Carl didn’t look wild about this idea. He did not want to have to explain to Penn that he’d let her go searching for the Bone Tree with only Jordan and an old man to protect her. “It’d take too long to find Mose.”
“No, it won’t,” Danny said from the cockpit. “He keeps a two-way radio with him for emergencies. I can call him right now. If Mose answers, I can set down on a little tussock, and you can hop right into his boat.”
“Great,” Carl muttered.
FIVE MINUTES LATER, DANNY McDavitt flared the chopper and settled his skids onto a little hummock of earth at the center of a big black pool. Mose Tyler stood his boat off at a safe distance while the JetRanger’s rotors buffeted the mirrored surface into a stinging hail of icy droplets.
As they prepared to exit the chopper, Carl said, “I don’t think Penn will appreciate me dropping you two into this swamp with only Mose Tyler for protection.”
“Penn’s not in charge of this hunt,” Caitlin told him. “I am. And we’re both carrying guns.”
“Show me.”
Caitlin reached into her bag and pulled out the 9 mm Springfield Penn had bought her a month earlier.
“You know how to use that?”
“Yep. Dr. Cage taught me.”
Carl looked at Jordan. “I guess you’re an expert with that nine mil I saw earlier?”
Jordan smiled. “I hit what I aim at.”
“Well, then. I guess you two can handle anything but a platoon-sized assault. But I’m still going to give you one of our departmental walkie-talkies. About all you can do with your cell phone down here is play games on it, or run down the battery while it pings for a tower every minute.”
“I’ve gotten a couple of bars down here before,” Danny interjected. “Depends on where you are, weather conditions, who your carrier is, a lot of things. Leave them on just in case.”
“In case of what?” Jordan asked. “In case we find ourselves in a Deliverance-type situation?”
Carl laughed appreciatively. “I’ve got a feeling you could handle that just fine.”
Jordan jumped out of the chopper, and Caitlin followed. The shock of the ground jolted her bones, but she managed to keep her feet. As Danny lifted off and beat away toward the west, Caitlin waved for Mose Tyler to bring his boat in.
CHAPTER 57
STANDING OUTSIDE THE room where John Kaiser probes in vain at Snake Knox, I try to maintain my composure in the face of a painful reality: yesterday, when Caitlin made love to me at my house on Washington Street, she did not do it out of desire, but because I had raised the possibility of sending Stone and Kaiser in search of the Bone Tree. Instead of answering me, she removed her pants and made sure that my newest brainstorm evaporated quickly and completely. She knew then that she planned to spend today searching the Lusahatcha Swamp, and she would only be doing that if she had a lead on the Bone Tree that she didn’t tell me about. I suppose I can’t resent this, since I’ve held back most of the Kennedy information, but the idea that she could—and did—manipulate me so easily is more than a little troubling. It begs the question, how many times has she done that before?
Taking a deep breath, I open the door to the interrogation room, walk through, and become part of the movie being recorded on the video camera’s cassette.
“Hello, Snake,” I say amicably.
Knox looks over at me with the flattened lips of a smile, but his eyes are ice cold. “Well, well, Mayor Cage is in the house. You look more like your daddy every year. Minus the beard, of course.”
Kaiser glares at me, waiting for an explanation of my interruption.
Now that I’m physically in the room with Snake, it’s difficult to remember that our real target is Sonny Thornfield. Because this smug bastard clearly knows everything we want to know. He knows where my father is, at this moment. He knows who killed Viola Turner. He knows who murdered all those civil rights victims, because he was there himself when most of them died. He may even know who really killed John Kennedy.
But he’s never going to tell us.
Ignoring Snake’s chatter, I motion for Kaiser to follow me outside so I can tell him about Jordan and Caitlin’s airborne adventure. When he hesitates, Snake says, “Did you hear Mister Kaiser say he thinks my crew killed President Kennedy? I think he’s angling for a book deal, Mayor. Can you help him out any?”
“I can probably get you one, Snake. But you’d better write it quick. You can’t keep the profits from a book written in prison.”
Kaiser follows me into the hall and shuts the door behind us.
“This better be serious,” he says. “Don’t tell me Claude Devereux has shown up to spring the Eagles?”
“No. But you’re not going to like this. Jordan isn’t on her way to New Orleans right now.”
Kaiser tenses himself for bad news. “Where is she?”
“She and Caitlin sneaked down to Lusahatcha County to hunt for the goddamned Bone Tree. They’re flying around in a chopper with two guys I know.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“You know I’m not. Don’t worry, these guys are deputies. Carl Sims is a former marine sniper, and Danny McDavitt was a decorated chopper pilot in Vietnam.”
Kaiser shakes his head in exasperation. “I had a feeling she was up to something, but she played it damned cool.”
“Same here. Well . . . now that you know, why don’t you get back in there and finish up with that asshole so you can move on to Sonny Thornfield?”
“I will. But remember what I said: I can’t rush it with Snake. Every minute I spend with him buys me another minute with Sonny. I’m going to spend at least fifty more minutes with him.”
I try to look downcast, and it works.
“I’m sorry, Penn. I know you want your father home. But you know a plea bargain is a slow process.”
I nod. “Yeah, I get it.”
The FBI agent pats me on the shoulder. “Thanks for telling me about Jordan. Snake got to me a little with that threat.”
“I saw.”
Kaiser clucks his tongue. “That means Snake saw, too.”