Free Bug Man Suspense Bundle (3, 4, 5) by Tim Downs Page A

collecting bodies, Nick. These are real people we’re dealing with—neither one of us was trained for search and rescue.”
    “Denny explained it all to me,” Nick said. “It’s just like recovering bodies, only the body walks away later.”
    “Let’s hope so,” Jerry said.

8
    Nick guided the boat down the center of a main street, trying to imagine what the Lower Ninth Ward must have looked like before it was cut off at the knees. Nick’s head was almost even with the streetlamps; street signs were completely underwater, making it almost impossible to follow a road map—even if they had one.
    “You think any of these electrical wires are live?” he called up to Jerry.
    “Could be. Better steer clear of them, just in case.”
    The water looked even higher than it had just an hour ago, rising just to the soffits of some houses and overlapping the lowest shingles of others. Nick wondered how long it would take the Corps of Engineers to repair the breached canals; he wondered how long it would be before the water reached an equilibrium and stopped rising; he wondered what would still be visible when it did.
    “Looks like we’ve got customers,” Jerry said.
    One block to the north they spotted two men stranded in the top of a tall chestnut tree. They were smiling and waving and appeared to be shouting, though their voices couldn’t be heard above the engine’s drone. Nick steered down an alley and approached the tree; as he drew closer, the two men stopped smiling.
    Jerry turned to Nick. “They don’t look too happy to see us.”
    “You don’t make a very good hood ornament,” Nick said. “It’s like being charged by a hippo.”
    Jerry looked at the two men. “I don’t think that’s the problem.”
    Nick looked up into the tree. The two men staring back at him were African-American—a high statistical probability, since 80 percent of the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward were black. Maybe that was the problem; maybe these men were expecting someone a little more familiar to come to their rescue—a neighbor, a friend, even parish police.
    “Good morning!” Nick called up in his friendliest voice. “Can we help you gentlemen?”
    There was a long pause. “Who’re you?”
    “We’re with DMORT.”
    “Who?”
    “The Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team.”
    “Say what?”
    “We collect—we’re a part of—”
    Nick stopped to reconsider; Jerry took over. “We’re here to get you guys out of that tree.”
    “What for?”
    “You don’t want to stay up there, do you?”
    “That depends. Where you planning on taking us?”
    Jerry turned to Nick.
    “Beats me,” Nick said. “They told us to report to whoever was in charge and get further instructions here. I’m not sure where to take them; let’s just get them to dry ground.”
    Jerry looked up into the tree. “Let’s get you out of that tree first. We’ll figure it out from there.”
    “We’re staying,” the man said.
    “C’mon now, you can’t just stay up there.”
    “It’s my tree,” the man said. “I can stay up here if I want to—and he can stay with me.”
    “We’ll take you anywhere you want,” Jerry said. “Back to the levee, over to the bridge—”
    “You go on now,” the first man said. “We’d just as soon wait for another boat.”
    Nick watched the two men; they kept slapping at their arms and legs as they spoke. He used an oar to bring the boat in closer and reached for one of the tree’s lower branches.
    “You just keep your distance now!” one of the men shouted down.
    Nick adjusted his glasses and studied the tree branch closely. “ Solenopsis invicta ,” he announced. “You can tell by the single median seta on the anterior clypeal margin.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Fire ants—and not just your run-of-the-mill domestic variety either. These are red imported fire ants, introduced from the jungles of Brazil back in the 1930s. You guys better come down from there right now.”
    “Fire