“Stick to what you know best,” she said. “Your AR-15 will be more than adequate.” She turned to Whitman, handed him two small black squares. “Incendiary phosphoric compound of my own design. That white fire will melt any and every metal up to titanium. Just make sure you’re at least fifty yards away when you set them off with this.” She held out a wireless ignition no bigger than his thumbnail. “So you’re up first.”

As they headed down the far side of the hill, Whitman held Charlie back for a moment. “Listen, I’m not a bad man,” he said.

She stared at him, unblinking.

“I just meet bad men.”

Charlie pushed past him without giving any sign that she had heard him.

*   *   *

Luther St. Vincent, on his way to visit Lucy at Mary Immaculate, drove his own car, even though one of his many perks was an armored government vehicle and driver of his choice. St. Vincent loved to drive; he did not like to be driven. When he was behind the wheel, he was reminded of the low, watery tracks in Louisiana, when he drove his daddy’s beloved battered pickup. He started when he was ten, tall for his age, so he could see over the steering wheel, and stringy as a field dog. He was tasked with running errands for his mother—a well-known preacher woman who worked out of a waterproof muslin tent with colossal red crosses stitched to its four corners. The tent was erected and struck by his mother’s crew of acolytes—her inner circle, as she called them—brawny men with flexed muscles and concrete jaws who believed in God. Luther was convinced they believed in her more. She was a striking woman with dark eyes and long hair like living flames. When she preached no one sat. Everyone was on their feet, clapping, stomping, and praising God at her command. Afterward, in the darkness of her trailer with the curtains drawn, she gave other commands to the men of her inner circle—all seven of them—in ones and twos. As insatiable as she was in her proselytizing, she was just as insatiable in her frantic fucking. You couldn’t call it lovemaking—not from the glimpses the young and impressionable Luther saw.

Until he was older, he didn’t know if his father knew and, if he did, couldn’t understand how he allowed her this unbridled freedom. There came a time, however, when he got the grasp of economics, and realized that the products of his father’s farm did not come near enough to paying the family’s fare in life. His father needed his mother for her income, just as she needed him for the legitimacy of a husband and children.