“What in God’s name possessed you to do something this stupid?” he asks, taking little care to keep his voice low.

“We obviously didn’t believe it was stupid,” I counter, motioning for him to quiet down.

“I told you last night how risky this kind of attack would be. And pointless.”

“We didn’t attack anybody. Sheriff Dennis simply enforced the law, which has been a neglected practice in this parish of late.”

Kaiser glances at Dennis, whose back is to him, then looks back at me. “Oh, bullshit. You hit the Knoxes, and they hit you back. Nothing surprising about that.”

“I’d bet money Forrest Knox was surprised this morning.”

Kaiser shakes his head in exasperation. “Do you realize I had the director sold on a massive search of the Lusahatcha Swamp? He was talking to the Mississippi National Guard commander and the sheriff of Lusahatcha County. He’d even contacted Dwight Stone to consult about the 1964 search. If you hadn’t started this fiasco, we might have found the Bone Tree by sundown today. We might have had Jimmy Revels’s and Pooky Wilson’s remains. But now? There’s no way I can leave to run that effort. I’m stuck doing damage control. Only this time the damage is so great, I don’t know if it’s fixable.”

“We’re not your problem, John. You’re working a massive case that could take months or years. We’re going after some drug dealers and crooked cops. It’s that simple.”

“More bullshit. You’re going after the same targets I am, only you’re doing it in the stupidest possible way.”

My temper is starting to rise, which tells me Kaiser might be taking his life into his hands if any of the nearby deputies are listening. “We’re taking the shortest distance between two points, which in my experience is a good strategy. Besides, after last night’s conversation, I thought you were after Carlos Marcello, not the Knoxes.”

At last Kaiser lowers his voice to an angry whisper. “I told you I was after Forrest Knox. It’s all the same case anyway.” Before the FBI agent can vent more fury, Sheriff Dennis walks over from the treatment room. “Can I help you, Agent Kaiser?”

Kaiser manages to rein in his anger slightly. “I’m sorry for what happened to your men, Sheriff. But I have to ask: what did you really hope to accomplish with these raids?”

Dennis squares his shoulders like a man preparing for a fight. “Aside from upholding the law and protecting the people of this parish?”

“You’ve confiscated some precursor chemicals, and you’ve got a truckload of low-level perps locked up. Do you really think they’re going to give up the Double Eagles? Do you think they even know anything worth giving up?”

Walker gives a surprisingly calm shrug. “Since they’re facing mandatory minimums, I’d say there’s a good chance that one or more will talk.”

Kaiser shakes his head. “You have no idea what you’re up against, Sheriff. The punks you arrested this morning don’t know enough to jail one Double Eagle, and they don’t know jack shit about Forrest Knox.”

“I reckon we’ll see,” Dennis drawls. “But I’m betting at least one of them knows more than you think.”

“Bad bet, Sheriff.”

“John,” I cut in, hoping to prevent further escalation, “I don’t think we’re going to find much common ground this morning. You ought to think about vacating the premises. Some of these deputies are . . . in a highly irritable state of mind.”

“I’ll go you one better,” Dennis says aggressively. “I’m gonna call in the Double Eagles for questioning today.”

The FBI agent clearly can’t believe his ears. “You mean get warrants for their arrest?”

“No, no,” Walker says. “Just ask ’em nicely to come in for a chat.”

Kaiser actually laughs. “How are you going to contact them?”

Dennis shrugs again. “It’s a small parish. I’ll figure a way. If they’ve got nothing to hide, they shouldn’t mind coming in.”

“I’ll save you the trouble, Sheriff. Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield are in Texas, at Billy Knox’s fishing camp. It’s on the Toledo Bend Reservoir. And they won’t come back here to talk to you, no matter how nicely you ask them. Especially after this morning. Because they do have plenty to hide.”

Sheriff Dennis works his lower lip around his dip of snuff. “Well . . . I reckon I’ll ask anyway. Can’t hurt none.”

“You’re wrong,” Kaiser says in a grave voice. “If all you guys were doing was jumping the gun on a drug case, I’d shut up and go back to New Orleans. But you’re throwing a wrench into one of the biggest conspiracy cases the Bureau’s ever been involved with, and I can’t stand by while you do it.”

Dennis cuts his eyes at me, but I offer nothing. “You wanna explain that statement?”

When Kaiser doesn’t answer, I say, “Our junior G-man thinks he’s working the JFK assassination.”

Dennis’s eyes narrow. After squinting at Kaiser for fifteen seconds, he says, “Why not the Lindbergh baby?”

Kaiser angrily shakes his head. “What you guys don’t know . . . Jesus.”

“Do you see what’s going on in this parish?” Walker asks, waving his hand to take in his casualties and their families. “I’ve got good men down, and one dead. Bastards who murdered people forty years ago still killing people today. And they’ve got their kids helping them. When I saw you draining the Jericho Hole yesterday, I figured we were on the same side. But it’s starting to look to me like you’re just in the way.”

“That’s because you’ve got blinders on,” Kaiser says, not the slightest bit intimidated. “Penn, could I speak to you alone?”

“I don’t think so. We’re in Sheriff Dennis’s jurisdiction. I’m just the mayor of Natchez, as you reminded me last night. And I’m not really interested in the Kennedy assassination right now.”

“No?” Kaiser lowers his voice again. “What if I told you that one of the rifles we took out of the ruins of Brody Royal’s house was a 6.58-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano, just like the rifle Oswald fired from the Texas Book Depository? It’s the exact variant, 40.5 inches long.”

I think about this for a few seconds. “I’d say you found yourself a replica that Brody bought to add to his little collection. Like a model of the starship Enterprise.”

“That Carcano’s no replica. It’s a genuine Italian surplus war rifle that was probably made within a few months of the one Oswald bought through the mail in 1962.”

“Does it have a serial number?”

“It does. It also has fingerprints on it.”

“How is that possible? The fire would have—”

“This rifle wasn’t in Royal’s basement.” Kaiser’s eyes shine with triumph. “We found it in a gun safe in the old man’s study, on the main floor of the house. Everything in that safe was in pristine condition. Agents from our Legat in Rome have contacted the Italian government to trace the records. The odds are that Royal’s rifle was shipped to the U.S. for retail sale, like most of the other Carcano surplus in the fifties.”

“Great. But I’m not interested.”

“Penn, how sure are you about the type of rifles you saw in that special display case?”

To my surprise, Sheriff Dennis seems to be listening closely.

“I know neither was a Mannlicher-Carcano,” I tell Kaiser. “Any Texas prosecutor has talked to enough JFK conspiracy nuts to know what Oswald’s rifle looked like. The Carcano has an extended trigger housing and a forestock that nearly reaches the end of the barrel. It’s basically a crappy weapon. The rifles I saw in that display case were expensive hunting rifles with quality scopes. Surely you’ve identified them by now?”

“We think so. But let’s double-check.” Kaiser pulls a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and shoves it at me. “Have a look and see if you can ID the two rifles you saw in that case.”

While Dennis stares with knitted brows, I take the inkjet-printed sheet. It shows a column of eight rifles in full color and good resolution. At first they look very similar, but the closer I study them, the more differences I see.