I shake his hand, and we start back toward the FBI vehicles. Before we’ve taken ten steps, a rush of anticipation floods through me. Thanks to Kaiser’s link to the NSA, my plan to shake the tree in the Royal camp is back on.

“How soon can you be monitoring Royal and Regan?” I ask.

“One phone call. I’ll make it now, if you like.”

“Please.”

He takes out his cell phone and speed-dials a number. I need to find Randall Regan, fast. As we trudge through the mud beside the disappearing Jericho Hole, Kaiser begins talking, and the rhythmic pounding of the colossal pumps reverberates through the earth like a great beating heart.

CHAPTER 66

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER Forrest Knox and Alphonse Ozan left the Yacht Club, a Eurocopter AS350 from the state police Air Support Unit set down at Lakefront Airport and took the CIB chief and his adjutant into its belly. Then the chopper lifted off and stormed up the Mississippi River with Forrest sitting in the left seat and Alphonse Ozan behind him. Knox and Ozan were linked by a special interphone circuit that could exclude the pilot at the touch of a button, and Forrest had made liberal use of this convenience on the way up. Ozan had already learned that a “silver RV-style van” had been seen near Sonny Thornfield’s fishing camp last night, shortly before Trooper Dunn requested a position trace on Sonny’s cell phone.

The Roadtrek van was almost certainly the 2005 Anniversary Edition registered to one Walter Garrity, a retired Texas Ranger and former combat medic who’d served in the same unit as Tom Cage during the Korean War. According to state police records, two months ago Garrity had assisted Penn Cage in his battle to break up a gambling and dogfighting operation in Adams County and Concordia Parish. Garrity’s name had appeared in several LSP reports at the time, and Forrest figured Colonel Mackiever—himself a former Ranger—probably knew Garrity, even if they weren’t personal friends. While some men in Forrest’s position might consider this possible connection a problem, Forrest was elated. If a friend of his boss had helped someone jump bail and killed a state trooper, that was bound to offer some unique opportunities.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” said the pilot, breaking into Forrest’s circuit. “I think I see the cruiser.”

Forrest followed the line of the levee with his eyes until he saw what the pilot did. Two SUVs with light bars were parked fifty yards from the borrow pit, while a white state police car with its trunk open stood much nearer to the water.

“Who the hell told the locals about this?” Forrest snapped.

“Some fisherman probably drove up on the scene,” said Ozan. “Hell, it’s their parish.”

“They’d better keep that crime scene pristine!”

“Set her down between those sheriff’s cars and our cruiser,” Forrest ordered the pilot.