Douglas Preston - Reliquary

Smithback tried to move but seemed unable to tear his gaze away from the spectacle beneath him. In his panic to climb the ladder, Waxie had slipped and was clutching to one side, trying to gain a purchase with his scrabbling feet. Duffy was coming up quickly beneath him, but several of the dark figures were right behind.

“It’s got my leg!” Duffy screamed. There were unmistakable sounds of thrashing and kicking. “Oh, my God, help me!” The hysterical voice echoed and reechoed crazily through the dim space.

As Smithback watched, Duffy shook himself free with a strength born of terror and scrambled up the ladder past the struggling Waxie.

“No! No!” Waxie yelled in desperation, trying to kick away the grasping hands of the closest figure and knocking back its hood in the process. Smithback jerked his head back instinctively at the sight, but not before his brain had registered something out of his worst nightmare, worse for being vague in the dim light: narrow lizard’s pupils, thick wet lips, great creases and folds of extra skin. It suddenly dawned on him that these must be the Wrinklers Mephisto had referred to. Now he knew why.

The sight broke Smithback’s paralysis, and he began scrambling up the catwalk. Behind him, he could hear Waxie firing his service piece—there was a roar of pain that almost turned Smithback’s limbs to jelly—two more quick shots in rapid succession—then Waxie’s rising, blubbering scream of anguish, suddenly truncated to a horrifying wet gurgle.

Smithback half ran, half scuttled up the catwalk, trying to keep the sense of overwhelming fear from paralyzing him once again. Behind him, he could hear Duffy—God, he hoped it was Duffy—sobbing and scrambling up the iron rungs. I’ve got a good head start, he thought; the figures still had nearly one hundred feet of ladder to climb. For a moment, he considered going back to help Duffy, but it was the work of an instant to realize there was nothing he could do. Just give me the luxury of living to regret running away, he thought hysterically, and I won’t ask for anything, ever ever again.

But as he approached the stone steps leading to the surface, and the faint sweet circle of moonlit sky appeared above him, he saw with sudden horror bulky figures looming forward, blotting out the stars. Now they were descending—oh, God—toward him. He dropped back to the catwalk, desperately looking around at the brick walls, at the curve of the shaftway as it ran down toward the pit. To one side of the catwalk lay the entrance to an access tunnel: an ancient stone archway, rimed in crystallized lime, like hoarfrost. The figures were closing in fast now. Smithback leapt for the archway, passed beneath it, and entered a low tunnel. Feeble lightbulbs dotted its ceiling at infrequent intervals. He plunged forward, running with desperate abandon, realizing even as he did so that the tunnel angled in precisely the direction he did not want to go: down, ever down.

= 51 =

THE FBI AGENT on duty in Armory Division was leaning back, nose deep in a copy of Soldier of Fortune, his chair precariously balanced on its rear two legs. Over the top of the magazine, Margo could see his eyes widen at their approach. Probably he wasn’t used to seeing an impossibly ratty, wild-eyed man with an unkempt beard, wandering around the basement of the FBI’s Federal Plaza headquarters with a young woman and pudgy man in tow. She watched as the eyes suddenly narrowed, the nostrils flaring. Must have caught wind of Mephisto, as well, Margo thought.

“Just what the hell can I do for you gentlemen ?” the guard asked, lowering the magazine and easing the chair forward slowly.

“They’re with me,” Pendergast said briskly, coming forward and flashing his identification. But the man had caught sight of him and bounded to his feet already, the magazine skidding across the floor.

“I’ll need to sign for some ordnance,” Pendergast said.

“Of course, right away, sir,” the agent babbled, unlocking the upper and lower locks of the metal door behind him and swinging it open.

Margo stepped into the large room beyond. Row upon row of wooden cabinets rose in ordered procession toward the low ceiling. “What is all this stuff?” she asked as they followed Pendergast down the nearest aisle.

“Emergency supplies,” came the answer. “Rations, medical supplies, bottled water, food supplements, blankets and bedding, spare parts for the essential systems, fuel.”

“You got enough shit to withstand a siege in here,” D’Agosta muttered.

“That’s exactly the point, Lieutenant,” Pendergast said, approaching a small metal door in the far wall, punching in a code, and flinging it open. Beyond lay a narrow corridor. Rows of stainless steel lockers flanked both sides, Plexiglas labels engraved on their fronts. Entering the room, Margo stopped to look at a few of the closest labels: M-16/XM-148, CAR-15/SM-177E2, KEVLAR S-M, KEVLAR L-XXL.

“The cop and his toys,” Mephisto said.

Pendergast moved quickly down the aisle, then stopped at a locker, wrenched it open, and removed three masks of clear plastic, attached to small canisters of oxygen. Keeping one for himself, he tossed the others to D’Agosta and Mephisto.

“Just in case you feel like gassing a few more underground residents on our way down?” Mephisto said, catching it awkwardly in his manacled hands. “I’ve heard we make good sport.”

Pendergast stopped and turned toward the homeless man. “I know you feel your people were ill-used by the police,” he said quietly. “As it happens, I agree with you. You’ll simply have to take my word when I say I had nothing to do with it.”

“Two-faced Janus speaks again. Mayor of Grant’s Tomb, sure. I should’ve known it was a crock of shit.”

“It was your own paranoia and isolation that made my ruse necessary,” Pendergast said, opening additional lockers and removing a head-mounted flash unit, several pairs of goggles with long eye-stalks Margo guessed were night-vision devices, and some long yellow canisters she didn’t recognize. “I don’t, and never did, look upon you as an enemy.”

“Then take these cuffs off.”

“Don’t do it,” D’Agosta warned.

Pendergast poised in the act of removing several K-bar knives from the locker. Then he dug into the breast pocket of his black suit, stepped forward, and released the cuffs with a quick turn of his wrist. Mephisto flung them contemptuously down the narrow corridor.

“Planning on whittling while you’re below, Whitey ?” he asked. “Those little Special Forces penknives you’ve got there won’t do you much good against the Wrinklers. Except maybe tickle them some.”

“It is my hope we won’t meet up with any inhabitants of the Astor Tunnels,” Pendergast said, snugging a pair of handguns into the waist of his pants, his head buried in the locker. “But I’ve already learned that it pays to be prepared.”

“Well, enjoy your turkey shoot, FBI man. Afterwards, we can stop by Route 666 for tea and biscuits, have a nice chin-wag, maybe get your trophies stuffed.”

As Margo watched, Pendergast stepped back from the locker. Then he moved slowly toward Mephisto. “What can I do, exactly, to impress on you the seriousness of this situation?” he asked, his face inches from that of the underground leader. He spoke softly, yet there was a subtle edge to his voice that seemed somehow menacing.

Mephisto took a step backward. “If that’s what you want, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“If I didn’t,” Pendergast replied, “I wouldn’t have removed your handcuffs.”

“Then prove it.” Mephisto said, quickly recovering his nerve. “Give me a piece. One of those nice shiny Stoners I saw in that locker back there. Or at least a 12-gauge. If you guys get greased, I want a fighting chance to survive.”