Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

Hey, she thought weakly. She smelled smoke.

Kimberly was blowing frantically on her whistle. Three sharp blasts. Mac was whistling, too. They could see smoke now directly ahead. They raced to the pile of leaves, kicking them open and stomping furiously on the burning embers.

More smoke spiraled from the left, while a sputtering sound came from the right. Kimberly blew futilely on her whistle. Mac, too.

Then they were off to the right and off to the left, dashing through the woods and desperately seeking out the dozens of burning piles.

“We need water.”

“None left.”

“Damp clothing?”

“Only what I’m wearing.” Mac peeled off his soaked shirt and used it to smother a burning stump.

“It’s Ennunzio. No brother. Has a brain tumor. Apparently has gone insane.” Kimberly kicked frantically at yet another pile of smoldering leaves. Snakes? She didn’t have time to worry about them anymore.

A fresh sound of rustling tree limbs came from their right. Kimberly jerked toward the noise, already raising her gun and trying to find a target. A deer raced by, followed swiftly by two more. For the first time, she became aware of the full activity around them. Squirrels scrambling up trees, birds taking to the air. Soon they would probably see otters, raccoons, and foxes, a desperate exodus of all creatures great and small.

“He hates what he loves and loves what he hates,” Kimberly said grimly.

“They have the right idea. Two of us alone can’t stop this. We have to think of bailing out.”

But Kimberly was already running to a fresh batch of curling smoke. “Not yet.”

“Kimberly…”

“Please, Mac, not yet.”

She tore apart a rotting tree limb, stomping on the scattering flames. Mac tended to the next hot spot, then they both heard it at once. Yelling. Distant and rough.

“Hey… Down here! Somebody… Help.”

“Tina,” Kimberly breathed.

They ran toward her voice.

Kimberly nearly found Tina Krahn the hard way. One moment she was running forward, the next her right foot pedaled through open air. She staggered at the edge of the rectangular pit, frantically windmilling her arms until Mac grabbed her by the backpack and yanked her to firmer footing.

“I gotta start looking before I leap,” she muttered.

Drenched in sweat and covered with soot, Mac managed a crooked smile. “And ruin your charm?”

They dropped down on their stomachs and gazed intently into the hole. The pit seemed quite large, maybe a ten-by-fifteen-foot area, at least twenty feet deep. It obviously wasn’t new. Thick, tangled vines covered most of the walls, while beneath Kimberly’s fingertips, she could feel old, half-rotted railroad ties. She didn’t know who had built the pit, but given that slaves had been used to dredge most of the swamp, she had her theories as to why. Don’t want to watch the help too much at night? Well, talk about restricted sleeping quarters…

“Hello!” she called down. “Tina?”

“Are you for real?” a feeble voice called back from the shadows. “You’re not wearing a tuxedo, are you?”

“Noooo,” Kimberly said slowly. She glanced at Mac. They were both thinking about what Kathy Levine had said. Heatstroke victims were often delusional.

The smell of smoke was growing thicker. Kimberly narrowed her eyes, still trying to pick out a human being below. Then she saw her. All the way down in the muck, curled tight against a boulder. The girl was covered head to toe in mud, blending in perfectly with her surroundings. Kimberly could just barely make out the flash of white teeth when Tina spoke.

“Water?” the girl croaked hopefully.

“We’re going to get you out of there.”

“I think I lost my baby,” Tina whispered. “Please, don’t tell my mom.”

Kimberly closed her eyes. The words hurt her, one more casualty in a war they never should have had to fight.

“We’re going to throw you a rope.” Mac’s voice was steady and calm.

“I can’t… No Spiderman. Tired… So tired…”

“You go down,” Mac murmured to Kimberly. “I’ll haul up.”

“We don’t have a litter.”

“Loop the end of the rope to form a swing. It’s the best we can do.”

Kimberly looked at his arms wordlessly. It would take a tremendous amount of strength to pull up a hundred pounds of deadweight, and Mac had been hiking for nearly three days straight, on virtually no sleep. But Mac merely shrugged. In his eyes she saw the truth. The smoke was thickening, the deadly fire taking hold. They didn’t have many options left.

“I’m coming down,” Kimberly called into the pit.

Mac pulled out the vinyl coil, worked a rough belay using a clamp around his waist, then gave her the go-ahead. She rappelled down slow and easy, trying not to recoil at the stench, or to think about what kind of things must be slithering in the muck.

At the bottom, she was startled by her first close-up view of the girl. Tina’s bones stood out starkly. Her skin was shrink-wrapped around her frame in a macabre imitation of a living mummy. Her hair was wild and muddy, her eyes swollen shut. Even beneath the coating of mud, Kimberly could see giant sores oozing blood and pus. Was it her imagination, or did one of those sores just wiggle? The girl hadn’t been lying. In her condition, she was never going to be able to climb up the pit walls on her own.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Tina,” Kimberly said briskly. “My name is Kimberly Quincy, and I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“Water?” Tina whispered hopefully.

“Up top.”

“So thirsty. Where’s the lake?”

“I’m going to loop this rope. You need to sit in it like a swing. And then Special Agent McCormack up there is going to pull you up. If you can use your legs against the wall to assist him, that would be very helpful.”

“Water?”

“All the water you want, Tina. You just have to make it to the top.”

The girl nodded slowly, her head bobbing back and forth almost drunkenly. She seemed dazed and unfocused, on the edge of checking back out. Kimberly moved quickly, wrapping the rope around Tina’s hips and getting it in place.

“Ready?” she called up.

“Ready,” Mac replied, and Kimberly heard a new urgency in his voice. The fire was obviously sweeping closer.

“Tina,” she said intently. “If you want that water, you gotta move. And I mean now .”

She hefted the girl up, felt the slack immediately tighten in the rope. Tina seemed to half get it; her feet kicked weakly at the wall. A groan from up top. A heaving gasp as Mac began to pull.

“Water at the top, Tina. Water at the top.”

Then Tina did something Kimberly didn’t expect. From deep in her haze, she roused her tired limbs, stuck her feet in what appeared to be small gaps between the railroad ties and actually tried to help.

Up, up, up she went, climbing toward freedom. Up, up, up out of her dark hellhole.

And just for a moment, Kimberly felt something lighten in her chest. She stood there, watching this exhausted girl finally make it to safety and she felt a moment of satisfaction, of sublime peace. She had done good. She had gotten this one right.

Tina disappeared over the edge. Within seconds the rope was back down.

“Move!” Mac barked.

Kimberly grabbed the rope, spotted the toeholds and bolted for the top.

She crested the pit just in time to watch a wall of flames hit the trees and bear down upon them.

Dismal Swamp, Virginia

2:39 P . M .

Temperature: 103 degrees

“WE NEED CHOPPERS, WE NEED THE MANPOWER, WE NEED HELP.”

Quincy pulled up at the cluster of cars and spotted the thin columns of smoke darkening the bright blue sky. One, two, three-there had to be nearly a dozen of them. He turned back to the forestry official who was still barking orders into a radio.