The Devils Punchbowl

“I will. After everyone leaves, I'm going to get into that storeroom and find a way. There has to be a key in there. Or some kind of tool. didn't you say he takes the collar off when he abuses you?”

“Sometimes. Other times he hooks it to a bolt on a table with a shorter chain.”

“Where does he get the key when he takes it off you?”

“From the same ring as his car keys.”

Damn.

“You have to leave me out of it,” Linda says, almost too low to hear. “You know that.”

“No, I don'’t.”

“You do. Because even if you get the collar off, I'’ll never make it to that fence. Not before the dogs get me. And I can’t die like that. I can’t.”

“You’re not going to die, Linda. You’re going to get out of here with me.”

Silence.

“What if I drugged the dogs?”

“With what?”

“There might be tranquilizers in the storeroom.”

“They took all that stuff out. I looked when I was in there a minute ago, like you told me to. When he was getting me the pills. All I saw was junk that looked like steroids and supplements. I used to date a bodybuilder in Oklahoma City, and he took the same kind of stuff.”

“Linda, you have to stop thinking it’s impossible. If you think that way, you make it so. I'm going to get us out of here.”

To her amazement, Caitlin hears what sounds like sad laughter. “You think that because you’re different from me. Stuff works out for girls like you. That'’s just the way life is. But for me…it’s different. No matter what I do, something always goes wrong.”

“I want you to stop saying that kind of thing! There’s no difference between you and me.”

“You’re wrong,” Linda says wearily. “I got away once. I risked everything and jumped off that boat. I put myself in God’s hands. And here I am. You can’t get me out. Go without me. Maybe you can bring help back in time.”

Caitlin considers this. The odds of Quinn leaving Linda alive once he knew Caitlin had escaped would be zero. And how long might it take her to find help?

“I'm not going without you,” she says.

“Caitlin?” Linda says in a tighter voice.

“Yes?”

“I haven'’t told you everything.”

The hair rises on Caitlin’s neck. There is no terror like the terror of the unknown. “What is it? Tell me.”

“I know what those white dogs are for.”

“What?”

“They’re going to fight them against a man.”

Caitlin looks at the wall, as if she could read Linda’s face through it. “What? You mean like feed a man to them?”

“No. A man’s gonna fight them. Try to kill them in a pit.”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard them talking, and I’'ve seen them getting ready for it.”

“What did you see?”

“Yesterday morning, they brought a man into the kennel and put him in a stall. They were waiting for those white dogs to get here. The guy looked like a homeless man they pulled off the street. A drunk. Later Quinn told me he was.”

“What did they do with him?”

“First they put some kind of vest on him.”

“Like that protective suit? The padded thing?”

“No. More like a bulletproof vest. I saw a lot of those in Las Vegas. And they put some kind of plates on his arms. When they were done, he looked like a gladiator or something.”

Caitlin can scarcely form her next question. “What did they do then?”

“They took him out there and let one of those dogs loose on him.”

She closes her eyes. “What happened?”

“It took that dog about twenty seconds to kill him. Ripped his throat out. Then they let the rest of the dogs tear him up.”

“Why did they do that? To give them a taste of human blood?”

“No. They were testing the suit. The armor. I heard them talking outside. They just wanted to see how it would stand up to the dogs’ teeth and jaws. The suit is special-made. They killed that man just to find out how good it worked.”

Caitlin tries to shut out her horror and think logically. “Have they ever had a fight like that before? Dogs against a man?”

“Once. They have a videotape of it. He had it.”

“Who? Quinn?”

“No.

Him.”

“Sands?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Why did you wait till now to tell me this?”

“I didn't want to scare you. I know you’re brave…but I'm telling you, those dogs out there are devils. They’re war dogs. They’re like the one

he

has. He knows everything about them. Jonny’s dad raised dogs back in Ireland. When he was a boy, his daddy gave him a puppy to raise…and then he made him kill it. To teach him how the world was, he said. Sands knows dogs like no one I ever met. And the dogs he trains…you don'’t want to be close to them. You may fool them for a second or two with those cats, but what they live for is killing. I don'’t want to see you torn to pieces out there.”

“Linda, when is this fight supposed to take place?”

“Soon. That'’s all I know.”

“Will it just be another victim, some drunk or something?”

“No. A man’s coming in to fight them special. He’ll have a weapon. A knife, maybe two.”

“I wonder who he is.”

“I think he’s a convict, from what they were saying. One of those UFC-type fighters. Some walleyed redneck, I'm sure. But they'’re all getting ready for it.”

Caitlin takes this in, analyzing their situation in light of these new developments.

“Linda, have you ever heard of a man named Edward Po?”

“No.”

“What about a girl named Jiao?”

Linda hisses. “Oh, I know who she is all right. The Queen of Sheba. She don'’t know nothing about who Sands really is. How he screws all the girls on the boat. That Jiao…she lives down there in New Orleans, away from all this. At least she did until Katrina, anyway. Now…I don'’t know. Maybe that’s one reason he wants me dead. I’'ve seen her look at me like she knows I mean something to him. Or

meant

something.”

“Have you heard Jiao has a cousin? From China?”

“I did hear that. He flew in for one of the fights a while back. He brought his own dog with him.”

Caitlin is starting to see the outline of a larger picture. “Linda, lis

ten to me. I want you to tell me everything you know about Jiao and her cousin. And Sands. Everything, no matter how trivial it may seem. Will you do that?”

“I think that medicine may be working,” Linda says softly. “My God. The pain isn’t as bad.”

“You’re going to make it, I promise. Penn and his friends are looking for us with everything in their power right now. I know they are. A friend of his actually killed one of those white dogs the other night, with nothing but a knife.”

“I don'’t believe it.”

“It’s true. He cut the dog’s head off to make sure it didn't have rabies. You have to hang on, Linda. You have to believe. They’re coming to get us.”

“If that’s true, then why risk your life to try to get past those devil dogs?”

Caitlin thinks about this. “Because you can’t wait around to be saved. This isn’t

Cinderella,

honey. It’s

Beauty and the Beast,

but there’s no prince hidden inside the beast. After the feeders come this evening, I'm breaking through the roof and getting two of those cats. And then I'm getting that collar off your neck, if I have to chew through the leather to do it. Okay?”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now—tell me about Jiao.”

CHAPTER

53

Shad speaks over his shoulder as he ushers me in. “Why was one of our most distinguished selectmen drunk in the middle of the day?”

I glance briefly around the district attorney’s office. He has a huge, antique desk pilfered from one of the historic buildings owned by the city—three-quarters the size of a billiards table. The wall behind him is covered with diplomas and plaques, while the one to my right almost bulges from the weight of framed photographs: Shadrach Johnson’s Wall of Respect. In most of the pictures, Shad stands beside the nationally famous black politicians and celebrities who visited Natchez during his 1996 mayoral campaign against Wiley Warren. Fewer than half of those figures returned to the city two years ago when Shad ran against me during the special election. Apparently, during the interim, they’d learned that Shad was primarily interested in advancing the cause of Shad Johnson, and no one else, no matter what color they might be. Many politicians share this illness, of course, but Shad has a particularly virulent strain of it.

“Did you come in to look at the pictures?” Shad asks.

I turn and look deep into his eyes. “Caitlin Masters was kidnapped last night. She was taken by Jonathan Sands and Seamus Quinn. Paul Labry just informed me that if I do nothing against Sands for thirty-six hours, they’ll return her to me unharmed.”

Shad’s eyes go wide, then narrow slowly. “Labry works for Sands?”

“You thought you were the only one?”

The district attorney jabs his forefinger at me. “That'’s slander.”

“Sue me. Why aren'’t you advising me to call the FBI, Shad?”

He looks toward his window, then back at me. “If that’s what you wanted to do, you’d already have done it. What are you really doing here, Cage? What do you want from me?”

“That'’s a long list, buddy. I want to know why you soft-pedaled the murder of Tim Jessup. Why you misappropriated evidence and withheld facts critical to the investigation from the police chief. Why you’re not pushing to find out what happened to a computer programmer named Ben Li, who was also probably murdered. But I already know the answer, don'’t I?”

“I don'’t know anything about that. Any of it. Those are police matters.”

“The night Tim died, you made a point of telling me you were the chief law enforcement officer of the city. So why does your police chief think the last thing you want him to do is make progress on any of these investigations?”

Shad folds his hands together and leans back in his chair. “Chief Logan and I don'’t always see eye to eye. That'’s no secret.”

I stand and put my hands on his desk, then lean over him. “I'’ll tell you why I'm here. Right now, Jonathan Sands thinks I have a certain item that Tim Jessup stole from the

Magnolia Queen.

A USB thumb drive. But

you

know I don'’t have it. Don’t you?”

The district attorney’s face remains impassive. Shad is good in a courtroom, and he’d be a hell of a poker player, though I hear he prefers bridge. While he ponders my statement, I glance over at his Wall of Respect. One photograph draws my attention. It shows a huge boar hog, probably five or six hundred pounds, hanging by its hind legs from a hoist. Shad stands on one side of the hog, while on the other, wearing a bright orange jersey with the number 88 on it, stands a tall black man with a hunting rifle lying across his muscular forearms.

“I didn't know you were a hunter, Shad. I thought bridge was your game. Or the odd set of tennis.”

Johnson regards me with silent hatred.

“Is that Darius Jones?” I ask. “The wide receiver for San Antonio?”

“You know it is.”

“Was that photo taken around here?”

Shad shifts in his seat. “On DeSalle Island. Hunting camp.”

DeSalle Island lies farther downriver than we paddled last night, almost to Angola Prison, but it’s exactly the kind of remote spot in which Sands has been holding his dogfights.

“I think I’'ve got the picture,” I say quietly. “Darius win any money on the dogs?”

“On the what?”

I give Shad a knowing look. “I guess it doesn’'t matter. Darius has got it to lose, right? Long as he doesn’'t get caught.”

“You’re wearing out your welcome, Cage. I don'’t know anything about any computer drive.”

I lean farther over the desk, into Shad’s personal space. “I know you have it. You’re the only person who could. You had Tim’s cell phone. You heard the voice memo he made before he died. And somehow you got into the morgue—or got someone to go in there for you—and you got that drive. You want to dig into dead men’s asses for fun and profit, that’s your business. But I need that drive. If I don'’t have something to trade for Caitlin, they'’re going to kill her. Do you read me, Shad?”

The district attorney remains stone-faced.

“I think I know where you are on this,” I say, trying to help him along. “You think that drive is your ace in the hole, if everything goes to hell. I don'’t know how badly compromised you are, or what Sands has on you. But you need to figure out which side you’re on. Because if you give me that drive now, I'’ll make sure you stay out of trouble when the wheels come off of this deal.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Shad says evenly. “But even if I did, you don'’t have the power to offer anybody any kind of deal—certainly not immunity from prosecution. I'm the DA, Cage, and I could jail you for assault right now, based on what I saw five minutes ago.”

I want to snatch Shad up from his chair and bang his head against the desk, but that’s not going to get me the drive. I’d find myself in the county jail in short order, and it’s right across the street.

“Shad, there’s a federal investigation going on in this county, and my guess is you don'’t know a thing about it. Or if you do, you only

know enough to make your asshole pucker. When the feds don'’t tell you they'’re on your turf, it’s bad news for you. So, I repeat, you need to decide which side you’re on. And the best way to prove you’re on the right one is to give me that drive.”

Shad gives me a tired smile. “I think we’re done here.”

I make no move to leave or even straighten up. “After I leave, you might be tempted to destroy that drive. I could see the logic of it, from your point of view. But that would be a mistake. You’re going to need a friend when this blows up. And if Caitlin dies because you didn't give it to me, I'’ll hound you right into Parchman, I swear to God. You’ll have a cell right next to Sands.”

There’s a sudden rush of heavy footsteps outside, and then someone pounds on Shad’s door. I jump to my feet and open the door, expecting to see Paul Labry making another plea for forgiveness. But it’s Mitch Catton, a deputy from the sheriff’s department, and he’s breathing hard.

“What is it, Deputy?” Shad asks calmly.

“Paul Labry was just killed in a car accident!”

“What?”

“He hit a bridge abutment. Must have been doing seventy, at least.”

“Was anyone else hurt?” I ask.

“Nope. One-car accident. There was an empty bottle of vodka in the car too. Sally, over to the clerk’s office, told me Mr. Labry’d been hanging around here all during lunch. Said he smelled like a liquor cabinet.”

I look down at Shad, my eyes filled with foreboding.

“Thank you, Mitch,” Shad says. “Mayor Cage and I need to finish our conversation.”

“Okay, sorry. I just figured you’d want to know. I mean, is there anything special we should do because it’s a selectman?”

“No, just follow your normal procedures.”

Catton stares at us in puzzlement for a few seconds, then shuts the door and bangs down the stairs.

“This town is under siege,” I say softly. “And the biggest threat always comes from within. Don’t kid yourself that you can come out of this clean. Not without me. I don'’t know if Paul committed sui

cide or if they killed him, but when this is all over, there’s going to be a reckoning. Pick your side, Shad. Fast. That thumb drive is your only get-out-of-jail-free card. You know how to reach me.”

“Get out of my office.”

I hold up my forefinger and point at him, my eyes burning, then turn and go.

CHAPTER

54

Caitlin stands naked in the storeroom of the kennel, a leather dog collar tight around her neck, its thick chain binding her to the wooden support post of some shelves behind her. She’s bound so tightly that she can’t turn her head, which forces her to watch the scene taking place before her. She’s shut her eyes as long and as often as she could, but Quinn has sworn to Taser her if she does it again.

Linda Church lies bent forward over a crude table, her collar chained to a ringbolt set in its top. Naked from the waist down, Seamus Quinn plunges relentlessly into her from behind, his eyes on Caitlin to be sure she’s watching. Linda screamed so much when he began that Quinn wrapped four long pieces of duct tape around her face. Caitlin is afraid Linda will vomit and aspirate it before Quinn can get the tape off—if he’d even try.

“Don’t pretend you don'’t want to look,” Quinn says, panting from exertion. “Everything that walks on two legs would watch this…if they knew nobody was looking. Why do you think Romans paid their last coin to see this kind of thing? This is what we are, princess. The emperors gave the people what they wanted—sex and death. Everything else is just window dressing.”

Caitlin keeps her eyes on Quinn but speaks to Linda. “Think

about something else,” she says in what she hopes is a maternal voice. “Anything but this. This will pass, like every other thing in life. You don'’t believe me right now, but it will—”

“Shut your gob!” Quinn shouts, seizing Linda’s haunches and driving harder. “You know what they really loved in the arena? Women and animals. They’d take the urine of female animals and spread it on virgins, sometimes twenty at a time. Then they’d let the trained males at them. Baboons and mandrills, bulls and boars, dogs and leopards, even giraffes. That'’s history—real, every bit of it.” Quinn shows Caitlin his gray teeth. “People don'’t change, and you’re no different.”

Caitlin can’t bear to look at Linda’s face. All she can think to do is deflect some of Quinn’s bottomless rage onto herself. “I’d like to see

you

get it this rough,” she says. “See how you like being on the receiving end.”

Quinn huffs and laughs. “A man does the givin’, princess. The woman does the takin’. I'm not particular, so long as it’s warm and tight.”

“Your day is coming,” Caitlin says in a barely audible voice. “There are places not far from here where men twice your size will be happy to give you what you’re giving her. Twice as much, from what I saw when you dropped your pants.”

Quinn pulls out and starts toward Caitlin, but before he can reach her, the door to her right bursts open and two men enter the room. One wears a black balaclava hood, the other a green one. The man in the black mask looks from Quinn to Caitlin, then back at Quinn. It’s as though Linda isn’t in the room.

“What are you doing here?” Quinn asks in a dazed voice.

“Liam called me.” The black-masked man’s voice seems hardly distinguishable from Quinn’s. “About a day late, by the look of it.”

“You told me I could do what I wanted with her.”

“You bloody sod. For one night, I said.” The man looks at Caitlin, eyes glinting through the slanted eyeholes cut in the balaclava. “Has he touched you?”

Caitlin is certain that the man in the black balaclava is Jonathan Sands, but given the circumstances, letting him know that could be fatal. “Only to put this collar on me,” she says. “He’s raped her for

two days straight, though. She has some serious infections, her leg and her urinary tract. She needs an emergency room right away.”

Quinn laughs, then cuts off the sound with a cough.

The man in the black balaclava takes two steps toward Quinn and leans forward as though to speak, but then his right hand lashes out and cracks the bridge of Quinn’s nose. Blood erupts from the Irishman’s face, and he topples backward, holding his nose with both hands.

The third man watches without reaction.

Quinn gets to his knees but remains doubled over, blood pouring through his hands. Sands extends his arm to help him up, but when Quinn takes the hand, Sands snaps his boot into Quinn’s rib cage with a crunch. The force of the blow lifts Quinn bodily from the cement. He drops flat on his belly, gasping for air.

“Get up, you piece of shite.”

Quinn gets slowly to his knees, covering his belly like a beaten dog preparing for another kick, then slides up the wall behind him until he’s erect.

Sands jerks his head toward Caitlin. “Where’s her clothes?”

“Over there. In the cabinet.”

“Get ’em. And take that fuckin’ collar off her.”

“Why? Are you trading her?”

“Get her bloody clothes. And keep your mouth shut while you’re about it. Jaysus.”

Quinn goes to the cabinet and retrieves Caitlin’s jeans and T-shirt. “You broke my ribs,” he grunts, as he hands them to her.

“I ought to give you a proper digging,” Sands mutters. “You ignore another order and I'’ll have Liam kneecap you. I’'ve half a mind to do it here and now. Got a drill in the lorry.”

Quinn holds up both hands, silently pleading for mercy.

“What about it, ladies?” Sands asks. “You want to hear this bastard scream?”

“We just want to go home,” Caitlin says. “We don'’t care about you or him or whatever you’re doing.”

A toothy smile flashes through the mouth of the balaclava. “That'’s what you say now. But you’ll feel different later.”

“What are you going to do with us?”

Sands sniffs and keeps looking at her, but says nothing. Slowly, his eyes travel from her breasts to her ankles, then back to her eyes. As this happens, she realizes that there is no “us” for Sands or Quinn. In their minds, Linda is already dead.

“You’ll be home in twenty-four hours, good as new,” Sands says. “That'’s a promise.”

“I don'’t believe you.”

“You don'’t have to. It’s the truth.”

“What about Linda?”

Sands glances to his right, where Linda remains bent over the table, sobbing through her nose, covering the duct tape with glistening mucus.

“She’ll be looked after. She can’t go back home, though. Not right away. She’ll have to start over somewhere else. We’ll either give her a job on one of our other boats or see she has the money to start somewhere else. Money’s no problem.”

Caitlin knows he’s lying, but there’s nothing to be done. She wishes Linda believed what he was saying, but who knows better than Linda Church how worthless Sands’s promises are?

Quinn takes a key from atop the cabinet, then comes over and unlocks the thick leather collar from Caitlin’s neck. He’s still naked from the waist down, but his erection’s gone, his penis shrunk to a nub.

“Go ahead,” Sands says to Caitlin.

“What?”

“Kick him. Right in the bollocks. He deserves it for being so bloody stupid.”

As Quinn darts out of reach of her feet, Caitlin recalls what he asked Sands:

Are you trading her?

Penn must be trying to negotiate her release by trading something for her. What? Could he be onto Ben Li’s private insurance policy? During the night, Linda told her that Quinn had several times asked her what “The birds know” might mean. Apparently Ben Li had screamed this phrase several times as he was being interrogated belowdecks on the

Magnolia Queen.

Maybe Penn has cracked this mysterious code—

“Put her back in the office,” Sands says to Quinn, who’s pulling on his pants.

“What about the other one?”

“Wherever you had her before. And get her some fucking medicine. Human medicine. You know where to get it.”

Quinn looks puzzled by this order, but he signals his willingness to obey with a nod.

“I'’ll take Masters,” Sands says, motioning Caitlin toward the storeroom door.

Her door is the first outside the storeroom, the only other room with four walls. Now she can see the rest of the kennel, and it’s just as Linda described it, two rows of Cyclone-fence stalls, the cats housed in the one nearest the main door.

Sands pauses outside her room, waiting for her to enter first. Caitlin looks through the eyeholes of the balaclava. “Will you give Linda her clothes back? Please?”

Sands stares into her eyes for a long time. Then he shouts, “Give Linda her clothes!” and prods Caitlin into her cell.

Caitlin goes to the corner and squats over her bloody footprints, but not in time. Sands grabs her wrist and pulls her across the floor. Staring down at the prints, he looks around the walls, then up at the roof. An appreciative smile shows through the mouth hole.

“Seamus?” he calls.

“Yeah?”

“Get those fucking cats out of here.”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“What do I care? Just get ’em outside the fence, yeah?”

“Okay.”

Sands takes a strand of Caitlin’s hair between his fingers, rubs it softly. “Very fine,” he says in the tone of a man judging an animal pelt.

She pulls away but makes a point of not jerking back, so as not to appear afraid.

Sands smiles again, then looks back at the bent tin of the roof.

“Smart girl,” he says. “Cage is a lucky man.”

CHAPTER

55

When I come out of the district attorney’s office, I find Kelly sitting on the concrete wall by the courthouse, beneath the shade of a gnarled oak. His rented 4Runner is parked in front of him, but when he points at it, I shake my head and sit beside him on the wall.

“What’s the deal?” he asks.

“Shad has the thumb drive, but he’s not giving it up unless I get more leverage.”

“He admitted having it?”

“No. But he’s got it. I’d like to take you back in there and sweat it out of him, but he is the DA. Two minutes after we left him, we’d be in there.”

Kelly looks to where I'm pointing, a tall pile of red brick with slit windows above the sheriff’s department across the street. He nods. “Okay, what’s plan B?”

“While Shad’s at work, I want you to search his house. If you don'’t find it there, come back to his office after work and search that. Can you get his safe open?”

“No problem.”

“Okay. We need to check Ben Li’s place too. They burned it down, but we should check the yard, anything. I’'ve got Chief Logan looking into any other property he might have had. Storage units, safe-deposit boxes, like that. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“You trust Logan?” Kelly asks, as two women come down the courthouse steps and turn our way.

“As much as anyone in this town.” One of the women waves. I do the same, acting as if I recognize her.

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

“Run the bluff of my life.”

“What’s your play?”

“The only way to increase the odds of Caitlin living through the night is to make Hull think I'm willing to blow his case wide-open if they hurt her. That they’ve pushed me so far I no longer give a shit about Po or anything else.”

“That shouldn’t be a tough sell. If the time limit Labry gave you is right—thirty-six hours—and he was supposed to tell you that this morning, the Po sting must be set up for tomorrow. Tomorrow night at the latest. Hull will be sweating bullets until then.”

“Exactly. But I have to be careful. I can’t demand that they trade Caitlin for something I don'’t have, and I don'’t want Sands to panic. He could kill her and split.”

“He’ll figure the moment Caitlin’s loose, she’ll go public anyway.”

“Right. What I want is to know Caitlin’s alive.”

Kelly scratches his chin. “Proof of life. It’s like you’re keeping your cool, but you know better than to trust Sands and Quinn. Do you think Hull knew they were going to take her?”

I shake my head. “He would have tried to stop that. I think they panicked and did it, then presented him a fait accompli—if they’ve told him at all.”

“So what will you ask for? A phone call from her?”

“They won'’t do that. We could backtrack with the cell company and figure out where she called from.”

“A photo with today’s newspaper is standard. They could text it to you.”

“I'm thinking of something even faster and simpler.”

“What?”

“A question only she would know the answer to.”

Kelly gives me a thumbs-up. “Do it.”

I speed-dial Hull, but he doesn’'t answer. There’s a click that I think is his voice mail, but suddenly his voice comes from the phone.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“Penn Cage.”

“I'm in a meeting. What is it?”

“You’d better take a bathroom break if you want Edward Po’s scalp on your wall.”

“Don’t use that name on an open line.”

“Buddy, I'm sixty seconds from calling the FBI and telling it to their kidnap squad.”

“Kidnap squad?” Hull sounds genuinely shocked.

“Is that news to you?”

“I don'’t know what you’re talking about,” he says under his breath. “But I told you, the FBI is part of my task force.”

“

Part

of the FBI is part of your task force. The National Security Branch, I'm guessing. And the Money Laundering Task Force. But I know how the FBI works kidnappings, Hull. Five minutes after I call the New Orleans and Jackson field offices, they’ll call the Puzzle Palace, and you’ll have a world-class clusterfuck on your hands.”

“Give me just a minute,” Hull says softly. “I'’ll be right back.”

I hear shuffling, then a closing door. “Cage, I don'’t know what the hell you’re up to, but we’re into endgame on this. You’re begging for an obstruction-of-justice charge.”

I laugh out loud. “Last night Caitlin Masters was kidnapped from her home. A sworn officer of the law was almost killed protecting her. I don'’t know how much you know about this, and I don'’t give a shit. I want proof that she’s alive.”

“How can I—”

“Do you have any idea who that girl’s father is? Clinton Masters owns twentysome newspapers across the Southeast. He’s got Rupert Murdoch on speed dial. If I pick up the phone and tell him what’s happened, you can kiss Edward Po smack on the ass as he flutters out of your net.

Capisce?

”

Kelly’s smiling and nodding encouragement.

“Let’s just calm down,” Hull temporizes. “If there has been a kidnapping, you should know this: Going public sometimes results in the death of the hostage. The Bureau can tell you that.”

“You’re not hearing me, William. Your pet psychopaths crossed the line down here. I no longer give a shit about your investigation, and I have enough evidence to arrest Sands for money laundering on my own hook right now. I want proof of life, and I want it in fifteen

minutes. If I don'’t get it, your investigation goes straight down the toilet. Make it happen.”

“What kind of proof do you have in mind?”

“I want an answer from Caitlin Masters to a question that only she would know.”

“What is it?”

“Who did you lose your virginity to?”

Kelly gives me a strange look.

“You got that, Hull?”

“Yes, but—”

“Make it happen. Once I know she’s alive, we’ll go from there. If I don'’t have the answer in fifteen minutes, I pull the trigger.”

Hull is still trying to talk when I hang up.

Kelly stands and stretches. “Are we waiting here for their answer?”

“Might as well. I want to ask you something. I think it’s bothering me down so deep that I couldn'’t quite voice it. But there’s no use hiding from it.”

“You’re wondering if they'’re planning to kill her no matter what. Right?”

“Yeah. Kidnapping alone carries the death penalty in Mississippi. How could they hope to let her go and get away clean? No matter what kind of immunity deal they have with Hull.”

“I think it depends on what that plea deal is—what Sands’s plans are after Po is busted. If he’s planning to go back to China and take over Po’s operations, I guess he could let Caitlin go.”

“But what about Po’s son? He’ll want the China operations, right?”

Kelly begins a set of what look like isometric exercises with his hands. “No doubt. More likely, they’ve cut a private deal for Sands to keep the U.S. casinos, while the son takes over the China stuff.”

“And in that case?”

“I don'’t think Sands will want Caitlin running around screaming about kidnapping. Much easier to kill her, lose the body, and never worry about it again.”

The detachment in Kelly’s voice nudges my nestled fear back toward panic. “But even if that’s his plan, he has to keep her alive until the sting. Right?”

“Absolutely.”

“So we’ve got what, thirty hours to find her?”

“Or to find something to trade for her.” Kelly sits on the wall again and hits my knee with his fist. “And we will, man. We will.”

The buzz of my cell phone makes both of us jump, but the caller isn’t Hull or Sands. It’s my father. “Dad?”

“Penn, I need you to come by the house, if you can.”

“What’s the matter? You’re not at work?”

“Take it easy. Peggy called me. Annie called her from school, saying she had a stomachache, and Peggy called me to come home and look at her. I think she’s having a delayed reaction to the separation in Houston. All she really needs is to see you. To see all of us together.”

Remembering our conversation in the car this morning, this doesn’'t surprise me. But Annie has almost never asked to be checked out of school. I wonder if Dad could be getting me home for some other reason.

“I'm on my way.”

“Good.”

Kelly is on his feet again. “Everything okay?”

“We need to get to my dad’s house.”

We move quickly to Kelly’s 4Runner. “Can we talk in here?” I ask, climbing into the passenger seat.

“Swept it right before I drove down here. We’re okay.”

Kelly is turning left on Wall Street when my cell phone chirps, signaling a text message. Closing my eyes briefly, I take my cell out of my pocket and check the message. It reads: PHILIP RIVERS.

“What is it?” Kelly asks. “Caitlin’s answer?”

I nod, thinking.

“Is it the right answer?”

“It’s

an

answer. But not the right one. Not quite.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s part right and part wrong. The message says Philip Rivers. The guy’s name was Philip, but Philip McKey.”

“Okay, then. That'’s Caitlin doing that. She’s handing you information. A clue about something. Philip means she’s alive. What does

rivers

mean?”

“The river!” I cry.

“She’s by a goddamn river,” Kelly agrees. “But which river?”

“The Mississippi. Has to be, right? That'’s where all the action has been. All the dogfights and training stuff. They probably have her at one of those camps, or on an island.”

“But she said ‘ri-

vers,’

plural.”

“The singular would be too obvious. Wouldn’t sound like a name.”

“Maybe. But she could also be on a tributary, something that flows into the Mississippi.”

“Who cares? Either way, we know she’s alive, and she’s somewhere close to a river. Odds are, it’s the Mississippi.”

“So, what are you thinking?” Kelly asks.

“I'm thinking Danny McDavitt and his FLIR pod.”

“Classic. We can fly the river as soon as it gets dark. I'’ll be his TFO.”

“His what?”

“Tactical flight officer. You need two guys to run FLIR from a chopper. The pilot to fly the ship and hold position, and a TFO to control the pod and read the monitor. That'’s why they missed those dogs that hit us the other night. Carl doesn’'t have any hours on a FLIR screen. Just rifle scopes. But I’'ve done time in an AH-64 in Afghanistan. I’'ve spotted IEDs from six miles out in pitch-darkness. And we know how these guys roll. Wherever she is, there’ll be guard dogs, shit like that.” Kelly jams his elbow into my side. “If she’s on the river, we’ll find her.”

Excitement flashes through me…hope, even. “Let’s get over to my dad’s place. Quick.”

“Can you get us out of a speeding ticket?”

“That'’s

one

thing I still have the power to do.”

Kelly laughs and floors it.

James Ervin is standing outside the door of my father’s house. The familiar beagle eyes of the old cop always make me smile.

“How you doing, Penn?” he asks.

“Better than I was this morning. What about you?”

“I'm all right. Got a little surprise waiting in there.”

My pulse quickens. “Good or bad?”

“Same as last time.”

“What?”

“You’ll see.”

I move quickly through the door and into my parents’ den. Dad is sitting in the La-Z-Boy from which he dictates his medical charts, facing a stranger wearing a three-piece suit and heavy-rimmed glasses.

“Who’s this?” I ask sharply, wondering if it could be William Hull.

The stranger takes off his glasses, and the unfamiliar face coalesces into that of Walt Garrity, Texas Ranger. “I figured it was time to check in,” Walt says. “Hated to risk it, but I have some news, and I had a feeling things might be popping on your end.”

“In that getup, you’re a man transformed. What’s your news?”

Walt’s lips crack into a thin smile. “J. B. Gilchrist just got invited to a dogfight. I'm in, boys.”

“When’s the fight?” Kelly asks.

“I won'’t know till the last minute, but I'm guessing tonight.”

“How’d you wangle that?”

“Just played my part and stuck to it. Lost enough of Penn’s money to attract attention, then let Sands know I was interested in some real action.”

“You’re sure nobody followed you here?”

“Give me some credit, soldier. If somebody was following me, they think I'm still in the Natchez Mall, where my Roadtrek is parked. My clothes are hidden in a storage cabinet in a department store. I picked these up on my way out.”

Dad says, “What do you think, Penn?”

“We need to tell you guys something. Caitlin was kidnapped last night.”

While they listen with growing anxiety, I relate the morning’s events. Dad hasn’'t even heard the news about Paul Labry, probably because he left work early.

“Where’s Annie?” I ask. “Is she really here?”

“She and Peggy are in the back watching TV. She really did call with a stomachache, but she’s fine.”

Walt says, “This puts a new spin on everything. I'’ll keep my eyes and ears open tonight, especially if we’re on the river. Maybe I'’ll pick up a clue to where Caitlin could be.”

“I doubt it,” says Kelly. “More likely they'’re just testing you. We think the Po sting is set for tomorrow night. I don'’t think they’d let

somebody they don'’t know close to anything important with that cooking.”

“I’'ve been thinkin’ about that,” says Walt.

“What?” I ask.

“Po. You gotta figure this mandarin motherfucker can see just about anything he gets an itch to see over there in China. If not, then in Russia or Thailand. What the hell could Sands offer that would make the old man risk setting foot on U.S. soil?”

“God only knows,” I say. “It could be an orgy with fifty blond twelve-year-olds, or dinner and a show with Barbra Streisand.”

“I’d say the former’s more likely,” says Kelly.

“You never know with moneyed folk,” drawls Walt. “Especially your oriental types. They got all kinds of strange fixations about America. Course, it could be a simple business meeting. Straightening a few things out, or replacing some people.”

“It doesn’'t matter,” says Kelly. “All that matters to us is the time limit. The sting is our ticking clock. According to Labry, we had thirty-six hours to find Caitlin. By now, I say we figure on twenty-four.”

“Well,” says Walt, standing, “I guess it’s back to business. What are you boys gonna be doing today?”

“This and that,” says Kelly. “But we’re going to fly the river tonight with a FLIR chopper, hoping to pick up something.”

Walt looks suitably impressed. “Well, if you get in a bind trying to save the girl, or if you’re outgunned somewhere and you need backup, call the Louisiana Highway Patrol. Ask for the man in charge and give him my name. I was saving this for later in the game, but it sounds like it’s time to call in all the heat we’ve got.”

“You trust him?”

“Yessir. And there seems to be a shortage of cops we can trust around here.”

“What makes you trust him?” Kelly asks bluntly.

Walt smiles. “He started out as a Texas Ranger.”

“Good enough,” Kelly says, and shakes Garrity’s hand. “Thanks for the tip, and good luck.”

“Good luck to you boys. We don'’t want to lose that girl.”

“Penn,” Dad says, getting up much slower than Walt, his knees creaking. “I got a package today, FedEx. I think it’s for you.”

“Who’s it from?”

“It said Dwight Stone.”

This piques my interest. Dwight Stone is a retired FBI agent who helped me nail the former director of the Bureau.

“Here you go,” says Dad, having retrieved a thick envelope from the kitchen.

“While I'm thinking about it,” I tell him, “I’d like you to do me a favor this afternoon, if you can.”

“What is it?”

“Find Jewel Washington and speak to her face-to-face. I think Shad Johnson has the USB drive that matches the cap the pathologist in Jackson took out of Tim’s rectum. I want Jewel to use her contacts at the hospital to find out if anyone saw Shad there the night Tim died. Or if Shad has any particular connection with anybody who has access to the morgue. One more thing. If she can, have her find out the exact model of the drive that mates with that cap. No phone calls, though. This has to be face-to-face.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Thanks. I also think we should all stay in my house tonight. You, Mom, Annie, everybody.”

Dad’s face darkens. “Why’s that?”

“Things are moving fast now, and we don'’t know what might happen. We’re safer all together. And my house has the old shutters that really work. We can shut those things and lock the place down.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kelly says.

“Sounds like a pain in the ass,” Dad grumbles. “But okay.”

Holding up the FedEx package, I glance at Kelly, and he nods. Inside it I find a thick sheaf of typed, single-spaced pages. Taped to the top sheet is a typed note that reads,

Sometimes help comes from the most unexpected places.

“It’s from Lutjens!” I say. “Peter Lutjens.”

“What is it?” asks Kelly.

I crumple the note and read the top of the first page. It begins, “Case Black. Distribution List Restricted. Subject: Edward Po, Macau.”

“It could be gold.”

My cell phone is buzzing again. I look down. “That'’s William Hull.”

Kelly motions me out of the room.

Walking into the kitchen, I hit SEND and say, “Penn Cage.”

“Are you feeling reassured about your lady friend?”

“Why would I?”

“I have no idea. I'm just calling to reiterate that I have no knowledge of what we discussed in your earlier call.”

“Well, now that we both know what we’re not talking about, are we done?”

“Just about,” says Hull. “I have one question.”

“I'm listening.”

“You said you had enough evidence to convict Jonathan Sands of money laundering on your own.”

“That'’s correct.”

“I’d like to see that evidence.”

“I’d like a chocolate chip cookie without the chips.”

“Mr. Cage—”

“Unless your informant wants to trade my lady friend for said evidence, you won'’t be seeing anything. And don'’t bother looking for it, or sending people to look for it. They won'’t find it.”

“I wonder if that’s because you have no such evidence.”

“You’ll be wondering that all night. Look, Hull, I’'ve been where you are, okay? How long did you say you'’ve been trying to bust Po? A couple of years? More?”

“Almost three actually.”

“And everything you'’ve done in that time comes down to tomorrow. You’re living on caffeine and adrenaline and doughnuts. You’ve probably got the AG bitching about all the money you'’ve spent, and now—right here at the end—you finally realize that everything you'’ve done hangs on the actions of one psychopathic informant. You thought you were running him, but right now, the tail’s wagging the dog. I know you wouldn'’t have okayed them snatching Caitlin, but for whatever reason, they did it. And the truth is, you’re probably relieved that they took her off the board. Just until your sting goes down. Because right now, you’re the living embodiment of the end justifies the means. Nailing Po is all you live for. I get that, William. But you’re not so far gone that you'’ve forgotten this. If Caitlin Masters dies in the custody of your informant, it won'’t matter what kind of evidence you have on Po. Your case is blown,

and you’ll end up sitting in a cell right next to Sands when it’s all over. That'’s not a threat. That'’s lawyer to lawyer. So you'’ve got one job, my friend. Make sure that not one hair on Caitlin’s head is harmed. Not

one

.”

There’s a long silence. Then Hull says, “All I can do is give you my word that I'’ll look into the situation. But my instinct is that—no, let me rephrase that—as regards anyone involved in my investigation, you should have no concerns whatever regarding the safety of Ms. Masters.”

“I have your word on that?”

“As regards anyone involved in my investigation, yes. Now, if she’s simply run off somewhere—”

“Her bodyguard was shot with a tranquilizer dart.”

“Well…she

is

an investigative journalist. We can’t know what sort of stories she might be pursuing.”

“I don'’t like what you’re suggesting, William. I'm getting a very uneasy feeling. And I think the best way for you to alleviate that feeling is to get on a Learjet, switch on the afterburners, and get your ass down here.

Tonight.

You need to get a handle on your informant, before I decide to have him jailed myself.”

“I can’t possibly do that.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t tell you. But I will be coming south tomorrow. Meanwhile, I can’t imagine that jailing Mr. Sands would be anything but counterproductive—for all of us. I think that if you can be patient for a little longer, your patience will be rewarded.”

“I'm not a patient man,” I say, and cut the connection.

“Learjets don'’t have afterburners,” Kelly says. “But it sounded good. Is he coming?”

“He says he can’t be here until tomorrow. He’s got to be bullshitting me.”

“Maybe not. He’s probably trying to get a leash on Sands from where he is, but he’s got too many balls in the air to control them all. He’s doing just what you said—praying everything will hold together until tomorrow night.”

“I hope so.”

“There is one other option.” Kelly smiles. “You said Homeland Security was part of this task force, right?”

“Yeah.”

“The threat of Mr. Masters going public could have pushed Hull over the edge. He might just be stalling long enough to get a rendition team down here to make us all disappear.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Kelly laughs. “Hell, yeah. They’re not that crazy. And it’s not going to matter anyway. We’re going to find her ourselves tonight.”

CHAPTER

56

“I told you it wouldn'’t work,” Linda says through the plywood wall. “He doesn’'t miss anything. He took one look in there and knew what you were thinking. That'’s why he took the cats.”

Caitlin balls her bloody fists in frustration and tries to keep her voice level. “It doesn’'t matter. I can get into the storeroom now.”

“So what? You can’t get away without the cats to distract them.”

“I'm going to use the puppy chow.”

Linda laughs without mirth. “You think those dogs want puppy chow? They eat meat, and nothing but. You’re crazy if you try it.”

“Have you got the bars off your window yet?”

Linda says nothing.

“Linda?”

“I got two of them loose. What does it matter? You can’t get this chain off, and even if you do, I can’t run. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“You can tell me a thousand times and I won'’t listen.”

There’s another long silence, during which Caitlin hears the trainers outside working the Bully Kuttas. From what she’s seen through her window, any man who would climb into a pit with one of them with only a knife would have to be certifiably insane, no matter how much armor he wore. Still, Daniel Kelly managed to kill one on the riverbank, so it’s not impossible. But Kelly is an elite commando; she

can’t have any illusions about what would happen if one of the dogs caught hold of an ankle as she climbed the fence. They would literally eat her alive.

“I'm not leaving without you,” Caitlin says again. “But we have to go as soon as those trainers leave. Quinn’s going to be furious after what Sands did to him today. He’s going to want to take it out on you. As soon as the trainers leave, you get those other bars off.”

“I know what they'’re going to do,” she says. “They’re going to take you away, and then they’ll put that armor suit on me and throw me to the dogs.”

“No!” Caitlin shouts, but she suspects Linda is right.

“You saw how they acted. They can’t afford to kill you. That'’s why they came and asked who popped your cherry. The mayor’s working some kind of deal for you. But I won'’t get that. I’'ve seen too much.”

“If they are letting me go, then they can’t kill you. I’'ve seen you. I could tell people you were alive. You see?”

A shout with a ring of finality echoes across the yard beneath the great shed, and Caitlin hears the lid of a pickup’s toolbox clang down.

“They’re getting ready to leave,” she says, feeling her heart pound with anticipation. “Get ready to get those bars down. The second they'’re gone, I'm getting up on the roof.”

“Caitlin?”

“Yes?”

“You shouldn’t try it. They’re going to let you go, if you’ll just wait for the trade. But if you go out there with those dogs, you’re going to die. Puppy chow won'’t hold them for five seconds. They’ll smell you coming, and they’ll rip you to pieces.”

“I'm not waiting.”

“I'’ll pray for you, then.”

“I don'’t want a prayer. I want you with me.”

“I can’t run no more!”

Caitlin can’t sustain the deception any longer. “Linda, if you don'’t run, you’re going to die. You’re right. Quinn means to kill you. It’s only twenty feet to that fence. I'’ll help you across the space, and I'’ll boost you up.”

There’s a long silence. “I can’t let you do that,” Linda says finally. “It wasn'’t meant to be. This is my time, that’s all. If you’re really going to do it, just go.”

“I won'’t. Not without you.”

“Yes, you will. Don’t feel bad about it either. You’re a good person, Caitlin. Not stuck-up like I would have thought. I wish we could’ve been friends. I haven'’t had a good girlfriend since grade school.”

“We

can

be friends. We

are

friends. You’re a good person too, and you deserve a long, happy life!”

This time the silence drags. “I done some bad things in my life,” Linda says. “Stuff I wouldn'’t want my mama to know about.”

“We all have, Linda. Trust me on that.”

“Maybe. I don'’t imagine you'’ve seen the world from some of the places I have. But at least I can say this. I never took money for it.”

Outside, the truck engine rumbles to life, and two doors slam.

“That'’s it,” Caitlin says, jumping to her feet. “Get those bars off your windows. I'm going to the storeroom. When Quinn gets back, he’s not going to find anything but empty stalls!”

She grabs her window bars and starts her skin-the-cat inversion, but stops before pushing up the tin sheet above her. “Linda?” she says. “Linda?”

She hears nothing but the receding truck at first, then the rattle of the chain next door.

“Are you working on them?” she calls, as the blood pools in her head.

“Uh-huh. It hurts.”

“No pain, no gain. Get them off!”

“Caitlin?”

“What?”

“Thanks for getting my clothes back.”

“You’re welcome. I'’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“No more Quinn, right?”

“Right. No more.”

Caitlin almost rejoices in the pain as she kicks the tin sheet upward, then drops to the floor and climbs onto the windowsill, bent nearly double. In one smooth motion she straightens her legs

and catches hold of the outside roof, then raises herself through the hole by main strength. When the cool breeze hits her face, it feels like freedom, and when the four Bully Kuttas gather below her, their upturned faces watching her with unmistakable malice, she leans out just a little and speaks softly.

“Let’s see who’s smarter, eh? Dogs or women?”

CHAPTER

57

Despite our enthusiasm when we climbed aboard Danny McDavitt’s helicopter, it didn't take long to figure out that even with the first-class equipment aboard the Athens Point JetRanger—and Kelly’s proficiency at reading a FLIR screen—the mathematics of our mission are going to kill us. Even assuming that Caitlin’s “rivers” clue meant the Mississippi River, and confining our search to the sixty miles of river between Natchez and DeSalle Island (the site of the hunting camp where Shad Johnson had his picture taken with Darius Jones), we’re conducting the equivalent of a single-aircraft search for a lifeboat over a small sea. Actually, our situation is worse, because at least on the ocean, it’s a matter of sighting a boat on empty water. Moreover, my sixty-mile figure was calculated as the crow flies. Flying the tortuous bends of the river easily doubles that distance, while covering both banks doubles that again. If we try to search more than a half mile deep into Mississippi or Louisiana, the square-miles numbers go stratospheric.

Compounding this, we’re flying at night, using infrared radar to see through the darkness. Because FLIR sees everything with a temperature warmer than the earth, Kelly is having to sort through the thousands of living creatures moving or sleeping on the ground below the chopper, hoping to find something that looks suspicious. We’'ve landed seven times already, checking out groups of dogs that

seemed to be kenneled in out-of-the-way places. In almost every case we found ourselves in hunting camps, and in one case were almost shot at by an irate landowner. McDavitt feels sure that complaint calls have already been made, and if anyone wrote down our registration number, the pilot could be in deep trouble. Nevertheless, he hasn’'t asked to return the ship to the airport. Like the rest of us, he knows that we may be Caitlin’s only chance.

We’re flying at fifteen hundred feet, our speed sixty knots, which Major McDavitt and Kelly agree is ideal for FLIR work. It keeps the chopper out of the “dead man’s curve” (high enough to perform an emergency autorotation in case of engine failure), but low enough for good FLIR imaging. Kelly also told us that fifteen hundred feet is high enough to present a difficult target for small arms at night. The former Delta operator is sitting in the left cockpit seat, his eyes glued to the screen before him. McDavitt’s in the right seat, flying the ship and holding position whenever Kelly says he wants to take a closer look at something. I'm sitting in the cabin with Carl Sims, listening to Kelly and McDavitt work the land below, and thinking about the afternoon’s events.

Per my instructions, Kelly searched Shad Johnson’s house while Shad was at work, and his office immediately afterward, but Kelly didn't find the thumb drive. He also searched Ben Li’s yard for signs that anything had been buried or unburied recently, and found nothing. Finally, Kelly spent a couple of hours trying to track down Sands or Quinn, hoping that one or the other might lead him to Caitlin. While he’d seen plenty of Jiao, her daily routine as regular as clockwork, he hadn'’t found a trace of either Irishman.

While Kelly was busy with this, I had Chief Logan trace the license plate that Carl picked up in his rifle scope on Sunday night. It had been stolen off a similar make of vehicle from a parking lot in Baton Rouge. The SUV’s owner hadn'’t missed it. I personally checked out the owners of the land where Kelly and I had made our kayak landings, but both were absentee landlords who leased to hunting clubs and had little idea what might be happening on their property.

The one positive development of the afternoon was that Jewel Washington had located a hospital aide that she believed had removed the thumb drive from Tim Jessup’s rectum prior to his body being transported to Jackson for the autopsy. The aide didn't

admit this outright, but Jewel thinks he will for the right price, and that he might crack under aggressive police questioning. I wasn'’t prepared to tell Logan to arrest the man yet, but I did call Shad and tell him I was now positive he had the thumb drive, and that if he destroyed it, I would make good on my threat to send him to prison, one way or another.

I’'ve brought along the file on Edward Po that Peter Lutjens sent to my father’s house, but despite my having taken Dramamine before we took off, efforts to read the dense type by the cabin lights have twice brought me to the point of vomiting. All I know at this point is that the file summarizes a shocking maze of criminal activities and associations spanning the globe, with personal and psychological profiles of Po and his associates that trivialize the Blackhawk bio Kelly gave us when he arrived. The one thing my limited study of the file has made clear is why William Hull and his task force are so aggressively pursuing the crime lord.

We’'ve been airborne for hours, and the combined vibrations of the engine, the main rotor, the tail rotor, and the buffeting air have pushed me past my limit. If our goal were anything but rescuing Caitlin, I would have begged to be taken back to the airport long ago. During the first half hour of the flight, I leaned forward and tried to read the screen myself, but I soon got a headache. The FLIR unit is set to “white-hot,” which means the images detected by the sensor mounted beneath the chopper’s nose are displayed in a gradient from black to white, black being coldest, white hottest. A deer running along the ground appears bright white against black, but the scenes Kelly has to sort through are much more complex. Vehicles appear white on their hoods (where the engines are) and also beneath (where heat is radiating), but dark near the trunk. Most of the roads appear lighter than the land they cross, and buildings register differently, depending on how well heated and insulated they are. In several cases Kelly spotted dogs beneath sheds by seeing them from the side, but none of these sightings led to anything. Worst of all, vegetation degrades the system, so whenever we get into heavy cover, Kelly’s job becomes that much tougher.

Carl has tried to keep me upbeat, but like me he knows that in spite of our best efforts, if Caitlin is being held one mile north of Natchez, our initial assumption that she’s being held to the south

doomed our mission before we lifted off. That assumption was based on the sites where we encountered evidence of dogfighting, as well as the island where Shad Johnson probably attended a dogfight himself. In addition, most of the better deer camps are to the south, though there are certainly some famous ones to the north.

“Penn?” says Kelly. “We’re about three miles east of the Red River now. It doesn’'t flow into the Mississippi for a good ways yet, but I wondered if you might want to head over and take a quick look.”

“If we try to fly every river and bayou that drains into the Mississippi along here, we’ll run out of fuel in no time.”

“We’re using it fast, as it is,” says McDavitt.

“Let’s stick to the Mississippi,” I decide. “Louisiana bank, is my guess, based on what we know.”

“Okay.”

“If we’re that far south, we’re about to leave Concordia Parish. Now that I see how tough this is, I think the practical thing is to stay within twenty miles of town. Let’s start flying a grid search of the Louisiana bank, starting close to the river and moving slowly westward.”

“You figuring they want to stay close to town?” Kelly asks.

“I think they have to. They don'’t know what we might do, and they need to be able to react fast. I think we have to play the percentages.”

“We still looking for dogs?”

“I think so. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kelly says wearily. “I'm just starting to think there’s more damned dogs in Louisiana than people.”

“You’re doing good. The next pack you find could be guarding her.”

“Oh, I'm staying with it. I'm gonna find that girl. When I think about her tied up somewhere with those sons of bitches—”

“Kelly…”

“Sorry, man. Let’s do it, Major. Take her back north.”

McDavitt banks wide, and my stomach rolls again.

CHAPTER

58

Walt Garrity stands at the periphery of a crowd that looks like a New York film director’s idea of a Southern lynch mob. Under the roof of a dilapidated barn, two dozen people have gathered to watch dogs try to kill each other in a shallow pit. Boys of eight or ten tussle around the edges, worming their way through the adults when they hear a shout indicating a change in the status of the dogs locked together at the center of the circle. The men are dressed in camo or overalls, the women in T-shirts and halter tops made tolerable by hissing propane heaters behind them. Two dowdy women have babies slung on their hips, and one white-whiskered man who must be ninety sits in a wheelchair at the edge of the pit, apparently a place of honor.

The expressions on their faces look exactly like those Walt has seen in photographs taken at lynchings. The women are bug-eyed with rapture, fascinated, even aroused by the primal spectacle. The men look grim yet ecstatic, riding an intoxicating flood of testosterone sparked by the sight of blood and combat. They watch the canine battle with total absorption, occasionally making comments, then screaming in frustration or jubilation when the fight takes a turn, and changing their bets according to the fortunes of their chosen dog.

The two pit bulls—a brindle called Genghis and a black named Mike—have been in the pit for nearly an hour, their handlers goad ing them from the corners, but no real damage was done until a few minutes ago, when Genghis sunk his jaws into Mike’s brisket and began trying to rip his foreleg off.

At Walt’s side, Ming stands motionless, her eyes forward as though watching the fight, but she must only be catching glimpses through the heaving mass of bodies in front of her. When she and Walt arrived—they were driven here in a limo by a casino bouncer—the crowd gaped at Ming in her silk kimono as though she were an alien being set down among them. The women reacted like territorial cats, practically baring their teeth at the incomprehensibly foreign beauty. Ming looked back at them the way a cloistered princess might look down upon her subjects while she waited for Walt to lead her where he would. It was their age disparity that broke the tension. After the crowd realized that Ming was “with” Walt, serving as his hired escort for the evening, she was slotted into place as a whore, and the world made sense again. Walt chose a spot that was close enough to the pit to make it seem as if he actually wanted to see the fight, but far enough that blood wouldn'’t spatter their clothes.

He hasn’'t seen a dogfight in fifteen years, and he’d hoped never to do so again. The practice had waxed and waned in popularity in Texas during his tenure as a Ranger, but there had always been a core group of fanatical breeders who kept at it year after year. Rangers always had more important cases to work, but occasionally they would run afoul of dogfighters during an anti-gambling crusade. Such crusades were always politically motivated—they tended to come just before state elections—and thus very unpopular among the Rangers. Busting gaming operations was a no-win proposition. People loved to gamble, and they were going to find a way to do it, no matter what the law said. Fighting that reality meant risking life and limb to generate headlines for some politician, while the best you could accomplish was a brief interruption of the illegal activity. This dogfight was a prime example of the lure of the forbidden. Gambling was legal right across the river at Natchez, yet here stood this pack of fools, betting hard-earned money on something that could send them to the penitentiary for ten years.

Twice in his career, Walt had actually stopped dogfights in progress. It was hard to imagine a more chaotic scene of flight. While

the panicked spectators raced for their trucks or four-wheelers—and sometimes even horses—the handlers would snatch up their dogs and hightail it into the woods, leaving their vehicles behind. The aftermath of those cases was always the same. After tracking a handler or owner to his home, Walt would find dogs chained in such pitiful conditions that he wanted to manacle the owner to one of the poles and let the dogs into the house to live. In one case he’d actually done that, but only for half an hour, while he waited for the state troopers and animal control officers to show up. He’d hoped the experience might give the owner some empathy for his dogs, but it hadn'’t. A year later, the man had been stabbed to death beside a pit during a dispute over whether his dog’s coat had been laced with poison.

“You like fight?” Ming asks, standing on tiptoe to speak in Walt’s ear above the howling crowd.

“Not much.” Walt realizes that he’s hardly paid attention to the dogs since they first exploded out of their corners like projectiles shot from a gun. “This is bush league,” he says, truthfully.

“Bush?” Ming asks, clearly confused.

“Amateur hour. Low-rent. I can’t believe they sent us to this dump.”

Ming’s remarkable eyes narrow in concern. “You no like?”

“No. These dogs are mismatched. The brindle outweighs the black by two and a half pounds.”

“You want go closer? I take you front row.”

“I'm fine right here, hon.” It strikes Walt that Ming may not be as disgusted by the scene as he is. “Do you like the fight?”

The young woman shrugs, then whispers, “No like people.”

Her warm breath in the shell of his ear starts his heart pounding.

“They no like me either,” she adds. “To hell with them, yes?”

Walt chuckles at her frankness. “More than likely, is my guess. You want to leave?”

Ming shrugs, then smiles and runs her finger along his forearm. “Whatever you want, Zhaybee.”

Walt considers the matter. He knows he’s not thinking as clearly as he should. He ought to have been working the crowd for clues to Caitlin Masters’s whereabouts, but he’s just stood beside Ming, like the lazy old fart he’s pretending to be. It’s not the dogfight that’s

messing him up. It’s the girl. But it’s not like it matters tonight. In his gut he knows he will find no clues here.

Sands is testing me,

he thinks.

He has to be. This is how they screen prospective spectators. A thrown-together dogfight like this wouldn'’t attract the kinds of gamblers Jessup had told Penn about. Not even the ones who wanted to go slumming.

No rap star, NFL player, Arab prince, or Chinese billionaire was going to spend five minutes with this pathetic collection of pasty-faced, Skoal-dipping rednecks. They’re still talking about the “kickass” hog vs. dog exhibition that preceded the pit fight.

Who’s watching me?

Walt wonders. Someone in this room was studying him right now, evaluating every reaction. One of the men on the far side of the crowd probably. But the spy could be Ming herself. Sands or Quinn might be planning to question her later and draw out every detail of how he’d behaved during the fight. He’d have to make sure that nothing she said would arouse suspicion.

“You want me call driver?” Ming asks.

Walt stands on tiptoe, pretending to base his decision on what’s happening in the pit. Genghis, the brindle, still has a lock on the foreleg of the black, and Mike has lost a lot of blood. The floor of the pit is viscous with it. Mike’s handler looks worried, and Walt senses that Genghis is about to try for his throat.

“I guess,” Walt says in a bored voice. “Hell, I’d rather be back on the

Queen

than in this dump.”

Ming takes his callused hand in her soft fingers and looks up at him with liquid eyes. “Or in hotel room, maybe?”

Walt swallows hard, trying to conceal how desperately he wants to be alone with her. Ming removes a cell phone from her tiny handbag, presses a key, and puts a finger into her opposite ear. Their driver had told them he couldn'’t wait outside, since a random bust was always possible. If that happened, they were to run into the nearby woods and wait until the police left, then call him on Ming’s cell phone. Because they'’re far out in the woods, Walt figures the limo is at least twenty minutes away.

Ming stands on tiptoe again, and he leans down. “Driver come back fifteen minutes,” she says. “Okay, Zhaybee?”

“That’ll do. This fight will be over by then, anyway. The black’s about had it.”

Ming peeks between some people in front of her. “Yes.”

Now all Walt has to do is pretend to be excited about cruelty and slaughter for fifteen minutes.

The black’s handler is shouting at Genghis to break off the fight. The other handler looks angry about this, but the fight’s being conducted under “Cajun Rules,” a code that strictly governs all aspects of a fight from the washing, weighing, and handling of the dogs to what constitutes a turn and a scratch—even the duties of the referee and timekeeper. Any dog handler with experience ought to know that Cajun Rules allow the handlers to yell at both dogs.

To Walt’s surprise, a sharp cry from Mike’s handler finally distracts Genghis, and Mike tears himself free, twisting away in a move that warrants a cessation of the fight. As Mike limps back to his corner on three legs, the referee calls a turn, signaling that the black has tried to break off the battle. Mike’s handler straddles his gasping dog, rubbing him vigorously after only a cursory check of the injured leg, which is almost surely broken.

“Get ready, Mike!” he yells, tossing a bloody towel aside. “You ain’t out of it yet. You got your second wind now. Get ready to scratch, boy!”

To scratch, Mike will have to limp across a line in the dirt four feet in front of him—within two seconds of the referee’s signal—then voluntarily engage Genghis, whose handler is struggling to hold him in his corner. Walt tries to imagine a boxing trainer encouraging a human fighter to continue with a broken, mangled shoulder. They don'’t even do that in UFC fighting.

“Let go!” shouts the referee, and the timekeeper begins counting. Before the second syllable dies in his throat, Mike limps out of his handler’s grasp and hobbles across the scratch line. Half the crowd whoops with approval. Across the pit, Genghis strains in his handler’s arms, almost mad to finish the battle. Mike hesitates at the center of the pit, then tucks his tail between his legs and starts to turn away.

“Goddamn it, don'’t you turn!” screams his handler. “Hit him! Hit! Hit!”

Mike looks back across the pit, then lowers his square head, charges across the bloody dirt and lunges at Genghis, seizing the brindle’s nose in his jaws. When Genghis’s handler releases him, Mike

tries to roll him over, but the broken leg prevents his getting enough leverage to do it. As the churning dogs wheel to one side, Genghis rips his nose free and darts out of Mike’s reach, then hurls himself bodily into the smaller dog, knocking him onto his back. Genghis leaps for Mike’s exposed throat, but Mike twists his trunk at the last instant, and the massive jaws bite deep into his chest instead. The crowd roars and stomps the floor in approval.

Genghis thrashes his head from side to side, grinding his jaws, widening the wound. A rush of blood soaks Mike’s ribs, glistening on the black coat, and for a moment both dogs stop moving. Genghis seems content to rest in this dominant position, his jaws locked in Mike’s chest, his tail held high. Mike gazes back at his handler with cloudy eyes, like a boy who has disappointed his father.

“Get up!” the handler screams. “You goddamn worthless sack of meat!”

At this furious cursing, Mike jerks weakly, his back legs paddling the air as he tries to wrestle free from the terrible jaws, but his effort only spurs Genghis to drive deeper into the wound. The brindle whips his head back and forth with monstrous power, flinging Mike bodily across the pit, and the crowd shouts in manic anticipation of the kill.

“Finish him!” yells a woman from the throng.

“Kill him, G! Gut that black cur!”

Walt’s stomach heaves, unable to tolerate the mixture of anger and disgust flooding through him. This is like standing in a room where prisoners are forced to fight or copulate for the pleasure of their guards. The Nazis did that, and the Japanese, and probably the jailers of all nations in all epochs of history. Walt knows men who have done it; he witnessed such a fight once at an army stockade. The specter of Abu Ghraib rises in his mind. The terrible truth is that brutality is part of human nature, and all the laws in the world can’t neuter it. That'’s the accursed nub of the thing. Some people in this barn probably think

he’s

obscene—a geezer on the wrong side of seventy with a delicate beauty hardly past twenty. Of course, they don'’t know that being with Ming is simply part of his job, just as being with Nancy had been. Although…the two aren'’t quite the same. Being with Nancy felt like work. Being with Ming feels like the first rush after a good shot of whiskey, dilated into a constant

state of euphoria. Ming is one of those rare women who draws every eye wherever she goes. Every man wants her, and every woman hates her because they can’t be her. Her very existence is an affront to other women’s efforts to attract the opposite sex.

But Walt doesn’'t want Ming for the reason these rednecks thinks he does. She’s beautiful, yes, and she radiates sensuality like a magnetic field. But for him the girl is a living door to the past: a time when he felt more alive to love than at any other time in his life. He can’t bear to think about Kaeko in this obscene place, but the pain of being forced to leave her in Japan returns with even the faintest memory. Walt had been so despondent that he’d gone half out of his head. He’d stopped thinking right, stopped paying attention, and that got men killed in Korea. If it hadn'’t been for Tom Cage, Walt would have died during the retreat from Chosin Reservoir.

Ming touches his arm, stands on tiptoe, and says, “We must go, Zhaybee. Now.”

“Is the driver here?”

She hands him her cell phone and points to a text message on its LCD screen. It reads GET OUT NOW. HELICOPTER SEARCHING FIVE MILES AWAY. HIDE IN WOODS. WILL CALL SOON.

As Walt reads these words, the referee calls a turn, which silences the puzzled crowd. There’s been no turn. Genghis is standing over Mike with his head still buried in the black’s chest.

“Folks,” cries the ref, “we may be about to get a visit from the sheriff. I designate location number four as the site to finish this battle, if Mike’s still game.”

The crowd begins to swirl around the pit like water around a drain, as people pick up coats, gather children, and toss beer bottles at the overflowing trash cans.

The ref looks at Mike’s handler. “Is your dog still game?”

“Hell, no,” the man mutters. “Sumbitch is good as dead. You call it. Collins can have the purse.”

At this concession, the crowd explodes into motion. Walt feels like he’s in an ant pile some kid stomped on. Wads of cash change hands as people make for the doors, and nearly everyone has a cell phone jammed against his ear.

“We go now!” Ming says, real fear in her eyes.

“No, we don'’t,” says Walt.

Engines roar to life outside, shaking the barn. Dirt and gravel hammer the walls as the vehicles flee.

“Yes, yes. Must go now!”

“Take it easy. After these yahoos clear out with their dogs, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Helicopter coming!”

The barn is empty now, save for Walt and Ming and a pile of black fur in the pit. Mike’s handler has left him behind. Walt steps down into the pit, kneels beside the valiant bulldog. Thankfully, Mike is dead. Walt closes his eyes for a moment, thinking of soldiers he’d known who died just as uselessly as Mike did.

“You want go to jail?” Ming cries.

Walt isn’t worried about jail. He’s almost certain that the helicopter is being flown by Danny McDavitt. Still, if some gung-ho sheriff’s deputy were to show up on a random raid, Walt would either have to blow his cover to get out of it or spend the night in some parish shithole. With a heavy sigh he stands and climbs out of the pit, then takes Ming by the hand and leads her to the barn door.

“You crazy man?” Ming asks gravely.

Walt thinks of the howling crowd and the bleeding dogs and wonders how he wound up in the middle of nowhere while the real action went down somewhere else.

“Maybe so,” he says wearily.

The limousine waits outside like a long black hearse, its engine purring in the dark. When the driver jumps out and opens the rear door, Walt helps Ming in, then settles back into the leather seat beside her.

“Any sign of that chopper?” he asks.

“It moved off toward the river,” says the driver.

“Good.”

“Are we going back to the boat?”

Ming clenches his hand and puts her lips against his ear. “Hotel now. Make you forget dogs. Yes?”

Walt draws back and looks into her bottomless eyes. Back on the

Queen,

outside the Devil’s Punchbowl, they had seemed opaque, but now he feels he could lose himself in their depths.

He looks up and sees the driver watching them in his rearview mirror, smug judgment in his eyes.

“Eola Hotel,” Walt says. “And if you look back here again, I'’ll cut your right ear off.

Comprende?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then move out.”

CHAPTER

59

Caitlin stands alert on the tin roof of the kennel, her ears attuned to the slightest sound. For a few moments she thought she’d heard the distant drumbeat of a helicopter, but it faded so quickly that she decided it had been some resonant vibration of her feet on the tin. Even if a chopper was searching for her, it would be unable to spot her beneath the shed that shields the kennel from the sky.

It had taken half an hour, but she’d finally got two sacks of puppy chow onto the roof. The Bully Kuttas made no noise other than a sort of strangled cough, and she’d realized that this was what it sounded like when they tried to bark. But they’d followed her as remorselessly as sharks, and she wondered if Linda was right—that they were too smart to be distracted by a pile of puppy chow. Caitlin had searched the storeroom for other possible distractions but had found none. Nor drugs that might sedate the dogs. Quinn had removed everything that might help them to escape.

Very carefully, she carries a heavy sack of puppy chow to the hole above her prison room. She’s studied the Cyclone fence from the roof and decided that barefoot is the way to go at it. The Bully Kuttas are tall, and instinct tells her that a full-out sprint followed by a leap for the highest point she can reach—a leap with all four limbs grasping for holds—will offer the best chance of escape. Bare toes will surely fit into the openings in the fence better than the toes of

her shoes. It will probably hurt like hell, but compared to the jaws that will be pursuing her, such pain is meaningless.

Of course, this reasoning goes to hell when she considers Linda. The reality is, she will be dragging Linda across the open space at a snail’s pace, probably gagged to keep her from crying out in pain. As soon as she tries to boost Linda up, the fence wire will ring against the poles, and at least one dog will come to investigate the noise—if they’ve been distracted at all.

Caitlin wonders if she’ll have the courage to stay on the ground if the dogs come running and Linda is slow to climb. Will she risk being eaten alive to help someone who has little chance of making it over the top without her? Can she live with the memory of standing safe on the far side of the fence while four dogs tear a helpless woman to pieces?

Stop,

she tells herself, humping the second bag across the roof on her shoulder.

Cross that bridge when you come to it.

More than once she’s wondered whether, if she went over alone and ran nonstop from the time she cleared the fence, she might be able to bring back help before Quinn returned to do whatever Sands has ordered him to do. Linda could probably get onto the roof and hide there, and Caitlin could pull the tin back down into place before she made her break. Surely such a ruse would have some chance of working—not on Sands, of course, but maybe on Seamus Quinn.

Pausing beside the hole over her room, Caitlin considers bringing this up to Linda. Linda would agree, of course. She doesn’'t want to risk the dogs anyway. Offering her the choice is the same as copping out on trying to save her.

“You don'’t even know if you can get the chain off her,” Caitlin mutters. “Quit borrowing trouble.”

Being careful of the tin’s sharp edges, Caitlin drops the first sack down the hole in the roof. It hits with a solid thud. She looks at it a moment, then lifts the second bag and drops it onto the first. From the ground below, the four white dogs watch with ardent curiosity.

“Bye-bye, suckers,” she says with a wave.

Then she flattens her palms on both sides of the hole, lets herself down, and drops to the floor.

“Linda?” she says, tearing open one of the bags. “You got those bars off yet?”

No answer.

“Linda? Talk to me.”

Caitlin leans close against the plywood wall. She hears nothing. This time she shouts Linda’s name, but there’s no reply, and suddenly she realizes she didn't really expect one. Screaming irrationally, Caitlin climbs to the windowsill and lifts herself onto the roof again. The dogs are making barking motions, and she hears their hacking coughs, but she ignores them and runs to the hole over the storeroom.

Dropping through it, she cries out when her bruised feet hit the cement, but she doesn’'t slow down. She runs to the door and tests it by pulling on the handle. She’s done this already and thought it too strong, but now adrenaline has electrified her muscles. Taking two steps back, she throws her shoulder against the door. It moves in the frame, but the impact tells her it will take many more such blows to make headway.

Looking around desperately, her eyes fall on the medicine cabinet. She hadn'’t noticed before, but the cabinet is resting on casters. Without even thinking, she heaves the heavy cabinet away from the wall and places it perpendicular to the door, about eight feet away. Then she braces her shoulder against the cabinet and drives it against the door with all the power in her legs.

This time the door rattles hard, and she hears wood splinter. Moving around the cabinet, she braces her back against the door and reorients the cabinet for another rush. This time she drives it even faster into the wood, and when the impact comes, she feels the frame give way. Dragging the cabinet back just far enough to squeeze by, she darts into the hall and stops in front of Linda’s stall.

What she sees steals her breath entirely. Linda appears to be standing by the left side of her stall, but in truth she’s hanging by her dog collar, its shortened chain bound to the Cyclone fence with what looks like one of the bars from the window, twisted into a hook. She’s wearing a waitress’s uniform, with an emblem of a steamboat embroidered on the blouse. Her wrists are bound tightly with a pair of cotton panties, and her face is blue.

Caitlin stands frozen for a moment, then looks down and jerks open the latch that keeps Linda’s stall closed. With the collar and

chain holding her, Quinn never felt the need to lock her in, saving himself the trouble of finding another key whenever he had the urge to rape her.

Caitlin bends her knees and tries to lift Linda high enough to ease the pressure on her neck, but it’s no use. Cursing in panic, she searches for a pulse. She waits, counting slowly, but feels nothing.

“Damn it!” she screams. “Goddamn it, Linda! You gave up!”

But inside she knows this isn’t true. Linda was afraid that Caitlin would risk death by forcing her to try to escape, or by remaining with her if Linda refused to try. Linda had hanged herself to release Caitlin from this burden.

Caitlin stares at the woman whose face she has never seen in life before this moment and thinks of the nude pictures she was shown, those supposedly taken from the house of Tim Jessup. She’d condemned the girl in those photos out of hand, and now…now she owes that woman her life. Caitlin has met so many women like Linda during her years in Mississippi, girls with plenty of native sense, but who married right out of high school, and, if they were lucky, did two years of junior college before the first baby came. What could Linda Church have accomplished had she been born with Caitlin’s advantages? So many women from Caitlin’s world pretended to ask these questions, but down deep they felt a sense of entitlement that assured them that their rarefied places in the nation’s elite schools and corporations were based on merit alone. Caitlin reaches out and lays a hand on Linda’s arm—then freezes.

She’s heard the sound of a motor. Not a helicopter, but a car or truck. Maybe even a jeep.

Her body jerks as though she’s grabbed hold of a 220-volt cable. A fraction of a second later she’s racing to the storeroom, certain of what she must do. High on both side walls of the storeroom are windows without bars. Caitlin slides open the one on the side opposite Linda’s stall. Then she runs back to Linda’s stall and listens.

The engine is louder now, intermittent but getting closer.

Wedging both hands behind Linda’s distended neck, she pulls on the twisted bar that Linda somehow managed to bend into a hook. It takes more strength than Caitlin expected to open the loop. Almost…

Linda pitches forward onto her face, the chain rattling behind her.

Caitlin feels once more for a pulse. Nothing. Now the engine is a smooth rumble. How far is that sound traveling over the flat ground? A half mile? A mile?

With a silent prayer, she looks down at Linda’s body, then gets to her knees and hauls Linda onto her shoulder. It takes most of her strength to bear the dead weight, but this is not enough. She has to get to a standing position. Breathing hard, she redoubles her effort and drives herself to her feet.

Holding the body in a fireman’s carry, she turns until Linda’s feet are pointing toward the unbarred window and drives one of Linda’s heels through the brittle plastic pane. A chorus of coughs enters the stall. Then something heavy slams against the wall. The Bully Kuttas are leaping for the window.

Filled with shame and horror, Caitlin presses Linda’s lower legs together and shoves them through the window. Any worry about how she would push more of the body through the small space vanishes, for the moment the legs clear the frame, Linda’s weight is yanked from Caitlin’s arms and shoulders as though by a threshing machine.

The sounds that follow send a bolt of primal terror through her. After one paralyzed second, she breaks for the storeroom. The whole building is rattling from the force of the dogs trying to drag Linda’s corpse through the window. Caitlin feels her stomach trying to come up, but she forces down the bile and runs to the storeroom window.

No sound,

she thinks, like a child playing hide-and-seek.

I can’t make a single sound….

Standing on tiptoe, she pokes her head far enough through the window to make sure no dog waits below. The engine is much louder than before. The far wall of the building sounds as if a construction crew is demolishing it.

First, she tries to put her feet through the window frame, but she can’t manage it. She’ll have to go through headfirst, then roll and sprint for the fence. She checks the dark yard again, then wriggles through the window and falls facefirst onto the ground.

Bounding to her feet, she runs for the fence without looking to either side.

If I look back, I'm dead,

she thinks. Halfway to the fence, she hears a cough, then a sound like galloping hooves. Even as her

brain calculates how far the dog must run, she’s leaping for the top of the eight-foot fence.

Her fingers lock into the heavy wire, and she whips her thighs and ankles up beneath her, spread-eagling them like an Olympic gymnast as a Bully Kutta slams into the fence below her rump. She’s already climbing as the dog falls, and by the time he leaps again, her hands are on the top bar and she’s flinging her legs over.

Another dog has joined the first. They leap for her again and again, their frenzied hacking like the rage of mute wolves. Panting hard, Caitlin feels a dizzy moment of triumph, then drops to the far side of the fence and sprints into the trees. She hears no engine, no dogs—nothing but the dull thump of her feet on the sandy soil. If the engine was Quinn’s, she knows, those dogs will be set loose on her trail in moments. And if they are…

CHAPTER

60

“Penn?” Major McDavitt says in my headset.

“Yeah?” I jerk out of the nauseated doze into which four hours in a free-floating roller coaster have submerged me. Leaning forward and looking at the FLIR screen, I see that we’re flying along what looks like a one-lane road.

“We’re getting into a fuel situation. We’re into the reserve. My GPS is set to the airport, and we’re already going to be cutting it close. We need to get back and refuel.”

“Kelly?” I say. “You seen anything?”

“SOS, man. Sorry. We need the air cav for this job. A fleet of these bitches.”

“I'm willing to keep going,” says McDavitt, “but we’ve got to be honest with ourselves. Without more specific intel, these are really long odds.”

I rub my eyes hard and try to see the larger picture, but exhaustion and airsickness are taking their toll. The only thing I can hold clearly in my mind is an image of Caitlin standing on her porch with her arms folded, the night we had our last talk. Remembering this, I try to imagine telling Annie that Caitlin was kidnapped and won'’t ever be coming back.

“Let’s refuel and keep going,” I say. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but we all know what’s at stake.”

Nobody says anything.

“Am I being stupid? Is there no chance at all?”

“Outside,” says McDavitt. “But if it were my wife, I’d keep looking.”

“Carl?” I say.

“Keep going. All night if we gotta. If I’d kept my damned eyes open, she wouldn'’t ever have got took.”

“Forget that. You don'’t know that. Let’s head back to the airport and fill her up, Major.”

McDavitt starts to bank the chopper, but Kelly says, “Hold up. I’'ve got something on the road.”

“What is it?”

“Two legs, foot-mobile. Can you circle, Major?”

McDavitt takes us into a slow revolution of the bright white human form on Kelly’s screen.

“Looks female to me,” Kelly says. “We’re in Bumfuck, Egypt, too. Let’s set down and check it out.”

McDavitt descends rapidly, then touches the cyclic and flares at the last moment. As we settle gently onto the road, he puts the throttle into flight idle to conserve fuel.

“Where’d she go?” asks Carl. “Did she run?”

“There,” says McDavitt, pointing left of the cockpit. “She’s running!”

“I'’ll get her,” says Kelly, opening the side door and leaping down to the pavement. I'm still trying to get my harness off when Kelly climbs back into the cockpit, shaking his head.

“Who was it?” I ask.

“A drunk. Black woman, about sixty-five. I offered her a ride, but she told me to get the hell off her driveway. She thought we were a UFO until I caught up to her.”

Carl settles back in his seat, obviously demoralized.

“Let’s take this bird back to the barn and gas up,” Kelly says. “Caitlin’s still out there somewhere.”

I'm expecting the chopper to rise and tilt forward, but we don'’t move. Then I see McDavitt holding his headset tight against his ear. “Ten-four,” he says in an angry voice. “On my way.”

“Who was that?” Kelly asks.

“The sheriff of Lusahatcha County. We just lost our helicopter.”

“How come?” Carl asks, leaning forward again. “What does Billy Ray need with the chopper this time of night?”

“It’s not that. The guy from that hunting camp saw the insignia on our fuselage and called the sheriff’s department, screaming bloody murder.”

“Goddamn it,” Carl mutters.

McDavitt turns in his seat and looks back at me with genuine regret. “I'm sorry, Penn. We can probably get another chopper, but this is the only FLIR unit between Baton Rouge and Jackson.”

“It’s okay. It was a long shot anyway.”

The JetRanger rises on a cushion of air, then reaches translational lift. The nose tilts forward and we head into the darkness. As I look to the horizon, battling airsickness once more, something Kelly said pings back into my mind.

Let’s take this bird back to the barn.

…For the life of me, I don'’t know why, but I keep hearing the phrase, even in my semicoma of nausea and depression.

And suddenly I know why: The term

bird

doesn’'t remind me of helicopters, but of a young man I never met in life. Ben Li. A computer genius who told Tim Jessup to “ask the birds” about his insurance policy. What I don'’t understand is why, if Li had a cache of sensitive data, he didn't use it to save his life when Sands and Quinn began to torture him. If I can answer that question, maybe I can find what no one else has been able to: something valuable enough—or dangerous enough—to purchase Caitlin’s freedom.

CHAPTER

61

Caitlin has been walking so long that her feet are numb. If she hadn'’t had to kick so hard to get the roof open, she would still be running, running along the road until she reached a town. She could do ten miles if she had to. But the bruises in her heels are to the bone—she can hardly take the pressure of her own weight on the asphalt.

Six times she’s seen the lambent glow of headlights in the sky, then raced into fields beside the road before the lights appeared. As the sound of the engines grew, a frantic compulsion to leap out of the field and flag down the driver would grow in her chest, but each time she fought the urge into submission. Over and over she hears the voice of Tom Cage telling the story of the poor girl who escaped from Morville Plantation and reached the sheriff’s office, only to be driven back into forced sexual slavery by squad car.

Before her feet became numb, Caitlin had found herself sobbing every few minutes. Nothing she did could block the memories rising out of the dark. The rape wasn'’t the worst of it. The worst was Linda hanging from the Cyclone fence, her dress tucked as modestly around her legs as she could make it, a last attempt at dignity from a girl who’d had all dignity stripped away from her. Caitlin’s memory of heaving Linda’s legs out through the window is growing vague. The sight of a Bully Kutta hanging suspended from a dead

knee seems beyond comprehension, something Caitlin dreamed in a fever.

But it happened,

she tells herself.

I did that. It’s like those soccer players who survived that plane crash in the Andes. You do what you have to do….

Sooner or later, I'’ll come to a place that has a phone. If not, I'’ll just keep on until I drop or the sun comes up.

CHAPTER

62

Kelly, my father, and I are seated around my kitchen table with half-drunk cups of coffee in front of us, three pistols centered between them. Danny and Carl have taken the JetRanger back to Athens Point. Because of the guilt he feels about Caitlin’s kidnapping, Carl tried to remain behind, but the sheriff ordered him back, and that was that. The Ervin brothers are still outside, guarding us as they have almost from the beginning. Mom and Annie are sleeping in Annie’s bed upstairs. We’re on our third pot of coffee, and though everyone is exhausted, no one has made a move to a bedroom. I’'ve been trying to wade through the Po file Lutjens sent me, but there’s so much raw data that I can’t really digest it. Ever since we were forced to abandon the helicopter search, a feeling of desperation has been growing in me. I want to do something—anything—to get Caitlin back.

“You want me to give you a shot so you can sleep?” Dad asks. “Just put you out for a while?”

“No. We don'’t know how things might break tonight. I have to be ready for whatever happens.”

“Okay.”

“This is the toughest kind of situation to take,” Kelly says. “You have no control over events, and that’s hard to handle when you’re used to having it.”

“I'm about ready to say to hell with Po, call Caitlin’s father, and break this story nationwide.”

“Worst thing you could do. That'’s the one thing that might force them to kill her. Po would be gone, and Hull would vanish like a puff of smoke.”

“He’s right,” Dad says softly.

“I know.”

Kelly leans forward and forces me to look him in the eye. “Sands isn’t going to kill her, Penn.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Put yourself in his shoes. Sands took her because he felt he had no choice. I don'’t know what Caitlin did, but somehow she made herself a threat to the Po sting. As for why I'm sure they won'’t kill her—apart from everything we’ve discussed—it comes down to this: Sands was looking into my eyes when I made that promise Monday morning. He knows that if Caitlin dies, he dies. Maybe not today, but one day soon. He doesn’'t want to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.”

“I think he’s lived that way since he was a kid. It’s a way of life for him.”

“He won'’t kill her.”

Dad looks less certain. “Remember, Son, our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.”

“That'’s a fine sentiment. But in this case my greatest hope and my worst fear are opposite sides of the same coin. It’s either/or. Caitlin’s alive or dead. She’s coming back or she’s not. And as things stand, we have no control over the outcome.”

“She’s alive,” Dad says with conviction. “I know she is. I can feel it.”

My father has never been the mystical type. “Feel it? Aren’t you the one who told me that when you die, you’re dead?”

“I am. But sometimes I have a feeling about things. Things as they'’re supposed to be.”

“What’s your feeling now?” Kelly asks.

Dad takes my hand and squeezes as hard as he can with his diminished strength. “Caitlin’s going to be part of this family for a long time. I

know

that. I refuse to accept any other possibility.”

For a few seconds I actually believe him. Then Kelly sits erect, grabs his pistol, and jumps to his feet. “There’s somebody outside.”

He’s right. Someone’s knocking softly on the front door. With Kelly in the lead, all three of us walk to the foyer. He motions us back, then, holding his pistol along his leg, leans against the wall beside the door and says, “Who’s there?”

“Walt,” says a male voice. “Walt Garrity.”

We all look at each other in surprise. Kelly reaches out and opens the door, aiming his gun through the crack. After a moment, he pulls Walt through the door and shuts it behind him.

“What happened?” I asked. “You have any word on Caitlin?”

Walt shakes his head dejectedly. “Nothing. I'm sorry, boys. I'm blown.”

“What do you mean?”

“My end of this operation’s over.”

“Let’s get back in the kitchen,” says Kelly. “You want some coffee, Walt?”

“I wouldn'’t turn it down. I got a long drive ahead of me.”

In the kitchen Walt sits to my father’s right, and I sit opposite him while Kelly pours the coffee. Walt waves his hand over the cup to indicate he wants it black.

“So what happened?” I ask.

“They had the dogfight tonight, like I said. I went. Took a hooker with me for cover. I’'ve had one with me every night. Started out with a white girl, local. Tipped her heavy and sent her home at the end of each night. But tonight I had a different one. Anyhow, when I got to the fight, it looked like Kelly was right. They were testing me. It was just a bunch of country boys fighting a couple of pit bulls. Had some hog dogs there too. Strictly low-rent. Still, everything was going all right. Then the fight broke up. Guess they got word somebody was flying the river in a chopper.”

“That was us.”

“I figured. After that, I told the hooker I wanted to go back to the hotel. I figured I had more chance learning something about Caitlin from her than from anyone else.”

“And?”

“You said the first hooker was white,” Kelly says. “Was this girl black?”

“No. Chinese. They got quite a few Chinese girls on Sands’s boat, and I thought she might have some inside poop, because of the

Po connection. Her English was pretty bad, but there was something different about this girl. She reminded me of a girl I knew in Japan, during the war.” Walt looks at my father. “Kaeko, remember? That girl in Kobe I told you about?”

Dad nods.

“This girl’s name was Ming….” Walt trails off.

“So what happened in the room?” Kelly prompts.

“I don'’t know, exactly. I just wanted to talk to her, which was stupid, because of the language problem, but when we got in there, she took off her dress and started to get in the bed. I told her I just wanted to talk. And then…then

I

started to talk. I told her about Kaeko, about my R and R in Japan, that stuff. She was listening, but she was taking off my jacket and shirt too. She got real quiet when she saw my derringer hanging around my neck, but then she smiled and took that off like it was no big deal. She pushed me down on the bed and started to get on top of me…and that’s when it happened.”

“What?” Dad asks.

“She stood up straight and started talking in a different voice. She went from sounding like a Hong Kong streetwalker to Greer Garson in about half a second. Told me to go back home to Texas if I wanted to stay alive.”

With a chill of foreboding, I get up and go to the counter, then shuffle through the pages in the FedEx package Lutjens sent.

“She took my derringer,” Walt says. “She held it on me as she backed out of the room.”

“What exactly did she say?” Kelly asks.

“She said, ‘You’re a long way from home, old man. Go back to Texas, if you want to live.’”

“Ming the Merciless,” Dad says softly.

“Ming the Merci

ful,

” Kelly corrects him.

Walt watches curiously as I cross the room and hand him a five-by-seven photo of Jiao Po. Then he looks down, stares for a couple of seconds, and says, “That'’s her. Son of a bitch. Who is she?”

“Jonathan Sands’s girlfriend. The niece of Edward Po.”

Walt’s head snaps up, his weathered cheeks flushed.

“She was supposed to kill you,” Kelly says. “Or to set you up for it, anyway. But something made her stop at the last minute.”

Walt blinks at Kelly.

“I bet the hotel maid would have found you dead tomorrow morning, probably from an apparent heart attack. A little Viagra by the bed…end of story.”

“Why didn't she do it?” I muse.

Walt snorts and shakes his head. “Because she saw I was a broke-dick old bastard in way over his head.

Damn,

that’s hard to bear.”

“Would you rather be dead?” Kelly asks.

“Maybe,” Walt mutters. “What a way to finish up.” He looks over at my father, then me. “I haven'’t helped you boys one damn bit. All I did was lose a bunch of your money. And I still don'’t know how they copped to me.”

“They could have followed you here yesterday,” I point out.

“No. I'm sure about that.”

“Were you doing anything with the white hooker?” Kelly asks. “Sexual stuff, I mean?”

“Naw. Told her I was too old to get it up anymore, and she was fine with that. Less work for the same money.”

Kelly rubs his thumb and forefinger together with a sandpaper sound. “Still, if she told any of the other girls that, it might have drawn some interest. I doubt many johns pay good money without wanting something at the end of the night. At least a little strip show, if not a blow job.”

“Maybe,” allows Walt. “But I don'’t think she would have told. She wanted me to herself. Why share an easy mark?”

“It doesn’'t matter now,” I tell him. “You did what you could. Sands is a smart son of a bitch. You probably just pushed too far too fast.”

“I am getting impatient in my old age.”

Kelly gives Walt a “buck-up” smile. “No, you’re getting too decent for the work. If you’d screwed that first whore silly, they’d never have caught onto you.”

Walt’s face remains wrinkled with concentration. “It was the girl. Ming, or Jiao, whatever. Sands sent her to try and read me, and she did. Just like a book. To tell you the truth, I feel a little shaky now. Kelly’s right. I came close to buying it tonight, without even knowing it.”

Dad gets up slowly and gives his old friend a consoling pat on the shoulder. “That means your luck’s holding, Walt. That'’s something to celebrate.”

The old Ranger shakes his head, his sense of failure palpable in the room. “No. I’d say that’s about as clear a message as a man gets that it’s time to hang up his spurs.”

“You’re not serious about driving back tonight, are you?”

“Yep. I never want to see that hotel room again, and I couldn'’t sleep now anyway. Too much to think about. And Carmelita’s been patient with me. I need to get on back to Texas.”

Dad doesn’'t waste time trying to persuade his friend to stay. He knows Walt’s mind is made up. “What can we do for you?”

“Walk me to the door, partner. That'’s it.”

We all rise and follow him into the foyer. “A pretty poor showing for me,” Walt says, shaking hands all around. “But don'’t lose heart. Kelly, you quoted that old ‘One riot, one Ranger’ saw to me on the night we first met. I'’ll leave you with the real one we used to live by.”

The foyer falls silent, and Walt Garrity speaks with quiet conviction.

“‘No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a’comin’.’ Cap’n Bill McDonald said that. Don’t you boys forget it, either, just ’cause things look black.” The old Ranger nods once for emphasis. “I'’ll catch you on the turnaround.”

Kelly opens the door, checks the street, then leads Walt out to his Roadtrek. Dad and I follow, my hand on the pistol in my pocket. As Walt reaches his door, I hear the whine of a small engine being driven hard, then headlights flash over us. A Volkswagen runs the stop sign at Union Street, races up to where we stand, and skids to a stop.

Kelly has his pistol out a full second before I do, the weapon light mounted beneath its barrel illuminating the face of Kim Hunter, the reporter for the

Examiner.

The guy holds up both hands and shouts, “Penn, it’s me! Kim!”

“He’s okay!” I tell Kelly. “What are you doing here?”

“Are we safe out here?”

“Safe as anywhere.”

“I'm getting out.” Hunter climbs out of the Volkswagen, then walks to the rear of the vehicle and pops open his trunk. “Come here.” He bends out of our sight. “Hurry.”

Kelly lifts his gun again, but as we get to the back of the car, I'm stunned to find Caitlin staring up out of the small trunk. Her face is gaunt and her feet are a bloody mess, but her eyes are filled with tears of relief.

“She wouldn'’t let me call the police,” Hunter says. “Or take her to the hospital. I’'ve been driving around the block trying to see if it was safe to stop. When I saw you come out, I decided to go for it. She’s scared to death, and she can barely walk. What the hell’s going on?”

“We’'ve got her,” I say, lifting Caitlin bodily from the trunk and holding her shivering body. “Thanks, Kim. Go home, before somebody sees you. Don’t talk about this to anybody, and don'’t let anybody at the paper print one word.”

“Okay. Are you sure she’s going to be all right?”

“We’'ve got her,” Kelly says. “We owe you, buddy.”

“No, you don'’t. I love that lady, man.”

Kelly grins and pushes Hunter toward the open driver’s door. “Get going.”

As the Volkswagen pulls away, Kelly ushers Caitlin and me back toward my porch, his back to us as he turns left and right, covering the street behind us with his pistol. As we move through the door, I see Dad wave at Walt in the driver’s seat of the Roadtrek. Then the long, silver RV rolls up the street after the Volkswagen.

“Linda Church is dead,” Caitlin says, her bruised hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. “She hanged herself. I saw it. I mean, I found her right afterward. She was being held next to me. In a dog kennel.”

Caitlin’s sitting on my knee at the kitchen table, her bandaged feet resting on a pillow, my arms wrapped around the blanket my father put over her shoulders.

“How did you get away?”

She shakes her head as if there’s too much to explain.

“Do you know where the kennel was? We flew the river for hours looking for you.”

“I don'’t. I walked so far, and everything looked the same. They took my cell phone, and I knew I couldn'’t call you even if I had it, because they might hear. I saw a few cars, but I didn't dare risk flagging anyone down. I kept thinking about that story your father told us, about the girl who got away from the brothel. I was afraid to talk to anyone.”

“How did you find Kim?”

“I finally came to a building in the middle of nowhere. A farm equipment place. I broke in and used their telephone. I figured Kim was my safest bet. But I was afraid to wait there for him. I thought the police might come.”

I lay my cheek against her back and hold her tight. “It’s going to be all right. You’re home now.”

“You don'’t have any idea where Linda’s body might be?” Kelly asks, ever practical.

Caitlin closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I don'’t…the dogs—”

“I'm going to put her in bed,” I say, seeing that she’s about to break down. “Dad, I want you to call every cop you ever treated and put a ring of steel around this house. I'’ll talk to Logan in a few minutes. Kelly—”

“I'm there, bro. Going to the mattresses. About fucking time.”

Dad’s already picking up the phone.

To my surprise, Caitlin allows me to carry her to the ground-floor guest room. When I pull back the covers, she raises her arms for me to remove her sweat-soaked top, then pulls her pants off and climbs under the sheet.

“Did they hurt you?” I ask, surprised by how afraid I am to hear the answer.

She lies on her side, staring blankly toward my hip. “Not really. But the things I saw…what they did to Linda. I wish I’d let Kelly kill them. Quinn…” Caitlin lifts a shaking hand to her eyes, as though to hide them from some awful sight. “He made me watch him rape Linda, and she was

sick.

I don'’t understand it.”

Almost afraid to touch her, I stroke her hair gently. “Beyond a certain point, there isn’t any understanding it. Sometimes the only way to deal with people like that is on their own terms.”

She lets her hand fall and blinks back tears, as though still wit

nessing some immutable horror. “I never really understood that. I'’ll

never

be the person I was before. I'’ll never talk to another victim of a crime the same way again.”

“Don’t think about it now. Just try to rest.”

She closes her eyes, then opens them again.

“What about what Kelly asked?” I say. “You don'’t have any idea where Linda might be?”

“I'm sorry, I don'’t. Kim can probably tell you more than I can.”

“But you’re positive she’s dead?”

Caitlin blinks twice, then her chin begins to quiver, and tears stream down across her nose. “Penn…I had to use her body to get away.”

I don'’t quite understand this statement, but something tells me not to ask for details.

“To distract the dogs,” she whispers. “I don'’t…I don'’t think there’ll be anything left to find.”

I lay my hand on her forehead and say, “Shhh,” just the way I do with Annie.

Caitlin wipes her nose and looks up at me, her eyes pleading for absolution. “I tried to get her to go with me. I tried so hard. But they’d broken her. You understand? She was alive, but there was nothing really left of her.”

“I'm sorry. Whatever you did, I'm sure it was the right thing.”

She squeezes her eyes tight, then nods once. “She couldn'’t have made it. She knew that. She was so brave…. I see now. She gave her life for me.”

“I want you to stop thinking about it, if you can. You’re never going to forget what happened, but right now you need to let it go, just for a while. You’re alive, and you deserve to be. Sometimes survivors don'’t get that. I'm going to go out there and make some decisions. But I want you to call me if you can’t sleep.”

She tries to smile but fails. “I will.”

I stand slowly, shattered by the sight of this woman I know to be so strong reduced to near helplessness.

“Will you do me one favor?” she asks softly.

“Anything.”

“I want Seamus Quinn dead.” Caitlin locks her fingers around my wrist and squeezes until her arm shakes. “Not just dead. I want him to

suffer.

”

I nod but don'’t reply.

“Will you promise?” she asks, her eyes bright in the shadows.

“Let’s see how you feel after some sleep. We can talk about it then.”

Her eyes hold mine for several seconds, then she releases my wrist and turns over. “Nothing’s going to change my mind,” she says quietly.

“I'’ll see you when you wake up.”

“Nothing.”

CHAPTER

63

Burned houses remind me of dead bodies. There’s the same feeling of senseless waste, of life extinguished. Family homes are the worst. Stumbling over a charred doll or a half-burned photo album always brings a sharp pang of sadness, the knowledge that apart from life itself, talismans of the past are our true treasures.

Ben Li’s house is not like that. A modest wood-frame structure on Park Place, near Duncan Park, it burned nearly to the ground before the fire department arrived. According to Chief Logan, the fire chief has no doubt that it was arson. The house must have been filled with accelerants to have gone up so fast.

In the hazy blue light of dawn, smoke still rises from the charred wood beneath the brick piers that once supported the house. It’s 6:15 a.m., but the older people in the neighborhood are already up and moving, getting their papers or walking their dogs. A few have strolled up to the house to stare at the ruin, as people do. One guy even picked through the wreckage as though hunting for souvenirs, until I chased him away.

I'm here because sometime during the night, in that semicomatose state between sleep and wakefulness, the one true epiphany of this case came to me. I don'’t know why I didn't think of it sooner—probably because I was so focused on the stolen USB drive—but perhaps also because the tension generated by Caitlin’s kidnapping

was blocking me. But after her return last night, some tightly wrapped coil of stress must have let go, for a chain of logical thought rose out of my subconscious as effortlessly as a string of bubbles seeking the surface of a lake.

Jonathan Sands hired Ben Li because he was a computer expert. Tim Jessup believed that Li had maintained some sort of “insurance” to protect himself from his employers, probably sensitive data. When I first heard Tim say this—in the voice memo he made before he died—I assumed that Li would have hidden whatever data he had on some remote digital server, accessible only by himself or someone with the password. I also assumed that Li’s instruction to “ask the birds” about this somehow related to such a password, and that if Ben Li kept cockatoos, maybe they could speak the required phrase or numbers. Sands and Quinn almost certainly made the same assumption. But if the birds could speak the password, they did not do so for Sands. If they had, he would not have felt the need to burn down Ben Li’s house.

More to the point, last night, during Caitlin’s periods of fitful sleep, she told me something of her captivity with Linda Church. Through the rapes and abuse Linda suffered, Quinn had kept after her about one subject: Ben Li’s birds. While torturing Li in the interrogation room in the bowels of the

Magnolia Queen,

Sands and Quinn had asked him about anything incriminating he might have stored off the boat. Li had still been under the influence of whatever drugs Tim had given him, and was half-delirious, but in that state he had babbled something to the effect of “The birds know! Ask the birds!”

I haven'’t come to Ben Li’s house because I’'ve figured out his password. I’'ve come because I believe there

is

no password. There never was. A computer wizard like Li would know that every movement through cyberspace leaves digital footprints as surely as a man walking through snow. And Li couldn'’t be sure that he was the only computer wizard working for Sands. If Ben Li wanted to keep sensitive data to protect himself from his criminal employers, he would have wanted it close to hand, where he could reassure himself it was safe any time he felt nervous, and probably to add to it as more incriminating data fell within his grasp. As a prosecutor, I saw this kind of behavior all the time. Hoarding secrets is a primal human instinct.

Jonathan Sands obviously came to the same conclusion sometime yesterday and, being unable to locate the data, decided on a scorched-earth policy. But why did he assume that Li’s insurance would be inside the house? Li might have buried it, not knowing that water finds its way into even the most tightly sealed containers left underground. I can’t even recall all the ruined caches of contraband I saw as an ADA: documents, photographs, cash, drugs, bloody clothing, body parts—literally everything imaginable.

And so…as the sun rose, I stood here in the smoking ruins, trying to open myself to inspiration. I’'ve searched the yard and found no sign of recent digging, as Kelly predicted, having already done the same himself. The only trees in the backyard have high limbs, and Ben Li seems to have had no ladder.

I'm about ready to surrender and walk back to my car when a vaguely familiar man in his early fifties approaches me from the adjoining yard. He smiles as he walks toward me, holding up a hand to show he doesn’'t mean to bother me.

“Mayor Cage?” he says. “Bobby DeWitt.”

I hesitate for a moment, trying to place the name, but the man does look familiar. “I played ball at the public school,” he says, “about eight years ahead of you. I saw some of your games out at St. Stephen’s. Y’all had a good team.”

Now I remember him…a tight end.

“So did you guys,” I tell him, shaking his hand firmly. “State championship, right?”

“Yeah, we won the Shrimp Bowl, but that was a long time ago.”

DeWitt looks over at the ruined house. “Terrible, ain’t it? For a while we thought it might spread to our place, but we were lucky. I wet our roof down with my pressure washer, and that saved us, I reckon.”

“That'’s good. Did you know the kid who lived here at all?”

“Ben? Naw. He kept to hisself most of the time. Hardly ever left the house. For a long time, I didn't even know what he did for a living. Wasn’t hardly no furniture in that place. Just some glass tables with computers on ’em. A big old beanbag chair, and one of them futon things in the back. And the birdcages, of course. He had them two parrots.”

“You’d been inside the house, then?”

“Oh, yeah, I fixed a busted pipe for him one time. He was a nice kid. Real quiet. Might’ve been into drugs a little. I thought I smelled some pot a couple of times. But, hey, that’s his business. He wasn'’t hurtin’ nobody.”

I look back at the pipes sticking out of the soggy ground, wondering if broken pipes could somehow be a clue to Ben Li’s hiding place.

“Did you ever hear the parrots talk?”

DeWitt laughs. “Shit, they talked all the time.”

“What did they say?”

“Lines from old movies, mostly. Humphrey Bogart–type stuff. One of ’em always said, ‘I'’ll be back,’ like in

The Terminator.

”

“Really,” I say, trying to guess if this might have some meaning.

“Yeah,” DeWitt says in a reflective tone. “Ben was shy all right. About the only person he ever talked to was old Mrs. Bassett, who lives in that house yonder. Widow woman.”

“Which one?” I ask.

“Back behind that fence there.” DeWitt points to a weathered board fence shrouded by overhanging limbs.

“What did those two have in common, I wonder?”

DeWitt laughs. “Don’t know. I think they just got to talkin’ by the fence one day and took a shine to each other. Mrs. Bassett’s about half-blind, and she has arthritis so bad, she can’t hardly do for herself no more. I think Ben felt sorry for her. He used to go over there and help take care of her bird feeders and stuff.”

Two seconds after the word

bird

leaves DeWitt’s lips, my mouth goes dry. “What bird feeders? Like hummingbird feeders?”

“Well, yeah. She’s got all kinds of birdbaths and feeders and stuff over there. Ben even climbed up in that tree back there and fixed her birdhouse for her. A martin house, you know? He brought it down to his place, fixed it, hand-painted it—the whole works. Then he remounted it on the pole for her.”

I'm trying to remain calm, but even DeWitt can see my excitement. “How did he get up there? I don'’t see a ladder.”

“He borrowed my extension ladder.”

“Would you mind if I borrowed it for a minute?”

“Hell, no. I'’ll get it for you. You want to look at that birdhouse?” He looks puzzled, but not particularly bothered, by my request.

“I do. Can you tell me where it is?”

“It’s back there in those limbs that hang over the fence, about twenty-five feet up. In the winter you can see it plain as day, but with the leaves still on the trees, you can’t hardly find it. The pole’s set in the ground right behind the fence.

Two minutes later, I'm climbing the aluminum extension ladder that Bobby DeWitt has leaned against a high oak limb. Ten feet above me is the simple white birdhouse that you see in half the yards in Mississippi. Only this one looks as if it were hand-painted by an Asian artist. The three circular holes in the wall of the house have a tracery of exotic leaves painted around them, and several ladybugs that look almost real have been painted under the eaves of the roof.

“You okay?” DeWitt calls from below, where he’s holding the ladder steady.

“Yeah.”

Suppressing my excitement, I slip two fingers into the first hole and feel in the dark space, hoping I won'’t find a brown recluse spider. There’s nothing inside but bare wood. The center hole holds a few small twigs and something that feels like crusted bird crap. But as my fingers probe the leftmost hole, my fingertips touch plastic.

Moving them back and forth, I know immediately that I'm touching a Ziploc bag. It’s taped to the inside wall of the birdhouse. Tugging gently, I remove the baggie from the hole, taking care not to let DeWitt see it. As I look down, my heart begins to race.

Inside the sandwich-size Ziploc is a stack of SD memory cards, the kind used in some digital cameras. I count five of them, and the topmost card is labeled 2G HIGH SPEED. Keeping my hand close to my body, I slide the baggie into my front pants pocket. I can barely keep my balance as I descend the ladder, and when I release the aluminum rails, my hands are shaking.

“Find anything up there?” DeWitt asks.

“No. I'm not even sure what I was looking for.”

“Huh, I wondered. You ain’t the only one’s been around here looking. Some guys searched his house a couple nights ago, before the fire. I figured they were cops, but I had a funny feeling about them.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I was standing outside when they come out. And they looked at me like I was just dogshit. On my own property too.”

“Did they ask you any questions?”

“Hell, no. I wouldn'’t of told them nothing if they had.”

Intoxicated with hope, I slap DeWitt on the back and say, “Good man, Bobby. I'’ll see you around, okay?”

“Anytime. Hey, you reckon you could get something done about these potholes on our street?”

I laugh and turn my head as I'm running to my car. “Bobby, by next week, this street will be smooth as a baby’s butt!”

“I'’ll believe that when I see it!”

“Count on it!”

CHAPTER

64

As I feared, the data on Ben Li’s SD cards were encrypted. Normally, this would have stopped me for at least a couple of days while I located an expert, but Kelly is accustomed to such challenges. Three and a half hours ago, he transmitted the data to a retired buddy from the Army Signal Corps.

Caitlin has spent that time reading the file Peter Lutjens FedEx’d to my father yesterday. Dad had dressed her hands and feet with bandages after treating the lacerations, but she insisted on keeping her fingers free to turn pages. Apparently the detailed history of Edward Po, his extended family, and his worldwide criminal operations is the only thing capable of taking Caitlin’s mind off the horrors she endured while being held prisoner. She’s still sitting cross-legged on the sofa in the den when Kelly comes running in from my study.

“Decryption’s coming through. And from the sound of Joey’s e-mail, it’s hot stuff.”

Caitlin sets the file aside and hobbles toward the study. Soon the three of us are gathered around my computer to review the result of Joey’s efforts.

Caitlin presses a button on my trackball, and over a hundred tiny thumbnail images appear on my display. Some of them represent data files, but others are clearly JPEG images.

“Do I see frontal nudity?” asks Kelly, leaning closer and squinting.

“You do,” says Caitlin, double-clicking on one image. “Oh my God…look.”

On the screen, Linda Church leans over a bathroom counter, bracing herself on her forearms while Jonathan Sands thrusts into her from behind. Sands’s left hand seems to be yanking her head back by the hair, while his right holds a digital camera high to capture the scene. The camera’s flash is a bright star in the mirror of what looks like a hotel bathroom.

Caitlin turns away. “I'm sorry. It’s not the sex, I just can’t look at her, knowing what I know.”

“There’s one question answered,” I say. “Sands shot the nude pictures of Linda that were planted in Tim’s house.”

“Can I change the picture?” Caitlin asks in a distressed voice.

“Sorry, yeah, go.”