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  “What are those dots?” Beth asked.

  “The present location of every floater I’ve tagged since I got here. The bodies drift in the current—this is how we keep track of them. The GPS units are battery-powered; once every hour they send out a signal that a satellite picks up—sort of like the EPIRB units the Coast Guard uses for marine rescue.”

  “EPIRB?”

  “Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon. Didn’t they teach you anything useful in medical school? Each unit sends a different signal, displayed here as a different color of dot; each dot indicates the exact position of the unit every hour. See there? Beside every dot there’s a date, a time, and a set of GPS coordinates. When DMORT finally gets around to recovering bodies, this program will lead us right to them.”

  Nick traced his finger across the screen. “This is where I was a few hours ago; that’s the approximate location of the house that went up in flames. These green dots—they represent the signal from Detwiler’s boat.” He leaned closer and studied the screen. “Wait a minute.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “They don’t match. The green dots—the ones from the GPS unit in Detwiler’s boat—they don’t even come close to where I was tonight.”

  “Nick, I’m not following you.”

  “Don’t you get it? If Detwiler was the one who tried to kill me tonight, there should be a green dot near that house, but look—he never even came close.” He put his finger on the screen and traced the series of green dots. “Here’s the first dot—see it? That would be the place where I first dropped the GPS unit into his boat. From that point he went—here,” he said, following the black line to the second dot. “This is where he was one hour later—that’s the levee. Maybe he left his car there—he probably stopped to change clothes. Now look—he headed back into the Lower Nine again. It wouldn’t have taken him an hour to get to the next location; he must have stopped along the way—or maybe he was doing something once he got there. There’s the third dot, then the fourth and the fifth; looks like he zigzagged back and forth across the Lower Nine. He must have spent the whole afternoon there, until he finally headed—here. Look—he crossed the Industrial Canal and headed downtown.”

  “Back to the Superdome again?”

  “No—look at the dot. That’s not where the Superdome is; it’s a few blocks west of there—he stopped somewhere else. Then he backtracked again, but he didn’t go back across the Industrial Canal—he headed northwest this time, up into this neighborhood here. That’s a residential area; I wonder what he wanted up there?”

  “Maybe he lives there. We could check the phone book.”

  “Good idea. Check the Yellow Pages under ‘People Who Arrest Drug Dealers.’”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “Look—when he left, he headed back across the Industrial Canal and ended up here—at the levee, near the same place he stopped before.”

  The last green dot was actually a series of dots overlapping one another like the petals of a flower. “He must have docked there,” Nick said. “The dots don’t move. The boat must have stayed put all night, sending out a signal every hour from the same location.” Nick shook his head in frustration. “I was sure it was him.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What time did he dock?”

  Nick checked the text display beside the final set of dots. “Eight o’clock,” he said. “Just after dark.”

  “Would that still give him time to get to the house?”

  “You mean in a different boat.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s possible; but the point is, I have no way to know—I can’t prove anything. Maybe I was wrong—the guy who tried to kill me tonight could have been anybody: Detwiler, someone else from the DEA—Turlock, maybe—or someone else entirely. Maybe Detwiler was telling the truth—he told me he was only following me to make sure I followed orders. I could be completely off track here.”

  Nick slumped back against the booth and looked up at the ceiling. “I could use a break down here,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you were a praying man,” Beth said.

  “I’m a father now—I guess it comes with the territory.” He stopped for a moment to consider his options. “If it’s a total stranger who’s trying to kill me, there’s nothing I can do about it but wait until he tries again—but I can’t just sit here; I have to do something. I know about Detwiler; I know the DEA is following me; and, like you said, Detwiler isn’t off the hook yet—he still had time to get to the house if he used a different boat. Detwiler’s the only lead I’ve got right now; I’ve got a computer printout of the places he visited yesterday, hour-by-hour. I’m going to retrace his steps, and I’m going to find out where he went and why. Maybe there’s something Turlock and Detwiler haven’t told me yet.”

  She watched him as he spoke; she could almost see the gears turning in his head. She couldn’t imagine what he must have been through tonight—not just physically, but emotionally; psychologically. The experience would have devastated most men, and yet here he was—contemplating his next move.

  “What was it like?” she asked gently.

  “What was what like?”

  “The house—the fire—diving down into that filthy water and finding your way out in the dark, all alone.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I would have drowned for sure—I think I would have gone insane. What went through your mind, Nick? What did you feel?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “See, this is why things didn’t work out between us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You always want inside my head. You’re always asking me how I feel. Do you know the difference between a criminal and a husband? A criminal has the right to remain silent.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I just want you to know I’m here. I know you can’t go back there right now—I know you’ve got to focus—but you have to go back sometime. Trust me, Nick, experiences like the one you had tonight don’t just go away—please remember that. Either you deal with it, or it will deal with you. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

  Nick nodded. He looked out the window at the car. “Do you think J.T. knows?”

  “Knows what?”

  “That he has no father.”

  “You mean, is he deluding himself ?”

  “I mean, how does this end? I can’t just keep pretending that I’m looking for his father. Sooner or later I’ll have to confront him—I’ll have to tell him that I know. How will he respond to that? What happens then?”

  “I don’t know, Nick. I don’t know.”

  She looked at Nick’s face; he looked utterly exhausted, but there was no loss of resolve in his voice—somehow he kept pressing on. How did he keep going, she wondered—and how long could he keep it up?

  “You’re not an insect,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Just a friendly reminder from your psychiatrist: Even insects have to sleep.”

  “Ants don’t.”

  “Shut up and listen to me. If you run an engine too long, the engine burns up—it’s as simple as that. You have to stop, Nick; you have to rest; you need sleep. I want you to come back with me to the DPMU. Bring J.T. along—sneak him into your trailer if you have to—but promise me you’ll get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “It’ll be dawn in a couple of hours. I slept in the truck on the way up—I can sleep again on the way back.”

  “That’s only an hour each way. That won’t do it, Nick.”

  “It’ll have to—this can’t wait.”

  “Things can never wait with you.”

  “Look—whoever tried to roast me tonight thinks I’m dead. That means they won’t be following me and they won’t be trying to kill me again. I’m invisible right now; I need to do whatever I can before they find out I’m still alive. I’ll get some sleep tomorrow night—I promi
se.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Probably.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “I give up on you.”

  “Now who’s lying?” he said.

  38

  Monday, September 5

  “You sure this is the right place?” J.T. asked.

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.” Nick rechecked the coordinates on the GPS receiver and looked around—but there was nothing there. They were floating in a nondescript section of the Lower Nine, surrounded by nothing but the usual rooftops, half trees, and floating debris. According to his laptop, this was one of the places where Detwiler had stopped his boat just the day before. He passed this point at precisely five o’clock central standard time, when the GPS transmitter hidden in his bait well sent out a split-second signal to a satellite above. Detwiler had been here—but why?

  “This looks just like the other places,” the boy said.

  “I know. Don’t remind me.”

  It was already late afternoon. The day had begun much later than Nick had hoped. After two frustrating hours spent attempting to hitch a ride back to the city, he was forced to call Beth from the Waffle House again and ask her to let him borrow her Lexus. She consented, but only on the condition that Nick would return with it to the DPMU that evening—and that he would sleep when he got there. Nick had no choice; he reluctantly agreed.

  By the time he reached the boat ramp on St. Claude Avenue, the sun was climbing overhead and the roadway was crowded with SAR teams putting in. It was exactly what Nick had hoped to avoid; his plan had been to arrive before anyone else and slip out unseen to avoid revealing his presence. If anyone was still watching for him it would be at the boat ramp, the one place he was sure to return to every day. But he was late; now there were eyes everywhere; now his only choice was to wait until everyone else had put in and then follow behind.

  It took hours. It seemed to Nick as though everybody and his brother were mounting a last-minute rescue effort in the Lower Nine. Where were these people a week ago? he wondered. Why did they have to wait until now? By the time Nick and J.T. finally put in it was almost noon, and precious daylight was slipping away.

  They headed directly for the spot where Nick had first rammed Detwiler and slipped the transmitter into his boat. From there they retraced Detwiler’s route dot by dot, following the coordinates with their GPS receiver, searching for clues as to why he had taken this path instead of another.

  They found nothing. Nick traveled slowly from point to point, realizing that Detwiler could have stopped at any point along the way. But every place looked the same—nothing but flooded neighborhoods. He checked the houses along both sides of the path; he found no FEMA search markings, no signs of forced entry, no telltale odor of decomposing flesh. Detwiler had spent an entire afternoon zigzagging back and forth across the Lower Nine for no apparent reason.

  “You sure we got the right spots?” J.T. asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “There’s nothin’ here.”

  Nothing above the water, Nick thought. No telling what you might find below. Two bodies had disappeared from Charity Hospital, removed by the DEA—where did they go? If the DEA didn’t want the bodies identified, Nick knew exactly where they had gone: back in the water, where the toxic gumbo would finish the job. Maybe that’s why Detwiler had come here—to make sure no embarrassing revelations came floating up again.

  “Might as well move on,” Nick said.

  “Where next?”

  He checked the laptop screen: They had retraced every dot in the Lower Nine. Their next stop was at the earthen levee along the Industrial Canal, then across the canal and into the city beyond. “We won’t need the GPS for this one,” Nick said. “Just head west until you see land. And let’s quit lollygagging—open ’er up a little this time.” They needed to hurry; there were still two points to check out—one in the downtown area and one farther north—and there were only a couple of hours of daylight left.

  J.T. grinned and twisted the throttle. The boat rocked back, but only a little; Nick’s weight in the bow kept it down. Nick had let the boy pilot the boat all day. Why not? If Nick had had any reservations about J.T.’s maturity or ability, they had vanished the night before: When Nick lost his glasses, the boy used the GPS receiver under Nick’s direction to guide them both back out of the Lower Nine.

  As they neared the end of the houses and saw the Surekote levee in the distance, Nick stopped—something seemed different. He wondered if they were in the right place, but then he looked to the left—there was the old lift bridge across North Claiborne Avenue, exactly where it should be. They were in the right place—but something had changed. He squinted hard but couldn’t make it out.

  “Look up ahead,” he called back to J.T. “Do you see the levee?”

  “Sure I see it—can’t miss it.”

  “Can you see the break where we cross over into the Industrial Canal?”

  The boy looked. “Nope.”

  “No? You can’t see it?”

  “It ain’t there.”

  Nick turned and looked again—the boy was right. Silhouetted against the sun, the levee once again formed an unbroken line across the horizon. The breach had been repaired—there was no longer a way across the Industrial Canal.

  Nick spotted a workman standing atop the levee. “Pull up alongside,” he told the boy. J.T. steered the boat up smoothly and killed the engine. “I see you got it fixed,” Nick called up. “When did you finish it?”

  “Just this morning,” the man called back. “Now they can get the pumps going and start draining this place. Great news, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “Great news.”

  He sat there silently, staring at the spot where the breach used to be. Now his only way across the canal was by car or on foot, across the St. Claude Avenue Bridge—but even if he followed the streets downtown, what then? The city was still flooded; it would be days before the city’s massive pumps could drain the entire area and make New Orleans accessible by foot. He would still need to travel by boat, but without a trailer he had no way to haul his own boat across the bridge and into the city. He would have to find another one there, and that would take time—and he didn’t have time to waste. Idiot, he thought. Why didn’t I look over there when I had the chance?

  Nick squinted at the setting sun. Whatever he was going to do, it would have to wait until tomorrow. Might as well head back to the DPMU, he thought. Might as well get the car back to Beth and get some sleep.

  Won’t that just make her day.

  Detwiler sat alone in his gray-green boat, motoring slowly around the charred ruins of the burned-out rooftop. He took out his satellite phone and punched in a number.

  “Turlock.”

  “Frank, it’s Detwiler. I’m at the house.”

  “And?”

  “There’s only one body.”

  “No sign of Polchak?”

  “None. His body could still be underwater somewhere—he might’ve made it out of the fire and then drowned.”

  “You think so.”

  “The guy’s got more lives than a cat,” Detwiler groaned. “I don’t see how he could have—”

  Detwiler stopped. He heard a faint beeping sound coming from somewhere nearby—but he couldn’t tell where. He looked at the phone; that wasn’t it.

  “Hang on a second,” he said to Turlock.

  He slid off the bench and began to search the bottom of the boat—the equipment bag, the cooler, the rolled-up pair of rubber waders.

  Nothing.

  But he still heard the sound, coming from somewhere farther forward in the boat; somewhere toward the bow; somewhere on the right—

  He opened the bait well and found a fist-sized GPS transmitter inside. A red LED was flashing on the top, warning of LOW BATTERY.

  “That son of a—” He cocked his arm to throw the transmitter long and hard, but s
topped; he picked up the phone instead.

  “Frank,” he said, “I’ve got an idea.”

  39

  Nick stopped the silver Lexus fifty yards from the main gate of the DPMU. He reached into the backseat and made sure the blanket was completely covering the boy’s reclining form.

  J.T.’s head rose up sleepily under the blanket. “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost,” Nick said. “Go back to sleep. I’ll let you know.”

  He pulled around the corner and up to the gate. A man stepped out of the guardhouse as he approached and held up one hand, signaling for Nick to stop. In the brilliant headlights, Nick could see that the man wore the uniform of the St. Gabriel Police Department.

  “’Evening,” Nick said as the guard approached his window.

  “Nice car.”

  “I only drive the best.” He handed the guard his DMORT credentials. “Nice little town you’ve got here.”

  “We like it.”

  “They tell me that at the St. Gabriel General Store I can get a po’ boy, chips, and a drink for under two bucks. Is that true?”

  “A man who drives a car like this can afford more than two bucks.”

  “Yeah.” Nick nodded. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

  The guard studied the credentials, then looked at Nick’s face. “Are you Dr. Nicholas Polchak?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, sir.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Sir, I want you to pull your car straight ahead and park it right there where I can see you—is that understood?”

  “Mind telling me what this is about?”

  “Just do as I ask, please.”

  Nick pulled slowly ahead. As the car rolled forward he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the guard speaking into his shoulder radio.

  Without turning, he reached behind him and shook the sleeping boy. “Hey—wake up. J.T.—c’mon, wake up.”

  The boy began to straighten.

  “No!” Nick warned. “Stay down—keep the blanket over you and don’t move. Listen to me.”