It’s time to make my play.

Before walking into the interrogation room, I try Carl Sims once more. I’m about to hang up when I hear a click, a burst of digital static, and then a familiar voice speaking out of a rhythmic pounding that sounds like nothing so much as a helicopter.

DANNY MCDAVITT HAD SLOWED the JetRanger down to a figurative crawl. He had been having trouble matching up what he’d seen on the hand-drawn map to the monotonous topography below him. Beneath the chopper lay a vast stretch of black water and cypress trees that reached westward to the glittering line of the Mississippi River. Carl had moved up to the copilot’s seat to try to help, but both of them seemed to have lost the game fence Danny had been following. The trees were especially thick here, and Caitlin saw no sign of the fence.

The chatter between the two men suddenly stopped, and Carl removed his helmet to take a phone call. Caitlin watched him listening for a few seconds. Then he turned back to her with wide eyes.

Caitlin glanced over at Jordan, who had missed nothing.

Carl moved back into the cabin and motioned for Caitlin to remove her headset. Once she had, he covered the mouthpiece of the phone and leaned very close to her.

“This is Penn on my phone.”

She flushed. How the hell had Penn found her?

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Carl whispered. “He called because he wants me to organize an overflight of Valhalla. Without a search warrant, if possible. He thinks Dr. Cage might be being held prisoner there. I’m going to talk it over with Danny, but I figured I’d ask if you wanted to talk to him.”

Caitlin took a deep, fearful breath, then expelled it. This morning she had told Penn that she would be working in Natchez all day. Admitting that lie might make him furious, but given that this was about Tom and Valhalla, she couldn’t refuse. She only hoped that their discussion wouldn’t require her having to tell Penn she’d met Tom secretly last night.

She held out her hand to Carl.

Carl passed her the phone, then clambered forward again to talk to Danny.

“Penn, this is Caitlin.”

At first there was only silence. Then Penn asked her to hold on, thinking she’d somehow called him and broken in on his connection with Carl. It took a while to convince him that she was in fact with Carl, and already in a helicopter not far from the land Penn wanted searched. She could hear the anger in his voice, but she also knew that was nothing compared to the rage he would feel if he learned she had kept Tom’s location from him.

“Did you drive down there by yourself?” he asked.

“No. Jordan came with me. It was on her way to the New Orleans airport.”

“Jesus. You realize Kaiser has no idea she’s with you?”

“Yes, but is that really the issue right now?”

“You’re right. Has McDavitt decided whether he’ll do the flight for me?”

She gestured forward at Carl, and he came back into the cabin and took the phone from her.

“Penn, Danny says he’ll do it. But this is a big favor, bro. I don’t think I’d do it except that I don’t think you’ll ever get a warrant to search that place. Not unless it’s a federal one, and you might not even get that.”

Carl nodded at whatever Penn answered.

“We can’t take the girls with us,” he went on. “Danny says no way. If we find something and have to set down, they can’t be any part of it. Even if we don’t set down, we might have to fly straight back to the departmental helipad. . . . Right. I’ll call you when we’re on our way. You want Caitlin back? . . . You sure? . . . Okay. Out.”

Carl stuffed the phone back into his pocket and shrugged in apology.

“It’s all right,” Caitlin said. “Finding Tom’s more important than anything else right now.”

“The problem,” Danny said in the headset, “is what to do if we find him. He’s still wanted for killing a state trooper.”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Carl said. “Let’s get these ladies back to their vehicle.”

“Just a second,” Jordan said.

“Yeah?” Carl asked.

“We don’t have to go all the way back to the car. Set us down by that fisherman—Mose. He can help us find the X on the map while you guys search Valhalla.”

Carl didn’t look wild about this idea. He did not want to have to explain to Penn that he’d let her go searching for the Bone Tree with only Jordan and an old man to protect her. “It’d take too long to find Mose.”

“No, it won’t,” Danny said from the cockpit. “He keeps a two-way radio with him for emergencies. I can call him right now. If Mose answers, I can set down on a little tussock, and you can hop right into his boat.”

“Great,” Carl muttered.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, DANNY McDavitt flared the chopper and settled his skids onto a little hummock of earth at the center of a big black pool. Mose Tyler stood his boat off at a safe distance while the JetRanger’s rotors buffeted the mirrored surface into a stinging hail of icy droplets.

As they prepared to exit the chopper, Carl said, “I don’t think Penn will appreciate me dropping you two into this swamp with only Mose Tyler for protection.”

“Penn’s not in charge of this hunt,” Caitlin told him. “I am. And we’re both carrying guns.”

“Show me.”

Caitlin reached into her bag and pulled out the 9 mm Springfield Penn had bought her a month earlier.

“You know how to use that?”

“Yep. Dr. Cage taught me.”

Carl looked at Jordan. “I guess you’re an expert with that nine mil I saw earlier?”

Jordan smiled. “I hit what I aim at.”

“Well, then. I guess you two can handle anything but a platoon-sized assault. But I’m still going to give you one of our departmental walkie-talkies. About all you can do with your cell phone down here is play games on it, or run down the battery while it pings for a tower every minute.”

“I’ve gotten a couple of bars down here before,” Danny interjected. “Depends on where you are, weather conditions, who your carrier is, a lot of things. Leave them on just in case.”

“In case of what?” Jordan asked. “In case we find ourselves in a Deliverance-type situation?”

Carl laughed appreciatively. “I’ve got a feeling you could handle that just fine.”

Jordan jumped out of the chopper, and Caitlin followed. The shock of the ground jolted her bones, but she managed to keep her feet. As Danny lifted off and beat away toward the west, Caitlin waved for Mose Tyler to bring his boat in.

CHAPTER 57

STANDING OUTSIDE THE room where John Kaiser probes in vain at Snake Knox, I try to maintain my composure in the face of a painful reality: yesterday, when Caitlin made love to me at my house on Washington Street, she did not do it out of desire, but because I had raised the possibility of sending Stone and Kaiser in search of the Bone Tree. Instead of answering me, she removed her pants and made sure that my newest brainstorm evaporated quickly and completely. She knew then that she planned to spend today searching the Lusahatcha Swamp, and she would only be doing that if she had a lead on the Bone Tree that she didn’t tell me about. I suppose I can’t resent this, since I’ve held back most of the Kennedy information, but the idea that she could—and did—manipulate me so easily is more than a little troubling. It begs the question, how many times has she done that before?

Taking a deep breath, I open the door to the interrogation room, walk through, and become part of the movie being recorded on the video camera’s cassette.

“Hello, Snake,” I say amicably.

Knox looks over at me with the flattened lips of a smile, but his eyes are ice cold. “Well, well, Mayor Cage is in the house. You look more like your daddy every year. Minus the beard, of course.”