“You’re asking the wrong question, buddy.”
“You’d go back in and plant it?”
The fucking thing is already planted, you amateur, Walt thought dejectedly. “I told you, this is kill or be killed. Survival.”
“How could I explain telling the team what to search for? How would I know or even suspect the gun was there?”
“Get the judge to write the warrant as generally as you can. You know how to play that game.”
Mackiever’s face told Walt that his old friend was simply overwhelmed. “Walt . . . I appreciate all you’ve done. And I’m going to take the video, get it analyzed. But trying to pin Trooper Dunn on Forrest would be just about impossible. He was nowhere near that crime. And why in God’s name would he keep the gun if it was a murder weapon?”
“Possession’s nine-tenths of being screwed,” Walt said bluntly. “You’re overthinking this.”
“You’re oversimplifying. Knox has been planning his play for months. We’re not going to beat him by improvising at the last second. For one thing, you could get caught going back in there to plant the gun.”
Walt considered telling Mackiever that the derringer was already planted, but he decided against it. “Knox is at headquarters right now. I checked the GPS before I came in.”
“His wife could walk in on you.”
“A meteor could hit the Waffle House. What’s happened to you, Mac?”
The colonel gripped his coffee mug and swirled it on the table. “The world isn’t what I thought it was. I knew things were bad, but . . . shit, forget it. What about your derringer? Is there any way they could trace it back to you?”
“No. I got it from a friend in Texas who used it as a throwdown gun for years. It’s as cold as they come.”
Mackiever considered this for close to a minute. Then he shook his head and said, “I’m not going that way. I’ve still got a couple of allies in my corner, if this porn thing doesn’t drive them away. A senator and I teach Sunday school together.”
Walt reached across the table and squeezed his old friend’s wrist. “You’re hoping for a miracle, Mac. In my experience, those are damned far between in this life.”
Mackiever stared at him in silence for a while. Then he threw a ten on the table, pocketed the flash drive, patted Walt on the shoulder, and walked out of the diner.
THE SECOND TIME TOM awakened, he saw Doris Avery’s lovely face hovering just above his own. She might be an attorney, but he saw the compassionate concern of a natural nurse in her brown eyes.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
Tom tried to say, “All right,” but his throat was parched, and all that came out was a croak.
“I brought you more water.” Doris held a straw to his lips. “How’s that shoulder?”
Tom drank several sips from the straw. After he’d finished, he said, “Not too bad, actually. I woke up earlier and took a pain pill.”
“I saw you did,” said Quentin Avery with a laugh.
Tom turned his head to the right and saw his old friend sitting in his motorized wheelchair on the other side of the coffee table.
“Couldn’t make it to the bathroom, huh?” Quentin asked, pointing at the glass on the floor.
“Sorry about that.”
The lawyer grinned. “Oh, I can relate, baby.”
“Is anything wrong?” Tom asked. “Has anything happened?”
“No. Everything’s quiet.”
Tom breathed a little easier.
“You don’t feel like you have a fever anymore,” Doris said. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat. But I don’t want to be any trouble.”
Quentin laughed heartily. “We’re way past that, old friend.”
Doris said, “How about a grilled cheese sandwich?”
Tom’s stomach growled.
“I’ll fix one,” she said, giving Quentin a meaningful look. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
“Fix two,” Quentin said.
After she left, the wheelchair hummed, and Quentin piloted it around the table until he sat near Tom’s feet. Now Tom could talk to him without having to crane his neck.
“How are you, really?” Quentin asked. “Medically speaking.”
Very carefully, Tom tried to move each of his limbs. The pain was bad, but if he didn’t have a fever, he was a lot better off than he could have been.
“My heart’s still beating. That’s about the best I could hope for.”
“And the shoulder?”
“Better than I have any right to expect.”
Quentin’s eyes filled with concern. “No shit, man. How bad is it?”
Tom forced himself to smile. “I’ll be all right. After the army, gunshots are something I know a lot about.”
“You’re not a twenty-year-old GI anymore.”
“A lot of grizzled old vets got hit in Korea. They made it.”
“Grizzled old vets of thirty-five.”
This time Tom’s smile was natural. “I treated indigenous Koreans, too. Plenty of old men survived having their legs blown off by land mines.”
“I’d still feel a lot better with you in a hospital.”
As Tom looked back at his old friend, he realized what was about to happen. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Quentin nodded slowly. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in Jackson, but that’s not the real reason. I read your future daughter-in-law’s stories in the paper when I woke up. A man named Sonny Thornfield has made a statement that he saw you and Walt Garrity kill that Louisiana state trooper.”
“That’s a lie. He didn’t see anything.”
“That’s good to know. But if the police come here and find you, I’ll lose my law license, even if I don’t go to jail. And Doris could lose hers as well. I can’t do you any good if I can’t represent you in court, Tom. And if guns are what you need to protect you, I’m betting you know men a lot better with them than I am.”