Fever Dream (50 page)

Shifting slightly, he maneuvered the scope so that Pendergast’s back was centered on the crosshairs, and readied himself for
the shot.

Hayward crouched behind the rotting trunk as the light swung back and forth in the darkness, moving erratically.

Pendergast whispered in her ear. “I think that light’s on a pole.”

“A pole?”

“Yes. Look at the curious way it’s bobbing. It’s a ruse. And that confirms there’s a second shooter.” Suddenly he grabbed
her and shoved her down into the shallow water, her face in the muck. Half a second later she heard a shot just overhead,
the dull thud of a bullet hitting wood.

With desperate movements, she followed Pendergast as he crawled through the muck and then wedged himself up behind a tangle
of roots, pulling her next to him. More shots came, this time from both forward and behind, tearing through the roots in two
directions.

“This cover’s no good,” gasped Hayward.

“No, it isn’t. We can’t stay here—it’s only a matter of time until one of those bullets finds its mark.”

“But what can we do?”

“I’m going to take out the shooter behind us. When I leave, I want you to count ninety seconds, fire, count another ninety,
then fire again. Don’t bother aiming—it’s the noise I require. Take care your muzzle flash is concealed… and then,
only
then, after the first two fake shots, shoot out the light. And then charge him—and kill.”

“Got it.”

With a flash Pendergast disappeared into the swamp. A fresh burst of gunfire rang out in response.

Hayward counted to ninety and then, keeping the rifle muzzle low, fired. The .45-70 roared and kicked back, surprising her
with its noise, the sound echoing and scattering through the swamp. In answer, a fusillade of bullets tore through the roots
just above her head and she burrowed down in the muck, and then she heard Pendergast’s answering fire to her left, his .45
blasting into the night. The fire shifted away from her. The light bobbed but did not advance.

She counted again, pulled the trigger, and a second roar from the heavy-caliber rifle split the air.

Once again, the fire came her way and was answered by a rapid tattoo of shots from Pendergast, this time from a different
place. The light had still not moved.

Hayward turned, crouched in the muck, and took aim at the light with exquisite care. Slowly, she squeezed the trigger, the
gun roared, and the light dissolved in a shower of sparks.

Immediately she was up and moving as fast as she could through the heavy, sucking mud toward where the light had been. She
could hear Pendergast firing furiously behind her, pinning down the rearward shooter.

A pair of shots clipped through a stand of ferns next to her; she charged ahead, rifle at the ready, and then burst through
the ferns to find the shooter crouching in a shallow-draft boat. He turned toward her in surprise and she threw herself into
the water, aiming and firing as she did so. The man fired simultaneously and she felt a sharp blow to her leg, followed by
a sudden numbness. She gasped and tried to rise to her feet, but her leg refused to move.

She worked the action frantically, expecting at any moment to be hit by a second, fatal shot. But none came and she realized
she must have hit the shooter. With a supreme effort she half crawled, half stumbled into the shallow water and grabbed the
gunwale, aiming the rifle within.

The shooter lay on the floor of the boat, blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder. His rifle lay in two pieces—the round
had evidently struck it—and he was fumbling with one hand trying to pull out a handgun. He was not one of the swampers—in
fact, she had never seen him before.

“Don’t move!” she barked, aiming the rifle at him and trying not to gasp with pain. She reached over, snatched away the handgun,
pointed it at him. “Stand up, nice and slow. Keep your hands in sight.”

The man groaned, raised one hand. The other hung uselessly at his side.

Remembering the second shooter, Hayward kept as low as possible. She checked the handgun, saw it had a full magazine, took
it and tossed the heavy rifle into the water.

The man groaned, a patch of moonlight draping his torso, the dark stain of blood slowly spreading downward from his shoulder.
“I’m hit,” he groaned. “I need help.”

“It’s not fatal,” said Hayward. Her own wound was throbbing, her leg felt like a piece of lead. She hoped she wasn’t bleeding
to death. Because she was half immersed in water, the shooter didn’t know she’d been shot. She could feel the slither and
bump of things against her wounded leg—probably fish, attracted to the blood.

More shots rang out behind her, the massive sound of Pendergast’s .45 interspersed with the sharper crack of the second shooter’s
rifle. The firing became sporadic, and then there was silence. A long silence.

“What’s your name?” Hayward asked.

“Ventura,” the man said. “Mike—”

A single crack. The man named Ventura jerked backward and, with a single grunt, collapsed heavily into the bottom of the boat,
twitched, and was still.

Hayward, in sudden panic, dropped down low into the water, clinging to the gunwale with one hand. Vile water creatures were
worrying at her wound, and she could feel the wriggling of countless leeches.

She heard a splash, swung around with the gun—only to see Pendergast moving toward her through the water, low and slow. He
gestured at her to remain silent, then grasped the gunwale, looked around intently for a moment, and in one swift movement
swung himself into the boat. She heard him moving about, then he was back over the side, sinking back into the water next
to her.

“You all right?” he whispered.

“No. I’m hit.”

“Where?”

“Leg.”

“We’ve got to get you out of the water.” The agent grasped her arm and began to tow her to shore. The silence was profound;
the shooting had frightened all life in the swamp into a standstill. There were no splashes, no croaks or chirps and rustlings.

She felt a faint current, and then something hard and scaly brushed her underwater. She stifled a scream. The surface of the
water dimpled in the moonlight, and two reptilian eyes rose, along with a pair of scaly nostrils. With a terrifying explosion
of water it lunged at her; Pendergast simultaneously fired his gun; she felt something sharp and massive and inexorable clamp
down on her injured leg and she was yanked underwater, the pain spiking excruciatingly.

Struggling, Pendergast still gripping her arm, she tried to twist away, but the huge alligator was pulling her down into the
mud at the bed of the channel. She tried to scream, her mouth filling with stagnant water. She heard the thud of his shots
above the surface. She twisted again, jammed the handgun into the thing gripping her leg, and fired.

A huge report; the concussion of the shot and the violent, spastic reaction of the alligator combining into a single huge
explosion. The terrible biting pressure was released and she clawed her way out of the muck, gasping.

With an almost violent motion Pendergast hauled her to shore, pulling her into the shallow water and onto a bed of ferns.
She felt him tear up her pant leg, rinse the wounds as best he could, and bind them with the strips of cloth.

“The other shooter,” she said, feeling dizzy. “Did you get him?”

“No. It’s possible I winged him—I routed him from his hiding place and saw his shadow flitting back into the swamp.”

“Why hasn’t he started shooting again?”

“He may be looking for a new spot from which to improve his fire discipline. The fellow in the boat was killed by a .30-30
round. Not one of ours.”

“An accident?” she gasped, trying to keep her mind off the pain.

“Probably not.”

He slung her arm around his shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “There’s only one thing we can do—get you to Spanish Island.
Now.”

“But the other shooter. He’s still out there, somewhere.”

“I know.” Pendergast nodded at her leg. “But that wound can’t wait.”

H
ER ARM AROUND PENDERGAST’S NECK, HAYWARD
stumbled through the sucking mud, slipping constantly, at times almost dragging him into the muck with her. With every
step, pain shot through her leg as if a red-hot rod of iron had been embedded from shin to thigh, and she had to stifle a
cry. She was keenly aware that the shooter was still out there, in the dark. The very quietness of the swamp unsettled her,
made her fear he was waiting. Despite the stifling heat of the night and the tepid swamp water, she felt shivery and light-headed,
as if all this were happening to someone else.

“You must get up, Captain,” came Pendergast’s soothing voice. She realized that she had fallen yet again.

The curious emphasis on her title roused her somewhat and she struggled to her feet, managed a step or two, and then felt
herself crumpling again. Pendergast continued to half hold, half drag her along, his arms like steel cables, his voice soft
and soothing. But then the mud grew deeper, sucking at her legs almost like quicksand, and with the effort of staggering she
felt herself merely sinking forward into the mire.

He steadied her and with a great effort she managed to free one leg, but the wounded leg was now deep in the muck and throbbed
unbearably at every effort to move it. She fell back into the swamp, sinking almost to her thighs. “I can’t,” she said, gasping
with pain. “I just can’t do it.” The night whirled crazily about, her head buzzed painfully, and she could feel him holding
her upright.

Pendergast glanced around quietly, carefully. “All right,” he whispered. He was silent for a moment, and then she heard him
softly tearing something up—his suit jacket. The dark swamp, the trees, the moon were all turning around, and around… Mosquitoes
swarmed her, in her nostrils and her ears, roaring like lions. She sank back into the watery muck, wishing with all her might
that the clinging mud was her bed back home, and that she was safe and warm in Manhattan, Vinnie breathing quietly beside
her…

She came to as Pendergast was tying some sort of crudely contrived harness around her upper arms. She struggled for a moment,
confused, but he put his hand on hers to reassure her. “I’m going to pull you along. Just stay relaxed.”

She nodded, comprehension slowly dawning.

He slung the two strips of the harness over his shoulders and began to pull. At first, she didn’t move. Then the swamp slowly
released its sucking embrace and she found herself sliding forward over the water-covered muck, half bobbing, half slipping.
The trees loomed overhead, black and silver in the moonlight, their interlocking branches and leaves above forming a speckled
pattern of dark and light. Weakly, Hayward wondered where the shooter was hiding; why they had heard no further shots. Five
minutes might have passed, or thirty; she lost all sense of time.

Suddenly Pendergast paused.

“What is it?” Hayward groaned.

“I see a light through the trees.”

P
ENDERGAST LEANED OVER HAYWARD, EXAMINING
her closely. She was in shock. Given the sloppy, mud-drenched state of her person, it was difficult to tell how much blood
she had lost. The moonlight slanted across her face, ghostly white where it wasn’t smeared with dirt. Gently, he pulled her
up to a sitting position, loosened the harness, and propped her back against a tree trunk, camouflaging her position with
a few fern leaves. Rinsing a rag in the murky water, he tried to clean some of the mud from her wound, pulling off numerous
leeches in the process.

“How are you doing, Captain?”

Hayward swallowed, her mouth working. Her eyes blinked, unable to focus. He felt her pulse; shallow and rapid. Bending over
to her ear, he whispered, “I have to leave you. Just for a while.”

For a moment, her eyes widened in fear. Then she nodded and managed to speak, her voice hoarse. “I understand.”

“Whoever is living at Spanish Island knows we’re here; they undoubtedly heard the shots. Indeed, the remaining shooter may
well have come from Spanish Island and is awaiting us there—hence the silence. I must approach with great care. Let me see
your weapon.”