Vespers

Forty-Seven

Al Doyle spent the day supervising his pest control personnel as they removed the giant bats from the statue. He left the cleanup of the remaining vespers to the National Park Service police and the Hazardous Materials unit of the Coast Guard. He would return later in the day when officials from the United States Agriculture Department were scheduled to arrive from Washington.

The three giant bats were packed in crates lined with plastic and loaded with ice. The crates were sealed, placed on a barge, and floated up the Hudson River to the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. There, they were met by ESU personnel who loaded them into vans and brought them to the Central Park Zoo’s veterinary department.

Zoo chief Berkowitz had suggested that the remains of the bats could be put on display to help raise money for the zoo and for future pest control efforts. Doyle was all for that. But several things Dr. Joyce had said about the creatures intrigued him. Not just about the bats themselves but about the circumstances that had caused them to mutate.

Whatever accident had created these monsters offered many opportunities to science-and to the scientists who were clever enough to decipher the chemical and biological processes involved. Decipher them, understand them, and one thing more. The most important thing of all.

Replicate them.