worn rubber handle. The other, equally mundane items provided no further clues. He slipped a few of the smallest into his pocket.
Suddenly, a flash of white registered in his goggles. Quickly, he dropped to a kneeling position behind the table. All seemed quiet, and he wondered if he had been mistaken. Occasionally the goggles could be fooled by thermal layers in the air.
But there it was again: a shape, human—or nearly—loping through the archway from the platform beyond, a white blob leaving an infrared track on his field of view. It appeared to be clutching something to its chest as it ran toward him.
In the thick dark, Pendergast silently raised his gun in one hand, his flash apparatus in the other, and waited.
MARGO SAT BACK in the flimsy institutional chair, massaging her temples lightly with her fingertips. After Frock’s departure, the meeting had quickly degenerated into disagreement. Horlocker left the room for several minutes to speak privately with the mayor. He returned with a city engineer named Hausmann. Now, Jack Masters, head of NYPD’s Tactical Response Unit, was also on the phone. But so far they had made little progress toward any course of action.
“Look,” came the voice of Masters, tinny and distorted, through the speakerphone. “It’s taken my people almost half an hour just to verify the existence of these Astor Tunnels. How can we insert a team?”
“Send several teams, then,” Horlocker snapped. “Try different entrance points. Use a wave approach, so we know at least one team will make penetration.”
“Sir, you can’t even tell me the number or condition of the, well, whatever you call them. And the terrain is unfamiliar. The tunnel system beneath Manhattan is so complex, my men would be compromised. There are too many unknowns, too many ambush points.”
“There’s always the Bottleneck,” said Hausmann, the City Engineer, chewing fretfully on the end of his pen.
“The what?” Horlocker replied.
“The Bottleneck,” said the engineer. “All the piping in that quadrant has to go through a single large blast hole, maybe three hundred feet down. The Astor Tunnels are below that somewhere.”
“There you go,” Horlocker said into the speakerphone. “We could seal it off and proceed from there. Right?”
There was a pause. “I suppose so, sir.”
“So we could trap them.”
“Maybe.” Masters sounded dubious even through the speakerphone. “But what then? We couldn’t lay siege. And we couldn’t very well go in and root them out. It would be a stalemate. We need more time to grid the route.”
Margo glanced at D’Agosta, looking on disgustedly. It was what he’d been recommending from the beginning.
Horlocker pounded on the table. “Goddammit, we don’t
Now that Horlocker had made up his mind, his determination, his impatience, was remarkable. Margo wondered just what it was the mayor had said in their telephone conversation that had so put the fear of God into the Police Chief.
Hausmann, the engineer, removed his pen from his mouth long enough to speak. “How can we be sure these creatures live in the Astor Tunnels, anyway? I mean, underground Manhattan’s a large place.”
Horlocker turned toward Margo. She cleared her throat, aware of being put on the spot.
“From what I understand,” she said, “there are a lot of underground homeless throughout the tunnels. If there were a concentration of these creatures elsewhere, the homeless would know about it. Like we said earlier, there’s no reason to doubt the word of this Mephisto. Besides, if the creatures have any of the characteristics of the Mbwun beast, they’ll shun light. The deeper their nest, the better. Of course,” she added quickly, “Pendergast’s report will —”
“Thank you,” Horlocker said, stepping hard on her final words. “Okay, Masters? You’ve got the brief.”
The door swung open suddenly, the squeaking of rubber wheels announcing Frock’s return. Margo looked up slowly, almost afraid to see the expression on the old scientist’s face.
“I think I owe everyone here an apology,” he said simply, wheeling up to the table. “As I went through the Museum’s halls just now, I did my best to look at things objectively. And on reflection, I’m afraid I may well have been wrong. It’s difficult to admit it, even to myself. But I suppose the theory advanced by Margo best fits the facts.” He turned toward Margo. “Please forgive me, my dear. I’m a tiresome old man, overly fond of his pet theories. Especially when it comes to evolution.” He smiled wanly.
“How noble,” Horlocker said. “But leave the soul-searching for later.”
“We need better maps,” the voice of Masters continued, “and more information about the hostiles’ habits.”
“Damn it!” Horlocker cried. “Aren’t you hearing me? We don’t have time for a geological survey here! Waxie, what’s your take on this?”
There was a silence.
Frock eyed Waxie, who was staring out the window as if hoping to see the much-needed answer spray painted across Central Park’s Great Lawn. The Captain frowned, but no words came.
