Reliquary by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page A

hanging door, he stopped at last to listen, gulping air. Hayward waited beside him, gun in hand. There was no sound except the footsteps of Waxie, far ahead of them now, running down the rail siding toward the pool of light.
    After a moment, D’Agosta stepped back. “Sergeant, if you ever suggest backup in the future--or make any other suggestion, for that matter--remind me to pay attention to it.”
    Hayward holstered her gun. “I was afraid you’d wig out down there, like the Captain did,” she said. “But you did well for a virgin, sir.”
    D’Agosta looked at her, realizing this was the first time she had addressed him as a superior officer. He thought about asking just what the hell that weird breathing of hers had been about, but decided against it. “Still got it?” he said instead.
    Hayward raised the towel.
    “Then let’s get the hell out. We’ll see the rest of the sites some other time.”
    On the way to the surface, the image that kept returning to D’Agosta was not the circling mob, or the endless dank tunnel. It was the freshly soiled baby’s diaper.

= 12 =
    Margo washed her hands in the deep metal sink of the Forensic Anthropology lab, then dried them on a coarse hospital cloth. She glanced over at the gurney on which the sheeted remains of Pamela Wisher lay. The samples and observations had all been taken, and the corpse would be released to the family later that morning. Across the room, Brambell and Frock were at work on the unidentified skeleton, bending over its grotesquely twisted hips and taking elaborate measurements.
    “If I may make an observation?” Dr. Brambell said, putting a vibrating Stryker saw to one side.
    “Be my guest,” Frock replied in his buttery rumble, waving a hand magnanimously.
    They detested each other.
    Margo slipped two latex gloves onto each hand, turning to hide a smile. It was probably the first time she’d seen Frock face a man with an intellect, or an ego, equal to his own. It was a miracle that any work had been accomplished. Yet over the past few days they had performed antibody testing, osteological analysis, tests for toxic residues and teratogens, as well as numerous other procedures. All that remained was the DNA sequencing and forensic analysis of the teeth marks. Yet the unknown corpse remained a riddle, refusing to yield up its secrets. Margo knew this only added to the highly charged atmosphere within the lab.
    “It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence,” Brambell was saying, his high Irish voice trembling with irritation, “that the puncture can not have originated on the dorsal side. Otherwise, the transverse process would have been clipped.”
    “I fail to see what clipping has to do with anything,” muttered Frock.
    Margo tuned out the argument, most of which was uninteresting to her anyway. Her specialty was ethnopharmacology and genetics, not gross anatomy. She had other problems to solve.
    She leaned over the latest gel electrophoresis run on tissue from the unidentified corpse, feeling her trapezius muscles cry out in protest as she reached forward. Five sets of ten reps with the upright rows the night before, instead of her normal three. She’d upped her workout routine dramatically over the last several days; she would have to be more careful not to overdo it.
    Ten minutes of close scrutiny confirmed her suspicions: the dark stripes of the various protein elements could tell her little beyond being common human muscle proteins. She straightened up with a sigh. Any more detailed genetic information would have to come from the much more sensitive DNA sequencing machine. Unfortunately, reliable results would not be available for several more days.
    As she placed the gel strips to one side, rubbing her shoulder thoughtfully, she noticed a manila envelope lying next to the SPARC-10 workstation. X rays, she thought. They must have arrived first thing this morning. Obviously, Brambell and Frock had been too busy arguing over the