Knox’s driveway was fifteen feet ahead.
Walt emptied his mind of doubt, then turned and walked up into the carport, through the picket gate in the breezeway, and into the domain of the now-absent pit bull. He was an old hand at B&Es, and French doors were particularly easy. With the alarm system neutralized, the dog was the only thing that could have complicated his entry. Hearing no alarm, he unlocked the door and moved quickly inside.
Walt’s initial plan had been to search the house itself, then try to break into Knox’s home computer. But as he passed the door of what appeared to be a home office, he saw something he never expected: the computer screen glowing softly, a Microsoft Word document showing.
Charging across the room, he stabbed the keyboard to keep the screen saver from popping up. If it did, a password would almost certainly be required to re-access the computer. As he stood there panting, he wondered at his good fortune. Surely Knox had not left his computer unprotected?
The wife, he thought. His wife must have used the computer right after he left. Tensing, Walt minimized Word and checked to make sure he wasn’t logged on to the wife’s account, but no—the account name was NBFKnox.
“Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Walt said softly. “Who’s your daddy, asshole?”
He sat down and began working through Knox’s file directory. His folders contained the usual stuff: work letters, tax records, to-do lists. Walt wanted to go through the e-mails, but Knox’s Gmail account required a password. Conscious that the wife might come back at any time, Walt moved on and searched for all images stored on the hard drive. Knox only had a couple of hundred photos on the computer, and Walt didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. There was some pornography, but it was typical heterosexual fare. Moving on, Walt searched for video files.
This yielded more interesting results. Knox had quite a few videos that appeared to be training films for state troopers, familiar stuff to Walt. Many dealt with shooting techniques, while others depicted SWAT instructors clearing buildings during hostage situations. Walt was nearing the end of the list when a video that looked very different expanded to fill the screen.
The grainy image showed an open dirt field with a line of trees in the distance. After about five seconds, two horses with men on their backs galloped into the frame. The men carried long spears, and they spurred their horses toward a black blob in the middle of the field. Suddenly the blob disintegrated into several animals racing in different directions.
Hogs, Walt thought.
Two more horsemen galloped on-screen, with smaller blurs running at their flanks. Dogs. From the motion of the dogs, he guessed they were pit bulls or blackmouth curs. Real hog hunters put vests on their dogs so the boars wouldn’t rip their guts out. One good rip with those tusks could easily eviscerate a dog. Walt had seen it.
The four horsemen quickly singled out the largest hog and, with the help of the dogs, began trying to hem it in. After several feints and charges that dropped one smaller dog, the big razorback cut between two horses and broke for the tree line. Just as Walt thought the hog might make it, another horseman charged from the trees and with expert skill forced the hog to check its momentum and turn 180 degrees.
By then the other horses were closing in. When the hog turned and began slashing at the dogs with its tusks, the fifth horseman drove his spear down into its ridged back, between the shoulder blades, like a matador finishing off a bull. The razorback staggered, took a few steps, then collapsed and lay still as a boulder. The dogs went mad, circling the kill, but the men only climbed leisurely off their horses and shook hands with one another.
Drawing back a couple of inches, Walt squinted at the man who had killed the hog. Despite the graininess of the image, he was pretty sure that man was Forrest Knox.
Walt nodded slowly, recognizing that they were up against a certain kind of man. There was nothing illegal about hunting hogs with spears. Some crazy sons of bitches hunted them with knives, leaping out of trees to make the kill. From somewhere deep in his memory, the word atlatl rose in Walt’s mind. That was what the old-time hunters called the tool that normally hurled the spear Knox had used during the hunt.
He clicked on the last video in the folder. Compared to the hunting footage, the final video was about as exciting as a television test pattern. It showed a small house in the dark, and it appeared to have been shot through a telephoto lens. Unlike the hunting film, this video had sound. Walt heard human breathing, as if the man shooting the film was breathing right into the microphone. As Walt stared at the screen, he noticed it was raining. Unlike Hollywood rain, these drops were difficult to see.
Nothing else happened. The rain continued to fall, and the cameraman kept breathing. Just as Walt was about to switch off the video, he realized that there were numerical markings superimposed over the scene. They were range markings. While he tried to figure this out, the front door of the little house opened and three young black men walked out. Two were carrying a box, while the third carried a semiautomatic rifle, a CAR-15. As the men walked, Walt realized there was water lapping around their feet.
What the hell . . . ?
“Target visible,” said a voice with a Cajun accent, and Walt nearly jumped out of his skin. “Two hundred twenty-one meters.”
“Acquiring,” said a second voice, as cool as a fighter pilot’s. “Target acquired.”
On-screen, the three black men—oblivious to the camera—moved toward an SUV parked next to the house. The one with the carbine unlocked the rear hatch of the SUV. Walt recognized a high-tech scale sitting on the box in the other men’s hands. The kind of scale used by high-volume drug dealers.
“Cleared to engage,” said a third voice. “Engage when ready.”