Then he noticed that the rustling of feet overhead had changed its rhythm. Instead of the scraping and sliding he’d heard before, now he heard a constant drumming, [316] like the sound of running feet. As he listened, he thought he heard a faint screaming. Dread flooded through him.
There was another thump in the electrical room.
Sweet Jesus, something big’s happening.
He grabbed his radio. “Garcia? You copy? Requesting backup to investigate suspicious noises in the electrical systems room.”
Waters swallowed. Garcia wasn’t responding on the regular frequency. As Waters holstered his radio, he noticed that the geek had stood up and was heading for the electrical room.
“What are you doing?” Waters asked.
“I want to see what that noise is,” the geek said, opening the door. “I think the air conditioner might have failed again.” He put his hand around the doorframe, feeling for a light switch.
“Wait a minute, you,” Waters said. “Don’t—”
Waters’s radio burst into static. “We got a stampede in here!” There was more static. “... All units, mobilize for emergency evacuation!” More static. “Can’t hold this crowd, we need backup now, now...”
Jesus. Waters grabbed his radio, punched buttons. In an instant, all bands had been taken. He could hear something terrible happening right over his head. Shit.
Waters looked up. The geek was gone, and the door to the electrical room was open, but the light inside was still off. Why was the light still off?Without taking his eyes from the open door, he carefully unshouldered his shotgun, pumped a slug into the chamber, and started forward.
Carefully, he moved up to the edge of the door, looked around. Blackness.
“Hey, you,” he said. “You in there?” As he moved inside the darkened room, he felt his mouth go dry.
There was a sudden loud thump to his left, and Waters instinctively dropped to his knee and pumped three rounds, each one a flash of light and a deafening blast.
There was a shower of sparks and a gout of flame [317] licked upward, briefly illuminating the room with lambent orange light. The geek was on his knees, looking up at Waters.
“Don’t shoot!” the geek said, his voice breaking. “Please, don’t shoot anymore!”
Waters raised himself on trembling legs, ears ringing. “I heard a sound,” he cried. “Why didn’t you answer me, you stupid shit?”
“It was the air conditioner,” the geek said, tears streaming down his face. “It was the air-conditioner pump failing, like before.”
Waters backed up, feeling behind him for the wall switch. Gunpowder hung in the air like a blue fog. On the far wall, a large mounted box of metal was smoking from three large, ragged holes in its front casing.
Waters hung his head, sank back against the wall.
With a sudden pop, an electrical arc sliced across the ruined box, followed by a crackling and another shower of sparks. The acrid air grew foul. The lights in the Computer Room flickered, dimmed, brightened. Waters heard one alarm go off, and then another.
“What’s happening?” he shouted. The lights dimmed again.
“You destroyed the central switching box,” the geek cried, rising to his feet and running past him into the Computer Room.
“Oh, shit,” Waters breathed.
The lights went out.
= 46 =
Coffey shouted again into the radio. “D’Agosta, come in!” He waited. “Shit!”
He switched to the Security Command channel. “Garcia, what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Garcia said nervously. “I think Lieutenant D’Agosta said there was a body in ...” There was a pause. “Sir, I’m getting reports of panic in the exhibition. The guards are—”
Coffey cut him off and switched the bands, listening. “We got a stampede in here!” the radio squawked.
The agent switched back to Security Command. “Garcia, get the word out. All units, prepare for emergency evacuation procedures.” He turned to look across the Great Rotunda, through the east door into the Hall of the Heavens.
A visible ripple passed through the crowd, and the background chatter began to die away. Over the sounds of the band, Coffey could hear clearly now the sound of muffled screams and the low thunder of running feet. [319] The movement toward the exhibition entrance faltered. Then the crowd surged backward, rebounding like a pressure wave. There were some angry yells and confused shouts, and Coffey thought he heard crying. Again the crowd was still.
Coffey unbuttoned his jacket, and turned toward the agents in the forward station. “Emergency crowd control procedures. Move out.”
Suddenly the crowd surged backward, and a frenzy of shouting and screaming broke from the open door of the Hall. The band faltered, then fell silent. In an instant, everyone was running toward the exit to the Great Rotunda.
“Go, you son of a bitch!” said Coffey, shoving one of his men in the back, holding his radio in his fight hand. “D’Agosta, you copy?”
As the crowd began to pour out of the Hall, the agents collided with the surging mass and were forced back. Thrusting himself from the roiling mass of bodies, Coffey backed away slightly, panting and cursing.
“It’s like a tidal wave!” one of his men yelled. “We’ll never make it in!”
Suddenly the lights dimmed. Coffey’s radio crackled again.
“Garcia here. Listen, sir, all the security lights have gone red, the board’s lit up like a Christmas tree. The perimeter alarms are all coming on.”
Coffey moved forward again, fighting to stand his ground against the crowd streaming past him. He could no longer see the other agents. The lights flickered a second time, and then he felt a low rumble from the direction of the Hall. Coffey looked up and saw the thick edge of the metal security door descending from a slot in the ceiling.
“Garcia!” Coffey shouted into the radio. “The east door is coming down! Shut it off! Get it back up, for Chrissake!”
[320] “Sir, their controls indicate it’s still up. But something’s happening down here. All the systems are—”
“I don’t give a fuck what their controls say. It’s coming down!” He was suddenly spun around by the fleeing crowd. The screaming was continuous now, a strange, banshee-like keening noise that raised the hair on a person’s neck. Coffey had never seen anything like it, never: smoke, emergency lights blinking, people running over other people, glassy panic in their eyes. The metal detectors had been knocked over and the X-ray machines shattered as people in tuxedos and gowns went running out into the pouring rain, clawing past each other, stumbling and falling across the red carpet and onto the soaked pavement. Coffey saw little flashes on the steps outside the Museum, first a few, and then several.
He yelled into his radio. “Garcia, alert the cops outside. Have them restore order, get the press the hell out of there. And have them get that door up, now!”
“They’re trying, sir, but all the systems are failing. We’re losing power. The emergency doors drop independent of the power grid, and they can’t activate the fail-safe controls. Alarms are going off all over the place—”
A man coming through nearly bowled Coffey over as he heard Garcia shout, “Sir! Total system failure!”
“Garcia, where the fuck is the backup system?” He forced a path sideways and found himself pinned against the wall. It was no use, he wasn’t going to get inside through the stampede. The door was now halfway down. “Give me the technician! I need the manual override code!”
The lights flickered a third time and went out, plunging the Rotunda into darkness. Over the screams, the rumble of the descending door continued relentlessly.
Pendergast ran his hand over the rough stone wall of the cul-de-sac, rapping a few places lightly with his [321] knuckles. The plaster was cracking and flaking off in pieces, and the light bulb in the ceiling was broken.