Reliquary

= 63 =

HAYWARD JOGGED UP the Mall toward the Bandshell and Cherry Hill, Officer Carlin by her side. For all his bulk, he ran easily, with the grace of a natural athlete. Didn’t even break a sweat. The encounter with the moles, the tear gas—even the chaos they’d found when they regained the street—hadn’t fazed him.

Here, in the darkness of the Park, the noise that had seemed so distant before was now much louder: a strange, ululating cry, continuously rising and falling, possessing a life of its own. Odd flickers and gouts of flame arose, blushing the underside of the ragged clouds overhead with patches of bright crimson.

“Jesus,” Carlin said as he jogged. “It sounds like a million people, all trying to murder each other.”

“Maybe that’s what it is,” Hayward replied as she watched a troop of National Guardsmen double-timing northward ahead of them.

They trotted over Bow Bridge and skirted the Ramble, approaching the rear line of the police defenses. A long, unbroken string of news vehicles was parked along the Transverse, engines idling. Overhead, a fat-bellied helicopter glided, its huge prop smacking the air as it moved at treetop level. A row of policemen had formed a ring around the Castle terrace, and a lieutenant waved her through. With Carlin in tow, she crossed the terrace, then moved up the steps toward the Castle ramparts. There—amidst a milling throng of police brass, city officials, National Guardsmen, and nervous-looking men speaking into portable telephones—was Chief Horlocker, looking about ten years older than when Hayward had seen him barely four hours before. He was speaking with a slight, well-dressed woman in her late fifties. Or, rather, he was listening as the woman spoke in clipped, decisive sentences. Hayward moved closer and recognized the woman as the leader of Take Back Our City, the mother of Pamela Wisher.

“…atrocity unlike anything ever seen in this city before!” Mrs. Wisher was saying. “A dozen of my personal friends are lying in hospital beds as we speak. And who knows how many hundreds more from among our ranks have been wounded? I promise you, and I promise the mayor, that lawsuits are going to fall like rain on this city. Like rain, Chief Horlocker!”

Horlocker made a valiant attempt. “Mrs. Wisher, our reports indicate that it was the younger element among your own marchers that incited this rioting—”

But Mrs. Wisher was not listening. “And when this is all over,” she continued, “and the Park and the streets are scrubbed free of the filth and ruin that litter them now, our organization will be stronger than ever. If the mayor feared us before tonight, he will fear us ten times more tomorrow! The death of my daughter was the spark that set our cause on fire, but this outrageous assault on our liberties and our persons has set it ablaze! And don’t think that…”

Hayward backed off, deciding this was perhaps not the best time to approach the Chief. She felt a tugging at her sleeve, and turned to find Carlin looking at her. Wordlessly, he pointed over the Esplanade toward the Great Lawn. Hayward glanced over, then froze, stupefied.

In the close summer darkness, the Great Lawn had become a plain of fire. Several dozen groups of people were clashing, withdrawing, attacking, retreating, in a scene of pandemonium. The flickering light of numerous small fires in the trash cans that dotted the outskirts showed that the lawn, once a beautiful carpet of grass, had become a sea of dirt. The combination of darkness and dirt made it impossible to determine which of the rioters were homeless and which were not. To the west and east, double lines of police vehicles had positioned themselves, headlights pointed in toward the scene. In one corner, a large group of well-dressed marchers—Take Back Our City’s last remaining elite remnants—were retreating behind the police barricades, apparently realizing that the midnight vigil could not possibly take place. Squads of police and National Guardsmen were moving forward slowly from the periphery, breaking up fistfights, wielding batons, making arrests.

“Shit,” Hayward breathed with fervent conviction. “What a balls-up.”

Carlin turned toward her in surprise, then coughed disapprovingly into his hand.

There was a sudden flurry of movement behind them, and Hayward turned to see Mrs. Wisher moving gracefully away, head held high, leading a small knot of retainers and bodyguards. In her wake, Horlocker looked like a fighter who’d finished a bad twelve rounds. He leaned against the sand-colored stone of the Castle wall as if seeking its support.

“Have they finished dosing the Reservoir with—well, with whatever it’s called?” he asked at last, fetching a ragged breath.

“Thyoxin,” said a well-dressed man standing by a battery-powered radio. “Yes, they finished fifteen minutes ago.”

Horlocker looked around with sunken eyes. “Why the hell haven’t we heard anything?” His eyes landed on Hayward. “You, there!” he barked. “What’s your name, Harris?”

Hayward stepped forward. “It’s Hayward, sir.”

“Whatever.” Horlocker pushed himself away from the wall. “Heard anything from D’Agosta?”

“No, sir.”

“Captain Waxie?”

“No, sir.”

Abruptly, Horlocker sank back again. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Then he looked at his watch. “Ten minutes to midnight.”

He turned to an officer at his right. “Why the hell are they still at it?” he said, pointing out toward the Great Lawn.

“When we try to round them up, they just break and reform somewhere else. And more seem to be joining, leaking through the perimeter at the south end of the Park. It’s hard without tear gas.”

“Well, why the hell don’t you use it, then?” Horlocker demanded.

“Your orders, sir.”

“My order? Wisher’s people are gone now, you idiot. Gas them. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a deep booming sound, strangely muffled, seemingly from the center of the earth itself. Suddenly, life returned once again to Horlocker’s limbs. He sprang forward. “Hear that?” he demanded. “Those were the charges! The goddamn charges!”

A scattering of applause rang out from the cops manning the various communications devices. Carlin turned toward Hayward, a puzzled look on his face. “Charges?” he asked.

Hayward shrugged. “Beats me. What are they so happy about, with all hell breaking loose down there?”

As if on an unspoken signal, they both turned back toward the Great Lawn. The spectacle below was perversely fascinating. Cries and shouts rushed up toward them, a sonic wave almost physical in its force. Every few moments, a single sound would separate itself from the roar: a curse, a scream, the smack of fist on flesh.

Suddenly, from beyond the Great Lawn, Hayward heard a strange sighing sound, as if the very foundation of Manhattan had decided to give way. At first she was unable to pinpoint its location. Then she noticed that the surface of the Central Park Reservoir, normally as calm as a mill pond, was suddenly in motion. Little wavelets broke the surface like whitecaps, and a series of bubbles began to roil its center.

A silence fell in the Command Center as all eyes turned to the Reservoir.

“Breakers,” Carlin whispered. “In the Central Park Reservoir. I’ll be goddamned.”

There was a deep-throated belching sound, followed by the awesome rumbling of millions of cubic feet of water pouring with incredible force into underground Manhattan. On the plain of the Great Lawn, out of sight of the Reservoir, the rioting continued. But beneath the sounds of conflict, Hayward heard, or rather felt, a great hollow rushing, as of vast underground galleries and long-forgotten tunnels filling with the onslaught of water.

“It’s too early!” Horlocker cried.

As Hayward watched, the surface of the Reservoir began visibly dropping, first slowly, then more rapidly. In the reflected glow of the spotlights and the innumerable fires, she could see the exposed crescent of Reservoir wall, its banks boiling and frothing from the force of a great central whirlpool.

“Stop,” Horlocker whispered.

The level continued to drop inexorably.

“Please stop,” Horlocker whispered, staring fixedly northward.

The Reservoir was draining faster now, and Hayward could see the surface of the water surging downward by the moment, exposing more and more of the cracked far wall abutting the East Meadow and the Ball Field. Suddenly, the rumbling sound seemed to falter, and the turbulence lessened. The water grew calmer, slowing in its rapid descent. The silence in the Command Center was absolute.

Hayward stared as a narrow band of bubbles flowed into the Reservoir from its northward end; first a fine jet, then more and more until it had expanded into a heavy roar.

“Son of a bitch,” Horlocker whispered. “They did it.”

With the exits below sealed off, the Reservoir ceased draining. However, water continued to pour into the Reservoir from the upstate aquifers. With great sizzles and pops, the level of the water began to rise again. The churning at the northward end of the Reservoir grew until the entire mass of water seemed to tremble from some kind of subterranean pressure. With a steady surge of thunder, the water rose, and rose, until at last it trembled on the edge of the embankment. Then, suddenly, it crested.

“Jesus,” Carlin said. “I guess they’re going swimming.”

A massive flood of water spilled over the top of the Reservoir and hurried away into the lambent darkness of the Park, drowning the sound of fighting with its splashing, hissing, tumbling roar. Frozen in place, staring at the awe-inspiring sight, Hayward was reminded of a vast bathtub that had been allowed to overflow. She watched as the onrush of water leveled mounds of earth and worried away the ground among small trees and copses. It was like a huge river, she thought: gentle, shallow, but irresistible. And there was no mistake about where it was headed—the low ground of the Great Lawn.

There was a moment of unbearable suspense as the onrushing water was hidden from the rioting plain that stretched beneath the Castle ramparts. Then it appeared between the trees at the northern end of the Lawn, a glistening swath of black, churning sticks and weeds and garbage before it. As it struck the edges of the crowd, Hayward could hear the noise of the fighting shift in tone and volume. A sudden uncertainty rippled through the rioters. Hayward watched as knots of people dispersed, reformed, dispersed again. Then the water was rushing over the length of the Great Lawn, and the shrieking mob was breaking for the high ground of the trees, slipping and stumbling over each other as they struggled toward the Park exits and safety.

And still the water advanced, licking around the baseball diamonds, swallowing up countless fires, knocking over trash cans. It swept into the Delacorte Theater with an immense gurgling sound, surrounded and then swallowed up Turtle Pond, and swirled around the base of Belvedere Castle itself, breaking against the stones in dark rivulets of foam. Then at last the sound of rushing water began to die away. As the newly made lake grew still, bright points of reflected light appeared on its surface, more and still more as the water grew quieter, looking at last like a vast mirror of stars.

For another long moment, the entire Command Center remained still, awed by the spectacle. Then a spontaneous cheering burst out, filling the chambers and turrets of the Castle and swirling upward into the crisp summer night air.

“I wish my old daddy could’ve seen that,” Hayward said over the noise, turning to Carlin with a grin. “He would have-said it was just like water on a dogfight. I’ll bet money he would.”