Regan drove over the glittering shards of Henry Sexton’s rear windshield, then turned his wheel to the right and slowed the truck to a crawl. The weight and momentum of the fender shattered every inch of glass in the door, like putting a finger through a sheet of ice.

“Back up,” Brody said, reaching for his door handle.

Regan did.

“Get the Flammenwerfer.”

Regan moved quickly. He’d been practicing with the flamethrower for the past two hours, and he’d become quite adept with the heavy unit. He strapped the two cylinders on his back, then took the firing pipe in his hand and walked through the door of the newspaper office.

Brody followed him, his pulse quickening.

“Computers first?” Regan asked.

“No. We need to get his private workroom first, then work our way backward. My source tells me he calls it his ‘war room.’ If he taped Morehouse, that’s where the tape will be. Unless he had it at home.”

“War room?” said Regan, heading down a hallway. “I’ll give him his war.”

He tried a couple of doors but found only storage rooms. The third, however, opened into a small room with maps and photographs covering every wall. Brody stepped inside and whistled. He recognized most of the Double Eagles in the first few seconds. Other photos showed Dr. Robb, a Ku Klux Klan rally, and charts of various kinds.

“Pay dirt,” he said, searching for his own face among the photos taped to the wall.

“You think Forrest is gonna be okay with this?” Randall asked.

“You think I care?” Brody caught sight of his daughter’s face, tacked to the far wall. He almost crossed the room for the picture, but then he backed out of the doorway. “Burn it, Randall,” he said in a strangled voice. “Burn it all.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brody heard a clank and a hiss, followed by a roar that sent chills racing over his body. A jet of liquid flame reached out from the pipe in Regan’s hand, like Lucifer pissing fire on the world. Henry’s Sexton’s war room became an inferno, driving Brody back from the breathtaking heat.

Randall shouted with exultation at the destruction, but Brody just stared into the flames, recalling a time before he’d lost his daughter, when the life he’d always wanted still seemed possible, and his hands had held something more than money and power. Across the room, his daughter’s face curled and turned to ash. Brody stumbled back, his nostrils stinging with the petroleum reek of battle, and staggered out toward the truck.

TWO HUNDRED YARDS UP Tennessee Avenue, Sleepy Johnston sat behind the wheel of a GMC pickup, his Detroit Tigers baseball cap pulled low over his face, and stared at the truck parked against the Beacon building. Squinting through the dim light thrown off by the streetlamp, he saw a sign on the truck’s door: ROYAL OIL, INC.