“Guy’s definitely out of town,” Ike declares. “Nobody around here uses shit like this. Caliber looks awful small.”

“It’s a special twenty-two magnum. Chambers subsonic rounds. An assassin’s gun.”

“Christ,” I whisper. “Where’s the other guy?”

Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse, then starts down the slope.

The second corpse is lying facedown in a thicket of weeds, dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. There’s a red bandanna knotted around its head.

Ike bends down and pulls a rifle from the dead hand. “An old Remington thirty-aught-six. Seen better days too.”

Kelly says, “The shooter on the levee probably saw him moving up to get a shot. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.”

Ike puts both hands under the corpse and rolls it over. Below the dead man’s left eye is a small black hole. Small but obviously fatal.

“I’ve seen a hundred shitkickers just like him,” says Ike. “But I don’t know this one.”

As I stare, the slack features suddenly coalesce into a coherent whole, and a feverish heat shoots through me. The dead man is a nightmare made flesh, a physical echo of the most terrifying night of my life.

“I know him,” I say, grabbing Ike’s arm.

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Hanratty. I convicted his brother of capital murder. He was just executed.”

“I’ll be damned. That Aryan Brotherhood bastard?”

“Right. I also shot his other brother four years ago.”

“No shit,” says Kelly, with respect mingled with surprise.

“This one was the last.” The fever heat has disappeared, leaving a chill in its wake. “The youngest.”

Ike kicks the corpse’s leg. “No more boom-boom for this Aryan papasan.”

He kneels and starts going through the dead man’s pockets, quickly turning up a wallet. “Hanratty, Clovis Dee,” he says, reading the driver’s license.

“Brother of Arthur Lee,” I say absurdly.

“And white people make fun of African names,” Ike mutters, getting to his feet. “ ’Least we know what happened now. This shitkicker was out for revenge, and he picked the wrong night to try it. He was crowding that ninja assassin up on the levee, and he paid for it. The question is, who sent the assassin?”

“Portman?” I suggest. “The hardware looked pretty sophisticated.”

“John Portman would definitely have access to people like that,” Kelly says quietly. “Retired Bureau. Agency. Former CT operators.” He looks at Ike. “In any case, I hope you appreciate this enough to take care of any problems that might arise.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Ike replies. “We’re in the county here. Me and the sheriff understand each other. Although three killings in one day is big-time trouble for this town.”

“The district attorney could be a problem,” I tell them, thinking of Austin Mackey.

“Fuck that tightass,” Ike mutters. “We got three witnesses telling it one way, dead guys got nobody. Mackey got no choice.”