Reliquary

= 52 =

SNOW CHECKED THE oversized wall clock. The narrow hands behind the protective metal cage read 10:15 P.M. His eyes traveled across the empty squad room, past the extra tanks and regulators, the torn flippers and oversized masks. His gaze came to rest at last on the mountain of paperwork atop the desk in front of him, and he winced inwardly. Here he was, supposedly recovering from a bacterial infection of the lungs. But he, and the rest of the NYPD dive team, knew that he was actually in the doghouse. The Dive Sergeant had taken him aside, told him what a great job he’d done, but Snow hadn’t believed it. Even the fact that the skeletons he’d discovered had been the start of a big police investigation didn’t make any real difference. The fact was he’d lost it, lost it on his first dive. Even Fernandez didn’t bother to tease him anymore.

He sighed, looking out the grimy window at the long-deserted dock and the dark oily water beyond, glittering in the restless night. The rest of the squad was out after a helicopter crash in the East River earlier in the evening. And there was something big going on in the city, too: his police radio had been squawking nonstop with talk of marches, riots, mobilizations, crowd-control measures. Seemed like the action was everywhere except in his own quiet little corner of the Brooklyn docks. And here he was, filling out reports.

He sighed, stapled some papers into a folder, closed it, and tossed it in the outgoing tray. Dead dog, removed from the Gowanus canal. Cause of death: gunshot wound; ownership unknown; case closed. He slid another folder off the pile: Randolf Rowell, jumper, Triborough Bridge, age 22. Suicide note found in pocket. Cause of death: drowning. Case closed.

As he dropped the file into the bin, he heard the diesel rumble of the launch as it nosed its way into the dock. Back early. The engine sounded different somehow, throatier, he thought. Maybe it needed a tune-up or something.

He heard running footfalls on the wooden dock and suddenly the door burst open: men in black wet suits, no insignia, faces black and green with greasepaint. Twin haversacks of rubber and latex dangled around their necks.

“Where’s the dive team?” barked the forward man, a hulking figure with a Texas accent.

“East River chopper crash,” Snow said. “You the second squad?” He glanced out the window and was surprised to see, not a familiar blue-and-white police boat, but a powerful inboard V-bottom launch, lying low in the water and painted as dark as the men.

“All of them?” the man asked.

“All except me. Who are you?”

“We ain’t your mother’s long-lost nephews, darlin’,” the man said. “We need someone who knows the shortest route into the West Side Lateral, and we need him now.”

Snow felt an involuntary twinge. “Let me radio the Dive Sergeant—”

“No time. What about you?”

“Well, I know the flow grid around the Manhattan shoreline. That’s part of Basic, every police driver has to—”

“Can you bring us in?” the man said brusquely, cutting him off.

“You want to get in the West Side Lateral? Most of the pipes are grilled, or too narrow for a—”

“Just answer the question: yes or no?”

“I think so,” Snow said, his voice faltering a little.

“Your name?”

“Snow. Officer Snow.”

“Get in the boat.”

“But my tanks and suit—”

“We got everything you need. You can suit up on the launch.”

Snow scrambled from his chair, following the men out onto the dock. It didn’t seem to be an invitation he could refuse. “You still haven’t told me who—”

The man paused, one foot on the gunwale of the launch. “Commander Rachlin, Patrol Leader, SEAL Team Blue Seven. Now get a wiggle on.”

The helmsman gunned the launch out of the slip. “Mind your rudder,” the Commander said, then gestured Snow closer. “Here’s the op,” he said, lifting a matted seat and pulling out a sheaf of waterproof maps from the storage space beneath. “There’ll be four teams, two to each team.” He glanced around. “Donovan!”

“Sir!” a man said, coming over. Even in the bulky suit, he looked thin and wiry. Snow could see nothing of his facial features behind the neoprene and greasepaint.

“Donovan, you and Snow here are buddying up.”

There was a silence that Snow interpreted as disgust. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s a UD job,” Rachlin said.

“A what?”

The Commander looked at him sharply. “Underwater demolition. That’s all you need to know.”

“Is this connected with the headless murders?” Snow asked.

The Commander stared. “For a dumb-ass, tit-suckin’, bath-tub-divin’ tadpole of a po-lice diver, you ask a whole lot of questions, darlin’.”

Snow said nothing. He didn’t dare look at Donovan.

“We can chart our way in from this point,” Rachlin said, unrolling one of the maps and tamping his thumb on a blue dot. “But the new treatment plant made these insertion areas here obsolete. So you’re gonna get us in to that point.”

Snow bent over the laminated map. At the top, in chiseled copperplate script, a legend read WEST SIDE STORM AND SEWER SURVEY, LOWER QUADRANT. Below was a labyrinth of faint intersecting lines. Somebody had placed three sets of dots beneath the western side of Central Park. He stared at the complex traceries, his mind racing. The Humboldt Kill was the easiest insertion point, but it was a hell of a long way in to the Lateral from there, with many twists and turns. Besides, he didn’t want to go back there, ever, if he could help it. He tried to remember their training sessions, the long days on boats nosing up muddy canals. Where else did the West Side Lateral drain into?

“This isn’t an essay question,” Rachlin said quietly. “Hurry it up. We’re on a tight schedule here.”

Snow looked up. There was one route he knew of, a very direct route. Well, he thought, they asked for it. “The Lower Hudson Sewage Treatment Plant itself,” he said. “We can go in through the main settling tank.”

There was a silence, and Snow glanced around.

“Dive in goddamn sewage?” a very deep voice said.

The Commander turned. “You heard the man.” He tossed a wet suit toward Snow. “Now get your lovely little behind below and suit up. We’ve got to be clear and at the extraction point by six minutes to midnight.”