Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle Read Free Page A

us—Katrina’s predicted to make landfall early Monday morning. How far are you from the airport?”
    â€œTwenty minutes. My go-bag is in the car.”
    â€œWhoa, slow down. NDMS has to call you back with travel arrangements first. You should have four hours at least. Relax, have a cup of coffee. Enjoy your date.”
    Ten minutes? Okay, but I’ll have to leave right now.” “
    â€œDo what you want. I’ll see you in Baton Rouge.”
    Nick folded the phone and looked apologetically at his date.
    â€œYou have to go, don’t you?” she said.
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œIt sounds terrible.”
    â€œRelief is on the way. Have you seen our waiter? I’ll grab him on the way out.”
    After repeating his condolences and offering a fictional promise to reschedule at a more opportune time, Nick hurried toward the exit.
    The maître d’ met him in the doorway. “Leaving so soon, sir?”
    â€œGotta run. I was at that table over there—see it? The lady with the long red hair.” Nick pointed and the woman waved back.
    â€œYes sir, I see it.”
    Nick handed him a ten-dollar bill. “She needs more bread.”

3
    Sunday, August 28
St. Gabriel, Louisiana
    â€œFolks, I need to ask you to pack in a little tighter so you can hear. Please move all the way into the warehouse. The wind is starting to pick up a bit, and we’d like to get you all out of the weather.” Denny Behringer, the DMORT incident commander, motioned with both hands as if he were parking a 737, and the group began to move forward slowly.
    Nick caught Denny’s eye, and the two men nodded a silent greeting.
    Nick looked at the group bunched tightly around him. He counted about seventy-five people, thirty of whom he knew. They were all members of his regional DMORT team—DMORT Region IV, consisting of forensic professionals from eight different states across the southeastern U.S. There were pathologists to conduct autopsies; anthropologists to examine fragments of bone; odontologists to match dental records; fingerprint specialists to establish lost identities; and a dozen other forensic subspecialties, including his own. The rest of the group consisted of computer experts, security personnel, and the myriad support staff necessary to run a morgue the size of a football field.
    Less than twenty-four hours ago, each of them had been sitting comfortably in his or her home in Atlanta or Memphis or Nashville or Miami. Now, they huddled together in the darkness in the tiny town of St. Gabriel, Louisiana, seventy miles west of the city of New Orleans and just outside Baton Rouge. St. Gabriel had been selected from a short list of candidates as the location for DMORT’s temporary morgue, the place where victims of the coming disaster could be collected and processed away from prying eyes.
    St. Gabriel seemed the perfect choice: it was close to Baton Rouge, the location of FEMA’s regional headquarters; it was situated just off Interstate 10, the major artery into and out of New Orleans; and it had no way to say no. The little hamlet of fifty-five hundred people, home to two prisons and a half dozen chemical plants, had been politely but bluntly informed that they would soon have the privilege of contributing to rescue-and-recovery efforts on behalf of their big sister to the east. Before long, a cadre of refrigerated tractor trailers would begin to deliver decomposing bodies right to their own back door. Not everyone in St. Gabriel appreciated the honor; but after repeated reassurances about safety and security, the little town resigned itself to its inevitable role.
    FEMA, anticipating the closing of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, and not wishing to add to the chaos at the airport in Baton Rouge, had decided to assemble the DMORT members at DFW in Dallas—not exactly a stone’s throw away. From there, Nick’s DMORT team had caravanned 370 miles by car