Meltzer, Brad - The Inner Circle by Meltzer Brad

Author:Meltzer, Brad
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Nora snorted. “Right. After you blackmailed and humiliated my boss, he’s going to promote me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t suffer petty bureaucrats gladly.

A very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.

Nevertheless, you wil find, Dr. Kel y, that humiliation and blackmail, when used judiciously, can be marvelously effective.”

At the stairwel , Nora paused once again.

“You never answered my question. Why is the FBI concerned with kil ings that are over a century old?”

“Al in good time, Dr. Kel y. For now, let it suffice to say that, on a purely personal level, I find these kil ings rather—ah—interesting.”

Something in the way Pendergast said

“interesting” sent the faintest of shudders through Nora.

Nora.

Men of Science

ONE

THE MUSEUM’S VAST CENTRAL ARCHIVES LAY DEEP IN THE

basement, reachable only through several sets of elevators, winding corridors, stairs, and passageways. Nora had never been to the Archives before—she did not, in fact, know anybody who ever had—and as she descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Museum, she wondered if perhaps she had made a wrong turn somewhere.

Before accepting the job at the Museum, she had taken one of the tours that threaded their way through its endless gal eries. She had heard al the statistics: it was physical y the largest museum in the world, consisting of two dozen interconnected buildings built in the nineteenth century, forming a bizarre maze of more than three thousand rooms and almost two hundred miles of passageways. But mere numbers could not capture the claustrophobic feeling of the endless, deserted corridors. It was

enough, she thought, to give the Minotaur a nervous breakdown.

She stopped, consulted her map, and sighed. A long brick passageway ran straight ahead, il uminated by a string of light bulbs in cages; another ran off from it at right angles. Everything smel ed of dust. She needed a landmark, a fixed point to get her bearings. She looked around. A padlocked metal door nearby had a weathered sign: Titanotheres. A door across the hal from it read: Chalicotheres and Tapiroids. She checked the oversized map, final y locating her position with difficulty. She wasn’t lost, after al : it was just ahead and around the corner. Famous last words, she thought, walking forward, hearing the echoing rap of her heels against the concrete floor.

She stopped at a massive set of oaken doors, ancient and scarred, marked Central Archives. She knocked, listening to the rap resound cavernously on the far side. There came a sudden rattle of papers, the sound of a dropped book, a great clearing of phlegm. A high-pitched voice cal ed out, “Just a moment, please!”

There was a slow shuffling, then the sound of numerous locks being unfastened. The door opened, revealing a short, round, elderly man. He had a vastly hooked red nose, and a fringe of long white hair descended from the gleaming dome above it. As he looked up at her, a smile of greeting broke out, dispel ing the air of melancholy on his veined face.

“Ah, come in, do come in,” he said.

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