Reliquary is the smash hit second book in the Pendergast series, from New York Times bestselling authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beast. When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation. Margo must once again team up with police lieutenant D'Agosta and FBI agent Pendergast, as well as the brilliant Dr. Frock, to try and solve the puzzle. The trail soon leads deep underground, where they will face the awakening of a slumbering nightmare... in Reliquary , from bestselling coauthors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. “Preston and Child carry off this sequel with great energy and panache. In particular, their portrait of the underground dwellers lifts this thriller into a category all its own.” ― Chicago Tribune “Reads like a summer roller-coaster flick.” ― Philadelphia Inquirer “The sequel to the popular Relic hits all the right buttons for those looking for thrills and chills from things that go bump in the night.... Another page-turner that cries out for translation to the silver screen.” ― The Orlando Sentinel DOUGLAS PRESTON has published over forty books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which more than thirty have been New York Times bestsellers, a half-dozen reaching the #1 position. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He also writes nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker . He worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He is president emeritus of the Authors Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. Lincoln Child is the author of Utopia and Death Match, as well as a number of New York Times bestselling thrillers with Douglas Preston. He lives with his wife and daughter in Morristown, New Jersey. Reliquary By Preston, Douglas Tor Books Copyright ©1998 Preston, Douglas All right reserved. ISBN: 9780812542837 1     Snow tested his regulator, checked both air valves, ran his hands along the slick neoprene of the suit. Everything was in order, just as it had been when he last checked it, sixty seconds before. “Another five minutes,” the Dive Sergeant said, cutting the launch to half speed. “Great,” came the sarcastic voice of Fernandez over the sound of the big diesel. “Just great.” Nobody else spoke. Already, Snow had noticed that small talk seemed to die away when the team neared a site. He looked back over the stern, watching the froth of the Harlem River spread out behind the propeller in a brown wedge. The river was wide here, rolling sluggishly under the hot gray haze of the August morning. He turned his gaze to ward the shore, grimacing slightly as the rubber cowl pulled at the skin of his neck. Towering apartment buildings with broken windows. Ghostly shells of warehouses and factories. An abandoned playground. No, not quite abandoned: one child, swinging from a rusty frame. “Hey, Divemaster,” Fernandez’s voice called to him. “Be sure you got your training diapers on.” Snow tugged at the ends of his gloves and continued looking toward the shore. “Last time we let a virgin out on a dive like this,” Fernandez continued, “he shit his suit. Christ, what a mess. We made him sit on the transom all the way back to base. And that was off Liberty Island, too. A frigging cakewalk compared to the Cloaca.” “Fernandez, shut up,” the Sergeant said mildly. Snow continued to gaze over the stern. When he’d come to Scuba from regular NYPD, he had made one big mistake: mentioning that he’d once worked a Sea of Cortez dive boat. Too late, he’d learned that several of the Scuba team had at one time been commercial divers laying cable, maintaining pipelines, working oil platforms. To them, divemasters like him were pampered, underskilled wimps who liked clear water and clean sand. Fernandez, in particular, wouldn’t let him for get. The boat leaned heavily to starboard as the Sergeant angled in closer to shore. He cut the power even further as they approached a thick cluster of riverfront projects. Suddenly, small, brick-lined tunnel came into view, breaking the monotony of the gray concrete facades. The Sergeant nosed the boat through the tunnel and out into the half-light beyond. Snow became aware of an indescribable smell wafting up from the disturbed waters. Tears sprang involuntarily to his eyes, and he stifled a cough. In the bow, Fernandez looked back, sniggering. Beneath Fernandez’s open suit, Snow could see a shirt with the Police Scuba team’s unofficial motto: We dive in shit and look for dead things. Only this time it wasn’t a dead thing, but a massive wrapped brick of heroin, thrown off the Humboldt Rail