Fever Dream (51 page)

He took the handgun—a .32—examined the magazine, then
slapped it back in place and pressed it into her hands. “You’ve got
four rounds left. If I don’t come back… you may need them.” He placed the flashlight in her lap. “Don’t use it unless you
have to. Watch for the gleam of eyes in the moonlight. Look at the distance between them. More than two inches, it’s either
a gator or our shooter. Do you understand?”

Again she nodded, clasping the gun.

“This is a good blind. You won’t be seen until you want to be seen. But listen to me carefully, now: you
must
stay awake. To lose consciousness is to die.”

“You’d better get going,” she murmured.

Pendergast peered into the darkness. A faint yellow glow was just barely visible through the ranks of tree trunks. He took
out a knife and, reaching up, scored a large X on opposite sides of the biggest tree trunk. Leaving Hayward, he set off southward,
approaching the distant lights in a tightening, spiral-like trajectory.

He moved slowly, extracting his feet from the muck with care so as to make as little noise as possible. There was no sign
of activity, no sounds from the distant light that flickered and disappeared among the dark trunks. As he tightened the spiral,
the trees thinned and a dull yellow rectangle came into view: a curtained window, floating in the blackness, amid a cluster
of vague buildings with pitched roofs.

In another ten minutes, he had maneuvered close enough to have a clear view of the old hunting camp on Spanish Island.

It was a vast, rambling place, built just above the waterline on creosote pilings: at least a dozen large, shingled buildings
wedged in among a massive stand of ancient bald cypresses heavily draped in curtains of Spanish moss. It lay right on the
edge of a small slackwater bayou. The camp was built on marginally higher ground, surrounded by a screen of ferns, bushes,
and tall grass. The heavy fringe of vegetation, combined with the almost impenetrable skeins of hanging moss, gave the place
a hidden, cocooned feeling.

Pendergast moved laterally, still circling the place, checking for guards and getting a feel for the layout. At one end, a
large wooden platform led to a pier with a floating dock projecting into the bayou. Tied to it was an unusual boat, which
Pendergast recognized as a small, Vietnam-era brownwater navy utility boat. It was a hybrid
species of swampcraft with a draft
of only three inches and a quiet, underwater jet drive—ideal for creeping around a swamp. Although some of the outbuildings
were in ruins, their roofs sagging inward, the central camp was in good condition and clearly inhabited. A large outbuilding
was also in impeccable shape. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows, diffusing the faintest yellow glow from inside.

As he completed his circle, Pendergast was surprised: nobody seemed to be on watch. It was quiet as a tomb. If the shooter
was here, he was exceptionally well hidden. He waited, listening. And then he heard something: a faint, desolate cry, thin
and birdlike, just on the threshold of audibility, such as from one that has lost all hope, soon dying away. When that, too,
ended, a profound stillness fell on the swamp.

Pendergast removed his Les Baer and circled up behind the camp, wriggling into a dense clump of ferns at the edge of the supporting
pilings. Again he listened but could hear nothing more; no footfalls on the wooden planks above, no flash of a light, no voices.

Affixed to one of the pilings was a crude wooden ladder made from slippery, rotting slats. After a few more minutes he half
crawled, half swam toward it, grasped the lower rung, and pulled himself up, one rung at a time, testing each in turn for
solidity. In a moment his head had reached the level of the platform. Peering over, he could still see nothing in the moonlight,
no sign of anyone on guard.

Easing himself onto the platform, he rolled over the rough wooden boards and lay there, sidearm at the ready. Straining to
listen, he thought now that he could hear a voice, exceptionally faint even to his preternatural hearing, murmuring slowly
and monotonously, as if reciting the rosary. The moon was now directly overhead and the camp, deep in the cluster of trees,
was speckled with moonlight. He waited one moment more. Then he rose to his feet and darted into the shadow of the nearest
outbuilding, flattening himself against the wall. A single window, shades drawn, cast a faint light across the platform.

He inched forward, around the corner, and ducked to pass below a second window. Pivoting around another corner, he reached
a door. It was old and dilapidated, with rusted hinges, the paint peeling off
in strips. With exquisite care he tried the
handle, found it locked; a moment’s effort unlocked it. He waited, crouching.

No sound.

He slowly turned the knob, eased the door open, then ducked quietly through and covered the room with his weapon.

What greeted his eye was a large, elegant sitting room, somewhat dilapidated. A massive stone fireplace loomed over one end,
dominated by a moldering stuffed alligator on a plaque, with a rack of briar pipes and a bulbous gasogene set on the huge
timbered mantel. Empty gun cases lined one wall, other cases filled with decaying fly and spinning rods, display cases exhibiting
flies and lures. Burgundy leather furniture, much patched and cracked with age, was grouped around the dead fireplace. The
room appeared dusty, little used. For such a large space it seemed remarkably empty.

The faintest tread of a foot sounded directly above his head, the murmur of a voice.

The room was illuminated with several hanging kerosene lanterns, their light set at the dimmest possible setting. Pendergast
unhooked one, turned the wick to brighten it, and moved across the room to a narrow enclosed staircase, heavily carpeted,
on the far end. Slowly, he ascended the stairs.

The difference between the second and first floors was remarkable. There was none of the heavy scattering of objects here,
the confusion of colors and shapes and patterns. As he reached the top of the stairs, a long hallway greeted his eye, lined
on either side with bedrooms, evidently from the days when the camp had paying guests. But the usual decorations, the chairs
and the paintings and the bookcases, were completely missing. The doors were open, displaying barren rooms. Each window had
been covered with gauze, apparently to filter out light. Everything was in muted pastel, almost black and white. Even the
knotholes had been carefully filled in.

At the end of the hall, a larger door stood ajar, light illuminating its edges. Pendergast moved down the hall like a cat.
The last set of bedrooms he passed were evidently still in use, one very large and elegant although still quite spartan, with
a freshly made bed, adjoining bathroom and dressing room—and a one-way mirror, looking into a second, adjoining bedroom, smaller
and more austere, with no furniture other than a large double bed.

Pendergast crept up to the door at the end of the hall and listened. He could hear, for the first time, the faint throb of
a generator. No sound came from the room: all was silent.

He positioned himself to one side, and then in a swift motion pivoted around and kicked the door in with one powerful blow.
It flew open and Pendergast simultaneously dropped to the floor.

An enormous blast from a shotgun ripped through the door frame above him, taking out a chunk the size of a basketball, showering
him with splinters, but before the shooter could unload another round of buckshot Pendergast had used his momentum to roll
and rise; the second blast obliterated a side table by the door but by then Pendergast was on top of the shooter, arm sliding
around her neck. He wrenched the shotgun from her hands and spun her around—and found himself grasping a tall, strikingly
beautiful woman.

“You can unhand me now,” she said calmly.

Pendergast released her and stepped back, covering her with the .45. “Don’t move,” he said. “Keep your hands in sight.” He
rapidly scouted the room and was astonished at what he saw: a state-of-the-art critical care facility, filled with gleaming
new medical equipment—a physiologic monitoring system, pulse oximeter, apnea monitor, ventilator, infusion pump, crash cart,
mobile X-ray unit, half a dozen digital diagnostic devices. All powered by electricity.

“Who are you?” the woman asked. Her voice was frosty, her composure recovered. She was dressed simply and elegantly in a pale
cream dress without pattern, no jewelry, and yet she was carefully made up, her hair recently done. Most of all, Pendergast
was impressed by the fierce intelligence behind her steely blue eyes. He recognized her almost immediately from the photographs
in the Vital Records file in Baton Rouge.

“June Brodie,” he said.

Her face paled, but only slightly. In the tense silence that ensued, a faint cry, of pain or perhaps despair, came muffled
through a door at the far end of the room. Pendergast turned; stared.

When June Brodie spoke again, her voice was cool. “I’m afraid your unexpected arrival has disturbed my patient. And that is
really most unfortunate.”

P
ATIENT?” PENDERGAST ASKED
.

Brodie said nothing.

“We can discuss the matter later,” Pendergast said. “Meanwhile, I have an injured colleague in the swamp. I require your boat.
And these facilities.”

When nothing happened, he waved his gun. “Anything less than full haste and cooperation will be seriously detrimental to your
health.”

“There’s no need to threaten me.”

“I’m afraid there is. May I remind you who fired first?”

“You came bursting in here like the Seventh Cavalry—what did you expect?”

“Shall we bandy civilities later?” Pendergast said coldly. “My colleague is badly hurt.”

Still remarkably composed, June Brodie turned, pressed the tab on a wall intercom, and spoke into it with a voice of command.
“We have visitors. Prepare to receive an emergency patient—and meet us with a stretcher down on the dock.”

Brodie walked through the room and exited the door without looking over her shoulder. Pendergast followed her back down the
hallway, gun at the ready. She descended the stairs, crossed the main
parlor of the lodge, exited the building, and walked
across the platform to the pier to the floating dock. She stepped gracefully into the back and fired up the engine. “Untie
the boat,” she said. “And please put away that gun.”

Pendergast tucked the gun in his belt and untied the boat. She revved the engine, backing it out.

“She’s about a thousand yards east-southeast,” said Pendergast, pointing into the darkness. “That way,” he added. “There’s
a gunman in the swamp. But of course, you probably know all about that. He may be wounded—he may not.”

Brodie looked at him. “Do you want to retrieve your colleague, or not?”

Pendergast indicated the boat’s control panel.

Saying nothing else, the woman accelerated the boat and they sped along the muddy shores of the bayou. After a few minutes
she slowed to enter a tiny channel, which wound this way and that, dividing and braiding into a labyrinth of waterways. Brodie
managed to penetrate the swamp in a way that Pendergast was surprised was possible, always keeping to a sinuous channel that,
even in bright moonlight, was almost invisible.

“More to the right,” he said, peering into the trees. They were using no lights; it was easier to see farther in the moonlight—and
it was safer as well.

The boat wound among the channels, now and then threatening to ground in the shallow muck but always sliding across when the
jet drive was gunned.

“There,” said Pendergast, pointing to the mark on the tree trunk.

The boat grounded sluggishly on a mud bar. “This is as far as we can go,” Brodie murmured.

Pendergast turned to her, searched her quickly and expertly for concealed weapons, and then spoke in a low voice. “Stay here.
I’ll go retrieve my colleague. Continue to cooperate and you’ll survive this night.”

“I repeat: you don’t need to threaten me,” she said.

“It’s not a threat; it’s clarification.” Pendergast climbed over the side of the boat and began making his way through the
muck.

“Captain Hayward?” he called.

No answer.

“Laura?”

Still nothing but silence.

In a moment he was at Hayward’s side. She was still in shock, semi-conscious, her head lolling against the rotten stump. He
glanced back and forth briefly, listening for a rustle or the crack of a twig; looking for any glint of light off metal that
might indicate the presence of the shooter. Seeing nothing, he gripped Hayward under the arms and dragged her through the
muck back to the boat. He lifted her over the side, and Brodie grasped the limp body and helped set it in the bottom.

Without a word she turned and fired up the engine; they backed out of the channel and then returned at high speed to the camp.
As they approached, a small, silent man wearing hospital whites came into view, standing at the dock with a stretcher. Pendergast
and Brodie lifted Hayward out of the boat and placed her on the stretcher; the man then rolled her along the platform and
into the main parlor of the lodge. He and Pendergast carried the stretcher up the stairs, down the hall, and into the bizarrely
high-tech emergency room, positioning it beside a bank of critical care equipment.