Reliquary

“Hurry!” Snow said, real urgency in his voice now. He began to jog toward the far end of the vaulted space, Smithback and Pendergast close behind him. Margo forced herself to follow, tightening her tank belt as she ran.

Suddenly, she was brought up short by Pendergast, who had stopped and was looking over his shoulder.

“Vincent?” he asked.

Margo turned. D’Agosta was standing behind them in the center of the vault, the air tanks and mask still in a pile by his feet.

“You go on ahead,” he said.

Pendergast looked inquiringly at him.

“Can’t swim,” D’Agosta explained simply.

Margo heard Snow curse fervently under his breath. For a moment, nobody moved. Then Smithback stepped back toward the Lieutenant.

“I’ll help you out,” he said. “You can follow me.”

“I told you, I grew up in Queens, I don’t know how to swim,” D’Agosta snapped. “I’ll sink like a damn stone.”

“Not with all that blubber, you won’t,” Smithback said, snatching a tank off the ground and placing it on D’Agosta’s back. “Just hold on to me. I’ll swim for both of us, if need be. You kept your head above water back in the subbasement, remember? Just do what I do and you’ll be okay.” He thrust a mask into D’Agosta’s hands, then pushed him ahead toward the group.

At the far end of the chamber, an underground river ran off into darkness. Margo watched as first Snow, then Pendergast, adjusted their masks and eased themselves into the dark liquid. Pulling her mask down over her eyes and placing the regulator in her mouth, she slid in after them. The air of the tanks was a welcome relief after the foul atmosphere of the tu

Margo swam as quickly as she could through the tu

“We go down here,” Snow said, popping the regulator from his mouth and pointing downward. “Be careful not to scratch yourself, and for God’s sake don’t swallow anything. There’s an old iron pipe at the base of the tu

At that moment they felt, rather than heard, a vibration begin over their heads: a low, rhythmic rumbling that grew to a terrible intensity.

“What’s that?” Smithback gasped, coming up with D’Agosta. “The charges?”

“No,” Pendergast whispered. “Listen: it’s one continuous stream of sound. It must be the dumping of the Reservoir. Prematurely.”

They hung there in the foul liquid, mesmerized despite the danger by the long rolling sound of millions of gallons of water roaring down the ancient network of pipes that crossed and recrossed above their heads, heading directly for them.

“Thirty seconds until the rest of the charges go,” Pendergast said quietly, checking his watch.

Margo waited, trying to steady her breathing. She knew that if the charges failed, they’d be dead within minutes.

The tu

The tu

Now, she could see the group pausing at a junction ahead of her. The ancient iron pipe ended and a gleaming steel tube continued onward. Beneath her feet, at the point where the two tu

Suddenly, there was a roar from behind them: an ominous, deep rolling sound, horribly magnified in the tight water-filled space. Then a sharp concussion sounded, and another, following one upon the other in rapid succession. Beneath the wildly flickering beam of his headlamp, Margo could see Snow’s eyes widen. The final set of charges had gone off barely in time, crushing the spillways from the Devil’s Attic, sealing it forever.

As Snow frantically signaled them toward the riser, Margo felt a sudden tug at her legs, as if a tidal undertow were pulling her back toward the rally point. The feeling stopped as quickly as it had begun, and the water around her seemed to grow strangely dense. For a split second she had the strange sensation of hanging motionless, suspended in the eye of a hurricane.

Then an enormous blast of overpressure boiled up from the iron pipe behind them, a roiling cyclone of muddy water that caused the tu

= 63 =

HAYWARD JOGGED UP the Mall toward the Bandshell and Cherry Hill, Officer Carlin by her side. For all his bulk, he ran easily, with the grace of a natural athlete. Didn’t even break a sweat. The encounter with the moles, the tear gas—even the chaos they’d found when they regained the street—hadn’t fazed him.

Here, in the darkness of the Park, the noise that had seemed so distant before was now much louder: a strange, ululating cry, continuously rising and falling, possessing a life of its own. Odd flickers and gouts of flame arose, blushing the underside of the ragged clouds overhead with patches of bright crimson.

“Jesus,” Carlin said as he jogged. “It sounds like a million people, all trying to murder each other.”

“Maybe that’s what it is,” Hayward replied as she watched a troop of National Guardsmen double-timing northward ahead of them.

They trotted over Bow Bridge and skirted the Ramble, approaching the rear line of the police defenses. A long, unbroken string of news vehicles was parked along the Transverse, engines idling. Overhead, a fat-bellied helicopter glided, its huge prop smacking the air as it moved at treetop level. A row of policemen had formed a ring around the Castle terrace, and a lieutenant waved her through. With Carlin in tow, she crossed the terrace, then moved up the steps toward the Castle ramparts. There—amidst a milling throng of police brass, city officials, National Guardsmen, and nervous-looking men speaking into portable telephones—was Chief Horlocker, looking about ten years older than when Hayward had seen him barely four hours before. He was speaking with a slight, well-dressed woman in her late fifties. Or, rather, he was listening as the woman spoke in clipped, decisive sentences. Hayward moved closer and recognized the woman as the leader of Take Back Our City, the mother of Pamela Wisher.