reminded her of a cat waiting outside a mouse hole, ready to pounce.
'What now?' she asked.
'We wait until we can see enough to find the entrance — unless we hear it breathing first.'
'I can still radio for assistance,' she said. She knew he would not allow it, but if things went wrong, Pegeen wanted to be able to say she had tried to do the right thing.
'We'll ask for assistance if we need it,' he said.
'Right now we don't need it.'
She watched him for a moment, then sat on the ground, folding her legs under her. Her body was sore in spots; she could still smell him, taste him, almost feel his hands upon her. She knew it wasn't smart to say anything right now, but she said it anyway.
'Should we talk about last night?'
She thought she caught him trying to stifle a sigh.
'Later,' he said.
'I just want to clear up one thing,' she said. When he didn't respond, she continued, 'Was last night the reason you brought me along on this case?'
Becker turned to her, his brow wrinkled quizzically.
'You said you asked for me to work with you for a special reason,' she said. 'Was last night it? Was last night the special reason?'
'No,' Becker said, surprised. 'I didn't expect last night until it happened… I love Karen, you know. I didn't mean to mislead you otherwise.'
Pegeen gasped inwardly. Mislead her?
They experienced it first as a change in air pressure, as if the shock wave of some great cataclysm had swept over them, and then, almost immediately, they heard it-the sound of something enormous coming right at them, swooping down at them with a rush of wings. A great column of moving blackness was overhead, moving very fast, and then it whirled and poured into the ground be hind them with a noise unlike anything Pegeen had ever heard. The column assumed a funnel shape as it drained into the earth, accompanied by a cacophony of beating wings and shrieks and pounding air.
'Bats,' Becker said, but Pegeen did not need to be told. The swooping, swerving flight of the stragglers on the edges told her what they were; bats, millions of them, flying as if in the vampires' panic to beat the sun to their resting place. As they disgorged into the hillside, vanishing into the solid ridgeline as if by magic, they looked like the ominous whirling wind of a tornado, touching down only yards away from them. Underbrush waved and whipped about in their wake, and the closer trees bent under the pressure created by millions of leathery wings.
It seemed to Pegeen to last for hours, but in reality it was over in a few minutes-the moving cloud thinned to a wispy trail of black smoke tendrils, and then to the few latecomers, each one exposed and vulnerable away from the flock. As if on a signal, the sun's rays hit the sky overhead as the last of the bats vanished into the earth.
'I think we found our breathing hole,' Becker said, moving to the spot where the bats had disappeared.
Pegeen realized she had been crouched reflexively into a protective ball, her hands over her head to protect her hair. She was grateful that Becker was more concerned with the hole than he was with her at the moment. She joined him, dragging the two backpacks they had carried from the car.
'You're not planning on going in there now,' she asked.
'They're insect eaters,' Becker said, opening one of the backpacks.
'They won't bother us.'
'They already bother me,' Pegeen said, but Becker wasn't listening.
'He's here,' Becker said. His voice was hushed and strained as if holding in excitement. Pegeen thought it sounded almost reverential.
A rope vanished into the hole, barely visible at the lip of the opening but rising slightly above the ground as it approached the tree to which it was tied. Becker sensuously slid his hand back and forth on the rope.
'New rope,' he said.
In the increasing light Pegeen saw a path leading to the hole, where something large and heavy had been dragged over the weeds and underbrush. The path trailed off down the hillside.
'And he's not alone,' she said.
'Not anymore,' Becker said, grinning.
He removed a length of synthetic climbing rope that was coiled onto the back of his pack and secured it quickly and efficiently to a tree trunk.
Shouldering the pack, he whipped the rope around his body and under his leg. With his left hand on the secured portion of the rope, his right holding the trailing portion, he backed up to the hole. The opening was no more than four feet wide and went into the side of the ridge so that it rode on a plane that was close to vertical before it plunged straight down.
Pegeen surveyed the abyss with her flashlight and saw no bottom.
'Browne's chart says it's thirty-five feet to the bottom,' Becker said.
'They taught you to rappel in training camp, right?':,Of course.'
'This will be a little different. The chart shows the mouth opening out as it goes down. There won't be anything for your feet to touch after the first few feet, so it's more of a free fall, but just take it slow; you'll be fine.
'I know that,' she said, angrily. 'I can do this.'
'If I had any doubts, you wouldn't be here,' he said.
'Once we're down there, keep quiet. Sound travels a long way.
'I don't plan to sing and dance,' she said.
He looked at her for a moment. The sunlight was increasing; Pegeen could make out the shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. She imagined she looked as bad, or worse. But unlike Becker, she feared that she also looked apprehensive. She certainly felt that way. Becker looked happy; his eyes were shining too much.
'When we get to them, you protect the girl,' Becker said. 'I'll take care of him.'
She nodded. She had no doubt that he would take care of Swann.
'Oh, and, uh-Pegeen,' he continued, having trouble saying her first name, 'thanks for last night. You kept me sane.
He grinned again-Pegeen was not certain if it was at her or in anticipation of Swann-and backed into the hole. With a little hop, he broke away from the surface and his head dropped out of sight.
Thanks for last night? Thanks?
She shone the light into the hole, watching the top of Becker's head recede, spinning slowly as he dropped.
There was a small bald spot on the crown of his head which she had not noticed before. Well, why should I? she thought bitterly. I've been blind in general. Thanks for a night that had left her shaken and disbelieving and filled with hope and fear and emotions so raw and basic and mysterious to her that she couldn't even name them?
I fucked him to save his mental health, your honor. Never mind what it did to mine-I was happy to make the sacrifice for the good of the Bureau.
When he had reached the bottom of the shaft, Pegeen wrapped the rope around herself and eased her way into oblivion, following a ray of light that he shone up at her.
She wasn't frightened, she told herself. She was too fucking angry at the insensitive son of a bitch to be scared of anything, but she kept her eyes fixed on the diminishing patch of sunlight above her. When her feet touched something solid at last, the light had dwindled to a space so small she could cover it with her thumb. So maybe I'm a little scared, she admitted.
Becker awaited her impatiently, turning his flashlight from the rope to the chart in his hand as soon as she released the rope. Without a word to her he motioned with the beam and moved off.
They followed the meandering course of an old riverbed, walking upright most of the time but stopping now and then as the roof curved down.
Pegeen could not believe how dark it was. The stone seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it, and she could see only where her flashlight pointed and nowhere else. She had not been prepared for the cold, either. It felt as if she had stepped into a meat locker, although the sound of water running somewhere told her that the temperature was not below freezing.
