“You don’t think the FBI could have the doc, do you?”

Forrest felt a chill run up his back. “Hell, no. If they did, why would Snake tell us he had him?”

“He might be working with ’em.”

Forrest considered this for exactly three seconds. “No chance. He’d castrate himself first. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t fuck me if he thought I betrayed him. And he said I’d better have him and his crew out of jail in an hour.”

“Ain’t no way,” said Ozan. “Not with that much dope hanging around their necks. Not unless we take over the whole damned department.”

Forrest nodded. “I was considering that last night, but now that Dennis has pulled this meth switch, and with the FBI involved—and Snake being my uncle—there’d be too damned much scrutiny.”

Ozan grunted in agreement.

“Still no word on Mackiever resigning?” Forrest asked.

The Redbone shook his head. “Nobody’s texted or e-mailed me.”

“All right, then. If we’re going to bust Snake out of there soon, we’re going to have to think outside the box. We need reliable people, but they have to be several layers removed from us.”

Ozan nodded but offered no names.

Forrest looked out over the lake and considered the problem for a while. The low December sun had finally hit the water, and he could see fish jumping among the cypress knees. As he watched them, an ironic idea came to him. Ironic, and inspired.

“I think I know just who to call,” he said.

“Who?” asked the Redbone.

“You’ll find out. But we need to keep up the appearance of playing by the rules. You don’t have any word on Claude Devereux yet?”

“Nothing.”

“That lying Cajun. I’m going to roast him over a slow fire when this is all over.”

“Amen to that,” said the Redbone. “He’s always gotten on my nerves.”

“Then find him, Alphonse.”

Ozan nodded and punched a new number into his phone.

CLAUDE DEVEREUX WAS HALFWAY to Lafayette, Louisiana, driving a careful seven miles over the speed limit. It had taken him longer than he’d hoped to pack, but that came from not preparing sooner. He should have known that after Brody Royal’s death, the old order would start to break apart, with all the attendant chaos and risk that accompanied such changes.

He was taking a risk going to Lafayette, but he couldn’t bear to leave the country without seeing his grandchildren one last time. Given the crimes in which his employers had embroiled him, he might have to stay away for some time, years even, and at his age, he could easily die before he got a chance to return. In case of that eventuality, there were certain papers Claude wanted to give to his daughter. He could have mailed them, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same. He wanted to see Adeline’s lovely face when he told her there were millions that she had no idea existed, and that every dollar would pass to her someday.

The problem was, traveling from Vidalia to Lafayette meant driving through Baton Rouge (unless you wanted the trip to take twice as long as necessary), and Baton Rouge was Forrest’s home base. Still, Claude figured he had a couple of hours before Forrest realized something was really wrong. By then, he would have hugged his family, given them their gifts, and headed west to Houston, where he would board a plane bound for the Cayman Islands.

Devereux’s Catholic faith had lapsed more than six decades ago, but as he reached the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Claude began a litany of Hail Marys that would not cease until he had passed over the Atchafalaya Swamp to the west.

CHAPTER 56

THE CPSO INTERROGATION room looks pretty much like the ones in Houston, only without the sophisticated video system. It does have a camera though, trained on the table from a tripod in one corner. Deputy Spanky Ford led me to the soundproof observation room on the other side of the traditional one-way mirror, where I stand now. Through it I see John Kaiser sitting on one side of the interrogation table, studying a file. His large leather briefcase stands beside him on the floor. In a few moments, Snake Knox will be led into that room and chained opposite him. Kaiser has the confident look of a soldier who’s just won an important skirmish. If only he knew that somewhere in this building, Sheriff Dennis is separating Sonny Thornfield from his fellow prisoners and moving him to more private quarters, where he can be questioned without constitutional restraint. Under any other circumstances, I would be ashamed, but with my father in the hands of Forrest Knox, I can’t afford to observe the rules.

As soon as Spanky Ford left me, I dialed Carl Sims, a deputy I know in Athens Point, Mississippi, forty miles south of Natchez. A former marine sniper, Carl was born and raised in Lusahatcha County. He’s done security work for me in the past, during off-duty hours, but he has two more important qualifications. One, he’s a good friend of the Lusahatcha County sheriff’s chopper pilot. If anyone can organize an aerial search of the Valhalla hunting camp, Carl can. Second, Carl has a bit of a crush on Caitlin, as well as carrying some guilt about a mistake he once made in protecting her. Carl’s phone rang eight times, but he didn’t answer. It didn’t seem that luck was on my side, but Lusahatcha County is rural and infamous for spotty cellular coverage.

While I wait for Walker Dennis to let me know that Sonny Thornfield is ready for me, a CPSO deputy leads Snake Knox into the interrogation room. Kaiser doesn’t look up as the old man takes his seat, or even when the deputy chains Snake’s hands to a steel ring set in the metal tabletop.

I don’t know how Snake got this nickname, but at that table, separated from his aged subordinates, he does exude the cold-blooded menace of a venomous serpent. He might be asleep, for all the signs of life he shows. But like a cottonmouth moccasin coiled beside a pond, he’s ready to strike. With his slit eyes, pale skin, and stringy muscles, Snake seems a strange crossbreed of mammal and reptile. If emotion could be measured externally, he would likely register zero. The totality of his indifference to Kaiser reminds me of some killers I encountered in Houston—the ones who immediately went to sleep after being arrested for the most heinous of crimes. And yet . . . staring through the one-way glass, I also perceive the face of a young soldier and pilot beneath Knox’s sagging, weathered skin.

“I know you,” Snake says in a flat voice. “You’re John Kaiser, out of New Orleans. You’re married to that photographer.”

This knowledge worries me a little, which is exactly the response Snake intends to arouse in Kaiser. But Kaiser doesn’t look up from his file.

“You know that fatass planted that meth on us,” Snake goes on. “So you’d better say your piece while you have a chance. I won’t be here long.”

“I don’t care about the meth,” Kaiser says, setting down his file at last. He picks up the case and sets it flat on his lap.

“No?” Snake sounds surprised.

“No.” Kaiser opens the briefcase, takes out the rusted Nambu pistol that his agents removed from Luther Davis’s sunken Pontiac, and sets it carefully on the table between them.

Snake regards it like a pile of dog shit.

“Been a while since you’ve seen Frank’s gun, eh?” Kaiser asks.

Snake looks up, amusement in his eyes, but he says nothing.

Kaiser reaches into the briefcase and takes out the rusted handcuffs his divers found locked to the Pontiac’s steering wheel. These he sets beside the Nambu.

Snake studies the cuffs without touching them. Then he says, “Fond memories, my man.”

Given Kaiser’s sober demeanor, it’s hard for me to remember that he’s merely acting out a ruse for Snake Knox. He knows he has no chance of making this man talk by any legal means. Every move is designed to buy him equal access time to Sonny Thornfield. But nothing about Kaiser’s posture or facial expression communicates this. In this moment, Snake must feel he is the prime target of an experienced interrogator.