Page 112 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“Nothing?” Manning hazarded.

“Not a goddamned thing. They can’t even get an okay to make an inquiry, because Moms for Clean Living put a cross on their logo, and suddenly to mess with these ogres in twinsets is to put their immortal souls at risk. The departments’ hands aretied.Theirpensionswere threatened, and that sounds like a small thing to you, but if someone’s been on the streets for thirty-five years, having their retirement money threatened is like putting a gun to their head.” Adele Fetzer’s fury had been hard to miss. “And these are good cops, sir. Thebest.They would have gone AWOL and come here anyway, because everybody on our list—that phone list you’re all hopped up about getting your paws on, by the way—owes me or Jackson in some way, and they’ve got our backs. So suddenly you’re on board our little law-and-order train. In Jackson’s words, fucking bully for you. You’re here because cowards stood in the way of better soldiers, and there’s no changing that.”

Manning took a deep breath. “So you’re not going to give me a chance?” he asked.

“You’re in the vehicle,” Ellery told him. “And I’m heading for Jackson’s last known to drop you off. Consider it a chance.”

Gerald Manning made a surprising sound then—almost a chuckle. “Fair,” he said, as though surprised. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

“THIS ISinsane,” Cody muttered, and Jackson had to agree with him.

“Did you guys have any idea how far these mines went?” Jackson asked. The tunnels were narrow, shored up often withgiant square creosote-saturated support arches, and after a good half hour, Jackson was starting to feel a little bit of the claustrophobia Cody had been valiantly trying not to complain about.

That last corner had shown nothing but more zig-zags ahead, and Jackson had suddenly thought of the hospital. It had taken him a few yoga breaths to figure out why, and then it had hit him.

After so many years—and so much time spent—in the places, being in the hospital always felt like anaccretionrested on his chest. A gathering of years, of heartbeats, of breaths, of the concrete and rebar that made up the structure itself—all of that rested on Jackson’s diaphragm and his shoulders and his throat.

Here in the mines, with their exit so far behind them, he was feeling thataccretionagain. How many supports, how many feet of earth, of rock or granite, of trees and their roots gathered between him and his first deep breath in an hour?

And just like he’d done when he’d gone in to visit Henry and to talk to Toe-Tag, he breathed through it.

“You know,” Cody said, and Jackson didn’t mind him talking because Cody’s idle—and frequently amusing—chatter distracted him from his increasingaccretion.“I keep thinking this dog is either batshit insane or absolutely amazing. Your verdict?”

Jackson grunted. “Has it occurred to you that if the dog is absolutely amazing, there’s a dead body at the end of this maze?”

“Oh Jesus. You can be a real fucking asshole sometimes, you know that?”

Jackson felt some of the accretion dissipate from his chest. “I do my best,” he said.

Ahead of them, he sensed two things.

One was fresh air—but that was a light, almost over-scent to the miasma of… not of decay, not yet, but of active infection. The sickly sweet, gangrenous smell of flesh that was rotting while it still had a blood supply.

Almost imperceptibly, the ambient light of their tunnel went up one or two shades of gray, and in the chamber around the corner, which Preston, Preacher, and Damien had disappeared into, Preston’s voice same sharply, “Preacher,sitzen.”

And Jackson heard a raspy female moan.

“YOU SUREyou’ve got them?” Ellery asked, and Manning pointed to the tracking app on his phone.

“I promise you, Cramer, I’ll find them. Now areyouset?”

Ellery’s Lexus, Galen’s Town Car, and two FBI SUVs all gathered in the parking lot of the picnic area near the abandoned mines, and if it wasn’t for the refurbished Bell 407 that sat in the biggest part of the lot, they’d look like overkill. Right now Ellery was adjusting the fit of his suit jacket, trying hard not to pat his pocket square.

He was wearing a bug in that little pocket, and apparently patting it made the FBI Agents in the SUV scream and cringe.

Galen was standing by the Town Car, getting the same pat down fromhispet agent, and Manning was lacing up his boots and making sure he had enough water to hike.

He glanced up at Ellery with an expression of distaste on his face. “Must we take two vehicles in? I realize we were coming from two different parts of town to get here, but really, Ellery, ostentation has no place here.”

Ellery nodded. “If Jade doesn’t mind, she can drive the Town Car from here. We’ll leave the Lexus in the parking lot. Jackson has keys.”

Manning gave him a look. “You don’t mind leaving the fancy car here?”

“In a parking lot dominated by a search-and-rescue helicopter?” Ellery asked him, surprised. “No. Besides….” He gave his vehicle’s roof a fond pat. “This thing has survived some adventures. It’ll be fine.”

Manning grunted. “I don’t know. That ratty minivan we parked next to has to belong to somebody. Are you sure you trust another vehicle here?”

Galen and Jade’s eyes widened and Jade reached out and patted the minivan’s back quarter panel fondly. “It’s okay, girl, he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Don’t pop him in the head. We need him.”

---