As Randall Regan tests the trigger, a three-foot jet of fire spurts from the pipe in his hand, roaring like an overfilled propane barbecue grill erupting into flame. Royal motions him farther back.

Regan backs up until he’s twenty yards away from Caitlin, then squares the cylinders on his shoulders, preparing to fire. “I’m going to walk it up from the floor.”

“Try to keep it off her legs. I want her able to talk, at least, after the first blast.”

My field of vision tunnels down to Caitlin’s face: the fresh burn scar on her cheek, the abject terror in her eyes. I half expect her to faint, but after five or six seconds, she slowly lifts her right hand and holds it away from her body. As the pilot jet roars softly, I say a silent prayer: For God’s sake, give him a name, any name at all—

Regan’s finger crooks into the trigger guard.

“Gates Brown!” Caitlin screams. “His name is Gates Brown!”

After so much tension, these two simple words silence the room as surely as the arrival of a stranger.

To my surprise, Brody holds up his hand to stop Regan from firing. Caitlin is sobbing softly, like a broken woman. “Gates Brown” seems to have triggered some association in Royal’s mind, one he can’t quite place. I only pray that he’s not as big a baseball fan as John Kaiser’s radioman in Vietnam. Of course, his son-in-law might be—

“She’s lying,” Regan says. “Look at her. Let me do her, Brody. It’s the only way to know for sure.”

“Quiet,” Royal snaps, watching Caitlin with suspicion. “I remember that name, Randall. Gates Brown …”

Sweat glistens on Regan’s face. “She’s lying, I tell you!”

When Brody ignores him, Regan fires another blast downrange, filling the tunnel with a hellish flare. The burning oil flies thirty yards in the air, then hits the concrete floor and slides along it like a fiery flood until it meets the wall of rail ties.

“Goddamn it!” Brody shouts. “I said wait!”

Regan refuses to meet Brody’s eyes. “She’s not gonna tell you without the fire.”

Picking up the fire extinguisher, Brody hurries down to the wall and sprays the base of the blaze that Regan unleashed, but the foam does little to smother the napalm-like mixture. After a few more attempts, he sets down the silver canister and walks back up to Caitlin.

“Are you playing me, girl?”

“No. Gates Brown visited Henry Sexton in the hospital, and he signed the deputy’s book. The man had to show his driver’s license. I’ll bet Forrest Knox can have somebody check that.”

As Brody reaches into his pocket for his cell phone, a staccato series of bangs reverberates through the house above us. The ceiling muffles the explosions, but they’re clearly gunfire.