“You missed the wire, Randall. The Bureau’s got a whole new bag of tricks since Nine-Eleven. You couldn’t find this bug in a week. They call it the ‘tick.’”

He lunges forward, meaning to strip-search me, but as his right hand comes up, I drive my fist deep beneath his chin, hard into his Adam’s apple. Nothing cracks, but Regan reels backward, both hands flying to his throat. His eyes bulge when he hits the wall, and his mouth gapes while he slides down it. With one blow I’ve scrambled his cerebral cortex, as he did mine. Desperately clutching his throat, he sits heavily on the floor, looking like nothing so much as an actor trying to pantomime choking to death.

Strangely, my lawyer’s mind tallies up the charges this assault could expose me to, up to and including murder. But I’m not a lawyer now. I’m a father. A father and a son. Randall Regan threatened my family, and he meant what he said. He assaulted me first. For a couple of seconds I consider calling 911, but that would trigger too many questions. Besides, if his larynx is just bruised, and he lives, I want him out on the street calling his father-in-law, not stuck in a police station explaining this fight to local cops.

A high-pitched wheeze tells me that at least some oxygen is reaching his lungs, and therefore his brain. Otherwise he’d already be blue. Though it costs me blinding back pain, I kneel in front of him and speak close to his ear, as he did in mine.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re dealing with a lawyer, Randall. Or a mayor, or a writer. If you ever come near me or my family, I’ll kill you. And if you kill me first, then a friend of mine will square it. He eats assholes like you for breakfast, and he’ll square it if it takes ten years. You hear me?”

Regan still can’t speak.

Using the sink, I pull myself back to my feet, then walk out of the restroom and make my way through the close-packed tables to the door. Our waitress gives me a puzzled wave, and I wave back. Then I’m out in the cold wind and winter sun.

I doubt Regan is even off the bathroom floor yet, but just in case, I climb straight into my car, back up, and pull onto Carter Street, heading for the Natchez bridge. I was damned lucky back there. Regan thought he’d hurt me too badly to retaliate against him. I only pray that in the next hour or so, he and Brody Royal say enough on their phones to allow Kaiser to arrest them. Because if they don’t, he’s going to come after me. And the friend I warned him about is seven thousand miles away, in Afghanistan.

CHAPTER 68