A few steps more, then Brody pauses before a cabinet at the end of the row, one wider than the rest. Despite its size, this case holds only two weapons: civilian hunting rifles, by the look of them. Below the rifles sits a large empty shelf with a plaque that reads: FLAMMENWERFER 41. ST. VITH. DECEMBER 1944.

“Do you know what you’re looking at?” Brody asks, his voice oddly hushed.

Leaning forward to read the plaques beneath the rifles, I freeze, barely breathing. The first reads, November 22, 1963. The second: April 4, 1968. Juxtaposed in this setting, those two dates blow what coherence I’ve regained to smithereens. Yet out of the resulting chaos bounces Henry’s tale of Snake Knox claiming to have killed Martin Luther King, and my father’s story of being trapped on the fishing boat with Brody Royal and the drunk CIA man who kept cursing about the botched job in Dallas. Caitlin’s gaze presses on my right cheek, silently asking if these weapons could be authentic. Unwilling to give Brody the satisfaction of seeing my distress, I straighten and turn to him as I would to a fool who’d paid top dollar for lead bricks painted gold.

“How much did you give the Knoxes for these fakes?” I ask. “Not much, I hope.”

The steady certainty in Royal’s eyes rattles me, and he knows it. In his mind, at least, these rifles are the genuine article.

As Caitlin straightens up, I try to catch her eyes, but she’s whipped her head toward the staircase by which we entered. Two strangers have entered the room. They’re better dressed than our van crew, and walk with distinctly military bearing. Each carries what looks to be a heavy banker’s box. The sight hardly affects me, but Caitlin looks as though someone just gut-punched her. Behind us, Brody Royal chuckles softly.

“You obviously recognize those boxes. Take those into the firing range, Chalmers. Then deal with the mayor’s car and our Natchez PD officer as quickly as possible.”

Both men walk quickly to the door on the far right, then disappear through it. “What’s in the boxes?” I ask.

“Henry Sexton’s backup files and notebooks.” Brody smiles with triumph. “Another excellent return on my investment at the Examiner. Now, no matter what the paper might print, no one will be able to substantiate the stories. And the FBI will never see them.”

Behind me, Regan says, “The Examiner’s scanned copies of those files are being systematically erased as we speak.”

Caitlin’s face now has the blankness of a condemned prisoner. She looks like she could scarcely string two thoughts together; I can hardly credit that she made the crack about Royal’s bootlegging past only seconds ago.