Relic

[382] “If the extrapolation program is correct,” Frock said, “the creature can move at a high rate of speed. Perhaps thirty miles an hour or greater, especially when in need. And its need for the fibers seems overpowering. It won’t be able to travel at full speed down these corridors—the residual scent trail we leave will be harder to track—but I doubt the water will slow it much. And the Secure Area is close by.”

“I see,” Pendergast said. “How unsettling. ‘He that has a mind to fight, let him fight, for now is the time.’ ”

“Ah,” said Frock, nodding. “Alcaeus.”

Pendergast shook his head. “Anacreon, Doctor. Shall we go?”

= 54 =

Smithback held the light, but it hardly seemed to penetrate the palpable darkness. D’Agosta, slightly in front, held the gun. The tu

He glanced at D’Agosta’s face, shadowy and grim, his thick features smeared with Bailey’s blood.

“I can’t go any farther,” someone wailed from the rear. Smithback could hear the Mayor’s familiar voice—a politician’s voice—reassuring, soothing, telling everyone what they wanted to hear. Once again, it seemed to work. Smithback stole a glance backward at the dispirited group. The lean, gowned, bejeweled women; the middle-aged businessmen in their tuxedos; the smattering of yuppies from investment banks and downtown law firms. He knew them all now, had even given them names and occupations in his head. And here they all [384] were, reduced to the lowest common denominator, wallowing around in the dark of a tu

Smithback was worried, but still rational. Early on, he’d felt a moment of sheer terror when he realized the rumors about a Museum Beast were true. But now, tired and wet, he was more afraid of dying before he wrote his book than he was of dying itself. He wondered if that meant he was brave, or covetous, or just plain stupid. Whatever the case, he knew that what was happening to him down here was going to be worth a fortune. Book party at Le Cirque. Good Morning America, the Today Show, Donahue, and Oprah.

No one could do the story like he could, no one else had his first-person perspective. And he’d been a hero. He, William Smithback, Jr., had held the light against the monster when D’Agosta went back to shoot off the lock. He, Smithback, had thought of using the flashlight to brace the door. He’d been Lieutenant D’Agosta’s right-hand man.

“Shine the light up to the left, there.” D’Agosta intruded upon his thoughts, and Smithback dutifully complied. Nothing.

“I thought I saw something moving in the darkness,” D’Agosta muttered. “Must’ve been a shadow, I guess.”

God, Smithback thought, if only he lived to enjoy his success.

“Is it just my imagination, or is the water getting deeper?” he asked.

“It’s getting deeper and faster,” said D’Agosta. “Pendergast didn’t say which way to go from here.”

“He didn’t?” Smithback felt his guts turn to water.

“I was supposed to radio from the second fork,” D’Agosta said. “I lost my radio somewhere back before the door.”

Smithback felt another surge against his legs, a strong one. There was a shout and a splash.

“It’s all right,” the Mayor called out when Smithback [385] aimed the flashlight to the rear. “Someone fell down. The current’s getting stronger.”

“We can’t tell them we’re lost,” Smithback muttered to D’Agosta.

Margo swung open the door to the Secure Area, looked quickly inside, and nodded to Pendergast. The agent moved past the door, dragging the bundle.

“Shut it in the vault with the Whittlesey crates,” Frock said. “We want to keep the beast in here long enough for us to close the door on it.”

Margo unlocked the vault as Pendergast threaded a complex pattern across the floor. They put the bundle inside, then closed and locked the ornate vault door.

“Quick,” Margo said. “Across the hall.”

Leaving the main door to the Secure Area open, they crossed the hall to the elephant bone storage room. The small window in the door had long ago been broken, and a worn piece of cardboard now covered the opening. Margo unlocked the door with Frock’s key, then Pendergast pushed Frock inside. Switching Pendergast’s flashlight to its low setting, she balanced it on a ledge above the door, pointing the thin beam in the direction of the Secure Area. Finally, with a pen, she reamed a small hole in the cardboard and, with a last look down the corridor, stepped inside.

The storage room was large, stuffy, and full of elephant bones. Most of the skeletons were disassembled, and the great shadowy bones had been stacked on shelves like oversized cordwood. One mounted skeleton stood in a far corner, a dark cage of bones, two curving tusks gleaming in the pale light.

Pendergast shut the door, then switched off his miner’s lamp.

Peering through the hole in the cardboard, Margo had a clear view of the hallway and the open door of the Secure Area.

[386] “Take a look,” she said to Pendergast, stepping away from the door.

Pendergast moved forward. “Excellent,” he said after a moment. “It’s a perfect blind, as long as those flashlight batteries hold out.” He stepped back from the door. “How did you happen to remember this room?” he asked curiously.

Margo laughed shyly. “When you took us down here on Wednesday, I remember seeing this door marked PACHYDERMAE and wondering how a person could fit an elephant skull through such a small door.” She moved forward. “I’ll keep watch through the peephole,” she said. “Be ready to rush out and trap the creature in the Secure Area.”

In the darkness behind them, Frock cleared his throat. “Mr. Pendergast?”

“Yes?”

“Forgive me for asking, but how experienced are you with that weapon?”

“As a matter of fact,” the agent replied, “before the death of my wife I spent several weeks each winter big-game hunting in East Africa. My wife was an avid hunter.”

“Ah,” Frock replied. Margo detected relief in his voice. “This will be a difficult creature to kill, but I don’t think it will be impossible. I was never much of a hunter, obviously. But working together we may be able to bring it down.”

Pendergast nodded. “Unfortunately, this pistol puts me at a disadvantage. It’s a powerful handgun, but nothing like a .375 nitro express rifle. If you could tell me where the creature might be most vulnerable, it would help.”

“From the printout,” Frock said slowly, “we can assume the creature is heavy boned As you discovered, you won’t kill it with a head shot. And an upper shoulder or chest shot toward the heart would almost certainly be deflected by the massive bones and heavy musculature [387] of the creature’s upper body. If you could catch the creature sideways, you might get a shot into the heart from behind the foreleg. But again, the ribs are probably built like a steel cage. Now that I think about it, I don’t believe any of the vital parts of the beast are particularly vulnerable. A shot to the gut might kill eventually, but not before it took its revenge.”

“Cold comfort,” Pendergast said.

Frock moved restlessly in the darkness. “That leaves us in a bit of a quandary.”

There was silence for a moment. “There may still be a way.” Pendergast said at length.

“Yes?” Frock replied eagerly.

“Once, a few years ago, my wife and I were hunting bushbuck in Tanzania. We preferred to hunt alone, without gun bearers, and the only guns we had were 30-30 rifles. We were in light cover near a river when we were charged by a cape buffalo. It had apparently been wounded a few days earlier by a poacher. Cape buffalo are like mules—they never forget an injury, and one man with a gun looks much like any other.”