Jeff Rovin - Vespers

This part of the operation was under the direction of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority head Charlie Schrank. Schrank was a slender, easygoing, shirtsleeves man with thinning brown hair and a chronically bemused expression. He seemed genuinely pleased as he shook Joyce’s hand.

“Gordy Weeks told me you’re a pro,” Schrank said, “and he doesn’t say that about a lot of people.”

“Thank you,” Joyce said.

She introduced Gentry, after which Schrank walked them up to the command center, a curved bank of panels, computers, and monitors along the east wall of the second floor of the cavernous tower.

“The audio portion of the operation is being controlled from the Emergency Broadcast Center at the OEM,” Schrank said. “As soon as we’re set here we’ll call the EBC. Their involvement will last until the bat enters the tunnel and the Manhattan entrance is closed off. Then we take over.”

“How will you know when the bat’s in position?” Joyce asked.

“We have security cameras in the tunnel.” Schrank pointed to the black-and-white images on the monitors.

Gentry stepped closer. There was also a feed from the video camera the police had left at the South Ferry subway station. Despite the intimate views of the surveillance cameras, Gentry felt curiously detached from the proceedings. He was accustomed to being in the middle of the action, not watching it from the outside. He looked down at the crew. Many of them had never worked with one another, but they were all pulling together. When Gentry thought of all the people and materiel that had been brought together in just a few hours, he was impressed. The machine had worked fast and it had worked well.

“I only wish we had time to test the delivery system,” Schrank said.

Joyce pointed out, “A lot of things are going to have to work right the first time.”

She was fidgeting with the zipper on the front of her jumpsuit. Gentry couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind and heart. So much had happened since this began and, more than ever, so much was sitting squarely on her shoulders.

“What exactly is going to happen?” Gentry asked. He was interested, but he also wanted to give Joyce something else to think about.

“The fans are twenty-seven feet down each shaft,” Schrank said. “They change six million cubic feet of air every minute and a half. You see the ladders?”

Gentry nodded.

“Ordinarily, they facilitate repair and cleaning. Now we’re using them as braces. One technician inside each shaft is fastening the tube to the ladder.”

“You had enough qualified technicians for that?” Gentry asked.

“Just enough,” Schrank laughed, “with a supervisor left over. What we didn’t have were enough plastic straps to attach the pipes to the ladders. We needed something with a little ‘give’ for when the fans start rattling.”

“What did you use?” Joyce asked.

Schrank pointed to his waist. “Trouser belts. Punched new holes in the sides, just the right size. It’s a littleApollo 13 -and, like I said, I wish we had time to test it. Once the pipes are secured and we see that the bat is in the tunnel, the ethyl chloride will be released and the fans will be turned on. The liquid will vaporize and, within seconds, the gaseous agent will be circulating through the tunnel, which is sixty feet below us.”

Schrank’s radio beeped. “That’s my supervisor,” he said as he slipped the unit from his back pocket. “Yes?”

Gentry watched as people climbed quickly from the shafts. He saw the supervisor standing directly below, beside the elevator door.

“We’re ready down here,” the supervisor said.

“Thanks,” Schrank said. “Tell everyone ‘good job.’” He put the radio back in his pocket and picked up a black phone under the bank of monitors. He punched in a number.

“Gordy?” he said. “We’re all set here.”

Gentry could see Joyce draw a sharp breath. He reached over and took her fingers in his.

She squeezed his hand.

A few seconds later the drumbeat came softly through a

The great bat was lying in her nest. Her large wings were unfurled and her ears were relaxed. Despite the pains in her tail, arm, and belly, she was trying to sleep.

Suddenly, in the midst of the quiet, she heard the sound again.Muscle after muscle inside her ears contracted within milliseconds of one another, refining and sharpening and pinpointing the sound. Fatty tissue in the base of the ear dampened everything outside the focus of the external ear, absorbing all sounds but the one she wanted to hear.

It was more comforting than the sound of her mate had ever been. Yet it was so much less familiar. In her mind she couldn’t see what made it. Yet when she heard it she couldn’t think of anything but the sound.

Slowly, she raised her head and pulled her wings toward her. It was strange to be on the ground like this and not suspended in the air. But it had not been an ordinary night. She had seen death, his death. She had sought to destroy the one who had taken him from her. And then she had felt the call of new life. She had returned here to await its arrival.

Now the sound had returned.The sound that had stopped her enraged flight from death and filled her with peace and with an unfamiliar yearning. A need so old yet so near…

It was coming from outside her cave. Despite her discomfort, the bat had to go to it. She had to find the source. She had to smell, see, and touch it. She had to understand it.

She had to have it again.

The giant threw back her head and wailed. Throughout the tunnel, her voice stirred her minions. When she heard them moving, she drew her powerful legs beneath her and stretched her hooks before her. She looked back at her nest, then began crawling through the blackness. As the sound grew closer, louder, her need for it became greater.

Then, when she was free of the cave, the sound suddenly disappeared-just as it had before.

The bat stopped. She listened. She heard countless smaller sounds ahead and above and to the sides. But she knew what those were: food. There were also lesser bats flying around her in all directions. She stopped wailing as she felt the loss again. Along the top of her wings, her fingers moved as though searching for something.

Where had it gone?

And then, as the lesser bats settled onto posts and ledges and wires, as the fluttering of their wings stopped, she heard it again. The sound, distant but distinct. She turned to the side.

There was another cave, larger than her own. That was where the sound was coming from. And the sound was making an echo. This cave had a back. Whatever was making the sound would not be able to leave.

Bunching her wings beside her and turning, the bat flung herself forward and soared into the air.

She’s in!”

Charlie Schrank’s shout punched through the silence in the ventilation tower. No one cheered, though. Getting the bat in the tunnel was only the first step. Now everything was up to this crew.

Joyce watched the tired, wounded creature crawl, leap, or occasionally fly past the succession of wide-angle video cameras. Because the optics for the black-and-white security cameras were designed to show stopped vehicles in low light, not to capture motion, the moving bat was a blur whenever she passed. It was difficult to see details, though only one seemed to matter: the bat had entered the tunnel. Joyce experienced a soaring sense of vindication. Not only had the bat gone in, she’d entered the tunnel alone and she wasn’t wailing. She’d bought the fact that the video game was her mother.

It also felt very good having Gentry hold her hand. He’d been with her almost every step of this, and she knew that he shared the satisfaction she was feeling right now.