Insects make great use of the sense of smell. For them it is a multidimensional sense. They actually “feel” smells and use them for many things. For education, for intelligence, for communication. When an ant finds food it returns to the nest leaving a scented trail, sporadically touching the ground with its abdomen. When other ants come across the line they follow it back to the food. They know which direction to go in because the scent is “shaped”; the narrow end of the smell points toward the food like a directional arrow. Insects also use smells to warn of approaching enemies. Since an insect can detect a single molecule of scent miles away insects are rarely surprised by their enemies….

Sheriff Jim Bell walked quickly into the room. On his beleaguered face was a smile. “Just heard from a nurse at the hospital. There’s some news about Ed. Looks like he’s coming out of that coma and said something. His doctor’s gonna be calling in a few minutes. I’m hoping we’ll find out what he meant by ‘olive’ and if he saw anything specific on that map in the blind.”

Despite his skepticism about human testimony Rhyme decided that he’d now be happy for a witness. The helplessness, the fish-on-dry-land disorientation, was wearing heavily on him.

Bell paced slowly in the lab, glancing expectantly toward the doorway every time footsteps approached.

Lincoln Rhyme stretched again, pressing his head back into the headrest of the chair. Eyes on the evidence chart, eyes on the map, eyes back to the book. And all the while the green-and-black nutshell of a fly zipped around the room with an unfocused desperation that seemed to match his own.

An animal nearby darted across the path and vanished.

“What was that?” Sachs asked, nodding at it. To her the creature had looked like a cross between a dog and a large alley cat.

“Gray fox,” Jesse said. “Don’t see ’em too often. But then I don’t usually go for walks north of the Paquo.”

They moved slowly as they tried to follow the frail indications of Garrett’s passage. And all the while they kept their eyes out for more deadfall traps and ambush from the surrounding trees and brush.

Once again Sachs felt the foreboding that had dogged her since they’d driven past the child’s funeral that morning. They’d left the pines behind and were in a different type of forest. The trees were what you’d see in a tropical jungle. When she asked about them Lucy told her they were tupelo gum, old-growth bald cypress, cedar. They were bound together with webby moss and clinging vines that absorbed sound like thick fog and accentuated her sense of claustrophobia. There were mushrooms and mold and fungus everywhere and scummy marshes all around them. The aroma in the air was that of decay.