Vespers (23 page)

“He can’t keep that up for long,” Joyce said.

“Neither can we with that hole in our side,” the copilot replied. “Got a lot of drag.”

They passed the ferry buildings and sped up the east side of Manhattan.

The pilot said, “I’m going to land at the downtown heliport. I’ll need support. The big bat and a shitload more are gonna be all over us.”

“We’ll never get out of the helicopter alive,” Joyce said. “The bat will do anything to protect its sister.”

“Its sister?” Pace said.

“Yes. The smaller bat coming from the north is a female. The male attacked because we were airborne, in her path. It sees us as a threat.”

“Good for him,” the pilot said. “What do we do?”

Joyce leaned between the pilot and copilot. She pointed ahead, toward the stone towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. “Head there,” she said. “Take us between the cables and the span.”

“Between them? ”he said. “Doctor, there’s a steel wire web truss in that area-”

“I know. But the bat doesn’t. And it may not see them. It’s dark, the bat has got to be tiring, and our rotors may mess up its echolocation. I’ve also got something it isn’t expecting.”

“Say no more,” the pilot said.

He pushed the chopper ahead, maximum speed. The bridge was exactly a mile from their position. They’d reach it in less than a minute.

Joyce looked back. The big bat was well to the side of the chopper now and several feet closer. It was obviously trying to stay away from the tail rotor and get back alongside the helicopter. Now that she had her first good look at it, Joyce couldn’t decide whether the bat was beautiful or hideous. The noseleaf construction was like an hourglass, with the crescent nostrils upright along the bottom half and a ridge of bone forming the top half. The bone formed a protective ridge around the eyes. The ears were large, a rose-petal shape. They began, in front, just above the eye ridge. They twisted gracefully to the sides, just above the head, so that the upper third of each ear was turned nearly completely around. Unlike most bats, whose ears faced front, this creature could probably hear equally well in every direction. The mouth was a wide, deep slit very close to the chin, and the eyes were almost luminescent. Beautiful or hideous, the bat was astonishing.

Joyce picked up her camera. She faced backward and leaned toward the shattered window. The bat was gaining quickly. The strength and endurance of the thing were simply incredible.

She turned and looked toward the bridge. They sped past the Fulton Fish Market and the South Street Seaport. The bridge, nearly sixteen hundred feet long, loomed just ahead.

“I’m going to swing to the right and up,” the pilot told Joyce. “In six…five…four…”

Joyce turned back. She leaned partway out the window. The creature was closing on them.

“…three…”

She raised the camera.The face of the bat filled the lens.

“…two…”

She took a flash picture.

“…one!”

The helicopter swerved to the starboard side and climbed. Joyce was tossed roughly toward the right side of the helicopter. She dropped the camera but put her foot against the starboard door to brace herself and looked back as the giant bat slammed into the meshwork of steel strands. It hit at full speed, its head twisting to the side and almost completely back as the rest of its body struck. The wires sliced through the forearms, which connected the wings to the body, and continued cutting into the wing membrane. The body hovered straight out behind it for a moment, the legs kicking outward. Then the legs stopped moving and the body sagged and the bat hung crucified on the suspension wires just outside the Manhattan-side tower.

Below it, cars braked and horns screamed, and then nothing on the bridge moved. The copilot slapped his companion on the shoulder then updated Marius Pace. As the helicopter turned a gentle arc toward the East River helipad, Joyce slid into the seat behind the copilot. There was sweat on her back, and it was turning very cold. She looked out the window.

The thick stream of small bats had rushed past them. The animals fluttered close to the bridge but either peeled off or passed between the wires. After a few seconds they turned toward Manhattan, no longer as a group but hundreds of individuals. They vanished quickly in the darkness.

Joyce had no idea whether the bats were returning to the Hudson River group or leaving. There was no precedent for this kind of control by an individual bat over a supercolony.

As the helicopter touched down, Joyce knew only one thing. That wherever the female had gone, she would soon be aware of her brother’s death.

Joyce had just seen what a guardian bat was capable of. She couldn’t even begin to contemplate what a vengeful bat might do…

The bat crept over the body.

She curled her lower legs beneath her and lowered her belly to the ground. Her short tail lay limp on the concrete, and she spread her wings wide. They were cold and tired, and the heat from the ground warmed them. She turned her red eyes to the torso of the dead woman.

She could not see the blood in the dark, but she smelled it. It had spilled in two long streams from under the arms of the body. The bat sniffed down the corpse to the belly. The body had been opened widthwise. The bat moved her mouth closer to the soft organs. Another smell was strong there.His smell.

She hesitated. She turned her nose to the air and searched for his scent. But it was very faint. He was gone.

He had driven away the things that were confusing her, that had been turning in circles. And then his voice was silent. He had not called out again, nor had he come to her.

She had never been without him. She felt need. She felt alone.

She turned back to her meal. After feeding on this soft tissue, she would call the colony of insect eaters. They would not be far. The bats would come to her out of fear, just as they had come to him whenever they were needed. For a bat knew only three voices: command, challenge, or acquiescence. Then the call would rise to the piercing heights that drove the insect eaters to a frenzy, and they would attack. And while they attacked, while the insect eaters kept the other predators away, the bat would leave her nest and follow his scent through these caves.

She would find him. And she would bring him back.

Her brother. Her mate.

The bats had begun to disperse from the skies over the Hudson.

Though the vespertilionids remained in the city, Mayor George Taylor did not call for a state of emergency. There were already more people on the roads and trains than either could handle; turning up the heat would only cause panic and draw police from where they were needed: keeping people-especially journalists-from the subways and in the streets making sure bat-watch parties didn’t get out of hand. The air lanes over the Hudson River were reopened, people were advised to remain inside, dog walks were discouraged because of fear that their scent would draw bat attacks, and sanitation crews were put on “snow alert” status to deal with possible guano cleanup. The sanitation commissioner and his deputies got together at one-thirty in the morning to puzzle that one out, trying to decide whether hoses or shovels would be their better weapons. Homeless “squeegee men” were doing a steady business at stoplights and tunnel entrances. Because many people had already been in bed when the bats gathered, windows had been left open and police lines were overloaded with calls from people shrieking that there were bats in the bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. One man with eastern and western exposures called 911 to report that while he was lying in his bed, literally counting sheep, a line of bats had flown in one window and out the other.

Robert Gentry heard some of these stories as he was rushed by squad car from the Christopher Street pier to the downtown heliport to meet Nancy. When he arrived, ESU Emergency Medical Service paramedics were already treating her for lacerations she suffered during the attack. She looked a little shell-shocked but smiled broadly when she saw him. Gentry guessed that after the big bat even he looked good.

She told the paramedics that she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She wanted to be present when the big bat was removed from the bridge. Gentry was proud of her as she got in the squad car, though he didn’t have a chance to say anything then. The ESU pilot joined them as they drove out to the bridge, and he had a few dozen questions. Gentry wished the flier had been smart and gone home, like his copilot had done.

Al Doyle and Gordy Weeks were there when they arrived, standing at the windy edge of Dover Street, along with police from Manhattan and Brooklyn and literally dozens of reporters. Even though it was late at night, traffic was backing up in both directions.

Weeks wanted the bat off the bridge as quickly as possible so the cables could be checked for damage and the span could be ready for the morning rush hour. Because the bridge held landmark status, care would have to be taken when removing the bat. The initial idea, floated by Department of Transportation Acting Commissioner Marcy Chelmow, was that the Fire Department’s marine division try to dislodge the creature using highpowered hoses from a fire boat. But Al Doyle said that an autopsy was vital, and he feared that the water pressure might further damage the bat. Inspector Steve Snider, ESU commander, suggested bringing another chopper in and having officers rappel to the bat, put a cable around it, and haul it off. But the pilot of the pursuit chopper, who had remained at the scene, was concerned that the downdraft could cause the animal to fall from the bridge before it could be secured. He was also worried about the weight of the personnel and the creature. The bat looked like it had a lot of muscle and meat on it.

The mayor arrived while the issue was still being debated. Conferring alone with Taylor, and then talking again to both Chelmow and Doyle, Weeks decided on a quick, conservative, low-risk approach; he didn’t want to risk dropping the bat on anyone or anything, especially with TV cameras everywhere. He would have the bridges and tunnels division of the Department of Transportation send a quartet of “ironworkers” up the suspension cables. The engineers would attach a pair of slings around the bat’s waist and lower it to the span. The remains would then be trucked away.

When Weeks had a second alone, Joyce went over and introduced herself. Gentry stayed several yards away. This was her moment.

The tall, silver-haired, African-American OEM chief seemed genuinely happy to meet the young woman. He said that her stock was “very high in the Weeks market” because she’d said the big bat was coming to town and it did.

“I like working with people who are right,” he said.

Gentry was looking at the bridge, pretending not to eavesdrop. But he was proud of her all over again.

Joyce thanked the OEM director, then asked about the other bat.

“She turned northeast and went underground at Ninety-seventh Street,” Weeks said. “She was obviously following the trail of the other bat that grabbed the woman at Riverside Drive this morning. Unfortunately, we had no way of following the bat inside the tunnels.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“We’ll have to talk about that,” he said. “I want your input. For now, we’ve shut down all the west side subways and are deploying police teams at every subway entrance. They’re carrying Ithaca shotguns-heavy duty-if the bat decides to do the town. I talked with the mayor and the police commissioner before coming out here. We’re getting ready to send ESU teams into critical junctures of the tunnels. Once each of those junctures is secured, we can send in Remote Mobile Investigators-our six-wheeled robots with cameras-to check out tunnels ahead of them. With any luck, we can pin the creature down and let the Health Department take it from there.”

Al Doyle wandered over. Weeks introduced Nancy. Chris Henry was right about him. Doyle was a short, round-shouldered man with an elongated nose, a sloping forehead, a small, recessed chin, and buck teeth. He looked like a mouse.

Joyce turned from Doyle back to Weeks. Even Gentry felt the chill rolling from her shoulders.

“What are you going to do about protecting your people from the small bats?” Joyce asked Weeks.

“The teams at the entrances are wearing their Viking dry suits-SCUBA gear. Al Doyle says that should afford the officers as much protection as they’ll need. And when we do go in, they’ll also have full face masks and air tanks so they’re completely covered.”

“That’ll give them about fifteen to twenty seconds of protection,” Joyce told him.

Doyle said, “Those suits have been tested in central South American freshwater against piranhas. They should hold against bats.”

“They won’t,” Joyce said.

“Why not?” Weeks asked.

“Piranhas don’t have claws. They can’t make repeated attacks at the same part of the body.”

Weeks arched a brow in Doyle’s direction. Doyle kept his narrow eyes on Joyce. Neither man looked happy.

“There are also a few hundred thousand bats in the city now,” Joyce said. “The male bat was able to summon them from miles around. I’m betting the female bat can do the same thing. If and when she moves in or out of the tunnel, she’ll have an escort like the heavenly host. Their weight alone, piled on top of your suits, will make movement difficult. The heat of their bodies will cause the heat inside the suits to rise very quickly. And the sounds of a few hundred batting wings won’t be pleasant.”

“So what do we do?” Weeks asked.

“I agree with guarding the subway entrances in case the big bat shows up,” Joyce said. “As for going inside, I’d wait. If we can find a way to jam her signal or lure her out, then we can capture her and kill her quickly. Then the other bats will either fly off or they can be disposed of through normal means.” She looked at Doyle. “As pests.”

“How do we lure her out?” Weeks asked.