CHAPTER 18

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 park¬ing lot there. Trucks and boat trailers. Probably fisher¬men returning from their day of sport.

Rachel turned on her seat and sat facing me, watch¬ing 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 com¬mandos before Desert Storm. To interrogate captured Republican Guard troops. She executed two Iraqi pris¬oners 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, over¬hanging 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 rum¬ble 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 gen¬tle 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 dis¬engaging the trailer from the truck, I got behind the wheel and started the engine.

Rachel ducked down in the canoe as I drove up, not realizing I was behind the wheel. I swung left so that my window came to face her.

"Bring Fielding's box!" I shouted. "Hurry!"

Cradling the cardboard box in her arms, Rachel climbed out of the canoe and splashed out of the river. I ran to the bank and grabbed a handful of mud from the shallows, which I spread across part of the truck's license plate. Then I washed my hand in the river, set Fielding's box on the backseat, and helped Rachel onto the bench seat beside me.

"Did you hot-wire this thing?" she asked.

"I wouldn't know how. Fishermen are honest people. They trust each other. I hate to take it, really."

"I'll say a prayer of penance. Let's go."

We left a white cloud of oyster-shell dust behind us as we raced out of the lot.

"Are we still going to Nags Head?" Rachel asked.

"No. They could be waiting for us there. Let me use your cell phone."