Fever Dream

by Douglas Preston

  Half an hour later, they were in the fourteen-foot airboat, Pendergast at the wheel, moving into Lake End. As they came into open water, Pendergast throttled up, the propeller making a roaring sound, the boat skimming across the water. The town of Malfourche, with its shabby docks and sad, crooked buildings, slowly vanished into a light mist that clung to the surface of the lake. The FBI agent, in his black suit and brilliant white shirt, looked ludicrously out of place in the cockpit of the airboat.

  “That was easy,” Hayward said.

  “Indeed,” Pendergast replied, glancing across the surface of the water. Then he looked at her. “You realize, Captain, that they had prior news of our arrival?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “One might expect a certain hostility to wealthy customers arriving in a Rolls-Royce. But the level of hostility was so specific, and so immediate, that one must conclude they were expecting us. Judging from the message gouged into my car, they believed we were environmentalists.”

  “You did say we were birders.”

  “They get birders here all the time. No, Captain: I’m convinced they thought we were environmental bureaucrats, or perhaps government scientists, masquerading as birders.”

  “A case of mistaken identity?”

  “Possibly.”

  The boat skimmed the brown waters of the lake. As soon as the town had vanished completely, Pendergast turned the boat ninety degrees.

  “Spanish Island is west,” said Hayward. “Why are we heading north?”

  Pendergast pulled out the map Tiny had sold him. The fat man’s scribblings and dirty thumbprints were all over it. “I asked Tiny to indicate every route into Spanish Island that he knew. Clearly, those fellows know the swamp better than anyone else. This map should prove most useful.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to trust that man.”

  Pendergast smiled mirthlessly. “I trust him implicitly—to lie. We can safely discount all these routes he has marked. Which leaves us a northern approach. That way we can evade the ambush here, in the bayous west of Spanish Island.”

  “Ambush?”

  Pendergast’s eyebrows shot up. “Captain, surely you realize the only reason we were able to rent this boat at all was because they planned to surprise us in the swamp. Not only did someone notify them we would be coming, but it seems he or she also fed them some sort of story designed to arouse their ire, with instructions to intimidate or perhaps even kill us if we try to go into the swamp.”

  “It might just be a coincidence,” said Hayward. “Maybe the real environmental official is just now arriving in Malfourche.”

  “I might be concerned about that if we’d arrived in your Buick. But there can be little doubt they were expecting two people fitting our descriptions. Because the look on their faces as soon as we stepped out was one of absolute certainty.”

  “How could anyone have possibly known where we were going?”

  “An excellent question, one for which I have no answer. Yet.”

  Hayward thought for a minute. “So why did you antagonize them like that? Act like a whiny city slicker?”

  “Because I had to be absolutely sure of their enmity. I needed to be completely certain they would mismark the map. This way I’m confident of the route we must take. On a more general level, an aroused, angry, and suspicious crowd is far more revealing in its actions than one that is mixed or partially friendly. Think back to our little encounter, and I think you will agree that we learned a great deal more from that angry crowd than we would have otherwise. I find the Rolls to be most useful in that regard.”

  Unconvinced, Hayward was disinclined to argue the point and said nothing.

  Taking one hand from the wheel, Pendergast removed a manila folder from his jacket and passed it to Hayward. “Here I have some Google Earth images of the swamp. Not altogether helpful, because so much is obscured by trees and other growth, but it does seem to reinforce the notion that the northern approach to Spanish Island is the most promising.”

  The lake curved around and—in the distance ahead, emerging from the mists—Hayward could see the low, dark line of cypress trees that marked the edge of the swamp. A few minutes later the trees loomed up before them, draped in moss, like the robed guardians to some awful netherworld, and the airboat was swallowed up by the hot, dead, enveloping air of the swamp.

  65

  Black Brake Swamp

  PARKER WOOTEN HAD ANCHORED HIS SKIFF about twenty yards into a dead-end bayou at the northern tip of Lake End, over a deep channel cut where the bayou met the main body of the lake. He was fishing slowly over a tangle of sunken timber with a Texas-rigged firetail worm, casting in a radial pattern in between sips from a quart bottle of Woodford Reserve. It was a perfect time to fish the back bayous: while everyone else was off chasing the environmentalists. In this very spot last year he had landed an eleven-pound, three-ounce largemouth bass, the Lake End record. Ever since then it had been almost impossible to fish Lemonhead Bayou without competition lashing the water on every side. Despite the frenzy, Wooten was pretty sure there were some wise old big ones still lurking down there, if only you could fish them at a quiet moment. The others all used live bait from Tiny’s, the party line being that wise old bass knew all about plastic worms. But Wooten had always taken a contrarian view to fishing. He figured that a wise old bass, aggressive and irritable, would be more likely to strike at something that looked different—to hell with the mousees and nightcrawlers the others used.

  His walkie-talkie—obligatory when in the swamp—was tuned to channel 5, and every few seconds he’d hear an exchange among members of Tiny’s posse as they positioned themselves in the west bayous, waiting for the enviros to show up. Parker Wooten would have none of it. He’d spent five years in Rumbaugh State Prison and there was no way in hell he was ever going back. Let the rest of the yahoos take the rap. He’d take the bass instead.

  He cast again, let the bait sink, and then gave it a little tug, bumping it off a sunken log, and started reeling in, twitching the tip. The fish weren’t biting. It was too hot and maybe they’d gone to deeper water. Or maybe what was needed here was a firecracker with a blue tail. He was still reeling in when he heard the faint roar of an airboat. Shoving the rod into a holder, he picked up his binoculars and scanned the lake beyond. Pretty soon, the boat came into view, skimming along the surface, its lower section lost in the low haze drifting over the water, the vessel’s flat bottom making a rapid slapping sound. And then it was gone.

  Parker sat back in his skiff. He took a small sip of Woodford to help him think. It was those two enviros, all right, but they weren’t anywhere near where they were supposed to be. Everyone was in the west bayous but here they were, far to the north.

  Another sip and he removed his walkie-talkie. “Hey, Tiny. Parker here.”

  “Parker?” came Tiny’s voice after a moment. “I thought you weren’t going to join us.”

  “I ain’t joined you. I’m at the north end, fishing Lemonhead Bayou. And you know what? I just saw one a your airboats come on by, them two in it.”

  “No way. They’re coming in through the west bayous.”

  “The hell they are. I just saw them go by.”

  “You see them yourself, or is that the Woodford Reserve seeing them?”

  “Look here,” Wooten said, “you don’t want to listen to me, fine. You can wait in the west bayous till they’re skating on Lake Pontchartrain. I’m telling you they’re going in from the north and what you do with that is your business.”

  Wooten snapped off the walkie-talkie with annoyance and shoved it in his gear box. Tiny was getting too big for his own britches, figuratively and for real. He took a sip from the Woodford, nestled the precious bottle back down in its box, then tore the plastic worm from the hook and rigged another, throwing it up-bayou. As he cranked and twitched it in, he felt a certain sudden heaviness on his line. Slowly, carefully, he kept the line almost slack for a moment, lett
ing the fish swim off with it—and then, with a sharp but not hard jerk, set the hook. The line tightened, the tip bent double, and Parker Wooten’s annoyance immediately vanished as he realized he had hooked a really big one.

  66

  THE CHANNEL TIGHTENED, AND PENDERGAST shut down the airboat engine. The silence that ensued seemed even louder than the roar of the boat had been.

  Hayward glanced over at him. “What now?”

  Pendergast removed his suit jacket, draped it over his seat, and slid a pole out of its rack. “Too tight to run the engine—we wouldn’t want to snag a branch at three thousand RPMs. I’m afraid we have to pole.”

  Pendergast took up a position in the stern and began poling the boat forward along an abandoned logging “pull” channel, overhung with cypress branches and tangled stands of water tupelo. It was late afternoon, but the swamp was already in deep shadow. Overhead there was no hint of sun, just enveloping blankets of green and brown, layer upon layer. Now the sound of insects and birds swelled to fill the void left by the engine: strange calls, cries, twitters, drones, and whoops.

  “I’ll take over whenever you need a break,” Hayward said.

  “Thank you, Captain.” The boat glided forward.

  She consulted the two maps, laid out side by side: Tiny’s map and the Google Earth printout. After two hours they had made it perhaps halfway to Spanish Island, but the densest, most maze-like part of the swamp lay ahead, past a small stretch of open water marked on the map as Little Bayou.

  “What’s your plan once we’re past the bayou?” Hayward pointed at the printout. “Looks pretty tight in there. And there are no more logging channels.”

  “You’ll take over the poling and I shall navigate.”

  “And just how do you intend to navigate?”

  “The currents flow east to west, toward the Mississippi River. As long as we keep in the west-flowing current, we’ll never get dead-ended.”

  “I haven’t seen the slightest indication of a current since we began.”

  “It’s there.”

  Hayward slapped at a whining mosquito. Irritated, she squeezed some more insect repellent into her hands and slathered it on her neck and face. Ahead now she could see, through the ribbed tree trunks, a glow of sunlight.

  “The bayou,” she said.

  Pendergast poled the boat forward, and the trees thinned. Suddenly they were out on open water, startling a family of coots that quickly took off, flapping low on the water. He racked the pole and fired up the engine, the airboat once again skimming over the mirror-like surface of the bayou, heading for the heavy tangle of green and brown at its western end. Hayward leaned back, savoring the cooling rush of air, the relative openness after the cloying and claustrophobic swamp.

  When the bayou narrowed again—too soon—Pendergast slowed the boat. Minutes later, they stopped at a complicated series of inlets that seemed to go every which way, obscured by stickweed and water hyacinths.

  Hayward peered at the map, then the printout, and then shrugged. “Which one?” she asked.

  Pendergast didn’t answer. The engine was still idling. Suddenly he swung the boat a hundred eighty degrees and throttled it up; at the same time Hayward heard a rumble coming from all around them.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  The airboat leapt forward with a great roar, back in the direction of the open bayou, but it was too late: a dozen bass boats with powerful outboards came growling out of the dark swamp from both sides of the narrow channel, blocking their retreat.

  Pulling his gun, Pendergast fired at the closest boat; its engine cover flew off. Hayward pulled her own weapon as answering fire tore into the propeller of their airboat; with a great whack the propeller flew apart, shattering the oversize cage; their boat slowed and swung sideways, dead in the water.

  Hayward took cover behind a seat, but—as she quickly reconnoitered—she realized the situation was hopeless. They had driven into an ambush and were now surrounded by bass boats and skiffs, manned by at least thirty people, all armed, all with guns aimed at them. And there in the lead boat stood Tiny, a TEC-9 in his fat paws.

  “Stand up, both of you!” he said. “Hands over your heads, nice and slow!” This was punctuated by a warning spray of gunfire over their heads.

  Hayward glanced at Pendergast, also crouched behind the seat. Blood was trickling from a nasty cut on his forehead. He gave a curt nod, then rose, hands over his head, his handgun dangling by his thumb. Hayward did the same.

  With a growl, Tiny brought his boat up alongside, a skinny man in its bow holding a big handgun. Tiny hopped out onto their boat, the airboat yawing with his weight. He reached up and took the guns from their hands. Examining Pendergast’s Les Baer, he grunted in approval and shoved it in his belt. He took Hayward’s Glock and tossed it onto the floor of his boat.

  “Well, well.” He grinned, deposited a stream of tobacco juice into the water. “I didn’t know you enviros believed in guns.”

  Hayward stared at him. “You’re making a serious mistake,” she said evenly. “I’m a captain of homicide with the New York Police Department. And I am going to ask you to put down your weapon or face the consequences.”

  An oleaginous smile bloomed on Tiny’s face. “That so?”

  “I’m going to lower one hand to show you my identification,” said Hayward.

  Tiny took a step forward. “No, I think I’ll find it myself.” Holding the TEC-9 to her head, he groped in her shirt pockets, first one, then the other, helping himself to a couple of generous feels in the process.

  “Tits are real,” he said, to a burst of raucous laughter. “Fucking monsters, too.”

  He moved down to her pant pocket, fishing about, at last removing her shield wallet. He flipped it open. “Well, lookee here!”

  He held it up, showing it around. Then he examined it himself, pursing his wet lips. “Captain L. Hayward, says here. Homicide division. And there’s even a picture! You send away for this from the back of a comic book?”

  Hayward stared back. Could he really be so stupid? It made her afraid.

  Tiny closed the wallet, reached behind himself, made a wiping motion over his enormous derriere, and tossed it into the water with a splash. “That’s what I think of your badge,” he said. “Larry, get up here and search this one.”

  The lean man climbed onto the airboat and approached Pendergast.

  “Any bullshit and I let loose with this here,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “Simple as that.”

  The man began searching Pendergast. He removed a second gun, some tools, papers, and his shield.

  “Lemme see that,” Tiny said.

  The man named Larry handed it over. Tiny examined it, spat tobacco juice on it, shut it, and tossed it in the water. “More comic-book tin. You folks are something else, you know that?”

  Hayward felt the barrel of the gun digging into her side.

  “You really are,” Tiny said, his voice getting louder. “You come down here, feed us a bunch of birder bullshit, and then you think some fake badges are gonna save your sorry asses. Is that what they told you to do in case of emergency? Let me tell you something: we know who you are and why you’re here. You ain’t gonna take one more inch of our swamp away from us. This is our land, how we make a living. This is how my granddaddy fed my daddy, and it’s how I’m feeding my kids. It ain’t some Disneyland for jackoff Yankee kayakers. It’s our swamp.”

  Approving sounds rose up from the surrounding boats.

  “Excuse me for interrupting your little speech,” said Hayward, “but I am in fact a police officer and he’s an FBI agent, and for your information you are all under arrest. All of you.”

  “Oooooh!” said Tiny, shoving his fat face into hers. “I’m soooo scared.” The smell of whiskey and rotting onions washed over Hayward.

  He looked around. “Hey! Maybe we should have ourselves a little striptease here, what say?” Tiny hooked a thumb under one of his own immense man-boobs and
gave it a jiggle.

  A roar of approval, catcalls, hoots.

  “Let’s see some real hooters!”

  Hayward looked at Pendergast. His face was completely unreadable. The skinny man named Larry was holding a gun to his head, and two dozen other weapons were pointed in their direction.

  Tiny reached out and grabbed the collar of Hayward’s blouse, giving it a jerk and trying to rip it open; she twisted away, buttons popping off.

  “Feisty!” said Tiny, then hauled off and smacked her hard across the face, sending her sprawling in the bottom of the boat.

  “Get up,” he said, to the sound of laughter. Tiny wasn’t laughing. She rose, face burning, and he jammed the gun in her ear. “All right, bitch. Take off your own shirt. For the boys.”

  “Go to hell,” Hayward said.

  “Do it,” Tiny murmured, pushing the muzzle into her ear. She felt the blood begin to well up. Her blouse was already halfway ripped open.

  “Do it!”

  She placed a shaking hand on a button, began to undo it.

  “Yeah!” came the yells. “Oh, yeah!”

  Another sideways glance at Pendergast. He remained motionless, expressionless. What was going through his head?

  “Unbutton and give ’em air!” screamed Tiny, jabbing with the gun.

  She undid the button to another roar, started on the next.

  67

  SUDDENLY PENDERGAST SPOKE. “THIS IS NO WAY to treat a lady.”

  Tiny swiveled toward him. “No way to treat a lady? I think it’s a fucking great way!”

  A chorus of agreement. Hayward looked at the sea of red, sweating, eager faces.

  “Would you care to know what I think?” Pendergast said. “I think you are an embonpoint swine.”

  Tiny blinked. “Huh?”