The Bone Tree (51 page)

“What about that phone call?” Kaiser asks.

“Fuck him,” Dennis mutters, walking past the FBI agent without even a glance. “And fuck you, too. Stay out of my way.”

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES OF
flying over the Lusahatcha Swamp, Caitlin realized that hunting for the Bone Tree in a boat would have taken weeks without a guide like Toby Rambin. From five hundred feet in the air, the swamp appeared vastly larger than it had on Google Earth, which Caitlin had used to scan the terrain this morning. The
cypress forest seemed endless, and the thick undergrowth was caught in the transition from fall to winter, an uncertain process in the South. Though it was late December, a lot of green still dotted the landscape below, and a greenish-brown scum floated at the edge of the black water between the big trees. Caitlin now understood why Henry and the FBI had not found the Bone Tree during their relatively brief searches. With half a million trees between the east and west borders of the swamp, the odds of finding a single one by pure luck were practically zero.

“The X on your map,” Danny McDavitt said over the headset, “appears to lie in the borderland between the federal wildlife preserve and the private hunting club in this area. Some of it’s disputed borderland.”

“What do you mean, disputed?” Jordan asked.

“I’ve always heard that fence down there is in the wrong place,” Danny replied. “Some say the hunting club fenced in more land than they own. But they claim they actually own more than they’ve fenced. I never heard of any litigation over it, though. Too many senators hunt at that place.”

Caitlin figured this was her chance. “Have either of you hunted at the Valhalla camp?”

“I went once,” Carl said. “Sheriff Ellis took me. He’s tight with the people who own it.”

“The Knoxes?” Caitlin asked as casually as she could.

“That’s right,” said Danny. “Some of them are old Klansmen, but one is a big dog in the state police. I think that Brody Royal was a member, the one who died the other night.”

Caitlin wondered if Danny knew that she’d been in the room when Henry Sexton immolated the old multimillionaire. Of course he did. That would have been the talk of the county this morning, and certainly the sheriff’s department.

“I didn’t care for the place,” Carl said.

“Big surprise,” Danny cracked. “You’re definitely the wrong color.”

“Yeah. The sheriff only took me over there to show those assholes he’s got the best rifle shot in the state on his payroll.”

Caitlin looked over at Jordan, who was gazing out the window as though this were a commuter shuttle from New York to Boston.

“What the hell is with those huge fences?” Jordan asked. “We saw
them on the way in. The whole place felt like a goddamn concentration camp.”

“That’s what it is,” Carl said glumly. “But for animals.”

Danny tilted the chopper so that they could see more landscape below. Caitlin scanned the swamp for cypresses noticeably larger than the others.

“What’s it cost to belong to one of those hunting clubs?” she asked.

“Ten grand a year for some, others ten times that much. Depends on what you’re after.”

“Unless you’re a senator or a titan of industry,” said Danny. “Then you can order what you want off a menu, just like going to a restaurant. They take you out to an electric feeder where the game of your choice eats every day, and you execute the animal while he’s having dinner.”

“Real sporting, huh?” Carl said. “It’s like hunting in a zoo.”

“Pathetic,” Jordan said. “You see how those deer run when we roar over them? That’s exactly how people run from choppers in some countries I’ve been to. Only slower.”

“Yeah,” Carl said, his voice suddenly somber. “I’ve seen that myself.”

“Is that the way Valhalla is run?” Caitlin asked. “Like a hunting zoo?”

“For the customers, yeah. But the owners do some crazy stuff, like the spear hunting.”

“There are politicians who have wet dreams about being asked down to those camps for a weekend,” said Danny. “They’ve got chefs and waiters and whores on call for those boys. It’s redneck heaven down here.”

“And Sheriff Ellis is tight with the owners?” Caitlin asked.

Carl nodded. “The sheriff’s okay. He’s a redneck, but he’s basically a decent man.”

“Are we getting close to the X?” Caitlin asked.

“Not long now,” Danny said. “This map wasn’t exactly drafted by the U.S. Geological Survey.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

The pilot laughed, then looked over his shoulder at Caitlin. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. “You ladies going to let us in on what’s supposed to be waiting under that X?”

Caitlin felt a chill of suspicion.

“It’s not Jean Lafitte’s pirate treasure, is it?”

“How did you know?” Jordan said with a laugh. “If it’s there, we’ll cut you in for five percent.”

Carl laughed. “I think this chopper rates a four-way split, don’t you?”

Caitlin forced herself to laugh, but she wondered how the pilot would react if they actually discovered the Bone Tree this morning. As a young black man, Carl obviously sympathized with her cause, but Sheriff Ellis wasn’t going to be happy to have his county become the new epicenter of civil rights cases that would draw the attention of the whole world.

Out of nowhere, an image of Tom Cage rose in her mind. Without intending it, Caitlin prayed as she never had before. She prayed for Tom’s deliverance, of course, but more than that, she prayed that Penn would never discover that she’d known where Tom was and kept it from him.

She started as Jordan’s hand fell on her knee.

“I’m okay,” she said, looking up at her new friend. “Just a little airsick.”

Jordan smiled, but she wasn’t buying it.

WALT STOOD WITH
his back to the wall of the rearmost upstairs bedroom of the Bouchard lake house and listened to the muted hum of voices from the deck. Only a glass door covered by a curtain separated him from Knox and Ozan now. He had accomplished a minor miracle in getting this far. After the Redbone arrived, Walt had put on some rough clothes he’d found in the neighbor’s house, then crossed the open ground wearing a gardener’s cap and gloves and carrying a short shovel. Once he’d gained the house undetected, he’d quickly searched the garage. After determining that Tom wasn’t inside Ozan’s pickup truck, Walt had taken out his pistol and begun searching the house, room by room.

With every room he cleared, the embers of hope in his heart burned lower. After ten minutes, he found himself standing here, in the final room, which was as empty of human beings as the others. This huge house contained only Walt Garrity, while Forrest and Ozan talked in low tones on the deck. Walt clenched his pistol against his chest and tried to make out what the men were saying.

He couldn’t do it.

Unless he put his ear to the glass window, there was no point in even trying. His only hope now was to confront the bastards directly. At two to one, the odds were against him, but he’d faced worse as a Texas Ranger. Much worse, in fact, and he’d survived.

Truth be told, the safest plan would be to shoot Ozan outright and then force Knox to give up Tom’s location. But if he did that, he’d have little choice but to finish off Knox as well. Both men certainly deserved to die, but Walt found the idea of blowing Ozan away without any warning more difficult than he would have expected. Perhaps he could get the drop on them so cleanly that they wouldn’t go for their weapons. . . .

“No,” he whispered. “Right now, I’m Tom’s only chance.”

Walt edged over to the window, where a thin crack of light offered a view of the deck. He could just make out Ozan standing in profile, while Forrest remained out of sight. Throwing open the door before firing was out of the question, a sucker’s play. Better to slide the curtain aside and fire through the glass—multiple times, if necessary.

Walt tried to calm himself the way he did before shooting at a distant deer. But no matter what he did, his heartbeat grew louder, and his ears began to pound.

One shot,
he thought, focusing on Ozan’s brick-colored face.
For all I know, Tom is dead already, and that bastard killed him
. . . .

FORREST HAD FELT SOME
relief after Ozan joined him. Having a man who was willing to follow any order without question gave you a certain confidence. But the plain fact was, they were in a tough spot. Something had clearly gone wrong with his plan to bust Sheriff Dennis. He didn’t know what it was, but he wanted Snake and his crew out of the sheriff’s office. Somehow, a dumb ex–baseball player had turned the tables on him. Forrest wasn’t really worried about Walker Dennis; he was worried about the sheriff giving Penn Cage and John Kaiser access to the Double Eagles. Forrest had reviewed the records of both men, and both had proved themselves expert at wringing the truth out of hardened criminals. If he couldn’t find a way to get Snake and his crew out of that jail, Cage and Kaiser would get a real shot at turning somebody. The fallout from Glenn Morehouse’s deathbed confession had yet to be controlled, and if one more Eagle decided to unload the sins of his youth, Forrest could say good-bye to all his ambitions for the future.

He cussed his own stupidity when it hit him that he’d been wasting time waiting for Claude Devereux to come through. The simplest solution was just to call Snake and tell him to walk the Eagles right out of the building. After all, they hadn’t been arrested. They were free to leave anytime they chose. They could flip Sheriff Dennis the bird as they walked out! Instead, they were sitting there—on Forrest’s orders!—patiently awaiting an interrogation they were confident would never happen, because they expected Dennis to be busted by his own men at any moment.

Forrest picked up his burn phone and speed-dialed Snake’s cell phone. The phone rang several times, then kicked him to voice mail.
Ozan asked what he was doing, and Forrest explained. Then, while Forrest tried Sonny Thornfield’s phone, Ozan began dialing the other Eagles at the station.

None answered.

Something began to thrum in Forrest’s chest, like a wire stretched taut between his heart and his voice box.

“What do you think happened?” Ozan asked.

“Nothing good.”

“Where the fuck is Claude Devereux?” muttered the Redbone. “He should’ve been down there by now. He should’ve called you back, at least.”

Forrest licked his lips and thought about Devereux. Given Brody Royal’s death, and the manner of it, the crafty old Cajun might just have bolted. . . .

“Maybe Claude
is
down there,” Ozan suggested.

“I don’t think so. I want you to alert every trooper in the southern half of the state. Claude’s daughter lives in Lafayette. Tell them to look out for Claude’s car. If they see it, pull him over and tell him to get his ass back to his office and wait for instruction.”

“Do you think he—”

Forrest’s StarTac was ringing.

“That’s probably him now,” Ozan said, grinning.

Forrest shook his head and answered the phone. The caller was his primary mole at the sheriff’s office.

“Talk,” Forrest said.

“Sheriff Dennis just arrested everybody, Colonel.”

Forrest balled his left hand into a fist. “Define ‘everybody.’”

“Snake, Sonny, and the other four old guys.”

“On what charge?”

“Meth trafficking. Dennis and two deputies found a shitload of crystal under Sonny’s and Snake’s houses. He’s strutting around here like goddamn rooster.”

Forrest’s pulse began to pound. “What about Billy’s houses?”

“I haven’t heard anything about Billy. But Mayor Cage and that FBI guy are here, too. This is some serious shit, Colonel. I gotta go, but I knew you’d want to know.”

“Hold on! As soon as you can get word to Snake, make sure he
knows I had nothing to do with this. I don’t want him thinking it was some kind of setup.”

“Ten-four.”

“And tell him I’ll get them out.
Today
. You hear me? Tell them I’ve got a lawyer on the way.”

“Yes, sir. Will do.”

The connection went dead.

“What the hell happened?” Ozan asked.

Forrest told him.

The Redbone shook his head, his eyes bright with outrage. “Why would Sonny and Snake have meth at home? You think they been skimming or something? Putting back a nest egg?”

“Hell, no! Don’t you see? Sheriff Dennis found the meth we planted under his house and planted it on
our
guys. Goddamn it!”

“How the hell could he have found that? A K-9 unit?”

Forrest nodded. “Had to be. But he’d never think to look for it. Not Walker Dennis. Kaiser, maybe. But an FBI agent would never risk planting dope like that. They leave that kind of shit to the DEA.”

“Then who?”

“Penn Cage. The old prosecutor. I’ll bet he saw every trick in the book out in Houston. He’s probably sent cops to the pen for planting dope to get a conviction, but now that his old man’s life is on the line . . . Yeah, it was Cage.”

Ozan’s mouth twisted into a jagged line. “Maybe it’s time we did something about that fuck.”

Forrest nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe. I was hoping to do a deal with that boy.”

“I don’t see that happening now.”

“This definitely puts a kink into things. But first things first. We’ve got to get Snake out of jail ASAP. I guarantee you he’s going to think I set him up. Because I’m the one who made him march in there for this. He didn’t want to do it. And it looks like he was right.
Shit.
”

“Snake can’t screw you over without screwing himself, can he?”

Forrest rubbed his chin and stared out over the lake. “I don’t know. Snake’s a lot smarter than people think. That crazy act is just that—an act.”

“What’s our play, then?”

“First, find Devereux. Claude’s the only lawyer who knows the whole backstory, and he’s got as much to lose as we do. Second, have somebody search my house in Baton Rouge. For all we know, they planted a pound of meth on me, too.”

“Christ. Good thinking, boss.”

“And last . . . find somebody local who knows somebody at the hotel where the FBI is staying. I want wireless bugs planted in their rooms by noon, and somebody stationed one floor above them monitoring the bugs. I’m getting the feeling there’s something personal about Kaiser’s interest in me. And it’s starting to piss me off.”

“You got it, Colonel. Is that it?”

Before Forrest could answer, he heard a car door slam on the other side of the house. A couple of loose guys from the Black Team were scheduled to arrive, so he relaxed. Then something shifted inside the house. The sound hadn’t been loud, but Forrest had been here long enough to know it wasn’t part of the normal background noise of the place. He looked over at Ozan, who nodded once.

“Go,” Forrest whispered.

WALT HAD BEEN AIMING
through the glass door when he heard something from the other side of the house. It sounded like a car door.

The voices on the deck went silent.

Walt listened, frozen in space. He heard the sound again. It
was
a car door. Then footsteps on the deck moved toward the glass.

As lightly as he could, Walt retreated through the bedroom door, then rushed around a landing and down a back staircase he’d found while passing through the kitchen. He could hear voices in the garage. At least two. Instead of standing still, he slipped into a dark pantry and waited as the voices neared, then passed and moved upward.

Instinct told him to get out while he could, but he forced himself to remain in the pantry. Either Knox or Ozan was hunting him. Walt kept his pistol aimed at the door. After what felt like five minutes, he opened the pantry door, walked straight into the garage, and picked up the shovel he’d left there. Then he shoved his pistol down his pants, left the shadows of the garage, and started shuffling up the driveway with the gait of a man in his eighties.

For forty yards he felt as though a laser scope was burning a hole in his back, but he forced his brain to short-circuit the urge to run. When he was fifty yards from the Bouchard house, he turned right and started across the open ground to the neighbor’s home. Given that Tom was not with Knox or Ozan, and he had no way to question them, Walt could hardly stand the delay. As soon as he reached the house, he would take out his cell phone and do what Tom had forbidden from the beginning.

It was time to call Penn.

SONNY AND SNAKE WERE
sitting on the lower bunk in their two-man jail cell when Deputy Spanky Ford made a pass through the cellblock. After surveying all the Double Eagles, he stopped before the cell and beckoned the two of them over. Snake looked up and walked over to the bars.

“How’s it hangin’, Spanky?”

“Not too good,” the deputy replied. “Seems like the whole world’s turned upside down.”

“You’re goddamned right it has,” Snake muttered.

Ford looked over his shoulder, then whispered, “I’ve got a message for you.”

Snake glanced back at Sonny, then said, “None too soon. Let’s hear it.”

“Forrest says to hang tough. He’s gonna get you out today. He’s got a lawyer on the way. Just hang tight, he said.”

“Hang tight?” Snake spat on the floor near Spanky’s boots. “I’ve got a message for the young colonel, Spanky. You be sure and remember every word. Tell Forrest I said, ‘Go fuck yourself.’”

Spanky Ford’s eyes went wide.

“Tell him we’d better be out of here in an hour.
One fucking hour,
you hear me?”

“Yeah.” Ford was sweating now, clearly fearful of any further interaction with Forrest Knox—especially this kind.

“And one more thing. You tell him I’ve got Tom Cage.”

Spanky gulped.

“Yeah, you heard right. Tell Forrest I’ve got the doc, and what I
decide to do with him will be based on what Forrest does in the next sixty minutes.”

Ford looked ready to bolt. “Is that all of it?”

Snake chuckled. “You don’t think that’s enough?”

Ashen-faced, Ford hurried out of the cellblock.

Sonny waited for Snake to back away from the bars. Then he said, “Do you think that was the smart way to play it?”

Snake looked down at Sonny, his eyes cold. “Are you kidding? Who do you think put us in here, Son? The same guy who’s promising to get us out today. Grabbing Tom Cage last night was about the smartest thing I’ve done in a long time. All we gotta do now is sit tight and watch Forrest jump to it.”

Snake chuckled, then walked back to the bars.

“Listen up, boys,” he said. “We’re gonna be out of here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. We all know that dope was planted on us. All you gotta do is sit tight and keep your mouths shut. Most of you are pretty good at that, and the ones that ain’t . . . well, you know the price of flappin’ your gums.”

“Damn straight,” said an older Eagle named Will Devine, a contemporary of Frank Knox’s, and the seventh Double Eagle initiated into the group. “We know what to do, Snake.”

“Good man, Will. Everybody just take this chance to catch a nap. Meanwhile, I’ll be thinkin’ on how we’re gonna pay back the fools who put us in here. Okay?”

A low murmur of agreement passed through the concrete cells.

Sonny stretched himself flat on the hard mattress of the bottom bunk. He shivered as the stink of mildew entered his lungs. He had a feeling they might not be leaving these accommodations quite as quickly as Snake expected.