would you act any differently if somebody had just gassed you and driven you out of your home?”

Mephisto lunged again.

“Hold him, for Chrissakes,” Horlocker snapped, stepping out of reach. Then he turned back to Pendergast. “Now, let me see if I understand this,” he said with insulting sweetness, the parody of a father humoring a foolish son. “You want to blow up the Astor Tunnels. Do I have it right?”

“Not the tunnels so much as the exits from the tunnels,” Pendergast replied, oblivious to the sarcasm. “It is critical that we stop any water draining from the Reservoir from reaching the open ocean. But perhaps we can accomplish both ends: cleanse the Astor Tunnels of their inhabitants while preventing the reovirus from escaping. All we have to do is hold the water for forty-eight hours and let the herbicide do its work.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Margo watched as Mephisto went still.

“We can send in a team of divers up the spillways from the river,” Pendergast went on. “The route to the Astor outflow is relatively straightforward.”

Horlocker shook his head.

“I’ve studied the system carefully. When the Astor Tunnels fill, the overflow will channel into the West Side Lateral. That’s what we’ll have to block with explosives.”

“I don’t believe this,” Horlocker said, lowering his head and resting it on the knuckles of one hand.

“But then again, that may not be enough,” Pendergast went on, paying no attention to Horlocker now, thinking out loud. “To be certain, we’d also need to seal the Devil’s Attic from above, as well. The charts show that the Bottleneck and its drainage tubes are a closed system all the way up to the Reservoir, so all we have to do to keep the water trapped inside is to seal any escape routes immediately below it. That will also prevent the creatures from riding out the flood in an air pocket somewhere.”

Horlocker looked blank. Pendergast found a scrap and paper and swiftly drew a diagram. “Don’t you see?” he asked. “The water will pass through the Bottleneck, here. The second team will descend from the surface and block any exit paths directly beneath the Bottleneck. Several levels deeper is the Devil’s Attic and the spillways that vent to the river. The SEAL team will set their charges in the spillways.” He looked up. “The water will be trapped in the Astor Tunnels. There will be no escape for the Wrinklers. None.”

A low wheeze escaped from the manacled figure, raising the hairs on Margo’s neck.

“I’ll have to lead the second team, of course,” Pendergast went on calmly. “They’ll need a guide, and I’ve already been down once before. I’ve got a crude map, and I’ve studied the city plans for the works closer to the surface. I’d go by myself, but it will take several men to carry the plastique.”

“It won’t work, Judas,” Mephisto rasped. “You’ll never make it down to the Devil’s Attic in time.”

Horlocker suddenly looked up, slamming his fist to the table. “I’ve heard enough,” he snapped. “Playtime’s over. Pendergast, I’ve got a crisis on my hands. So get out.”

“Only I know the tunnels well enough to get you in and out before midnight,” Mephisto hissed, staring intently at Pendergast.

Pendergast returned the gaze, a speculative expression on his face. “You’re probably correct,” he replied at last.

“Enough,” Horlocker snapped at the group of officers who had brought Mephisto in. “Get him downtown. We’ll deal with him once the dust has settled.”

“And what would be in it for you?” Pendergast asked Mephisto.

“Room to live. Freedom from harassment. The grievances of my people redressed.”

Pendergast gazed at Mephisto almost meditatively, his expression unreadable.

“I said, get the man the hell out,” Horlocker roared.

The cops pulled Mephisto to his feet and began to drag him toward the exit.

“Stay where you are,” Pendergast said. His voice was low, but the tone was so commanding the officers instinctively stopped in their tracks.

Horlocker turned, a vein pulsing in his temple. “What’s this?” he said, almost in a whisper.

“Chief Horlocker, I’m taking custody of this individual, under the authority vested in me as a federal agent of the United States government.”

“You’re bullshitting me,” Horlocker replied.

“Pendergast!” Margo hissed. “We’ve got barely two hours.”

The agent nodded, then addressed Horlocker. “I’d like to stay and bandy civilities, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of time,” he said. “Vincent, please get the handcuff key from these gentlemen.”

Pendergast turned toward the knot of policemen. “You, there. Release this man into my custody.”

“Don’t do it!” Horlocker shouted.

“Sir,” one of the officers said, “you can’t fight the Feds, sir.”

Pendergast approached the bedraggled figure, now standing beside D’Agosta and rubbing his manacled wrists. “Mr. Mephisto,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t know what role you played in today’s events, and I can’t guarantee your personal freedom. But if you help me now, perhaps we can rid this city of the killers that have been preying on your community. And I will give my personal guarantee that your demands for homeless rights will be given a fair hearing.” He held out his hand.

Mephisto’s eyes narrowed. “You lied once,” he hissed.

“It was the only way I could make contact with you,” said Pendergast, continuing to hold out his hand. “This isn’t a fight between the haves and have-nots. If it was once, it isn’t anymore. If we fail now, we all go down: Park Avenue and Route 666 alike.”

There was a long pause. At last, Mephisto nodded silently.

“How touching,” said Horlocker. “I hope you all drown in shit.”