Douglas Preston - Relic

“The creature kept it hung by its chain from a nail in the wall of its lair,” Pendergast said. “It liked beautiful things. Another sign of intelligence, I suppose.”

“Was everything picked up from inside the Museum?” asked Smithback.

“As far as we can tell,” Pendergast said. “There’s no evidence the creature could—or wanted to—obtain egress from the Museum.”

“No?” Smithback said. “Then what about the exit you were leading D’Agosta toward?”

“He found it,” Pendergast said simply. “You were all very lucky.”

Smithback turned to ask D’Agosta another question, and Pendergast took the opportunity to get up and head for the cake. “It was awfully nice of you to throw me this party, Dr. Frock,” he said as he returned.

“You saved our lives,” Frock said. “I thought a little cake might be in order as our way of wishing you bon voyage.”

“I’m afraid, then,” Pendergast continued, “that I may be at this party under false pretenses.”

“Why is that?” Frock asked.

“I may not be leaving New York permanently. The directorship of the New York office is up for reassignment, you see.”

[454] “You mean it’s not going to Coffey?” Smithback smirked.

Pendergast shook his head. “Poor Mr. Coffey,” he said. “I hope he enjoys his position in the Waco field office. In any case, the Mayor, who has become a great fan of Captain D’Agosta here, seems to think I have a good shot at it.”

“Congratulations!” cried Frock.

“It isn’t certain yet,” Pendergast said. “Nor am I certain I care to remain up here. Although the place does have its charms.”

He got up and walked to the bow window, where Margo was standing, staring out at the Hudson River and the green hills of the Palisades beyond.

“What are your plans, Margo?” he asked.

She turned to face him. “I’ve decided to stay at the Museum until I’ve finished my dissertation.”

Frock laughed. “The truth is, I refused to let her go,” he said.

Margo smiled. “Actually, I’ve received an offer from Columbia. Tenure-track Assistant Professorship, starting next year. Columbia was my father’s alma mater. So I’ve got to finish it, you see.”

“Great news!” said Smithback. “We’ll have to celebrate over dinner tonight.”

“Dinner? Tonight?”

“Café des Artistes, seven o’clock,” he said. “Listen, you’ve got to come. I’m a world-famous author, or about to become one. This champagne’s getting warm,” he continued, reaching for the bottle.

Everyone crowded round as Frock brought out glasses. Smithback angled the bottle toward the ceiling and fired off the cork with a satisfying pop .

“What’ll we drink to?” asked D’Agosta, as the glasses were filled.

“To my book,” said Smithback.

“To Special Agent Pendergast, and a safe journey home,” Frock said.

“To the memory of George Moriarty,” Margo said quietly.

“To George Moriarty.” There was a silence.

“God bless us, everyone,” Smithback intoned. Margo punched him playfully.

EPILOGUE

= 63 =

Long Island City, Six Months Later

The rabbit jerked as the needle sank into its haunch. Kawakita watched as the dark blood filled up the syringe.

He placed the rabbit carefully back in its hutch, then transferred the blood to three centrifugal test tubes. He opened the nearby centrifuge, slotted the tubes into the drum, and shut the lid. Flicking the switch, he listened to the hum slowly build to a whine as the force of the rotation separated the blood into its components.

He sat back in the wooden chair and let his eyes roam around the surroundings. The office was dusty and the lighting dim, but Kawakita preferred it that way. No sense in drawing attention to oneself.

It had been very difficult in the beginning: finding the right place, assembling the equipment, even paying the rent. It was unbelievable how much they wanted for rundown warehouses in Queens. The computer had been the hardest item to come by. Instead of buying one, he had finally managed to hack his way over the telephone long [460] lines into a large mainframe at the Solokov College of Medicine. It was a relatively secure site from which to run his Genetic Extrapolation Program.

He peered through the dingy window to the shop floor below. The large space was dark and relatively vacant, the only light coming from aquariums sitting on metal racks along the far wall. He could hear the faint bubbling of the filtration systems. The lights from the tanks cast a dim greenish glow across the floor. Two dozen, give or take a few. Soon, he’d need more. But money was becoming less and less of a problem.

It was amazing, thought Kawakita, how the most elegant solutions were the simplest ones. Once you saw it, the answer was obvious. But it was seeing that answer for the first time that separated the timeless scientist from the merely great.

The Mbwun riddle was like that. He, Kawakita, had been the only one to suspect it, to see it, and—now—to prove it.

The whine of the centrifuge began to decrease in pitch, and soon the COMPLETED light began blinking a slow, monotonous red. Kawakita got up, opened the lid, and removed the tubes. The rabbit blood had been divided into its three constituents: clear serum on top, a thin layer of white blood cells in the middle, and a heavy layer of red blood cells at the bottom. He carefully suctioned off the serum, then placed drops of the cells into a series of watchglasses. Finally, he added various reagents and enzymes.

One of the watchglasses turned purple.

Kawakita smiled. It had been so simple.

After Frock and Margo had blundered up to him at the party, his initial skepticism had quickly changed to fascination. He had been on the periphery before, not really paying attention. But practically from the minute he’d hit Riverside Drive that evening—carried along in the stream of countless other hysterical guests who’d rushed from the opening—he began thinking. Then, in [461] the aftermath, he began asking questions. When later he’d heard Frock pronounce the mystery solved, Kawakita’s curiosity had only increased. Perhaps, to be fair, he’d had a little more objective distance than those who’d been inside the Museum that night, fighting the beast in the dark. But whatever the reason, there seemed to be small defects with the solution: little problems, minor contradictions that everyone had missed.

Everyone except Kawakita.

He’d always been a very cautious researcher; cautious, yet full of insatiable curiosity. It had helped him in the past: at Oxford, and in his early days at the Museum. And now, it helped him again. His caution had made him build a keystroke capture routine into the Extrapolator. For security reasons, of course—but also to learn what others might use his program for.

So it was only natural that he’d go back and examine what Frock and Margo had done.

All he’d had to do was press a few keys, and the program reeled off every question Frock and Margo had asked, every bit of data they had entered, and every result they had obtained.

That data had pointed him toward the real solution to the Mbwun mystery. It had been there under their noses the whole time, had they known what questions to ask. Kawakita learned to ask the right questions. And along with the answer came a stunning discovery.

A soft knock sounded at the warehouse door. Kawakita walked down the stairs to the main floor of the warehouse, moving without sound or hesitation through the gloom.