Fever Dream

"Gentlemen!" said Pendergast, striding toward the group. "We are back."

Hayward felt a fresh cringe.

The fat one--Tiny--stepped forward and waited, arms crossed.

"Mr. Tiny, my associate and I would like to rent an airboat to explore the swamp. Are any available?"

To Hayward's surprise, Tiny smiled. A number of glances were exchanged in the crowd.

"Sure, I can rent you an airboat," said Tiny.

"Excellent! And a guide?"

Another exchange of glances. "Can't spare a guide," Tiny said slowly, "but I'd be right glad to show you where to go on a map. Got 'em for sale inside."

"Specifically, we're hoping to visit Spanish Island."

A long silence. "No problem," said Tiny. "Come on round to the private dock on the other side, where we keep the boats, and we'll set you up."

They followed the immense man around behind the structure to the commercial dock on the other side. Half a dozen sad-looking airboats and bass boats sat in their slips. Pendergast, pursing his lips, looked them over briefly, selecting the newest-looking airboat.

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 pla

"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 cha

His walkie-talkie--obligatory when in the swamp--was tuned to cha

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 sca