“Got it. But what are you looking for? I was just down there myself. You don’t need to go anywhere near that Valhalla camp.”

“I’m not. But I am following a story. Are the Knoxes at their hunting camp?”

“They were last night. Some have left, but others could still be there. Don’t go near that place. And wherever you go, keep your eyes wide open and one hand on your gun.”

“Walt, I feel so guilty about Tom. Do you think I should turn around? Is there anything I can do to help the situation?”

“Not really. But if you want to be safe, you’ll turn around. I know you better than that, though.”

“Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

Walt’s mind moved to an obvious but unpleasant reality. “As soon as I get Melba squared away, I’m going after Forrest. If you or Penn don’t hear from me in”—Walt glanced at his watch—“four hours, assume Knox got me. In that case, tell Penn I said to cut his losses and take care of his family.”

“Walt, wait—”

“I mean it, darling. We’re up against it, now. Don’t take stupid risks. And don’t trust anybody.”

“I won’t. Call me if you hear anything important. They tell me cellular reception is crap down here, but try anyway.”

Walt said he would, then hung up.

Melba was watching him like someone afraid to hope for even small mercies. He felt a desperate compulsion to race out to his truck, but somehow he suppressed it.

“Caitlin doesn’t know anything about Tom,” he said. “Now, tell me the truth, have you got the strength to drive back to Natchez? Or do I need to drive you myself?”

“Aren’t the police still looking for you, too?”

“They are. But I’ve got no choice.”

“I can get myself back. Where is that Forrest Knox?”

“A GPS tracker I’ve got tells me he’s on the shore of Lake Concordia in Louisiana, fifteen miles from Natchez. Probably at a lake house like the one we were hiding in on Lake St. John.”

“You think he’s holding Tom prisoner there?”

“I hope he is. Because the alternatives are too depressing to think about.”

Melba nodded. “Whatever you find out, I want you to call me. Good or bad, I have to know. All right?”

Walt squeezed her shoulder. “I know. Now, get your things together. Every minute counts now.”

Melba stood, but instead of moving, she looked hard into Walt’s eyes. “What will you do if you find they have Dr. Cage prisoner over there? Can you call the police? Or the FBI?”

Walt debated whether to answer honestly. In the end he decided the nurse wanted the truth. “It’s the police who have Tom, Melba. If I find them, and they’re holding him . . . I’m gonna kill ’em.”

The nurse stared at him in silence for several seconds. Then she said, “I’ll be praying for you, Captain. God help me, but I think that’s the only way now.”

Then she turned and went to gather her things.

CHAPTER 49

THE TRIP FROM Natchez to the Lusahatcha Swamp took only an hour, yet it had already proved an adventure, not only for Caitlin, but also for Jordan Glass. John Kaiser had insisted on having an FBI agent drive his wife to the New Orleans airport. Jordan had resisted so strongly that they’d fought over it, and ultimately Kaiser had agreed to let her go on her own. But soon after leaving her hotel that morning, Jordan had noticed an FBI tail behind her, with two agents in the car. At that point she’d called Caitlin and asked for an address that had a back driveway out. After a couple of minutes’ thought, Caitlin told her about an antebellum home that butted up against a 1950s-era neighborhood. Armed with this information, Jordan had driven into the place as though for a visit, pulled around the mansion as if to park, then zipped down a narrow lane that cut through to the residential neighborhood. The agents tailing her didn’t figure out her scheme until after Jordan texted her husband that if she was capable of flying to Cuba and meeting the Castro brothers on her own, she could damn well drive herself to the airport. After picking up Caitlin from a street corner two blocks away from the Examiner, Jordan had started south on Highway 61 at the speed limit, confident that her tail was frantically driving south ahead of her, trying to “catch up” to its quarry.

Caitlin spent the first twenty-five miles giving Jordan a detailed history of the Bone Tree, describing the part it had played in the history of the Double Eagle group and recounting Henry’s abortive attempts to find it. Jordan had smiled upon learning that Caitlin had kept the secret of poacher Toby Rambin to herself. When Caitlin paused her narrative, Jordan almost tentatively asked exactly what she hoped to find at the Bone Tree. By this time they were far enough from Natchez that Caitlin decided to trust her new friend with the crown jewels.

“It’s not just the bones anymore,” she said. “Not just the civil rights cold cases. I mean, that’s a huge part of it, absolutely. But after Henry died, his mother brought me some other material she found. And some of that had to do with what John and Dwight are working on.”

“You mean the Kennedy assassination?”

Caitlin nodded.

“Can you tell me about it?”

For the next five miles, they traded the information they’d gleaned from their respective sources, which merged to form a compelling scenario in which Carlos Marcello had hired Frank Knox to serve as a primary or backup shooter in Dealey Plaza on the day Kennedy died.

“But what does that have to do with the Bone Tree?” Jordan asked.

“Glenn Morehouse told Henry that Frank Knox didn’t trust Marcello. Knox supposedly kept some souvenir from Dallas, a document or trophy of some kind, and that totally fits with the Knoxes’ psychology. This artifact was something Frank must have felt he could use against Marcello if he ever needed to, so it protected him.”

“Do you have any idea what it was?”

“Snake Knox told Morehouse that it was a letter or document of some kind. But the crazy part is . . . it was in Russian.”

Jordan’s eyes went wide. “Russian!”

Caitlin nodded, her pulse picking up. “Last night I read everything I could find about the assassination, and Russia can only come into it two ways. First, if Russia or the KGB played some part in the killing. But I totally discount that as fantasy. The second way is through Oswald.”

Jordan simply waited for her to continue.

“Lee Harvey Oswald lived in Russia for two and a half years after he defected. He’d taught himself the language, and at least some letters that he wrote—like those to his Russian wife—he wrote in Russian. You can see them on the Internet.”

Jordan remained silent, processing what she’d heard. “But how could a letter or document stay hidden in a tree for forty years?”

Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. The best I can come up with is something like a mason jar.”

“No. Water always finds a way in. I once hid some pot in a mason jar and buried it. One month later, the jar was half full of water.”

“Well . . . within a few hours, we may know the answer. I wanted you to know that we’re not just out here looking for Jimmy Revels’s bones, as awesome as it would be to find them. We may actually find the key that Dwight spent half his life searching for. We might even find proof that Frank Knox killed John Kennedy.”

Jordan drove in silence for several seconds. Then she said, “I know that cost you. You don’t really know me well.” Glass looked to her right. “I won’t tell John about it. I promise you that.”

Caitlin felt a rush of gratitude and relief. “Thank you.”

Soon after this, they left Highway 61. Following a map Caitlin had printed from Google Earth, they turned west toward the Mississippi River on MS 24, a narrow asphalt lane barely wide enough for two cars. Then they turned south on something called Lusawatta Road, which turned out to be a neglected gravel lane worn down to red clay. After leaving that, they found themselves on a dirt track hemmed in by trees and undergrowth. They still had not seen water, but Caitlin sensed the swamp was near. Ever since leaving Highway 61, they’d been going downhill, and the oak, elm, and pecan trees had gradually given way to cottonwood and cypress. Caitlin had rarely experienced a more startling transformation of landscape than she had during the last few miles.