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 tunnel itself to jerk and dance spasmodically. Margo felt herself battered against its iron flanks. Her mouthpiece came loose and she reached for it frantically, hands grabbing through the storm of bubbles and thrashing sediment that surrounded her. There was another burst of pressure and she felt herself forced downward, sucked into the pipe beneath her feet. She righted herself desperately and fought to swim back up to the junction, but a horrible suction only pulled her deeper into unguessable depths. The roaring sound continued like the rushing of blood in her ears. She felt herself being knocked from side to side against the walls of the pipe, a piece of flotsam in the flood. Far above her head now she could see, through the dim illumination of Snow’s headlamp, Pendergast staring at her, his hand reaching down, tiny as a doll’s, from what seemed countless miles away. Then there was another blast, the narrow tunnel collapsed above her head with a shriek of protesting metal, and as the endless rumbling continued, she felt herself falling ever farther into a watery darkness.
= 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.
“…atrocity unlike anything ever seen in this city before!” Mrs. Wisher was saying. “A dozen of my personal friends are lying in hospital beds as we speak. And who knows how many hundreds more from among our ranks have been wounded? I promise you, and I promise the mayor, that lawsuits are going to fall like rain on this city. Like rain, Chief Horlocker!”
Horlocker made a valiant attempt. “Mrs. Wisher, our reports indicate that it was the younger element among your own marchers that incited this rioting—”
But Mrs. Wisher was not listening. “And when this is all over,” she continued, “and the Park and the streets are scrubbed free of the filth and ruin that litter them now, our organization will be stronger than ever. If the mayor feared us before tonight, he will fear us ten times more tomorrow! The death of my daughter was the spark that set our cause on fire, but this outrageous assault on our liberties and our persons has set it ablaze! And don’t think that…”
Hayward backed off, deciding this was perhaps not the best time to approach the Chief. She felt a tugging at her sleeve, and turned to find Carlin looking at her. Wordlessly, he pointed over the Esplanade toward the Great Lawn. Hayward glanced over, then froze, stupefied.
In the close summer darkness, the Great Lawn had become a plain of fire. Several dozen groups of people were clashing, withdrawing, attacking, retreating, in a scene of pandemonium. The flickering light of numerous small fires in the trash cans that dotted the outskirts showed that the lawn, once a beautiful carpet of grass, had become a sea of dirt. The combination of darkness and dirt made it impossible to determine which of the rioters were homeless and which were not. To the west and east, double lines of police vehicles had positioned themselves, headlights pointed in toward the scene. In one corner, a large group of well-dressed marchers—Take Back Our City’s last remaining elite remnants—were retreating behind the police barricades, apparently realizing that the midnight vigil could not possibly take place. Squads of police and National Guardsmen were moving forward slowly from the periphery, breaking up fistfights, wielding batons, making arrests.
“Shit,” Hayward breathed with fervent conviction. “What a balls-up.”
Carlin turned toward her in surprise, then coughed disapprovingly into his hand.
There was a sudden flurry of movement behind them, and Hayward turned to see Mrs. Wisher moving gracefully away, head held high, leading a small knot of retainers and bodyguards. In her wake, Horlocker looked like a fighter who’d finished a bad twelve rounds. He leaned against the sand-colored stone of the Castle wall as if seeking its support.
“Have they finished dosing the Reservoir with—well, with whatever it’s called?” he asked at last, fetching a ragged breath.
“Thyoxin,” said a well-dressed man standing by a battery-powered radio. “Yes, they finished fifteen minutes ago.”
Horlocker looked around with sunken eyes. “Why the hell haven’t we heard anything?” His eyes landed on Hayward. “You, there!” he barked. “What’s your name, Harris?”
Hayward stepped forward. “It’s Hayward, sir.”
“Whatever.” Horlocker pushed himself away from the wall. “Heard anything from D’Agosta?”
“No, sir.”
“Captain Waxie?”
“No, sir.”
Abruptly, Horlocker sank back again. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Then he looked at his watch. “Ten minutes to midnight.”
He turned to an officer at his right. “Why the hell are they still at it?” he said, pointing out toward the Great Lawn.
“When we try to round them up, they just break and reform somewhere else. And more seem to be joining, leaking through the perimeter at the south end of the Park. It’s hard without tear gas.”
“Well, why the hell don’t you use it, then?” Horlocker demanded.
“Your orders, sir.”
“My order? Wisher’s people are gone now, you idiot. Gas them. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a deep booming sound, strangely muffled, seemingly from the center of the earth itself. Suddenly, life returned once again to Horlocker’s limbs. He sprang forward. “Hear that?” he demanded. “Those were the charges! The goddamn charges!”