What had Walt said? Mercy is a virtue you can’t afford. . . .

As the truck rolled through the dark fields, Tom reached down and laid his hand on the cold checkered butt of the .357.

CHAPTER 3

THE MOMENT SONNY Thornfield saw Billy Knox standing beneath the lights on the floating dock outside his fishing camp on the Toledo Bend Reservoir, he knew something had gone wrong. Sonny and Snake had just carried out one of the most nerve-wracking missions he’d taken part in since the war, and he was elated simply to be alive. In the dead of night, Snake had secretly flown them via floatplane to a small lake near Ferriday. After being ferried by car to the lawn outside Mercy Hospital, Snake had assassinated Henry Sexton by shooting him through his hospital window. Then, because Forrest had given the order that everyone with direct knowledge of the Sexton attack had to die, they had drugged two boys in their twenties and drowned them in the Atchafalaya Swamp. No one could have seen that crime. Snake had set the plane down in the middle of a pitch-black pool, miles from human habitation.

That can’t be it, Sonny told himself, staring at Billy’s grim face as Snake taxied the Beechcraft up to the dock. As carefully as he could, Sonny climbed out onto the starboard pontoon and caught the mooring line that Billy tossed him.

Billy didn’t look much like his father had as a young man. Snake had always been wiry and hatchet-faced. Billy was stockier and blond, with the shoulder-length hair and beard of a 1970s rock singer. Normally his eyes glinted with an amused light, but tonight he looked as grim as Sonny had ever seen him.

“What’s the matter?” Sonny asked. “What’s happened?”

“Wait till Daddy gets out,” Billy said.

When the pontoon bumped the dock, Sonny stepped onto the floating square of wood. “Trouble?”

Billy nodded once. “Big-time.”

A chill raced up Sonny’s back.

Snake climbed down onto the pontoon and stepped lightly onto the dock, his inquisitive eyes on those of his son.

“What’s the matter, boy? You look like you need a dose of Ex-Lax.”

“You won’t be laughing when you hear this. You missed Sexton tonight.”

“Missed . . . ? Bullshit.”

Billy shook his head. “Captain Ozan called. You definitely missed him. You killed his girlfriend, if that makes you feel any better.”

“I saw the round hit him in the head!” Snake barked.

“You only grazed him.”

“No way. That was a .22 Magnum round, and I drilled him.”

Billy shrugged as if tired of arguing the point. “Maybe your eyes aren’t what they used to be. Ozan was there, and he knows what happened. The FBI moved Sexton to an interior room—an office—and tried to pretend he was dead, but Ozan got the truth out of a CPSO deputy. Now we’ve got a world of shit over there.”

“Does Forrest know?” Sonny asked worriedly.

“Haven’t talked to him. But he sure as hell won’t be happy.”

“Where is he?”

“New Orleans. He’s making his move on Colonel Mackiever.”

“Shit, shit, shit.” Sonny couldn’t hide his fear.

“I hit that son of a bitch!” Snake insisted.

“The window glass must have deflected your shot,” Billy said.

“Shut the fuck up!” Snake bellowed. “I know what I saw.”

“Why didn’t you kill the Masters girl?” Billy asked, ignoring his father’s anger. “Ozan says she should have been visible through the window. Killing Sexton’s girlfriend didn’t do a damn thing for us. At least wiping Caitlin Masters off the board would have bought us a margin of safety, if Sexton told her anything about us.”

“The other woman was trying to close the blinds. She filled up half the fucking window! Besides, I figured Forrest would have a stroke if I told him I’d killed that newspaper bitch without his okay. If I’d have known he wanted that, I’d have marched right up to the window and blasted them all.”

“Forrest wouldn’t have okayed the Masters girl,” Sonny said. “That’s only hindsight talking.” He rubbed his arms and shivered. “How about we get up to the house?”

“Fuck that,” Snake said. “We need to head back to Ferriday and finish off Henry. We can’t risk him talking.” Sonny looked longingly up the slope at the luxurious condo on the shore of the reservoir, where warm yellow light glowed through the windows.

“Forget Sexton,” Billy said firmly. “He needs to be finished, all right, but you’d never get close to him now. Forrest will make that decision.”

Snake kicked a tackle box that was standing on the dock. “This is bullshit, Billy. What does Brody say? You talked to him?”

“No. We’re not supposed to be using the phones, remember? Ozan broke the rules, but he figured we needed to know. You’re to stay here in Texas until you get further word.”

Sonny waited while Snake cussed and spat.

“Let’s just hope,” Billy said, “that Forrest is the new superintendent of state police by this afternoon. Then we can start some realistic damage control.”

Snake kicked the tackle box into the dark water, then marched up the wooden steps toward the house.

Billy’s cell phone rang, and he answered it immediately. After ten seconds, his face went pale. After ten more, his mouth hung slack. He turned away from Sonny and walked a few steps along the pier. Looking up the slope, Sonny saw that Snake had stopped climbing and was hovering near the top step, watching his son. When Billy hung up, he walked back toward Sonny like a man trying to pass a field sobriety test.

“Who was that?” Snake called, coming back down the steps. “What’s happened?”

“That was Ozan,” Billy said in a dazed voice. “Henry Sexton’s dead.”

Snake laughed and pumped his fist. “I told you I got that son of a bitch!”

Billy shook his head slowly. “No, you didn’t. Brody’s dead, too.”

“What?” Sonny whispered.

“Brody, Sexton, Randall Regan, some old nigger from Detroit, a couple of Brody’s guards, and a Natchez cop to boot. Brody’s house is burning to the ground right now.”

“Bullshit!” said Snake.

“Ozan just heard it on fire department radios in Concordia Parish.”

“What does Forrest say?”

“Ozan can’t get Forrest on the phone. Not since he went into a hotel in New Orleans to meet Colonel Mackiever.”

“Oh, God,” Sonny breathed, looking for a place to sit down.

CHAPTER 4

SHERIFF WALKER DENNIS’S Tahoe hums swiftly through the Louisiana night, his roof lights dark, his siren silenced. The dry blast of the heater sweeps past my face, the muted crackle of the police radio barely audible beneath it. The heat aggravates the cigarette burn on my left cheek, but after enduring all I have tonight, the pain seems inconsequential.

“I tried to keep a lid on this to delay the state police,” Sheriff Dennis says, “but some firemen mentioned names on the radio. It’s out now. And when a man as rich as Brody Royal dies, people are gonna want to know everything. We’ll be lucky to make the station without state police cruisers flagging us down.”

Twelve miles east of us, this highway crosses the Mississippi River into Natchez, but our destination lies several miles short of that. The Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office is housed in the basement floor of the parish courthouse between Vidalia and Ferriday, Louisiana. The highway between those two towns runs through the worst sort of sprawl: small-engine repair shops, oil field service companies, salvage yards, boat dealerships, and an ever-changing line of marginal enterprises. All have parking lots where state police vehicles could lie in wait for us.