Текст книги "The Bone Tree"
Автор книги: Greg Iles
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 58 страниц)
CHAPTER 20
THE CONCORDIA HOSPITAL emergency room is a Babel of frightened wives, wailing children, and deputies so furious they’re ready to kill someone—anyone who might have played a part in the warehouse explosion. In the wake of that lethal blast, the most the hospital staff could do was try to stabilize the injured deputies and evacuate them to the nearest urban hospitals via helicopter. Walker Dennis has been circulating among the families of his men, doing what he can to instill calm, but it’s a tough job with one deputy dead and at least one other barely clinging to life. I can’t help but think of last night, when an unknown sniper killed Henry Sexton’s girlfriend just down the hall from this ER and came close to killing Henry himself. Walker is standing in the door of one of the treatment rooms, comforting the sons of one of his less seriously injured men. I’m trying to decide how long I should hang around when Special Agent John Kaiser marches through the main ER doors, scans the area, then homes in on me.
“What in God’s name possessed you to do something this stupid?” he asks, taking little care to keep his voice low.
“We obviously didn’t believe it was stupid,” I counter, motioning for him to quiet down.
“I told you last night how risky this kind of attack would be. And pointless.”
“We didn’t attack anybody. Sheriff Dennis simply enforced the law, which has been a neglected practice in this parish of late.”
Kaiser glances at Dennis, whose back is to him, then looks back at me. “Oh, bullshit. You hit the Knoxes, and they hit you back. Nothing surprising about that.”
“I’d bet money Forrest Knox was surprised this morning.”
Kaiser shakes his head in exasperation. “Do you realize I had the director sold on a massive search of the Lusahatcha Swamp? He was talking to the Mississippi National Guard commander and the sheriff of Lusahatcha County. He’d even contacted Dwight Stone to consult about the 1964 search. If you hadn’t started this fiasco, we might have found the Bone Tree by sundown today. We might have had Jimmy Revels’s and Pooky Wilson’s remains. But now? There’s no way I can leave to run that effort. I’m stuck doing damage control. Only this time the damage is so great, I don’t know if it’s fixable.”
“We’re not your problem, John. You’re working a massive case that could take months or years. We’re going after some drug dealers and crooked cops. It’s that simple.”
“More bullshit. You’re going after the same targets I am, only you’re doing it in the stupidest possible way.”
My temper is starting to rise, which tells me Kaiser might be taking his life into his hands if any of the nearby deputies are listening. “We’re taking the shortest distance between two points, which in my experience is a good strategy. Besides, after last night’s conversation, I thought you were after Carlos Marcello, not the Knoxes.”
At last Kaiser lowers his voice to an angry whisper. “I told you I was after Forrest Knox. It’s all the same case anyway.” Before the FBI agent can vent more fury, Sheriff Dennis walks over from the treatment room. “Can I help you, Agent Kaiser?”
Kaiser manages to rein in his anger slightly. “I’m sorry for what happened to your men, Sheriff. But I have to ask: what did you really hope to accomplish with these raids?”
Dennis squares his shoulders like a man preparing for a fight. “Aside from upholding the law and protecting the people of this parish?”
“You’ve confiscated some precursor chemicals, and you’ve got a truckload of low-level perps locked up. Do you really think they’re going to give up the Double Eagles? Do you think they even know anything worth giving up?”
Walker gives a surprisingly calm shrug. “Since they’re facing mandatory minimums, I’d say there’s a good chance that one or more will talk.”
Kaiser shakes his head. “You have no idea what you’re up against, Sheriff. The punks you arrested this morning don’t know enough to jail one Double Eagle, and they don’t know jack shit about Forrest Knox.”
“I reckon we’ll see,” Dennis drawls. “But I’m betting at least one of them knows more than you think.”
“Bad bet, Sheriff.”
“John,” I cut in, hoping to prevent further escalation, “I don’t think we’re going to find much common ground this morning. You ought to think about vacating the premises. Some of these deputies are . . . in a highly irritable state of mind.”
“I’ll go you one better,” Dennis says aggressively. “I’m gonna call in the Double Eagles for questioning today.”
The FBI agent clearly can’t believe his ears. “You mean get warrants for their arrest?”
“No, no,” Walker says. “Just ask ’em nicely to come in for a chat.”
Kaiser actually laughs. “How are you going to contact them?”
Dennis shrugs again. “It’s a small parish. I’ll figure a way. If they’ve got nothing to hide, they shouldn’t mind coming in.”
“I’ll save you the trouble, Sheriff. Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield are in Texas, at Billy Knox’s fishing camp. It’s on the Toledo Bend Reservoir. And they won’t come back here to talk to you, no matter how nicely you ask them. Especially after this morning. Because they do have plenty to hide.”
Sheriff Dennis works his lower lip around his dip of snuff. “Well . . . I reckon I’ll ask anyway. Can’t hurt none.”
“You’re wrong,” Kaiser says in a grave voice. “If all you guys were doing was jumping the gun on a drug case, I’d shut up and go back to New Orleans. But you’re throwing a wrench into one of the biggest conspiracy cases the Bureau’s ever been involved with, and I can’t stand by while you do it.”
Dennis cuts his eyes at me, but I offer nothing. “You wanna explain that statement?”
When Kaiser doesn’t answer, I say, “Our junior G-man thinks he’s working the JFK assassination.”
Dennis’s eyes narrow. After squinting at Kaiser for fifteen seconds, he says, “Why not the Lindbergh baby?”
Kaiser angrily shakes his head. “What you guys don’t know . . . Jesus.”
“Do you see what’s going on in this parish?” Walker asks, waving his hand to take in his casualties and their families. “I’ve got good men down, and one dead. Bastards who murdered people forty years ago still killing people today. And they’ve got their kids helping them. When I saw you draining the Jericho Hole yesterday, I figured we were on the same side. But it’s starting to look to me like you’re just in the way.”
“That’s because you’ve got blinders on,” Kaiser says, not the slightest bit intimidated. “Penn, could I speak to you alone?”
“I don’t think so. We’re in Sheriff Dennis’s jurisdiction. I’m just the mayor of Natchez, as you reminded me last night. And I’m not really interested in the Kennedy assassination right now.”
“No?” Kaiser lowers his voice again. “What if I told you that one of the rifles we took out of the ruins of Brody Royal’s house was a 6.58-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano, just like the rifle Oswald fired from the Texas Book Depository? It’s the exact variant, 40.5 inches long.”
I think about this for a few seconds. “I’d say you found yourself a replica that Brody bought to add to his little collection. Like a model of the starship Enterprise.”
“That Carcano’s no replica. It’s a genuine Italian surplus war rifle that was probably made within a few months of the one Oswald bought through the mail in 1962.”
“Does it have a serial number?”
“It does. It also has fingerprints on it.”
“How is that possible? The fire would have—”
“This rifle wasn’t in Royal’s basement.” Kaiser’s eyes shine with triumph. “We found it in a gun safe in the old man’s study, on the main floor of the house. Everything in that safe was in pristine condition. Agents from our Legat in Rome have contacted the Italian government to trace the records. The odds are that Royal’s rifle was shipped to the U.S. for retail sale, like most of the other Carcano surplus in the fifties.”
“Great. But I’m not interested.”
“Penn, how sure are you about the type of rifles you saw in that special display case?”
To my surprise, Sheriff Dennis seems to be listening closely.
“I know neither was a Mannlicher-Carcano,” I tell Kaiser. “Any Texas prosecutor has talked to enough JFK conspiracy nuts to know what Oswald’s rifle looked like. The Carcano has an extended trigger housing and a forestock that nearly reaches the end of the barrel. It’s basically a crappy weapon. The rifles I saw in that display case were expensive hunting rifles with quality scopes. Surely you’ve identified them by now?”
“We think so. But let’s double-check.” Kaiser pulls a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and shoves it at me. “Have a look and see if you can ID the two rifles you saw in that case.”
While Dennis stares with knitted brows, I take the inkjet-printed sheet. It shows a column of eight rifles in full color and good resolution. At first they look very similar, but the closer I study them, the more differences I see.
“I’m pretty sure this is the one that had the MLK date under it,” I say, pointing to a lever-action hunting rifle. “What is it?”
“Winchester Model 70,” says Kaiser. “Classic sniper rifle. What about the one dated November twenty-second?”
After narrowing the remaining weapons down to two, I point at the one that looks most like the image from my memory. “This one.”
Kaiser gives a half smile. “Right both times. That’s a Remington Model 700. A hot load in that rifle drives a bullet close to four thousand feet per second, depending on the caliber. Perfect for the Kennedy head shot. And that’s one of the rifles we found. Minus the incinerated wooden parts, of course.”
“Then why the hell are you making such a fuss about the Mannlicher-Carcano from Royal’s study?”
“Because it raises so many questions. And if I’m right, it’s going to connect the Royal-Knox-Marcello group directly to Oswald and Dallas. I’ll bet you any amount of money that the final shipping destination of that rifle was Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas.”
“I told you, John. Not interested.”
“Hold up a second,” says Sheriff Dennis, his eyes on Kaiser. “Are you saying Brody Royal had something to do with the assassination of President Kennedy?”
“I am. But that’s confidential case information, Sheriff. And not just Brody Royal.”
“Who else? The Knoxes?”
Kaiser shakes his head. “I shouldn’t say more at this time.”
“He thinks the Knoxes and Carlos Marcello had a hand in it,” I say. “Crime of the century.”
Kaiser glares at me, but Sheriff Dennis is studying the FBI agent intently. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Do I look like a joker to you, Sheriff?”
“No, sir, you don’t. And I know a little bit about the Marcello clan. If you really believe you can solve the Kennedy case, I can respect that. But you’ve got to grant me the same courtesy. You probably don’t know it, but I lost a cousin to these bastards in a drug buy gone bad a couple of years back. A dirty cop killed him. And Forrest Knox covered for that bastard. I mean to make those Knoxes pay, you hear? We’ve put up with their crap for too long in this parish. I drew the line this morning, and there’s no going back. So, I wish you well with your work. If there’s any way I can help you with your case, I will. But I won’t stop my own work on the Double Eagles. And you’d do well not to try to interfere. Okay?”
Sheriff Dennis doesn’t wait for an answer. He turns and walks back through the door to the treatment room, where one of the deputy’s sons is crying.
“Small-town sheriffs,” Kaiser mutters.
“Didn’t I hear you started out as one?”
He gives another exasperated sigh.
“We’re moving forward, John. You can either get in the game with us or sit on the sidelines and watch. Either way, Forrest Knox is going to feel the heat.”
Kaiser steps close to me. “If you keep pushing Forrest—and Snake and the others—this morning’s casualties won’t be anything but a warm-up for the main event. Take a word of advice, Penn. Hide your family in a deep hole. Because there’s nothing Forrest won’t do to stop you.”
In my mind I see Annie and my mother looking worriedly after me as I left Edelweiss and headed out to my car. “I’ll do that.”
Kaiser turns without another word and walks toward the exit. Before he passes through, he turns back and says, “Let me know if Dennis gets an answer from the Double Eagles on that voluntary questioning.”
“I thought you said there was no chance.”
“Yeah, well . . . this is Louisiana. Crazier things have happened.” He shakes his head miserably, then walks out.
I follow Walker into the treatment room and find him sitting with the two young boys. Their wounded father is wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth. Walker is holding the hand of one of the boys. His face is wet, and his big neck is bright red. With embarrassment I realize that the wife is saying a prayer beside the bed. I bow my head.
After she finishes, Walker rises and leads me back to the main ER area.
“How are you going to contact the Eagles?” I ask him.
“I’m gonna call Claude Devereux, their lawyer. That Cajun bastard has always been too slick for his own good. If he doesn’t cooperate, I’m gonna find a way to lock him in the trap with the rest of them.”
This is actually a good idea. “Kaiser’s probably right about Snake and Sonny being in Texas. Surely Devereux will tell them to stay put?”
“If they stay in Texas, that tells us something, doesn’t it? Meanwhile, I’ll be grinding away at the punks we brought in this morning. Sooner or later, one of them’s gonna want to trade something.”
“Do you want me to help you with the questioning?”
“Not after what happened at the warehouse. Too many people will be watching me. You steer clear for today. If somebody decides to flip on a Double Eagle, I’ll call you. Fair enough?”
“Yeah. I need to tighten up my family’s security anyway, and I’ve got a huge backlog of work at City Hall. I’m sorry again about your men.”
I start to leave, but Walker takes hold of my arm, then steps even closer, his eyes hard on mine. “How come you didn’t tell me about that JFK angle?”
“Because it’s just a pig trail. Even if Kaiser is onto something with that rifle, it’s ancient history.”
Dennis clucks his tongue twice. “Murder’s never ancient history, Penn. You know that. And that one caused more harm than most. A lot more. If there’s a chance of finding out who really killed the president that day in Dallas—or why—I’m all for it. I’ll do anything I can to help.”
“I hear you, Walker.”
The sheriff lowers his big head another inch. “Don’t keep anything else from me. Okay?”
“I won’t.”
After a long moment, he nods, then walks back to his injured deputy’s cubicle.
Small-town sheriffs, I say silently. Jesus.
CHAPTER 21
WALT GARRITY HAD been staking out Forrest Knox’s house since before dawn, and he was tired of waiting. Knox’s wife was asleep inside, which prevented an immediate search, and there was also a large pit bull penned in the backyard. Forrest himself had driven from Valhalla to Baton Rouge at about 5 A.M., and Walt had followed the whole journey on the GPS tracking scope Mackiever had given him. The new toy was nice, but Walt was worried that his target intended to sleep the morning away. That might seem improbable to some people, given the present situation, but in Walt’s experience career criminals often possessed the ability to sleep through anything.
As Walt cruised past Knox’s well-tended ranch house, his burn phone pinged. Picking up the TracFone, he saw a text message from Tom. The message contained only a sequence of numbers, as Walt had instructed him to use, but the mere sight of those numbers relieved some of the strain Walt been suffering since he’d heard Tom had a hit man tied up in his backseat.
Pulling out of the affluent neighborhood, which stood less than a mile from the university, Walt turned into a service station and parked near the car wash. He felt reasonably secure in the truck, since he’d stolen a new plate from a similar model in a Lowe’s parking lot. Satisfied that no one was watching, he took a notepad from his bag and began decoding Tom’s message. A minute later, he read the words: Safe. Loc to follow aft new fon. He wished Tom had gone ahead and given him his location, but his old friend was wisely waiting until he had a 100 percent secure telephone. Taking one of Tom’s cigars from his shirt pocket, Walt lit the expensive beast, then settled back in his seat and watched the entrance to the quaint little haven that sheltered the most dangerous cop in the state.
FORREST KNOX SAT AT the Dell computer in his home office, working on notes for the press conference he would call at noon. Inkjet printouts of child pornography pulled from Colonel Mackiever’s work computer lay spread on the right side of his desk. Forrest should have been at headquarters by now, but something was nagging at him down deep. The obvious problems were bad enough. Henry Sexton’s death had triggered a media storm, and Caitlin Masters’s newspaper coverage had only magnified it. (Today’s online edition of the Examiner hovered just behind the Word document containing Forrest’s notes for the press conference.) Thankfully, Masters had focused primarily on Royal and the Double Eagles, and stopped short of accusing Forrest of anything. But that wouldn’t last.
What had kept him at home were the two phones calls he’d received a half hour earlier. The first was from a contact he had in the New Orleans federal court. The woman hadn’t identified herself, but she hadn’t needed to. She simply told Forrest that the FBI had filed National Security Letters requesting the phone and e-mail records on Forrest Knox, Alphonse Ozan, and two other officers in the Criminal Investigations Bureau. Forrest had hung up without a word, but he couldn’t pretend the call hadn’t rattled him. Had he not had that contact, he would never even have known the Bureau was digging into his past. Before he could fully process this news, the second call had come, this one from one of the wealthiest developers planning the post-Katrina transformation of New Orleans. Brody Royal’s death—and the scandal brewing in its wake—had hit those multimillionaires where they lived, and their answering message to Forrest was clear: get Mackiever out of his job ASAP and tamp down the trouble in Concordia Parish by any means necessary. If he couldn’t, their support for him would evaporate like smoke.
A loud barking from behind the house startled Forrest. Traveller, his pit bull, was letting him know he was running late. Forrest forced himself to ignore the dog and focus on the Word document. He was glad when his encrypted phone distracted him from the computer screen.
“What is it?” he said, reading a sentence that needed to be a lot better than it was.
“Mackiever’s back home,” Ozan informed him. “About ten minutes now.”
“Any idea where he’s been?”
“Nope.”
“I should have had him followed from New Orleans.”
“Spilled milk, boss. You think he’ll go in to HQ today?”
“I wouldn’t.” Forrest glanced down at the naked little boy on his desk.
“He’s a proud old bastard,” Ozan said. “He’s liable to go over to the governor’s office to personally hand in his resignation.”
“She’s ready to accept it.”
“What about your press conference?”
Forrest suddenly knew what he was going to do. “I’ve changed my mind about that.”
“What do you mean? You gonna wait? Give him the full forty-eight hours?”
“No. I’m going to leak the full story.”
“Who you gonna give it to?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just call me when you hear it’s circulating.”
“Got it.”
“No word on Dr. Cage?”
“Negative. Bermuda fucking Triangle.”
Forrest grunted. “Keep looking. Out.”
He pressed END, then deleted the document he’d been writing. Taking his regular cell phone from his pocket, he called a former vice detective he’d partnered with long ago. The man answered after three rings.
“Yo, Colonel. You the boss yet?”
“Not quite. Are you still tight with that woman at the Advocate?”
“Sure.”
“And the TV station? WAFB?”
“You know me. Finger on the pulse.”
“I know the pulse that finger likes to take.”
The detective barked a laugh. “I ain’t changed, partner. Who does? You want me to pass something on?”
“Yeah. But not on the phone. I’ll give you an envelope.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“You won’t believe it when you see it.”
“Who’s the target?”
“The cowboy colonel.”
The detective was silent for a moment. “Sounds like I’m doing you a real service.”
“You know I’m big on gratitude.”
“That I do, old buddy. How about one of those weekend hunting trips with diablitos and whores included?”
“Do this and you’re comped.”
“Oh, hell yeah. Where’s the handoff?”
Forrest thought about it. “How about the Home Depot parking lot, College Drive? I’ll be in my cruiser. Twenty minutes.”
“That’s quick, but I can make it. Can’t wait to see it.”
Forrest heard the floor creak behind him, then a sharp scream. He knew without turning that his wife had made the sound, but it took him a moment to realize why. When he did, he swept the photos on his desk into the top drawer. His wife was accustomed to seeing grisly crime scene photos, but the kiddie porn that Ozan and some of the guys in vice had pulled off a server in the Netherlands was truly sickening.
“What was that?” his wife gasped.
“A case,” he said gruffly.
“I don’t want that in our house.”
He looked up at the woman who knew his own proclivities about as well as any woman who still walked the earth. But even for someone of her experience and disillusionment, those photos were beyond the pale.
“I don’t either,” he said.
“Why do you have them?”
Forrest decided to test his strategy. “Tech Division pulled these off Colonel Mackiever’s computer. He’s been downloading them at work for months.”
His wife’s hand flew to her mouth. “I don’t believe it. Griffith Mackiever?”
He nodded once, watching her closely.
“Dear Lord.” She shook her head as though she could never accept the idea, but then she said, “I guess you never know anybody, do you?”
Forrest shook his head, but he was smiling inside.
KEEP WALKING, WALT TOLD himself, moving steadily up the street with his picklocks nestled in his inside jacket pocket. Straight and steady, like an old man out for a constitutional.
Knox had left the neighborhood first, his wife about five minutes later. But the most welcome sight had been the silhouette of the pit bull in the backseat of the state police cruiser. Given this gift from the gods, Walt had decided that the best tactic would be to simply walk along the street with a normal gait, then turn up Knox’s driveway as though he were a meter reader or repairman. Mackiever had assured him that no call from Knox’s home security system would alert anyone. It was wired directly to state police headquarters, and Mac had assigned his nephew to disable the connection through the departmental computer system.
Knox’s driveway was fifteen feet ahead.
Walt emptied his mind of doubt, then turned and walked up into the carport, through the picket gate in the breezeway, and into the domain of the now-absent pit bull. He was an old hand at B&Es, and French doors were particularly easy. With the alarm system neutralized, the dog was the only thing that could have complicated his entry. Hearing no alarm, he unlocked the door and moved quickly inside.
Walt’s initial plan had been to search the house itself, then try to break into Knox’s home computer. But as he passed the door of what appeared to be a home office, he saw something he never expected: the computer screen glowing softly, a Microsoft Word document showing.
Charging across the room, he stabbed the keyboard to keep the screen saver from popping up. If it did, a password would almost certainly be required to re-access the computer. As he stood there panting, he wondered at his good fortune. Surely Knox had not left his computer unprotected?
The wife, he thought. His wife must have used the computer right after he left. Tensing, Walt minimized Word and checked to make sure he wasn’t logged on to the wife’s account, but no—the account name was NBFKnox.
“Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Walt said softly. “Who’s your daddy, asshole?”
He sat down and began working through Knox’s file directory. His folders contained the usual stuff: work letters, tax records, to-do lists. Walt wanted to go through the e-mails, but Knox’s Gmail account required a password. Conscious that the wife might come back at any time, Walt moved on and searched for all images stored on the hard drive. Knox only had a couple of hundred photos on the computer, and Walt didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. There was some pornography, but it was typical heterosexual fare. Moving on, Walt searched for video files.
This yielded more interesting results. Knox had quite a few videos that appeared to be training films for state troopers, familiar stuff to Walt. Many dealt with shooting techniques, while others depicted SWAT instructors clearing buildings during hostage situations. Walt was nearing the end of the list when a video that looked very different expanded to fill the screen.
The grainy image showed an open dirt field with a line of trees in the distance. After about five seconds, two horses with men on their backs galloped into the frame. The men carried long spears, and they spurred their horses toward a black blob in the middle of the field. Suddenly the blob disintegrated into several animals racing in different directions.
Hogs, Walt thought.
Two more horsemen galloped on-screen, with smaller blurs running at their flanks. Dogs. From the motion of the dogs, he guessed they were pit bulls or blackmouth curs. Real hog hunters put vests on their dogs so the boars wouldn’t rip their guts out. One good rip with those tusks could easily eviscerate a dog. Walt had seen it.
The four horsemen quickly singled out the largest hog and, with the help of the dogs, began trying to hem it in. After several feints and charges that dropped one smaller dog, the big razorback cut between two horses and broke for the tree line. Just as Walt thought the hog might make it, another horseman charged from the trees and with expert skill forced the hog to check its momentum and turn 180 degrees.
By then the other horses were closing in. When the hog turned and began slashing at the dogs with its tusks, the fifth horseman drove his spear down into its ridged back, between the shoulder blades, like a matador finishing off a bull. The razorback staggered, took a few steps, then collapsed and lay still as a boulder. The dogs went mad, circling the kill, but the men only climbed leisurely off their horses and shook hands with one another.
Drawing back a couple of inches, Walt squinted at the man who had killed the hog. Despite the graininess of the image, he was pretty sure that man was Forrest Knox.
Walt nodded slowly, recognizing that they were up against a certain kind of man. There was nothing illegal about hunting hogs with spears. Some crazy sons of bitches hunted them with knives, leaping out of trees to make the kill. From somewhere deep in his memory, the word atlatl rose in Walt’s mind. That was what the old-time hunters called the tool that normally hurled the spear Knox had used during the hunt.
He clicked on the last video in the folder. Compared to the hunting footage, the final video was about as exciting as a television test pattern. It showed a small house in the dark, and it appeared to have been shot through a telephoto lens. Unlike the hunting film, this video had sound. Walt heard human breathing, as if the man shooting the film was breathing right into the microphone. As Walt stared at the screen, he noticed it was raining. Unlike Hollywood rain, these drops were difficult to see.
Nothing else happened. The rain continued to fall, and the cameraman kept breathing. Just as Walt was about to switch off the video, he realized that there were numerical markings superimposed over the scene. They were range markings. While he tried to figure this out, the front door of the little house opened and three young black men walked out. Two were carrying a box, while the third carried a semiautomatic rifle, a CAR-15. As the men walked, Walt realized there was water lapping around their feet.
What the hell . . . ?
“Target visible,” said a voice with a Cajun accent, and Walt nearly jumped out of his skin. “Two hundred twenty-one meters.”
“Acquiring,” said a second voice, as cool as a fighter pilot’s. “Target acquired.”
On-screen, the three black men—oblivious to the camera—moved toward an SUV parked next to the house. The one with the carbine unlocked the rear hatch of the SUV. Walt recognized a high-tech scale sitting on the box in the other men’s hands. The kind of scale used by high-volume drug dealers.
“Cleared to engage,” said a third voice. “Engage when ready.”
The breathing stopped.
The flat crack of a supersonic bullet told Walt that a rifle had been fired. A silencer had muted the muzzle blast, but the exploding head on-screen relegated that thought to something he would only recall later.
“Reacquiring,” said the shooter.
“Fire at will,” said the second voice.
The two young men carrying the box had whipped their heads around at the sound of the crack, but they had no idea what had happened. By the time they looked down and saw their companion lying facedown in the water, the shooter had fired again. A second man shuddered, then staggered back and fell into the black water.
The third man dropped his end of the box and ran for the driver’s door of the SUV. Walt expected a flurry of shots, but none came. The SUV backed up with frantic speed. As the driver stopped to shift from Reverse into Drive, a third bullet shattered his window and blasted half his head across the passenger seat.
“Targets neutralized,” said the emotionless voice.
“Thirty points,” said the third voice. “Outstanding.”
The picture froze, and the sound stopped.
Walt sat staring at the screen, his heart pumping like a fist squeezing his trachea. What had he just seen? His gut told him military or police snipers operating during Hurricane Katrina, but he had no way to be sure. As his mind whirled in confusion, he heard a noise from the interior of the house.
