Vespers

“Where?”

“The Christopher Street subway station, downtown,” said Moreaux. “A man disappeared from the platform during an attack. With any luck, though, we may have some answers soon.”

“Why?”

“Because an ESU team was just sent in to try and find him.”

Sixteen

In addition to being extremely mobile, the NYPD Emergency Service Unit is fast.

Within fifteen minutes of being informed that a man had been pulled from the downtown subway platform at Christopher Street, a Special Operations Division on the eight-to-four shift was down in the tu

They left the platform where the sixth precinct officer had found the headphones. For the duration of the operation, trains were not being permitted north of Houston Street or south of Fourteenth Street.

Officers Brophy, Hotchkiss, Lord, and Nicco and Sergeant Rhodes proceeded in side-by-side rows of two. The sergeant was in front. Rhodes held the radio in her left hand and kept the cha

Walking off to the left side of the tracks, the SOD team followed a trail of blood droplets along the track bed.

“If I didn’t know differently,” Rhodes said to Kilar, “I’d say the victim was hit by a train and carried along, bleeding. The drops of blood are lying in a long line down the center of the tracks.”

“Have you ever come across anything like this, Sergeant?” Lord asked.

“Yeah,” said Rhodes. “When my cat caught a mouse and ran across the living room carpet.”

“Maybe the mice figure it’s payback time,” Lord said.

“Well,” Kilar said, “the vic definitely wasn’t hit by a train. As we speak I’m looking at the MTA log that was just E-mailed over. It confirms what the clerk said. There was no train on that track at that time.”

“Then I’ve got no explanation for this,” she said. “There’s blood but no footprints. No Walkman. Nothing.”

They were nearly two hundred yards in. Rhodes circled the light carefully and systematically along the walls, ceiling, and columns.

“Now that Lord mentioned it,” Rhodes said, “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any Jimmies down here.” Jimmies were rats, named in honor of actor James “You-Dirty-Rat-You-Killed-My-Brother” Cagney. They usually moved along the rails searching for scraps that had been thrown on the tracks near the stations. And people moving through usually sent them ru

“Sergeant Rhodes?” Kilar said suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Hold on.”

Rhodes held up her left hand. Everyone stopped.

A moment later Kilar said, “Sergeant, you’re being advised to turn back.”

“Say again?”

“You’re being advised to turn back. We have an incoming-shit,” he said. “Just a minute. I’ve gotta figure this goddamn thing out.”

Lord and Hotchkiss laughed nervously.

Rhodes acknowledged his last communication, then waited.

Lieutenant Kilar had given her an advisement, not an order. Though that could change at any moment, for now it was still her call as to what the team should do. She leaned her head to the right and peered ahead. She shined the light around some more. Up and down, left and right, diagonally in both directions, all very slowly. She didn’t see anything.

She waited, chewing her cheek. She continued to look ahead. If she turned back to talk to the team, they’d look at her. That would leave zero eyes watching the track up ahead.

Lieutenant Kilar came back on the radio in less than a minute.

“Sergeant Rhodes, Sergeant Terry and I are going to attempt to patch through a call from a Dr. Nancy Joyce at the Museum of Natural History.”

“Why?”

“The doctor will explain.”

There was a short delay. Rhodes could just picture the lieutenant growing more and more frustrated as he and the technophobic Desk Sergeant Terry tried to work out the mechanics of switching the call. She also knew that Kilar wouldn’t give up. He might pound the table and threaten to shove the radio up some part of Terry’s anatomy, but he wouldn’t give up.

Rhodes moved ahead several steps. She cast the light here and there, then came back to the group. The rear lip of the helmet was chafing her neck and the vest was hot. She was uncomfortable. But she wanted to do what the hell they came down here for.

A woman’s voice crackled from the radio. “Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here. This is Field Sergeant Laurie Rhodes. Are you Dr. Joyce?”

“Yes,” the caller said urgently. “I’ve been talking to your sergeant. I don’t believe that you’re equipped to deal with what you may find in the tu

“Why? What may we find?”

“A colony of bats,” Joyce said.

“Bats?”

“Yes. Extremely vicious ones, probably belonging to the same colony that killed a group of homeless people under Grand Central Station this morning. There may also be a much bigger bat than the rest-we’re not sure.”

“Big enough to shoot?”

“If you were lucky enough to see it, and see it in time, maybe.”

“Understood.” She thought for a moment. “I just want to be clear about something. We’re wearing heavy vests and helmets, as well as ratproof gloves and boots. Are you certain that these willnot be sufficient to protect us?”

“Sergeant, it won’t evenslow the bats,” Joyce said. “They’ll crawl under whatever you’ve got on. They’ll bring you down. And once you’re down, you won’t get up. Please-call off the search.”

Rhodes glanced down the tracks. She moved the flashlight around even slower than before. “I don’t see any bats,” she said, “and we have an injured man somewhere down here.”

“Bats don’t store their food,” Joyce said. “They eat on the run. The man is probably dead already.”

“Dr. Joyce, are you saying they ate him?”

“Officer, I don’t know.Please come out.”

Rhodes stood there a moment longer. Then she walked a few more yards into the tu

“Sergeant?” Joyce asked.

Rhodes hesitated. If it were just her life at risk, she’d stay and search for the missing man. But it wasn’t. Reluctantly, the officer turned and walked back toward the team.

She never reached them. A pair of bats slammed into Rhodes’s legs, directly behind the knees. It took only a second for them to bite through the trousers to her flesh.

“Son of a bitch!” she yelled.

She put the radio and the light on the ground and turned to smack at the animals. As she did, she was pelted by a dozen more bats. They hit in quick, stinging succession, like pellets from a BB gun. They pinched the back of her vest, arms, and legs.