“Don’t mean they ain’t looking for us. And that station’s a level-one terrorist target. There’re probably fifty cameras around it, and every one wired to the NSA.”

“Why?”

“If somebody blew that that dam at high water, it would change the course of the Mississippi by a hundred miles. In ninety days, New Orleans would be a useless marsh and Baton Rouge would be screwed as a port. The stock market would crash a lot quicker than that.”

Tom looked at one of the tall control towers and realized Walt was right. Every time the Mississippi flooded, engineers worried that the river would divert through the Atchafalaya Basin and find the Gulf of Mexico by that much shorter route. Once it did, it would never return to its present course.

“Flip down your visor as we pass,” Walt said, “and don’t even look in that direction. The NSA has facial recognition software, and the FBI can run checks through their system if they want. Since Nine-Eleven, every agency is connected.”

Tom kept his face forward, looking at the fallow fields in the glow of the station’s floodlights. “Why would a state trooper be hunting for Sonny Thornfield, Walt? Was Thornfield a fugitive?”

Walt squawked a laugh. “Man, you’re thinking ass backwards. I told you, that trooper was working with the Double Eagles.”

“A state cop?” Tom said skeptically.

“State, federal, local—don’t make a spit’s worth of difference. There’s always been a thin line between the black hats and the white in this state. Do you know of any connections between the Double Eagles and the state police? Think of the Eagles you know about, one by one.”

The first thing that came into Tom’s mind was Ray Presley, dead seven years now. Ray had been a crooked cop in both New Orleans and Natchez, and he’d had shady dealings with the Double Eagles—with Brody Royal, too. Tom also seemed to remember Ray telling him something about one of the Knoxes’ sons and the state police. Frank’s son, if he remembered right. Tom only recalled this because the boy had been named after a talented Confederate general.

“I believe Frank Knox’s son may have been a state trooper at one time,” Tom said. “Ray Presley told me that.”

Walt didn’t react immediately, but after a few seconds, he turned to Tom and spoke in a taut voice. “What’s his name?”

“Nathan Bedford Forrest, believe it or not.”

“His last name is Forrest? Or Knox?”

“Knox. Nathan Bedford Forrest Knox.”

“Forrest Knox?” Walt’s jaw hung slack.

“I think so, yeah. What is it?”

“Christ, man! There’s a Forrest Knox way up in the Louisiana State Police. I think he might even be chief of the CIB now.”

“What’s the CIB?”