Fever Dream

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 spi

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."

73

PATIENT?" 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.