Pendergast [07] The Book of the Dead(131)

Bullshit, thought Smithback. If there was nothing to be alarmed about, why was there a quaver in Manetti’s voice? There was no way in hell he was going to allow himself to be “escorted” out of the building just as the story was breaking—and especially with Nora still stuck in the tomb.

He looked around, then ducked outside the hall. The velvet ropes ran down the basement corridor, lit only by the battery-operated exit signs. Another corridor sat at right angles to the main hallway, roped off, running into darkness. Guards with flashlights were already herding groups of protesting people toward the exit.

Smithback sprinted on ahead to where the corridor branched off, vaulted the velvet rope, ran through the darkness, and ducked into an entryway marked Alcoholic Storage, Genus Rattus.

He flattened himself against the shallow door frame and waited.





62





Vincent D’Agosta and Laura Hayward sprinted between the velvet ropes, down the front steps of the museum, and along Museum Drive. The entrance to the subway stood at the corner of 81st Street, a dingy metal kiosk with a copper roof, perched on the corner. Parked near it, just beyond the seething crowd of rubberneckers, D’Agosta spotted the PBS television van, cables snaking from it across the lawn and through a window into the museum. A white satellite dish was set atop the van.

“Over here!” D’Agosta began to push his way through the crowd toward the van, gripping the axe. Hayward was at his side, hand up displaying her shield.

“NYPD!” she cried. “Make way, please!”

When the crowd seemed reluctant to part, D’Agosta raised the axe over his head with both hands and began to pump it up and down. The crowd parted before them, exposing a thin path to the van.

They ran around to the rear of the vehicle. Hayward held back the crowd while D’Agosta stepped up onto the bumper. Grasping the rack on top of the van, he pulled himself onto the roof.

A man leaped out of the van. “What the hell are you doing?” he cried. “We’ve got a live broadcast in session!”

“NYPD Homicide,” said Hayward, positioning herself between him and the bumper.

D’Agosta steadied himself on top of the van, legs apart. Then he raised the axe above his head again.

“Hey! You can’t do that!”

“Watch me.” With one tremendous swing, D’Agosta struck through the metal posts supporting the satellite dish, popping the bolts and sending them flying. Then he swung the flat end of the axe against the dish: once, twice. With a creaking groan of metal, it toppled over the edge of the roof and crashed to the street below.

“Are you crazy—?” the technician began.

Ignoring him, D’Agosta leaped off, tossed the axe aside, and he and Hayward shoved their way through the fringes of the crowd, heading for the subway entrance.

Dimly, D’Agosta was aware it was Laura Hayward at his side: his own Laura, who’d had him escorted out of her office just days before. He thought he had lost her irretrievably—and yet, she had sought him out.

She had sought him out. It was a delicious thought. He reminded himself to return to it if he survived the rest of the night.

Reaching the entrance to the subway, they ran down the stairs and sprinted over to the ticket booth. Hayward flashed her shield at the woman inside.

“Captain Hayward, NYPD Homicide. There’s a situation in the museum and we need to clear this station. Call Transit Authority HQ and have them flag the station as a skip until further notice. I don’t want any trains stopping. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They jumped the turnstiles, ran down the corridor, and entered the station proper. It was still early—not yet nine—and there were several dozen people waiting for the train. Hayward trotted along the platform, and D’Agosta followed. At the far end, a corridor branched off, with a large tiled sign above:





New York Museum of Natural History

Walkway to Entrance

Open During Museum Hours Only





An accordion grille of dingy, rusted metal sealed off the corridor, secured with a massive padlock.

“Better talk to those people,” murmured Hayward, pulling out her gun and pointing it at the lock.

D’Agosta nodded. He walked back along the platform, waving his shield. “NYPD! Clear the station! Everybody out!”

People looked over at him disinterestedly.

“Out! Police action, clear the station!”

The sound of two gunshots thundered down the platform, waking everyone up. They began to move back toward the exits, suddenly alarmed, and amidst the confused hubbub of the increasingly rapid retreat D’Agosta heard the words terrorist and bomb drifting toward him.

“I want everyone to leave in a calm and orderly fashion!” he called after them.