Текст книги "Reliquary"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

= 37 =

D’AGOSTA TRIED TO think of Yankee Stadium: the white orb of cowhide soaring through the blue July sky, the smell of grass newly ripped by a slide, the outfielder slamming into the wall, glove upraised. It was his form of transcendental meditation, a way to shut off the outside world and collect his thoughts. Especially useful when everything had gone totally to shit.

He kept his eyes shut a moment longer, trying to forget the sounds of the telephones, the slamming doors, the frantic secretaries. Somewhere, he knew, Waxie was rushing around like a turkey in heat. Thank God he wasn’t within squawking distance. Guess he isn’t so sure about old Jeffrey anymore,he thought. It brought no consolation.

With a sigh, D’Agosta forced his thoughts back to the strange figure of Alberta Muñoz, sole survivor of the subway massacre.

He had arrived just as she was being brought up an emergency exit at 66th Street on a stretcher: hands folded in her lap, pleasant vacant expression on her face, plump and motherly, her smooth brown skin in stark contrast to the sheets around her. God only knew how she’d managed to hide: she had not uttered a sound. The train itself had been turned into a temporary morgue: seven civilians and two TA workers dead, five with smashed skulls and throats cut to the backbone, three others with their heads completely missing, one electrocuted by the third rail. D’Agosta could almost smell the lawyers circling.

Mrs. Muñoz was now up at St. Luke’s in psychiatric seclusion. Waxie had hollered and pounded and threatened, but the admitting doctor was unyielding: no interviews until at least six that morning.

Three heads missing. The trails of blood were picked up immediately, but the hemoluminesence team was having a tough time in the labyrinth of wet tunnels. D’Agosta went over the setup once more in his head. Someone had cut a signal wire just beyond the 59th Street station, causing an immediate halting of all East Side express trains between 14th and 125th, leaving the one train trapped in the long approach to 86th Street. There they had waited, in ambush.

The whole setup took intelligence and planning, and perhaps an inside knowledge of the system. So far, no clear footprints had been found, but D’Agosta estimated there had been at least six of them. Six, but no more than ten. A well-planned, well-coordinated attack.

But why?

The SOC team had determined that the electrocuted man probably stepped on the third rail deliberately. D’Agosta wondered just what a man would have to see in order to do something like that. Whatever it was, Alberta Muñoz might have seen it, too. He hadto talk to her before Waxie got there and ruined everything.

“D’Agosta!” a familiar voice bellowed, as if on cue. “What, are you frigging asleep?”

He slowly opened his eyes, silently regarding the quivering, red face.

“Forgive me for interrupting your beauty rest,” Waxie continued, “but we’ve got a tiny little crisis on our hands here—”

D’Agosta sat up. He looked around the office, spotted his jacket on the back of a chair, grabbed it and began sliding one hand into an armhole.

“You hearing me, D’Agosta?” Waxie shouted.

He pushed past the Captain and walked into the hallway. Hayward was standing by the situation desk, checking an incoming fax. D’Agosta caught her eye and motioned her toward the elevator.

“Where the hell are you going now?” Waxie said, following them to the elevator. “You deaf or something? I said, we got a crisis—”

“It’s your crisis,” D’Agosta snapped. “You deal with it. I’ve got things to do.”

As the elevator doors closed, D’Agosta placed a cigar in his mouth and turned to face Hayward.

“St. Luke’s?” she asked. He nodded in response.

A minute later, the elevator doors chimed open on the wide tiled lobby. D’Agosta began to step out, then stopped. Beyond the glass doors, he could see a crowd of people, fists thrust in the air. It had tripled in size since he’d arrived at One Police Plaza at 2:00 A.M. That rich woman, Wisher, was standing on the hood of a squad car, speaking animatedly into a bullhorn. The media was there in force: he could see the pop of flash guns, the assembled machinery of television crews.

Hayward put a hand on his forearm. “Sure you don’t want to take a black-and-white from the basement motor pool?” she asked.

D’Agosta looked at her. “Good idea,” he said, stepping back into the elevator.

The admitting doctor kept them waiting on plastic chairs in the staff cafeteria for forty-five minutes. He was young, grim, and dead tired.

“I told that Captain no interviews until six,” he said in a thin, angry voice.

D’Agosta stood up and took the doctor’s hand. “I’m Lieutenant D’Agosta, and this is Sergeant Hayward. Pleased to meet you, Dr. Wasserman.”

The doctor grunted and withdrew his hand.

“Doctor, I just want to say up front that we don’t want to do anything that will cause harm to Mrs. Muñoz.”

The doctor “nodded.

“And you’re to be the only judge of that,” D’Agosta added.

The doctor said nothing.

“I also realize that a certain Captain Waxie was up here causing trouble. Perhaps he even threatened you.”

Wasserman suddenly exploded. “In all my years working this emergency room, I’ve never been treated quite like that bastard treated me.”

Hayward snickered. “Join the club,” she said.

The doctor shot her a surprised look, then relaxed slightly.

“Doctor, there were at least six, and probably ten, men involved in this massacre,” D’Agosta said. “I believe they’re the same individuals who killed Pamela Wisher, Nicholas Bitterman, and many others. I also believe they may be roaming the subway tunnels as we speak. It may be that the only living person who can identify them is Mrs. Muñoz. If you really feel that my questioning Mrs. Muñoz now will be harmful, I’ll accept that. I just hope you’ll consider that other lives might hang in the balance.”

The doctor stared at him for a long time. At last, he managed a wan smile. “Very well, Lieutenant. On three conditions. I must be present. You must be gentle in your questioning. And you must end the interview as soon as I request it.”

D’Agosta nodded.

“I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your time. She’s suffering from shock and the early symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

“Understood, Doctor.”

“Good. From what we can tell, Mrs. Muñoz is from a small town in central Mexico. She works as a child-care domestic for an Upper East Side family. We know she speaks English. Beyond that, not much.”

Mrs. Muñoz lay in the hospital bed in exactly the same position she’d lain on the crime scene stretcher: arms folded, eyes staring vacantly into the far distance. The room smelled of glycerine soap and rubbing alcohol. Hayward took up a position outside in case Waxie showed up prematurely, while D’Agosta and the doctor took seats on either side of the bed. They sat for a moment, motionless. Then, wordlessly, Wasserman took her hand.

D’Agosta removed his wallet. Sliding out a picture, he held it in front of the woman’s face.

“This is my daughter, Isabella,” said D’Agosta. “Two years old. Isn’t she beautiful?”

He held the photo, patiently, until at last the woman’s eyes flickered toward it. The doctor frowned.

“Do you have any children?” D’Agosta asked, replacing the photo. Mrs. Muñoz looked at him. There was a long silence.

“Mrs. Muñoz,” D’Agosta said, “I know you’re in this country illegally.”

The woman quickly turned away. The doctor shot D’Agosta a warning look.

“I also know a lot of people have made you promises they haven’t kept. But I’m going to make you a promise that I swear on my daughter’s picture I will keep. If you help me, I’ll see to it that you get your green card.”

The woman did not respond. D’Agosta took out another picture and held it up. “Mrs. Muñoz?”

For a long moment, the woman remained motionless. Then her eyes strayed toward the picture. Something relaxed inside D’Agosta.

“This is Pamela Wisher when she was two years old. The same age as my daughter.”

Mrs. Muñoz took the picture. “An angel,” she whispered.

“She was killed by the same people who attacked your subway train.” He spoke gently but rapidly. “Mrs. Muñoz, please help me to find these terrible people. I don’t want them to kill anyone else.”

A tear trickled down Mrs. Muñoz’s face. Her lips twitched.

“Ojos…”

“I’m sorry?” D’Agosta said.

“Eyes…”

There was another pause while Mrs. Muñoz’s lips worked silently. “They came, silently… lizard’s eyes, devil’s eyes.” A sob escaped her.

D’Agosta opened his mouth to speak, but a look from Wasserman restrained him.

“Eyes… cuchillos de pedernal… faces like the devil…”

“How so?”

“Old faces, viejos…”

She covered her face with her hands and let out a great groaning cry.

Wasserman stood up, gesturing at D’Agosta. “That’s enough,” he said. “Out.”

“But what did she—?”

“Out now,”the doctor said.

In the corridor, D’Agosta reached for his notebook, quickly spelling out the Spanish phrases as best he could.

“What’s that?” Hayward asked, peering curiously around his shoulder.

“Spanish,” said D’Agosta.

Hayward frowned. “That isn’t like any Spanish I ever saw.”

D’Agosta looked at her sharply. “Don’t tell me you habla Españolon top of everything else.”

Hayward looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “You can’t always roust in English. And just what is that crack supposed to mean?”

D’Agosta shoved the notebook into her hand. “Just figure out what it says.”

Hayward began examining it intently, moving her lips. After a few moments, she moved to the nurse’s station and picked up a phone.

Wasserman came out, closing the door quietly behind him. “Lieutenant, that was… well, unorthodox, to say the least. But in the end I think it may prove beneficial. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” D’Agosta replied. “Just get her on her feet again. There are a lot more questions I’ll need to ask her down the road.”

Hayward had hung up the phone and was walking back toward them. “This is the best that Jorge and I could do,” she said, handing the notebook back.

D’Agosta looked at the jottings, frowning. “Knives of flint?”

Hayward shrugged. “Can’t even be sure it’s what she said. But it’s our best guess.”

“Thanks,” D’Agosta said, thrusting the notebook into his pocket and walking away quickly. A moment later he stopped, as if recollecting something. “Doctor,” he said, “Captain Waxie will probably be here in the next hour or so.”

A black look crossed Wasserman’s features.

“But I assume Mrs. Muñoz is too exhausted to see anybody. Am I right? If the Captain gives you any trouble, refer him to me.”

For the first time, Wasserman broke into a smile.

= 38 =

WHEN MARGO ARRIVED at the Anthropology conference room around ten that morning, it was obvious that the meeting had already been underway for some time. The small conference table in the center of the lab was littered with coffee cups, napkins, half-eaten croissants, and breakfast wrappings. In addition to Frock, Waxie, and D’Agosta, Margo was surprised to see Chief Horlocker, the heavy braid on his collar and hat looking out of place among all the equipment. Resentment hung in the air like a heavy pall.

“You expect us to believe that the killers are livingin those Astor Tunnels of yours?” Waxie was saying to D’Agosta. At the sound of her entrance, he turned with a frown. “Glad you could make it,” he grumbled.

Hearing this, Frock looked up, then rolled back to make room for her at the table, a relieved look on his face. “Margo! At last. Perhaps you can clear things up. Lieutenant D’Agosta here has been making some unusual claims about your discovery at Greg’s lab. He tells me you’ve been doing some, ah, additional research in my absence. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, my dear, I’d think that—”

“Excuse me!” D’Agosta said loudly. In the abrupt silence, he looked around at Horlocker, Waxie, and Frock in turn.

“I’d like Dr. Green to review her findings,” he said in a quieter tone.

Margo took a seat at the table, surprised when Horlocker made no response. Something had happened, and, though she couldn’t be sure, it seemed obvious that it had to do with the subway massacre the night before. She considered apologizing for her lateness and explaining that she’d remained at her lab until three that morning, but decided against it. For all she knew, Jen, her lab assistant, was still at work down the hall.

“Just a minute,” Waxie began. “I was saying that—”

Horlocker turned to him. “Waxie, shut up. Dr. Green, I think you’d better tell us exactly what you’ve been doing and what you’ve discovered.”

Margo took a deep breath. “I don’t know what Lieutenant D’Agosta has told you already,” she began, “so I’ll be brief. You know that the badly deformed skeleton we found belongs to Gregory Kawakita, a former curator here at the Museum. He and I were both graduate assistants. After leaving the Museum, Greg apparently ran a series of clandestine laboratories, the last one being down in the West Side railyards. My examination of the site turned up evidence that, before his death, Greg was manufacturing a genetically engineered version of Liliceae mbwunensis.”

“And that’s the plant the Museum Beast needed to survive?” Horlocker asked. Margo listened for a sarcastic edge to his voice, but could not detect one.

“Yes,” she replied. “But I now believe that this plant was more than just a food source for the beast. If I’m right, the plant contains a reovirus that causes morphological change in any creature that ingests it.”

“Come again?” Waxie said.

“It causes gross physical alteration. Whittlesey, the leader of the expedition that sent the plants back to the Museum, must have ingested some himself—perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps against his will. We’ll never know the details. But it seems clear now that the Museum Beast was, in fact, Julian Whittlesey.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Frock. Nobody else spoke.

“I know this is difficult to believe,” Margo said. “It certainly wasn’t the conclusion we came to after the beast was destroyed. We thought the creature was simply some evolutionary aberration that needed the plants to survive. We assumed that, when its own ecological niche was destroyed, it followed the only remaining plants back to the Museum. They’d been used as packing fibers for the artifacts that were crated up and shipped back to New York. Then later, when the beast couldn’t get the plants, it ate the nearest available substitute: the human hypothalamus, which contains many of the same hormones found in the plant.

“But I now think we were wrong. The beast was a grossly malformed Whittlesey. I also think Kawakita stumbled on the true answer. He must have found a few specimens of the plant and begun altering them genetically. I guess he believed he’d been able to rid the plant of its negative effects.”

“Tell them about the drug,” D’Agosta said.

“Kawakita had been producing the plant in large quantities,” Margo said. “I believe that a rare designer drug—didn’t I hear you call it ‘glaze’?—is derived from it, though I can’t be sure. It probably has potent narcotic or hallucinatory properties in addition to its viral payload. Kawakita must have been selling it to a select group of users, probably to raise money for more research. But he was also testing the effectiveness of his work. Clearly, he ingested the plant himself at some point. That’s what accounts for the bizarre malformations to his skeletal structure.”

“But if this drug, or plant, or whatever, has such terrible side effects, why would this Kawakita take it himself?” Horlocker asked.

Margo frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “He must have continued perfecting new strains. I assume he felt he’d bred out the negative elements of the drug. And he must have seen some beneficial aspect to it. I’m conducting tests on the plants I found in his laboratory. We’ve introduced them into various test animals, including white mice and some protozoans. My lab assistant, Jennifer Lake, is going over the results now.”

“Why wasn’t I informed—?” Waxie began.

D’Agosta rounded on him. “When you finally get around to checking your in box and listening to your messages, you’ll find that you were informed of every goddamn step.”

Horlocker held up his hand. “Enough. Lieutenant, we all know that mistakes have been made. We’ll leave the recriminations for later.”

D’Agosta sat back. Margo had never seen him so angry. It was almost as if he blamed everyone in the room—himself included—for the subway tragedy.

“Right now, we’ve got an unbelievably serious situation on our hands,” Horlocker continued. “The mayor’s on my back, screaming for action. And now, with this massacre, the governor’s joined in.” He wiped his brow with a damp handkerchief. “All right. According to Dr. Green here, we’re dealing with a group of drug addicts, supplied by this scientist, Kawakita. Only now, Kawakita is dead. Maybe their supplies have run out, or maybe they’ve gone wild. They’re living deep underground, in these Astor Tunnels D’Agosta was describing, abandoned long ago because of flooding. And they’re going mad with need. When they can’t get the drug, they’re forced to eat the human brain. Just like the Mbwun beast. Hence, all the recent killings.” He looked around, glaring. “Supporting evidence?”

“The Mbwun plants we found at Kawakita’s lab site,” Margo said.

“The bulk of the killings parallel the route of the Astor Tunnels,” D’Agosta added. “Pendergast showed that.”

“Circumstantial.” Waxie snorted.

“How about testimony of countless homeless, all stating the Devil’s Attic has been colonized?” Margo said.

“You’d trust a bunch of bums and drug addicts?” Waxie asked.

“Why the hell would they lie?” Margo demanded. “And who’s in a better position to know the truth than they are?”

“Very well!” The Chief raised his hand. “In the face of the evidence, we’re forced to agree. No other leads have panned out. And the powers that be in this city want immediate action. Not tomorrow, or the next day, but right now.”

Frock cleared his throat quietly. It was the first sound he’d made in some time.

“Professor?” Horlocker said.

Frock rolled forward slowly. “Forgive my skepticism, but I find this a little too fantastic,” he began. “It all seems too much an extrapolation from the facts. Since I wasn’t involved in the most recent tests, I can’t speak with authority, of course.” He looked at Margo with mild reproof. “But the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

“And what pray tellis the simple explanation?” D’Agosta broke in.

Frock moved his gaze to the Lieutenant. “I beg your pardon,” he said icily.

Horlocker turned to D’Agosta. “Stow it, Vincent.”

“Perhaps Kawakita wasworking with the Mbwun plant. And I see no reason to doubt Margo when she says that our own assumptions of eighteen months ago were a trifle hasty. But where is the evidence of a drug, or of the distribution of a drug?” Frock spread his hands.

“Jesus, Frock, he had a stream of visitors out at his lab in Long Island City—”

Frock turned another cool stare at D’Agosta. “I daresay youhave visitors at your apartment in Queens”—the distaste in his voice was evident—“but that doesn’t mean you’re a drug peddler. Kawakita’s activities, however professionally reprehensible, do not have any bearing on what I think is probably a gang of youths on a homicidal rampage. Kawakita was a victim like the rest. I fail to see the connection.”

“Then how do you explain Kawakita’s deformities?”

“Very well, he was making this drug, and perhaps he wastaking it. In deference to Margo, I’ll go even further and say—without any proof, of course—that perhaps this drug does cause certain physical changes in the user. But I have yet to see one iota of evidence that he was distributing it, or that his, ah, clients are responsible for these killings. And the idea that the Mbwun creature was once Julian Whittlesey… come now. It goes directly against evolutionary theory.”

Your evolutionary theory, Margo thought.

Horlocker passed a weary hand over his brow and pushed litter and papers away from a map that was lying across the table. “Your objections are noted, Dr. Frock. But it no longer matters exactly whothese people are. We know what they do and we have a good idea where they live. All that’s left now is to take action.”

D’Agosta shook his head. “I think it’s too soon. I know every minute counts, but we’re still in the dark about too many things. I was in the Museum of Natural History, remember. I sawthe Mbwun creature. If these drug users have even a trace of that thing’s abilities…” He shrugged. “You saw the slides of Kawakita’s skeleton. I just don’t think we should move until we know what we’re dealing with. Pendergast went down for his own reconnaissance over forty-eight hours ago. I think we should wait until he returns.”

Frock looked up in surprise, and Horlocker snorted. “Pendergast? I don’t like the man and I neverliked his methods. He has no jurisdiction here. And frankly, if he went down there alone, that’s his lookout. He’s probably history by now. We’ve got the firepower to do whatever needs to be done.”

Waxie nodded vigorously.

D’Agosta looked dubious. “At the most, I’d propose some kind of containment effort until we get more information from Pendergast. Just give me twenty-four hours, sir.”

“ Containmenteffort,” Horlocker repeated sarcastically, looking around the room. “You can’t have it both ways, D’Agosta. Didn’t you hear me? The mayor is screaming for action. He doesn’t want containment. We’ve run out of time.” He turned to his assistant. “Get the mayor’s office on the phone. And locate Jack Masters.”

“Personally,” Frock said, “I’m of the same opinion as D’Agosta. We shouldn’t be precipitous—”

“The decision’s made, Frock,” Horlocker snapped, returning his attention to the map.

Frock flushed a deep crimson. Then he spun his wheelchair away from the table and rolled toward the door. “I’m going to take a turn around the Museum,” he said to nobody in particular. “I can see my usefulness here has ended.”

Margo began to rise, but D’Agosta placed a restraining hand on her arm. She watched the door close with regret. Frock had been a visionary, the one person most instrumental in her own choice of careers. Yet now she could only feel pity for the great scientist who’d grown so set in his ways. How much less painful,she thought, if only he’d been allowed to enjoy his retirement in peace.