Blue Labyrinth

71

Slade held the blowpipe steady. His eyes narrowed slightly as he aimed.

In a sudden moment of desperation, Margo lunged forward, grabbed the end of the blowpipe, and gave a mighty puff of air into it. With a strangled cry Slade dropped the weapon and staggered back, hands at his throat, coughing and choking. As he spat out the two-inch dart, Margo ran past him, out of the cul-de-sac and into the maze of shelving in the storage room.

“Fucking hell!” He ran after her, voice strangled. A moment later she heard gunshots ring out, the rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls in front of her with jets of pulverized dust. The gun was incredibly loud in the enclosed space. He had abandoned all caution.

She sprinted back into the room full of whale eyeballs and paused for a second. Slade had cut off the main route out of the basement. The back exit was past a warren of rooms, many of them probably locked. On impulse, she veered off, chose one of the room’s other exits, and pulled its door open. As she did so, Slade came into view, swaying slightly in the faint light, then dropping awkwardly into firing position. Had the business end of the dart poisoned him? He looked stricken.

She flung herself sideways as a fusillade of bullets riddled the door. Running through the doorway and down the corridor beyond, she glanced into the offices and storage rooms passing to her left and right, hoping to discover some way to shake him — but the effort was useless as all the rooms were dead ends. Her only hope now was that security had heard the gunshots and would come to investigate, find the jammed door, and break it down.

But even that would take time. She wasn’t going to escape the basement. She had to defeat him somehow — or at least keep him at bay long enough for help to arrive.

The corridor ended in a T-intersection and she turned left, Slade’s feet pounding loudly behind her. As she made the turn, she glimpsed back and saw him halt, fumbling more rounds into the magazine of his gun.

The main dinosaur lab, she knew, lay just ahead: it was large, with many possible places to hide. And it would have an inter-Museum phone that would allow her to call for help.

She reached the lab door — closed — jammed her key into the lock, and turned it, mumbling a prayer. It opened. She darted in, then slammed and locked the door behind her.

She palmed on the lights to orient herself. At least a dozen worktables were arrayed around the huge room, containing fossils in various stages of restoration or curation. In the center of the room, two huge dinosaur skeletons in the midst of assembly reared up: a famous “dueling dinosaurs” fossil set that, in a highly publicized coup, the Museum had recently acquired — a triceratops and a T. rex, locked in a death embrace.

She heard pounding on the door, shouting, and then shots being fired through the lock. She cast about but could see no phone. There had to be one somewhere. Or another exit, at least.

But she could see nothing. There was no phone, no other exit. And the multitude of hiding places she’d hoped for were not to be found.

So much for her plan.

A fusillade of shots punched the lock partway through the door. Slade was going to be inside the lab at any moment. And as soon as he was through, she’d be dead.

She heard him scream in rage… or was it pain? Was the poison working?

The two huge skeletons loomed above her like a grotesque jungle gym. Instinctually, she rushed up to the triceratops, grasped a rib, and began clambering, climbing hand over hand. The mount was far from complete, and the entire setup shivered and shook as she climbed. Her scramble dislodged smaller bones, which fell crashing to the floor. This was crazy; she’d be trapped up there, a sitting duck. But some instinct told her to keep climbing.

Gripping a spinal process, she pulled herself onto the backbone of the triceratops. Another series of shots punched the lock cylinder out entirely, sending it skidding across the floor. She could hear Slade heaving himself against the door, the metal plate that held the lock rattling, its bolts springing out. Another heave against the door and the plate sprang off.

Scrambling in desperation, Margo vaulted from one dinosaur skeleton to the other, climbing onto the higher, steeper backbone of the T. rex. Its massive head, the size of a small vehicle and studded with huge teeth, was not yet fully braced and welded into place with iron, and it shook and wobbled terrifyingly.

As she reached it, she saw that it was actually cradled in a metal understructure. Most of the bolt holes that had been drilled into the frame were still empty — no wonder it was shaking so precariously.

She swung her body around and, with her back to a metal girder, braced her feet against the side of the skull. There was always the possibility he might not see her up here.

A final heave on the door and it sprang open with a thud. Slade staggered in. He waved the gun about wildly, his steps uneven, drunken. He swiveled this way and that, and then looked up.

“There you are! Treed like a cat!” He took a few shaky steps and positioned himself underneath her, raising the gun with both hands, taking careful aim.

He looked like he had been poisoned — but not poisoned enough.

She gave a great heave with both feet, rocking the skull out of its cradle. It swayed up and paused at the edge for a moment, then toppled over and came down, crashing through the rib cage of the triceratops. She had a momentary glimpse of Slade, frozen like a deer in a car’s headlights, before the huge mass of petrified bones came down on him, knocking him to the ground. A second later the top part of the tyrannosaur skull landed on him, teeth first, with a sickening wet thud.

Margo clung precariously to the shuddering metal frame as more bones unraveled from the mount and fell clattering and tinkling to the floor. She waited, gasping for breath, until the violent rocking of the mount had settled. With infinite care, muscles trembling, she climbed down.

Slade was on the floor, arms flung wide, his eyes bugged open. The upper part of the T. rex skull had impaled him with its teeth. It was a horrifying sight. She stumbled backward, away from the carnage. As she did so, she remembered her bag. It had been instinctively clenched tight to her body throughout the ordeal. Now she unzipped it and looked inside. The glass plates holding the plant specimens were shattered.

She stared at the various dried plant remains, mingled with broken glass at the bottom of the bag. Oh Jesus. Will this suffice?

She heard a sharp voice and turned. Lieutenant D’Agosta stood in the doorway, two guards behind him, staring at the scene of carnage. “Margo?” he said. “What the hell?”

“Thank God you’re here,” she choked out.

He continued to stare, his eyes moving from her to the body on the floor. “Slade,” he said. It wasn’t phrased as a question.

“Yes. He was trying to kill me.”

“The son of a bitch.”

“He said something about getting a better offer. What the hell was going on?”

D’Agosta nodded grimly. “Working for Barbeaux. Slade listened in on our conversation in my office this afternoon.” He looked around. “Where’s Constance?”

Margo stared at him. “Not here.” She hesitated. “She went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.”

“What? I thought she was with you!”

“No, no. She went to get a rare plant from there—” She stopped as D’Agosta was already on his police radio, calling in a massive police response and paramedics to the botanic garden.

He turned back to her. “Come on — we’ve got to hurry. Bring your bag. I hope to hell we’re not already too late.”