The cell phone in the old man’s hand pinged. He peered at the LCD and his face went blotchy with panic. “Wilma’s down at the end of the road! Her dog got loose while she was gone, and she’s trying to get him into her truck. She’ll be here any minute!”

Henry wanted to push the old man to the wall, but if he did, he’d never get another interview with him. “I’ll go. But only if you’ll call me later.”

“It’s too late!” Morehouse wailed. “You can’t get out without her seeing you now!”

Henry thought about the topography outside the house. “Are you sure there’s no other way out? I came in a four-wheel drive.”

Relief washed over the old man’s face. “Drive right through the ditch at this end of the road, then head for the tree line. Park behind the trees until you see Wilma come in. Then you can work your way east toward the river. There’s a dirt track over that way that’ll get you to the levee road. But you gotta go now.”

Henry stuffed his Moleskine in his pocket and trotted to the door. “If you don’t call me before midnight, I’m coming back here.”

“I will, if I can. Otherwise tomorrow. Go!”

Henry opened the door and glanced up the gravel road. Seeing no vehicles, he ran to his Explorer. Ten seconds later he was nose-down in a ravine, fighting mud and gravity. With a lurch the Explorer slammed to a stop. For thirty awful seconds, his worn tires spun and whined in vain, and Henry sweated like he was being chased by a demon, not a leather-faced old woman. As his heart thundered in his chest, he realized that what he’d heard during the past hour had altered his life forever, as it would soon alter the world. He hadn’t even begun to process all that Morehouse had told him. Henry was no conspiracy theorist; he was the opposite, in fact. But the look in Morehouse’s eyes when he’d asked about Snake Knox and Martin Luther King had sunk into the marrow of Henry’s bones. With a squawk and a stink of burning rubber, the tires finally caught and carried Henry over the lip of the ditch. After one last glance at his rearview mirror, he gunned his motor and made for the tree line across the empty field.

CHAPTER 13