Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [132]
“Bats . . . cavers . . .” Ray said again.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Karst . . . volunteers . . . bats . . .”
“You have volunteer bats?”
“Search-and-rescue!” Ray exploded. “Cavern!”
“A volunteer group for search-and-rescue. Oh, in the cave!” Mac hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Kimberly had searched the various county names combined with rice, and lo and behold, up had come an article on the Orndorff’s Cavern. Apparently, it was home to an endangered isopod, a tiny white crustacean that’s approximately a fourth of an inch long. To make a long story short, some politician had wanted to build an airport in the area, environmentalists had tried to block it using the Endangered Species Act, and the politician had replied that no way in damn hell would progress be halted by a grain of rice. And now the Orndorff’s Cavern isopod had a cool nickname among karst specialists.
So they had a location. If they could find it, and if they could get the girl back out.
“Water . . . dangerous,” Ray was saying on the other end of the phone. “Entrance difficult . . . Ropes . . . coveralls . . . lights.”
“We need special equipment to access the cave,” Mac translated. “Okay, so when will the search-and-rescue team arrive?”
“Making calls . . . different locations . . . Bats . . . on cars.”
“Their cars will have bats?”
“Stickers!”
“Gotcha.”
Mac popped open his car door and got out to survey the fallen tree. Kimberly was already out and walking its length. She glanced up at his approach and grimly shook her head. He saw her point. The tree trunk was a good three feet in diameter. It would take a four-wheel-drive vehicle, a chain saw, and a winch to move this sucker now. No way was it happening with a guy, two girls, and a Camry.
“We made the left turn,” Mac said into the phone. “What do we do next?” This time he couldn’t make out Ray’s reply at all. Something about “smell the fungus.” Mac looked around sourly. They were in the middle of soaring woods, deep into the heart of nowhere. Since turning off Interstate 81 forty minutes ago, they’d drifted into the westernmost part of the state, a thin peninsula wedged between Kentucky and North Carolina. Nothing around here but trees, fields, and double-wides. Last building they’d seen was a decrepit gas station fifteen miles back. It looked like it hadn’t pumped a drop since 1968. Before that had been half a dozen mobile homes and one tiny Baptist church. Lloyd Armitage hadn’t been kidding. Whatever better days had come to this part of the state had departed a long time ago.
Now it was strictly backwoods country, and Mac’s cell phone reception would not be getting better anytime soon.
“I’ll try you again at the scene,” Mac said. Ray made some kind of reply, but Mac still couldn’t hear him and finally snapped his phone shut.
“What do we do?” Nora Ray asked him.
“Now, we walk.”
Actually, first they assembled gear. True to her word, Nora Ray had come prepared. From her travel bag, she pulled out a modest daypack, complete with dried food, first-aid kit, compass, Swiss army knife, and water filtration system. She also had waterproof matches and a small flashlight. She loaded up her gear; Kimberly and Mac attended to their own.
They had three gallons of water left. Mac thought of the condition the girl would probably be in, unglued his shirt from his torso for the fourth time in the last five minutes, and stuck all three gallons in his backpack. The weight was considerable, the nylon pack feeling like a son of a bitch as it dragged against