The Passionate G-Man. Dixie Browning

you hear?”

      

      He’d been there for one full week. The first few days he’d nearly gone nuts without his cell phone, his laptop and all the other accoutrements of civilized living he’d grown used to.

      Daniel Lyon Lawless, chronological age thirty-seven, physiological age one hundred and seven, rolled over onto his back after the last push-up and stared at a pair of buzzards circling overhead. Maybe they knew something he didn’t.

      “Not a happy thought,” he muttered just to hear the sound of a human voice.

      Closing his eyes, he listened to the hollow echo of birds deep inside the boggy forest. Nearby, a frog tuned up. First one, then a dozen. He’d have thought, if he’d thought about frogs at all, they’d be buried in the mud this time of year, but then, what did he know about roughing it in the wilds of the great Dismal Swamp?

      Not much. Enough to know that he’d been right to come here, though. In a place like this, away from all distractions, a man could think. If thinking got a little too uncomfortable, he could concentrate on more immediate things, such as keeping the damned bugs from eating him alive. Such as working out until he dropped from exhaustion. Such as wetting a hook in a black-water creek in hope of catching something to relieve a monotonous diet of tinned meat, tinned soup, stale crackers and black coffee.

      He had a feeling it wasn’t a healthy diet. On the other hand, he’d shed his knee brace three days ago and his back brace the day before that. His cane was no good in this boggy terrain. No good for walking. He carried it anyway, because he felt naked without a weapon, and foolish carrying one here in the back of beyond, where the most dangerous critter he was apt to encounter was a damned mosquito.

      He carried a knife, though. It was useful in whacking through vines and opening cans of Vienna sausage. And he walked. He counted it in hours, not miles. He’d done four hours yesterday, on top of six miles rowed back and forth on the nameless creek that bordered his campsite.

      Tomorrow he was going to row in one direction until he was exhausted, then he’d go ashore, give his knee a workout and then row himself back to camp. It was a good system. It was working for him. Except for a few minor problems, he was in better shape now than he’d been before the explosion.

      He was a hell of a lot more relaxed. Couple of days ago, he’d actually found himself whistling. Another few weeks and he might even find something to smile about.

      He wondered what was going on back in Langley. Madden had promised to find out who’d been turned. Who had leaked names, times and places so that two of the best men in the unit had been taken out in one night. Lyon’s name would be on that list of expendables. Which was one more reason why he hadn’t cared to hang around the hospital like a sitting duck.

      A duck on the wing had a far better chance of surviving.

      

      A camcorder. Even a disposable camera. Jasmine would give anything for some way to record what she was seeing. No wonder half of Hollywood had moved to North Carolina, with scenery like this. Moody, spooky, fraught with atmosphere—not to mention the exotic noises and all the different odors. Perfect for a remake of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

      At least there were plenty of black lagoons, if mercifully few creatures.

      Away from the motel, there was practically no traffic. None at all once she’d left the narrow two-lane highway. Clemmie had told her about the old logging road, and she’d followed it, determined to stay out of public view until her face improved, but wanting to take something back with her after spending the better part of eight hundred dollars on a wild-goose chase.

      She’d had sense enough to shove a notepad into her shoulder bag. Clemmie had provided that, too. Her writerly instincts had been stirring all morning. She was even considering doing a travel piece on spec to help pay her expenses.

      She might even offer it to one of the two newspapers where she’d briefly worked as a special features writer before being laid-off, downsized or consolidated, depending on who was offering excuses.

      At least it had led to her acting career, which paid at a better rate, only not nearly as regularly.

      Fortunately, she was good at rolling with the punches. Going with the flow. Surviving.

      The logging road ended at a hill, which turned out to be a mound of rotted sawdust, covered with creeping, crawling vines. Something was blooming somewhere nearby—something with a sweet, spicy scent.

      There was enough high ground so that her feet didn’t sink in the mud, so she followed an all but imperceptible trail deeper and deeper into the woods.

      Red berries beckoned from the wild tangle of vegetation. Gorgeous, big fat red berries, like the ones she had picked for her grandmother. Uh-uh. Not again.

      She scratched her face, careful not to dig too hard because poison ivy was bad enough without scars. Her face, after all, was her fortune. At five foot ten, her height and her long legs helped, but mostly it was her face. She would like to believe it was her acting ability, because then a few scars might not matter too much, but she was realistic enough to know better.

      She had a modest talent and the kind of looks that were just different enough to land her a few parts. Until another kind of look came into fashion, and then she’d do commercials or even catalog work, and maybe some modeling.

      Not that modeling appealed to her. The few models she knew were obsessed by diets, cutaneous laser resurfacing, ultrasound liposuctioning. One of them was actually growing her own collagen for when she needed a major overhaul.

      Jasmine would much rather settle into a comfortable, low-key life with Eric and their children, and maybe her grandmother living together in a little bungalow somewhere. Fashion was fleeting. Film fame was fleeting. Family was forever.

      Oh, yeah? So what happened to all of yours?

      Somewhere up ahead she heard a sound that didn’t belong in this mystical, moss-hung environment.

      A splash. A bump, a yelp...

      And then a groan.

      Two

      The boat looked out of place in the muted setting. It was painted a muddy shade of royal blue, the paint scuffed in places to reveal a previous coat of turquoise.

      Idly, Jasmine scratched her right cheek with her left hand and her left ankle with the toe of her right shoe. When she itched anywhere, she was inclined to itch all over. Power of suggestion.

      Either that or mosquito bites.

      A canoe would have been good. A dugout canoe would be wonderful, but probably too much to hope for, even in this wilderness. At least it was wooden, not aluminum. It could still belong to a native hunter or trapper or maybe a fisherman with a rich lode of stories to share. Travel pieces with a human interest angle had a far broader appeal. Oklahoma had Will Rogers. North Carolina had...Daniel Boone? Black-beard?

      Well, surely they had somebody interesting. A place like this must have a fascinating history. She’d have to ask Clemmie about it before she checked out tomorrow.

      “Hello-oo,” she called out tentatively. “Anybody there?”

      The sound that greeted her could, she supposed, have come from a hunter or a trapper. As profanity went, it was not particularly original. At least it didn’t reek of filth and venom. She didn’t mind a few damns and hells when the occasion demanded, but she hated filth and venom.

      Whoever it was, he didn’t sound as if he were in the mood for company. Carefully, she began to edge away from the creek, or stream or rivulet—whatever it was. According to the map, there was supposed to be a big lake with a name that reminded her of mosquitoes and a rıver called the Alligator somewhere around here.

      What if he was an alligator poacher? She’d read somewhere that hunting alligators was against the law. Jasmine had been called laid-back. She’d never been called stupid.