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When they disconnected, Rhyme ordered Ben to photocopy both sides of the key and fax it to Cooper. Then he tried Sachs on the radio. It wasn't working. He called her on her cell phone.
"'Lo?"
"Sachs, it's me."
"What's wrong with the radio?" she asked.
"There's no reception."
"Which way should we go, Rhyme? We're across the river but we lost the trail. And, frankly"--her voice fell to a whisper--"the natives're restless. Lucy wants to boil me for dinner."
"I've got the basic analysis done but I don't know what to do with all the data--I'm waiting for that man from the factory in Blackwater Landing. Henry Davett. He should be here any minute. But listen, Sachs, there's something else I have to tell you. I found significant trace of ammonia and nitrates on Garrett's clothes and in the shoe he lost."
"A bomb?" she asked, her hollow voice revealing her dismay.
"Looks that way. And that fishing line you found's too light to do any serious fishing. I think he's using it for trip wires to set off the device. Go slow. Look for traps. If you see something that looks like a clue just remember that it might be rigged."
"Will do, Rhyme."
"Sit tight. I hope to have some directions for you soon."
Garrett and Lydia had covered another three or four miles.
The sun was high now. It was noon maybe, or close to it, and the day was hot as a tailpipe. The bottled water that Lydia had drunk at the quarry had quickly leached from her system and she was faint from the heat and thirst.
As if he sensed this Garrett said, "We'll be there soon. It's cooler. And I got more water."
The ground was open here. Broken forests, marshes. No houses, no roads. There were many old paths branching in different directions. It would be almost impossible for anyone searching for them to figure out which way they'd gone--the paths were like a maze.
Garrett nodded down one of these narrow paths, rocks to the left, a twenty-foot dr
op off to the right. They walked about a half mile along this route and then he stopped. He looked back.
When he seemed satisfied that no one was nearby he stepped into the bushes and returned with a nylon string--like thin fishing line--that he ran across the path just above the ground. It was nearly impossible to see. He connected it to a stick, which in turn propped up a three-or four-gallon glass bottle, filled with a milky liquid. There was some residue on the side and she got a whiff of it--ammonia. She was horrified. Was it a bomb? she wondered. As a nurse on ER duty she'd treated several teenagers who'd been hurt making homemade explosives. She remembered how their blackened skin had actually been shattered by the detonation.
"You can't do that," she whispered.
"I don't want any shit from you." He snapped his fingernails. "I'm gonna finish up here and then we're going home."
Home?
Lydia stared, numb, at the large bottle as he covered it with boughs.
Garrett pulled her down the path once more. Despite the increasing heat of the day he was moving faster now and she struggled to keep up with Garrett, who seemed to get dirtier by the minute, covered with dust and flecks of dead leaves. It was as if he were slowly turning into an insect himself every step they got farther from civilization. It reminded her of some story she was supposed to read in school but never finished.
"Up there." Garrett nodded toward a hill. "There's a place we'll stay. Go on to the ocean in the morning."
Her uniform was soaked with sweat. The top two buttons of the white outfit were undone and the white of her bra was visible. The boy kept glancing at the rounded skin of her breasts. But she hardly cared; at the moment she wanted only to escape from the Outside, to get into some cooling shade, wherever he was taking her.
Fifteen minutes later they broke from the woods and into a clearing. In front of them was an old gristmill, surrounded by reeds, cattails, tall grass. It sat beside a stream that had largely been taken over by the swamp. One wing of the mill had burnt down. Amid the rubble stood a scorched chimney--what was called a "Sherman Monument," after the Union general who burned houses and buildings during his march to the sea, leaving a landscape of blackened chimneys behind him.
Garrett led her into the front part of the mill, the portion that had been untouched by the fire. He pushed her through the doorway and swung the heavy oak door shut, bolted it. For a long moment he stood listening. When he seemed satisfied that no one was following he handed her another bottle of water. She fought the urge to gulp down the whole container. She filled her mouth, let it sit, feeling the sting against her parched mouth, then swallowed slowly.
When she finished he took the bottle away from her, untaped her hands and retaped them behind her back. "You have to do that?" she asked angrily.
He rolled his eyes at the foolishness of the question. He eased her to the floor. "Sit there and keep your goddamn mouth shut." Garrett sat against the opposite wall and closed his eyes. Lydia cocked her head toward the window and listened for the sounds of helicopters or swamp boats or the baying of the search party's dogs. But she heard only Garrett's breathing, which she decided in her despair was really the sound of God Himself abandoning her.
... chapter ten
