Vespers

Forty-Three

Gentry and T-Bone had left the communications center with no plan other than to reach the statue’s arm and attempt to get Nancy out. T-Bone was holding a crowbar he’d found in a broom closet; that was their only weapon.

Gentry was carrying a flashlight he’d taken from a tool rack and wearing a bandage he’d found in a first aid kit. The pain of his wounded Achilles tendon was a hobbling constant, but it was tolerable.

He was also carrying a lot of anger.

“I never should have let her go up there,” he’d said as he handed the radio to Kathy. “Never.”

“You didn’t ‘let’ her do anything,” Kathy had pointed out. “Bats are her livelihood.”

Bats, yes-not monsters.

As they reentered the fort he couldn’t have been more disgusted with himself. There was an unpleasant groaning high above them, like a tree listing in the wind. Gentry also thought he heard scratching outside the statue.

“Uh-oh,” T-Bone said. “The little peckers are back.”

“I hear.”

The men started up through the pedestal, Gentry in front. He was struggling to keep the weight off his foot.

“You gonna be okay?” T-Bone asked.

“Yeah,” Gentry said. He was using the pain to stay alert. He was aware of every damn step.

As they entered the statue, Gentry felt the way he used to when he chased scum through the tunnels under Grand Central. His senses were high-intensity, as they were as he listened for quarry, watched for trains, stayed wide of the third rail.

Gentry stopped suddenly. T-Bone ran into him.

“Hey,” the camera operator complained, panting.

Gentry turned the flashlight back toward the pedestal. “The third rail,” he muttered.

“What?”

“The third rail,” he repeated, as he moved the light down the stairs. “You step on it and you’re fried.”

“Man, what thehell are you talkin’ about?”

“T-Bone,” Gentry said urgently, “didn’t Gilheany say there was a transformer down here?”

“She did, but we ain’t got time to fix the lights-”

“Not the lights,” Gentry said. “She said they passed them at the bottom of the statue. And that the transformer was intact.”

“Yeah, she said that,” T-Bone said impatiently.“And?”

Gentry hurried down the steps. He kept his left palm pressed against the left side of the stairwell to keep as much weight as possible off his leg. He felt like he was on a caffeine high, his heart racing and nerves crawling. He could see and hear the faint crackling of the broken wire above. He kept the light directed at the core of the statue.

“De-tec-tive,” T-Bone said.

“There!” Gentry said. He shined the light on a series of large metal boxes that lined the stone walls.

“Okay,” T-Bone said. “The juice. And the fuse boxes. So?”

“Situated less then fifteen feet from a shaft that goes all the way up the statue,” Gentry said. “A shaft made of steel.”

T-Bone said, “Fuck, man. Yeah.Yeah! ”

The big man elbowed around Gentry. He looked at the locked boxes then put the crowbar to the faceplate of one of them.

“You worked with transformers when you were a lineman, didn’t you?” Gentry asked.

“Every friggin’ day,” he said as he drew back the crowbar.

“How much power would it take to kill that bat?”

“Five amperes of current at two thousand volts should do it.”

The panel snapped open. Gentry took the crowbar and handed him the flashlight.

“They sure have solid-stated a lot of this shit,” T-Bone said.

“Can you work with it?”

“I’m lookin’.”

The scratching outside became louder. The bat was echolocating again. He hoped that meant Nancy was still on the run.

“This is a major transformer,” he said. “I bet they’re runnin’ Ellis Island from here too.”

“Can youdo it?” Gentry pressed.

“I don’t know-!” He looked at the bundles of wires tucked above and behind the transformer. Pulling a pocket knife from his vest, he carefully stripped away some of the casing.

Gentry was growing impatient. But he stood there quietly and waited.

T-Bone shined the flashlight on the wires and bent close. “High temperature wire. Looks like adequate ampacity… galvanized steel armor.” He backed away and slipped a screwdriver and pliers from his tool vest. “I can run some of this to the steel core, close the circuit, and turn the juice back on-yeah. I think it’s doable. But I seem to recall it’s all metal up there. Anyplace you stand you’re gonna get zapped.”

Gentry started limping up the staircase. “You rig it and wait for me to come back with Nancy.”

“Man, you sure? The two of us stand a better chance up there-”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Just be ready to turn the transformer on when I give you the word.”

“It’ll take me about five minutes,” T-Bone called after him. “Just don’t bring that motherfucking bat with you!”

“I’ll try not to,” he called back.

It was dark inside the statue but not black; the earliest rays of dawn were beginning to filter down from the statue’s eyes and from the windows in the crown.He heard the sound of grinding metal and he saw several vespers flitting above. He also saw the body of Sergeant Gilheany crumpled on one of the rest platforms off the staircase.

There was a slight breeze coming from above. The statue had obviously been breached somewhere, which was how the bats were getting in. But there was no way he was going to let the vespers stop him. As his heart and legs pumped ferociously, as he prepared to take the pain of the vesper attack to do whatever it took to draw the big bat away, Gentry had just one concern.

That he wasn’t too late to help Nancy.