The economic incentive was enormous. The Iberville housing project alone—which stood on priceless land between the French Quarter and Tremé—would over time be worth hundreds of millions to the right developers. And the old housing authority projects weren’t the only targets. Six weeks ago, Governor Blanco had lifted the ban on evictions, and landlords lost no time using “unpaid rent” as an excuse to kick out “undesirable” tenants who had fled the city for safer ground. With New Orleans’s poorest residents relocated to other cities, black leaders had lost the heart of their constituencies. With luck, regulations would soon be passed that would focus rebuilding efforts on those areas that fell in line with the vision shared by those who would own the future. Areas like the Lower Ninth Ward would initially be left to rot, while those with immediate “gentrification” potential would be exploited by eager developers. Eventually the dead zones would be bulldozed flat and the wreckage hauled away. Sparkling new homes would rise from the ruins, homes that attracted the kind of people who knew how to work and live in harmony with each other.
But for this vision to be made real, America would have to buy into the notion that New Orleans was safe—and open for business. The NOPD was about the last agency on earth capable of accomplishing that objective. Historically, the city had always accepted a certain amount of police corruption (the French Quarter’s reputation as a den of iniquity being one of its main attractions), but since the 1970s the city had descended ever farther and faster down a slope from whence there seemed no return. By 1993 New Orleans led the nation in homicides, and its police force had become so ineffectual that the Justice Department considered federalizing it. Two years later, after four NOPD officers were charged with murder, a black female cop had executed her former partner and two Vietnamese children during an armed robbery. As the sickening details of that crime emerged, Louisianans began to realize that this sordid affair was only the tip of a submerged volcano. Yet it would be another ten years before Katrina swept in like the wrath of God and accomplished what mortal men could not.
Forrest looked back at those years as literally the antediluvian period of the city. A new future was coming, one very different from that envisioned by the black and mixed-race “leaders” who’d controlled the city’s political machine Before the Deluge. He would put none of this in his report, of course. He would cite studies by conservative think tanks and bleeding-heart liberal groups alike, all of whom agreed that the city was in danger of dying. The stinger would come in the tail of his assessment, where he would quote U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officers who’d reported that young black thugs were already returning to their old haunts, trying to stake out new turf before their rivals in the drug trade could get back to the city. You didn’t have to lay it on very thick for that kind of story to scare the living hell out of white corporate types.
Forrest’s secure cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He usually didn’t answer it while at headquarters, but with the problems back in his home parish, he felt he needed to. Sure enough, the code name on the LCD screen told him the call was from an informant in the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“What you got?” Forrest said by way of an answer.
“Mayor Penn Cage and Henry Sexton came to Walker’s office a little while ago. They had a bone with them. They said it came out of the Jericho Hole.”
Forrest felt a seismic shift, as though the floor had rumbled beneath his feet. “What was the result of their visit?”
“They got their nose bumped. I heard Sheriff Dennis yelling at them from my desk. They looked unhappy when they left, but they were talking about the FBI.”
“I see.” Forrest heard footsteps approaching his door. By the sound of them, he was about to receive a visit from the only man in the building who outranked him. “I’ll have to call you back.”
He clicked END and barely got the phone back in his pocket before Colonel Griffith Mackiever opened the door and took a seat in the chair opposite Forrest’s desk. Five foot ten, with iron-gray hair, Colonel Mackiever had the grip of a lumberjack. A former Texas Ranger, he seemed to believe he knew everything there was to know about law enforcement, and for the time being, Forrest had to act as though he agreed.
“How you coming on that report?” Mackiever asked.
“It’s slow going. But I’m making some headway.”
“I’d just as soon you slow it down some more.”
“What do you mean?”
Mackiever raised one eyebrow. “We’ve got no business trying to act as a municipal police force within New Orleans. It’s still a mess down there, but we aren’t the answer.”
“Isn’t that exactly why they need us in there, sir? We all know they’ve been fudging their crime stats for twenty years; it’s only a matter of time before the drug gangs move back in. There’s no way the NOPD is going to be able to handle them.”
Mackiever watched Forrest closely as he spoke. “Ninety-eight percent of the criminals who left are still gone,” he said, “and with the projects locked down, they haven’t got much to come back to.”
“They’ll be back, sir. Most of them went to Houston, and the Texas justice system is a whole new reality for them. They screw up over there, they get serious prison time. No … they’re coming back.”
“Well … that’s a matter to be worked out between the NOPD, the FBI, the DEA, the BATF, and the district attorney’s office. We cover the state, not New Orleans. I want your assessment to make the case for us staying out of there, and I’m going to review it as soon as you’re finished.”
“Sir, I wonder if your chief of staff wouldn’t be better suited to write this report.”
Mackiever had a strange expression where he scowled with the lower half of his face while his eyes told you he was just playing with you. He used that expression now. “I know your feelings, Knox. And I wouldn’t have chosen you for this, if it was up to me. But the governor asked specifically for your opinion, as chief of Criminal Investigations, so I’m going to give it to her.”
“My opinion?” Forrest echoed, feigning ignorance.
“That’s right. Some heavy hitters in this state seem to think you might make a good replacement for me after I retire. But until that day, I’ll treat you as any superior officer would.”
“Which means?”
“When I want your opinion, I give it to you.”
The colonel got to his feet and walked out, leaving the door open behind him.