“Bad bet?”

“Apparently. Ozan’s fed me steady reports ever since, claiming Knox is clean. But about two months ago I started smelling something. I ran a little test, the way the SOE used to do during World War Two, to test the integrity of their people. And I confirmed my worst fear.”

“Why didn’t you bust Ozan?”

“Better the devil you know, right? Since then I’ve been quietly trying to scope out just how big Knox’s operation is.”

“And?”

“He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies around the state. He’s taking cuts from various crooks to leave their operations alone. Coyotes moving illegals through the Port of New Orleans, drugs coming into the country on speedboats down around the barrier islands, prostitution. You name it, Forrest skims it. And after Katrina hit . . . I think he used a team of SWAT guys to selectively take out some of the competition.”

“Man alive. This is the guy the moneymen want to put in your job?”

“Most of Forrest’s supporters don’t know about the criminal stuff. All they know is, Knox did them some favor or other. Got ’em LSU tickets on the fifty-yard line or sprung their drunk kid from some backwoods parish jail. Hell, I still can’t prove anything against him. Nobody will testify against the guy. Everybody either loves Knox or lives in terror of him.”

Walt swirled some scotch around in his mouth, then swallowed. “Some of his thugs threatened my wife earlier today. Out in Navasota.”

Mackiever shook his head. “I’m sorry, Walt. But it doesn’t surprise me. She okay?”

“I’ve got some retired buddies covering her now.”

“Good.” The colonel looked around the room like a man startled from a dream. The daze Walt had seen when he entered the room had never really left his eyes. “Well, I think you see my problem. How exactly can I help you?”

“You know that trooper you lost up in Concordia Parish Tuesday evening?”

“Darrell Deke Dunn.”

Walt nodded. “He wasn’t yours. He was Knox’s.”

The colonel quickly gulped from his glass. “Are you positive?”

“I was there. Your APB’s right about that, but he was about to murder my best friend in cold blood.”

Mackiever looked at the ceiling and cursed.

“I don’t know how much pull you still have in this state,” Walt said, “but I need you to make that APB go away. If you don’t, I can’t help you or myself either.”

The colonel looked as if Walt had asked him for a million dollars cash. “How the hell can I do that? All the evidence points to you and Cage killing Dunn, and I can’t prove Dunn was dirty. I can’t pull the APB on suspected cop killers without good reason.”

“I did kill Dunn,” Walt said bluntly. “So you’ll need to make up a reason.”

Mackiever’s eyes had gone wide. “Christ, Walt. How the hell did you get caught up in this?”

Walt shrugged. “Helping a friend. How else?”

Mackiever leaned back in his chair. “Tell me something. If Dr. Cage is innocent, why did he skip bail on that first charge? Murdering the nurse.”

Walt kept his face blank. “All I can tell you is this: if the DA and sheriff up in Natchez had gotten Tom into jail, he’d have died there. The Knoxes aren’t the only ones who want him dead. Tom Cage and Sheriff Billy Byrd have bad blood from way back.”

Mackiever looked less than satisfied, but Walt had no intention of elaborating. He drained his glass and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Here’s my proposal. You get rid of that APB, I’ll take down Forrest Knox for you. That’s the only solution that’s gonna work for both of us.”

“You can’t do it, Walt. Short of killing him, there’s nothing you can do.” The LSP chief dropped his gaze and let the pregnant silence drag. Then he looked up with a strange glint in his eyes. “Are you willing to go that far?”

Walt looked at his old friend for a few moments, then walked to the window, parted the curtain, and stared down at the street between the hotel and the casino that sat outside the Mississippi River levee. “No. I can’t do that, Mac. Knox’s men threatened my wife yesterday, and I was about ready to kill him. But I’m not the hothead I once was. I’ve got a lot to lose now. If Knox comes directly at me or mine, I’ll smoke him. But I can’t kill him in cold blood. I can’t risk leaving Carmelita alone while I rot in Angola. She deserves better than that. So do I.”

“Then you might as well go home tonight.”

“Home?” Walt turned angrily from the window. “I’m wanted for killing a cop. Look, anybody as dirty as you say Knox is has got records of what he’s doing. He has to, just to keep up with his money.”

Mackiever waved his hand as if too exhausted to explore this. “Have you searched his home?” Walt pressed.

“Hell, no. The only guys I’d trust to do that and keep quiet about it are my nephew and my son-in-law—both troopers—and I don’t want to put either of them that far into harm’s way.”

“Well, then. I’m your man. And what about that hunting camp you mentioned? If it’s way out in the woods, and the Knox family owns it, it sounds like a damned likely place to cache incriminating records.”

“You’d need an army to get in and out of there alive.”

“Or a warrant.”

Mackiever shook his head. “It’d have to be federal. Any local judge is liable to pick up the phone and tip one of Forrest’s people. He’s that connected.”

“There’s other ways, then.”

The colonel took a deep drag on his cigarette, then held the smoke in his lungs for so long that by the time he started talking again, there was hardly any left. “In theory, I’ve got five hundred and eleven troopers serving under me. But in practice? Tonight? I trust you and maybe a half-dozen others. And as for going after Forrest, you’re an army of one.” Mackiever gave Walt an ironic smile. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Not long ago, Tom Cage had quoted to Walt the unofficial Ranger motto: One riot, one Ranger. “There’s some truth in that saying,” Walt said. “Sometimes one man can accomplish what a whole platoon can’t.”

Mackiever looked doubtful. “Times have changed, Cap’n.”

Walt thought about the situation for half a minute. “You know, two can play the game Knox is running on you. You need to throw away the Marquess of Queensberry rules and look at this thing like our lives depend on it—which they do.”

“I’m listening.”

“If I’m willing to go into the jackal’s den, what about planting some evidence on him?”

Mackiever’s mouth worked around as though he had something struck in his teeth. “What are you thinking?”

“Come on, Mac. Are you that squeaky clean? Drugs, dirty money, other contraband—I ain’t particular.”

“Getting hold of something like that would take some time.”

“Time’s what we don’t have. If you can’t get something damning in my hands in an hour, it’s no use to me.”

The colonel thought about it, then shook his head. “If I or any of my loyalists go into the evidence room at this hour, Knox is going to hear about it.”

Walt wondered if this was true, or if Mackiever had simply lost the stomach for conflict. “Well, then. The best thing I can do is search Knox’s house, then get up to that hunting camp and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. I’ll lay odds I find something you can hang him with.”

“You’re a lot more likely to end up digging a shallow grave at gunpoint. These are some bad boys, Walt.”

“Bad boys are my business. Yours, too. Or have you forgotten? You’re still a Ranger down deep, aren’t you?”

Mackiever sucked long and hard on his cigarette, then looked away. After he exhaled, his eyes found Walt’s again. They looked like cloudy marbles lost in dark bags of wrinkled skin.

“If that male prostitute goes on TV and says I paid him for sex, my children and grandchildren will never look at me the same again. I don’t want to risk that, Walt. It’s not worth it. Not this close to retirement.”

“You’re not risking anything! Knox gave you forty-eight hours, you said. That’s plenty of time for me to get in and out of those places. I just need to know where Forrest is while I’m doing it. Can you help me do that, at least?”