Dark Matter (20 page)

He nodded. "No sweat."

The Audi roared to life and tore off down through the tunnel of oaks. The guitar player in the Nova laughed, shook his head, and slowly followed. I tossed Fielding's box into the canoe, wrapped the bow line around my right hand, and started dragging the boat toward the trees.

"Should I push?" asked Rachel

"I've got it. You watch for snakes."

From that moment forward her eyes never left the ground.

The trees grew almost too close together to pull the canoe between them, and I was soon dripping sweat. But the blond kid was right. Before long, I smelled decaying plants, and then I sighted a yellow flash of sunlight on water. Fifty more feet and I was shoving the canoe between two cypress knees and into the river.

"Get in," I told Rachel. "All the way to the front."

She climbed into the stern and made her way carefully to the bow seat. I shoved the canoe into deeper water, then jumped into the stern as it arrowed away from the shore. Settling on the hard seat, I picked up a paddle and propelled the boat along the snaky-looking bank.

"I'm going to keep us under the trees," I said. "Watch for the plane."

Rachel looked up and squinted. I listened hard as I paddled, but I heard only the frothy whisper of wood cutting water.

"See anything?"

She shook her head.

I looked down the long, dark bend of river, bounded on both sides by thick stands of cypress and pine. At this moment, the vast resources of the NSA were focused on finding us. But here, those resources were largely useless. For the first time in many hours, I felt some peace.

"Any idea where we're going?" Rachel asked.

"No. But I'll know when we get there."

Geli Bauer sat in her zero-gravity chair in the security basement of the Trinity building, her right hand squeezing a pair of weighted dice she'd taken from Fielding's personal effects in the storeroom. She'd taken them for luck, but so far they had brought her little.

On the bank of monitors to her right, dozens of NSA personnel with forklifts and dollies were moving sensitive equipment and files to trucks waiting at the back of the building. If Tennant went public, she wanted nothing left here for nosy congressmen to find.

"Tennant just pulled onto the shoulder and stopped," said a female voice in her headset. It belonged to an ex-navy warrant officer named Evans, who was in the first ground unit to sight the stolen Audi.

"Did he try to run at all?" Geli asked.

"Negative. When he realized we were pursuing, he just pulled over like it's a traffic stop."

Geli didn't like the sound of that. "Are they in plain sight?"

"Only the man."

"Do you have a megaphone?"

"We don't need it. He just got out of the car. He's holding his hands up."

"Dr. Tennant?"

"I don't think so." The line crackled. "This looks like a kid."

"A kid?"

"A hippie. College kid."

"You stopped the wrong car!"

"No, the plate's right. Wait. . . they must have pulled some kind of switch."

"Who?"

"There were two college kids in a green Chevy on the ferry. Tennant and Weiss must be in that car."

"Question the goddamn kid! Find out!"

"Hang on."

She glanced at her monitors. The NSA movers were rolling stacked computers onto the loading dock on the ground floor. Moving the equipment was a pain in the ass. If they had let her kill Tennant at the same time as Fielding, none of this would be happening.

"Evans here," said the voice on the headset. "They're on the river now."

"They're what?"

"The college kids had a canoe on their car. Unpainted aluminum. Tennant bought it off them."

Geli felt like she was about to stroke out. "Find the Chevy and nail it anyway! And impound the Audi."

"Will do."

"Air-One, do you read?"

"Affirmative."

"Start making low passes over the river. Start at the ferry and move toward Albemarle Sound. Even Tennant wouldn't try to get away by paddling upstream."

"We'll be back over the river in five minutes."

"Get ground units started down the river on both sides."

"There's only a road on one side. The north side."

"Jesus Christ."

"We'll cover the other side."

Geli killed the connection and said, "Skow, home," into her headset. After one ring, Skow said, "Tell me you have them."

"They're gone."

"What does that mean?"

"Tennant pulled a switch on the ferry. He and Weiss are now in a canoe somewhere on the Cashie River."

"Damn it, Geli. How could you screw this up?"

Her cheeks burned. "Do you want to have a conversation about who fucked this up?"

"Don't be insubordinate."

"If Tennant slips through our fingers here, you can kiss control good-bye."

"That's not necessarily true. Give me a moment."

As Skow pondered the situation, Geli punched up a map of North Carolina on her screen. What would Tennant do after getting on the river? Where could he go?

There were five miles of water between the ferry and the sound, and no road on the south bank from which to surveil the river. If Tennant knew that, he could beach the canoe anywhere.

"What do you want to do?" Skow asked.

"I want real-time satellite imagery of that river right now. Highest possible resolution. You authorize it, I'll give the NRO the coordinates."

"What else?"

"I need more manpower. I don't have near the tactical strength to carry out a wide-area search in wooded terrain."

"That's a problem. Until we go public with some form of this story, we're low on manpower."

"Then you'd better think about going public, and fast."

"Listen, Geli, if we lose him here, we still have a good shot. I'm going to be giving you some information that could put you one step ahead of Tennant."

Her internal radar went on alert. "What kind of information?"

"You'll see when you get it. It's from an unimpeachable source."

"There's no such thing. Is this an NSA source?"

"Yes."

"The agency hasn't given me anything reliable so far."

"That's about to change. I'm in a hurry. Have we covered everything?"

"No. Rules of engagement."

Skow took an audible breath. "I'm comfortable with your rescue scenario."

"I'll bet you are. I want a shoot-to-kill order."

Skow did not reply.

Geli felt her temper rising. "Look, we've waited—"

"Give me a moment to think."

"Why are you so damn wishy-washy about this?"

"Look ... this is a hostage situation. You have the tactical experience. I have to leave the rules of engagement to your discretion."

Geli shook her head and muttered, "Be careful what you wish for, right?"

"The burden of command, Ms. Bauer."

"Command isn't a burden, Skow. It's nirvana. The burden is putting up with ass-covering bureaucrats second-guessing every move after the fact."

Skow chuckled softly. "You sound exactly like your father. I'll mention it to him."

This comment stopped Geli cold. "You do that," she said, covering.

After Skow hung up, she sat in silence, lightly touching the scar on her cheek. So Skow and her father had more than a passing acquaintance. She didn't like that idea. Not at all.

I had been paddling steadily for an hour when I spotted the boat ramp. It lay at the foot of the high bridge over the Cashie River, the one we'd crossed on our way to the ferry. The river had widened since the ferry, and sooner or later it would open into the vast expanse of Albemarle Sound. In open water we would be easier to spot from the air. I'd seen no further sign of the surveillance plane, but that gave me limited comfort.

Drifting under the overhanging trees on the right bank, I thought about the ramp. There would be a parking lot there. Trucks and boat trailers. Probably fishermen returning from their day of sport.

Rachel turned on her seat and sat facing me, watching intently as I paddled.

"You've done this before."

"What? Been on the run?"

"Paddled a canoe."

I nodded. "My brother and I camped a lot with my dad around Oak Ridge. Hunted and fished, too."

She looked into the trees on the bank. The sun hovered stubbornly behind us, but the shadows under the limbs were already deepening to blue-black.

"Are we safe now?"

"For a while. The people who are hunting us depend on technology. If we were out in the world, in a city or on a highway, we'd already have been caught.

Here the playing field is more even."

She toyed with the blue-and-white nylon stern line. "Who is this Geli Bauer person you talked about?"

I was surprised she remembered the name, but I shouldn't have been. She'd never forgotten anything I told her. "She's a killer, and she's hunting us now."

"How do you know she's a killer?"

"She was in the army for a while. Geli's fluent in Arabic, so they dropped her into Iraq with some commandos before Desert Storm. To interrogate captured Republican Guard troops. She executed two Iraqi prisoners because they couldn't keep up with her unit behind the lines. Cut their throats. Even the Delta Force soldiers with her were shocked."

"I guess women have come further than feminists think."

"No. Female assassins are an ancient tradition. Geli gave Ravi Nara a lecture about it one day."

"She sounds like a sociopath." Rachel dropped the stern line and wearily rubbed her neck.

"She'd make an interesting case study for you."

"Do you think she killed Fielding?"

"Yes. She'd know all about drugs that could cause death by mimicking a stroke, and she has constant access to everything at Trinity. The food, the water, everything."

I paddled harder, and the bridge over the Cashie came steadily closer. Rachel looked over her shoulder at the massive structure. Cars drove onto it every few seconds. That bridge represented civilization. I stopped paddling to give my burning back muscles a break. The silence was almost total.

"Listen to the birds," she said.

I listened, but the sound my ears picked out of the silence was not natural. A faint rumbling drone was floating down the river. It could have been a boat motor, but my gut told me it wasn't.

"What is it?" Rachel asked. "You look scared."

I scanned the right bank, looking for a place to beach the canoe. If a small plane flew right down the river, overhanging branches wouldn't give us any cover. The engine was growing louder. Even Rachel heard it now.

"That sounds close," she said.

Just ahead, a diseased tree had fallen into the river. It lay half in and half out of the water, its dead branches and leaves fanning out like ghostly wings.

The space between the tree and the bank was the kind of spot where you could expect a water moccasin to drop into your boat if you were stupid enough to pull under it looking for fish. I guided the canoe straight into the narrow chute, feeling a little like Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans. I only hoped I had some of his luck.

Seconds after the bow plowed into the bank, the rumble of the approaching engine became a roar. I peered through the trees and saw exactly what I'd feared: a small plane flying twenty feet over the water, like a Vietnam pilot giving support fire to riverine troops.

"They can't see us, can they?" Rachel asked.

"Not without thermal-imaging equipment. But they may have that. Get down low in the boat."

She slid off her seat and lay flat in the bottom. I lay beside her. The plane's engine vibrated the aluminum skin of the canoe. We stayed in the bottom of the boat, waiting to see if it would circle back for another look.

It didn't.

I climbed back onto my seat and stroked toward the bridge.

"I can't believe this is happening," Rachel said. "I can't believe a woman I've never met is trying to hunt me down and kill me. How could she do that?"

I thought back to my last meeting with Bauer. "She thinks we're too close. She thinks you're in love with me."

Rachel's cheeks colored in the fading sun. "Because of the kiss at Lu Li's?"

"Not just that. When Geli questioned me yesterday, she told me that you never see anyone."

"How would she know that?"

"She knows everybody you've dated and when you stopped seeing them. She knows who your third-grade teacher was and what your mother used to cook for you when you were sick."

"What did you tell her when she said I was in love with you?"

"That you think I'm schizophrenic."

Rachel smiled, her eyes full of sadness.

I panned my eyes across the broad expanse of river, searching for other water craft. I saw none, which didn't surprise me too much. Fishermen bought big outboard motors to take them to distant fishing spots as fast as possible. I dug in my paddle and pointed the canoe toward the boat ramp.

"We're stopping?" Rachel asked, looking at the gentle slope of the ramp.

"Yes. When we hit, stay in the boat. I won't be long."

"What are you going to do?"

"Take a look around."

I beached the canoe beside the ramp, then jumped into the shallow water and splashed onto shore. The oyster-shell parking lot stretched from the woods on my right to the huge concrete bridge pilings on my left. I saw no people, but a line of pickup trucks with boat trailers sat parked about forty yards from the ramp. I walked over to them and moved between two trucks.

Ducking low, I felt along the tops of the tires of both pickups, searching for stashed keys. I found none. Moving around the truck on my left, I checked its other two tires. Nothing. I had no luck with the next two trucks either. The next in line was a maroon Dodge Ram. There was no key sitting on its tires, so I changed tactics. Squatting between the rear of the truck and the empty boat trailer behind it, I reached under the bumper and slid my fingertips along the inside of its metallic lip. Something slid toward the fender with a scratching sound.

A magnetic key case.

I opened the small black box and found a key to the Dodge and one for the locking trailer hitch. Quickly disengaging the trailer from the truck, I got behind the wheel and started the engine.