Reliquary

“Night-vision devices, darlin’. But try wearing one over a wet suit and mask.” He spat over the side. “We’re not afraid of the dark. And anything that wants to come take a piece of us, let them try. Still, I like to see what I’m blowin’ away.”

He stepped forward. “All right. Hastings, Clapton, Beecham, you catch AW duty this mission. I want one weapons carrier per team. Lorenzo, Campion, Donovan, carry the pyros. You’ll be the candymen, along with myself. We’ve got redundant charges, so expect a heavy load. Now shoulder up.”

Snow watched as the men slung automatic weapons over their shoulders. “What about me?” he heard himself asking.

Rachlin turned toward him. “I don’t know. What about you?”

Snow paused. “I’d like to do something. To help, I mean.”

Rachlin stared at him for a moment. Then a small smile appeared briefly on his lips. “Okay,” he said. “You get to be chunk boy for this op.”

“Chunk boy?” Snow asked.

“Chunk boy.” The Commander nodded. “Beecham! Toss the kit over here.” Rachlin caught the waterproof rubber duffel that was thrown to him, then placed it over Snow’s neck. “That stays on until we reach the exit point,” he muttered.

“I’ll need a weapon, sir,” Snow said.

“Get him something.” Somebody thrust the butt of a harpoon gun into Snow’s gut, and he quickly looped the strap over his shoulder. He thought he heard somebody sniggering quietly, but he ignored it. Snow had speared plenty of fish in the Sea of Cortez, but he’d never seen spears quite as long or as evil-looking as the ones that hung from the underbelly of this gun, fat explosive charges packed at their ends.

“Don’t shoot any crocodiles,” Donovan said. “They’re endangered.” It was the first time he’d spoken.

The throb of the engines grew deeper, and the boat eased up to a cement landing beneath the dark outline of the Lower Hudson Sewage Treatment Plant. Snow looked up at the enormous concrete structure with a sinking feeling. It was fully automated, supposedly state of the art, but he’d heard the facility had seen nothing but problems since going on-line almost five years before. He hoped to God he was right about going in through the main settling tanks.

“Think we ought to alert them that we’re coming?” Snow asked.

Rachlin looked at him, faint amusement on his face. “Way ahead of you. Took care of things while you were belowdecks. They’ll be expecting us.”

A Jacob’s ladder was thrown over the side, and the men quickly scrambled down to the landing. Snow looked around, orienting himself. He recognized the area from the Basic tour: the control room was not far off. The team followed him up a metal staircase, then past a large array of aeration and settling tanks. The smell of methane and sewage hung in the air like a mephitic fog. At the far end of the tanks, Snow stopped at a metal door, bright yellow against the monotonous gray of the facility, with painted red letters: DO NOT OPEN DOOR, ALARM WILL SOUND. Rachlin brushed Snow aside and kicked the door open, revealing a spare cement corridor blazing with white fluorescent light. A siren began, low and insistent.

“Move out,” Rachlin said quietly.

Snow led them up a double flight of stairs, and onto a landing marked CONTROL. There was a set of doors on the landing, with a carded entry system set into the wall beside them. The Commander stood back, preparing to kick in the doors again. Then, reconsidering, he moved forward and nudged one with his hand. It swung open, unlocked.

Beyond was a vast room, flooded with light and full of the odor of treated sewage. Monitoring equipment and regulators lined the walls. In the center, a lone supervisor sat at the control station. He hung up the phone on his desk, his hair disheveled, blinking as if the telephone had roused him out of a sound sleep.

“Do you know who that was,” he exclaimed, pointing at the phone. “Holy God, that was the Deputy Director of the—”

“Good,” Rachlin replied. “Then I won’t have to waste any time. We need you to shut down the main outflow propeller right now.”

The man blinked at Rachlin as if seeing him for the first time. Then his gaze traveled down the line of SEALs, growing more wide-eyed as he went.

“Damn,” he said almost reverently, staring at Snow’s harpoon gun. “He wasn’t kidding, was he?”

“Hurry up, now, darlin’,” Rachlin drawled, “or we’ll throw you in the tank and let your fat old carcass shut it down for us.”

The man jumped to his feet, trotted over to a panel, and flipped several levers, “Five minutes is the most I can spare,” he said over his shoulder as he moved toward another bank of controls. “Any longer, and everything west of Lenox Avenue will back up.”

“Five minutes is all we’ll need.” Rachlin looked at his watch. “Get us to the settling tank.”

Panting softly, the supervisor led the team back out to the landing, down one flight, and along a narrow corridor. At the far end, he opened a small access door and descended a spiral staircase of painted red metal. The staircase opened onto a small walkway that hung suspended a few feet above a foamy, roiling surface.

“You really going down in that?” the man asked, looking them over once again with the same expression of disbelief on his jowled face.

Snow looked down at the foamy, scum-laden surface, nose wrinkling involuntarily, regretting he’d been in the office that evening, and deeply regretting that he’d suggested this as an entry point. First the Humboldt Kill, and now—

“That’s an affirmative,” the Commander replied.

The man licked his lips. “You’ll find the main feeder five feet below the surface, on the east side of the tank,” he said. “Watch out for the propeller valve. I’ve turned it off, but the residual flow will still be turning the blades.”

Rachlin nodded. “And the first riser is where exactly?”

“Three hundred twenty feet down the feeder,” the supervisor said. “Keep to your left as the pipes divide.”

“That’s all we need to know,” Rachlin said. “Get on upstairs, now, and fire everything back up as soon as you get there.”

The man paused, still staring at the group.

“Move!” Rachlin barked, and the man scampered up the staircase.

Snow went first, falling backwards into the bubbling vat, followed by Donovan. When he gingerly opened his eyes, he was surprised at how clear the effluent was: thin, not treacly, and with the faintest milky cast. The others jumped in. He could feel the wetness creeping against his skin, and tried not to think about it.

Snow swam forward against the slight current. Ahead, he could see the stalled propellers of the outflow valve blocking the circular pipe beyond, the steel blades still turning slowly. He stopped and let Rachlin and the other teams catch up, until the seven SEALs were all hanging suspended beside them. Rachlin pointed to Snow, then made an exaggerated count with his fingers. At three, Snow and Donovan darted through the propellers. Alpha Team was next, then Beta, then Gamma.

Snow found himself within a massive stainless steel pipe, leading on into vast, dark depths.

The same creeping terror he’d felt in the mud of Humboldt Kill threatened to bubble once again to the surface, but he fought it back, slowing his breathing, mentally counting his heartbeats. No panic, not this time.

Rachlin and his partner swam through the blades, then Rachlin made a sharp gesture to Snow to continue. He quickly moved ahead, leading the other teams down the tu

The tu