“Good,” Kaiser says, sounding like a kid who’s been told he can open his Christmas presents early. “I’ve got two techs here in town, and if we need more talent, I’ll get some headed this way from D.C.”

“Okay. Look, I really need to get back to the paper now.”

“All right, but I need to drive Penn myself. He and I aren’t finished, as much as he might wish we were.”

At these words I nearly bolt from the building, but something keeps me in the hallway. If Kaiser wants to keep talking, he either needs to ask me something more or reveal something he hasn’t given up yet. I hope it’s the latter.

By the time they round the corner, I’m far down the hall, waiting by the front door. Jordan has taken Caitlin by the arm; she looks like she’s escorting an accident victim through a hospital. Jordan smiles as they reach me, but the expression looks forced.

“Hold up, Mayor,” Kaiser says from behind them. “I’m going to drive you.”

I’m too tired to argue, even for show.

“Hey, Penn!” Sheriff Dennis calls from around the corner. “Come back down here a sec. I forgot to get you to sign a form.”

“Go on to the car,” I tell Caitlin.

She gives me a fragile smile, and before Kaiser can stop me I trot back to Sheriff Dennis’s office. The rusted-spring sound of the front door opening follows me around the corner, and then I see Sheriff Dennis moving quickly up the hall, his big legs churning, a white piece of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. As he reaches me, I hear Kaiser’s footsteps behind me.

Walker hands me a pen, then holds the paper up against the wall for me to sign. He’s standing so that his big body will be between me and Kaiser, should the FBI agent come all the way around the corner.

“That sucks about your car,” he says in a conversational tone. “I’ll see if we can find it for you. Those assholes probably dumped it somewhere not too far from Lake Concordia.”

“I just hope it’s not in the river,” I reply loudly. Then I whisper, “Is tomorrow’s raid still on?”

“You bet your ass. Be here five hours from now, ready to rock and roll.”

“You going to tell Kaiser about it?”

“Not on your life, kemosabe.”

My heart swells with gratitude. “Thanks, Walker.”

Kaiser’s footsteps round the corner.

“Get some sleep, brother,” the sheriff says in a man-to-man voice. “You earned it tonight.” Then he calls to Kaiser: “You guys keep your eyes open out there.”

Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I walk past Kaiser without a word. Seconds later, the FBI agent catches up to me at the front door. When I push it open, a blast of cold wind hits my face, then cuts through my collar like a blade.

“I wonder where Ozan’s got to,” Kaiser says. “Wherever he is, he’s talking to Forrest Knox, you can bank on that.”

“I feel like I can still smell the fire,” I say to myself, “even though it’s ten miles away.”

“Closer than that, as the crow flies,” says Kaiser. “But you’re smelling yourself. That wind stirred it up.”

Raising my coat sleeve to my face, I realize he’s right. “So what’s this about? I thought we’d said all we had to say.”

Kaiser turns and gives me a piercing look that has nothing to do with officialdom. “Unfinished business. We’re about to go through the looking glass, Mayor. And on the other side, we both tell the truth, regardless of consequences.”

He seems to want a response, but I offer nothing.

“What do you say to that?” he asks.

“It’s about fucking time.”

CHAPTER 9

“COLONEL, WE GOT trouble.”

On the roof of state police headquarters, Forrest Knox pressed a satellite phone harder against his good ear—most of the other he’d lost in Vietnam—and spoke in a controlled voice. “Give me specifics, Alphonse.”

“I went to the CPSO,” Ozan explained, “just like you said, and I tried to take over the case.”

“But?”

“That Agent Kaiser was there, the same FBI prick who was at the hospital after Sexton was shot.”

“I know who Kaiser is. I know him from New Orleans.”

“Well, this time he didn’t turn tail. This time he read me the goddamn Patriot Act, chapter and verse. He was talking about seizing our personal phone and computer records, yours and mine. That son of a bitch is trouble, boss. He threatened to jail me on the spot. Quoted some new Patriot Act rules on meth production, which don’t sound good.”

“What about Mayor Cage and his girl?”

“They were there, but the girl headed back across the river to her newspaper. Kaiser’s wife went with her. Cage left with Kaiser. What you want I should do?”

Forrest looked down at his watch. Whatever Caitlin Masters knew about him and the Double Eagles was almost certain to appear in tomorrow’s Examiner, no matter what he did at this point. Unless . . . “We may need to mobilize the Black Team, Alphonse.”

The “Black Team” was a handpicked group of SWAT officers who occasionally functioned as Forrest’s private tactical unit. During Hurricane Katrina, the Black Team had done much more than help keep the peace. In the fetid darkness of poststorm New Orleans, they had ruthlessly winnowed the ranks of the Knox organization’s drug-dealing competition, using chaos and lawlessness as their cover.

“Sounds good to me,” Ozan said. “We can’t just sit and wait for the hammer to fall. You want me to make the call?”

Forrest weighed the risks of immediate action against those of watchful caution. “Not yet. Just find out where everybody is.”

“Got it.”

Forrest thought swiftly. HQ was the wrong place from which to direct tactical action. The best place was Valhalla, the family’s hunting camp halfway between Natchez and Baton Rouge. “Get your ass up to the camp, Alphonse. We don’t need to take this any further on the phone.”

“I can be there in forty minutes. You?”

“About the same.”

“Ten-four, Colonel. Any further orders in the meantime?”

“Gather all the intel you can, as quietly as you can. Use only contacts you trust. Talk to our man in Dennis’s department. Check Royal’s contact at the girl’s newspaper. Do you know who it was?”

“Yeah. What about the feds?”

“We’ll discuss that when I see you.”

Forrest hung up, then walked to the edge of the building and looked west toward LSU’s Tiger Stadium and the Mississippi River. From long practice, he’d developed the skill of descending into a state of calm in direct proportion to the scale of chaos. Though Ozan’s news had stunned him, his pulse had accelerated only slightly during the call, and it quickly returned to normal. Having honed his instincts in combat, where expediency ruled, Forrest was always first inclined to hit back, hard. In war, if someone attacked you, you counterattacked as quickly and viciously as possible. If someone on your own side screwed up and put your unit at risk, you transferred them out. If you couldn’t do that, you sent them home in a body bag. Forrest had once fragged a Yankee second lieutenant in the A Shau Valley who seemed to think he was on the set of a John Wayne movie. Nobody had missed him, either, not even MACV.

Such tactics were more complicated back in the world, of course. For one thing, nearly every death in civilian life brought about some sort of investigation, which meant attention. And attention was anathema to the moneymen in New Orleans. They wanted to remain invisible. Even more troubling, Brody Royal had been a member of their insulated elite. His death would profoundly unsettle men accustomed to feeling untouchable. Worst of all, there were probably traceable links between Royal and his New Orleans partners, and those men would be scrambling to eradicate those links wherever possible. Forrest himself was one. He needed to find a way to assure Royal’s partners that he was part of the solution, not the problem.