Near the door, he noticed a display of weapons on the wall. Most prominent in the rack were four katanas—samurai swords—that appeared to be antiques. To the right of the rack hung the framed photographs Mackiever had told him about early that morning: a Japanese officer with two Caucasian heads hanging from his belt, brandishing a samurai sword; and beside it Sergeant Frank Knox beheading the same officer, who knelt like a slave at his feet. Walt suspected that one of the swords on the wall was the one from the photos, but he didn’t waste time finding out.
Beyond the door, Walt found an office containing an antique desk that might have belonged to Teddy Roosevelt. The room’s appointments also seemed to fit that era, but what dominated the room was a massive feral hog stuffed and mounted on a polished stand against the wall opposite the desk. Walt had hoped to find filing cabinets, or even a safe, but he saw nothing like that. Taking a seat in the black leather chair behind the desk, he quickly went through the drawers. He found little: some ledgers pertaining to Billy Knox’s legitimate business interests, particularly a television program about hunting; a messy drawer filled with pens and office supplies; a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon; a few tins of Skoal; and a box of Cuban cigars. There was also a letter from Jimmy Buffett’s management company, expressing doubt that their artist could perform for a private birthday party in Mississippi, regardless of the fee.
Walt was about to get up and start working his way through the rest of the lodge when he noticed that a rectangular section of the floor beneath him was lighter than the rest. Standing, he looked down, trying to work out why this was so. It appeared that the hardwood around the rectangle had been darkened by sunlight, while the rectangle had escaped this aging, as though a rug had covered it for a long period. As he stared, Walt realized that the rectangle was exactly the size of the base upon which the big razorback had been mounted—which now stood on the opposite side of the office.
Kneeling, Walt found a small hole in one plank that went right through the floor. The hole was smaller than his little finger. He searched the desk again until he found what he hoped for, a metal rod with a hook on one end. Inserting this hook in the hole, he lifted a concealed trapdoor about two by three feet wide. His heart began to pound when he saw what lay beneath: two heavy floor safes with combination locks set in their faces.
He was gauging his chances of breaking into those safes when the rumble of a low-flying airplane sounded over the lodge. After twenty seconds it faded, then returned, though at diminished volume. Walt’s heartbeat had just about returned to normal when he heard the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter approaching. This was a different engine. The rotor-driven craft flew directly over the lodge, then hovered and began to land in the clearing outside. With no time to flee the building, Walt dropped the trapdoor, replaced the hook in the desk, and ran for the staircase in the great room.
THE LAST THING BILLY Knox wanted to do while Concordia Parish was turning into a redneck version of Fallujah was return to Louisiana, especially in the company of his father. But since his cousin had sent the invitation, remaining in Texas wasn’t an option. At Forrest’s command, Snake had flown Billy and Sonny over in the Baron, while three more Double Eagles had set out from Toledo Bend by car and would arrive in five hours or so.
Snake had spent most of the flight offering theories for why his bullet hadn’t killed Henry Sexton at Mercy Hospital, all of which amounted to detailed but pathetic excuses. Only Claude Devereux’s hint that Forrest planned to retaliate for the morning’s drug busts by killing Penn Cage and his girlfriend had brightened Snake’s mood. He was furious that “that newspaper whore” had written a story claiming he’d murdered and mutilated Pooky Wilson in 1964. That Snake was in fact guilty of the crime seemed not to matter to him, but Billy had learned long ago not to demand reason from his father. While Snake went on and on, Billy had simply put on his headphones and listened to Steve Earle for the remainder of the flight.
Forrest’s Redbone enforcer had met them down at the landing strip in an SUV, then ferried them up to the lodge. Now they trooped into the great room like GIs summoned to a pre-mission briefing. Billy had never served in the military, but everybody else had, and there was no mistaking the martial air of this meeting. Snake made quite a thing of laying his rifle case on the coffee table, as though it held some ceremonial weapon about to be consecrated.
Forrest straddled a heavy wooden chair at the center of the room, facing the sofas and club chairs. Ozan played waiter and got everybody their preference in alcohol, but even before it arrived, Snake launched into a monologue on the ways he might remove the human threats to their organization. Forrest let Snake run, but Billy hardly looked at his father. He sensed that Forrest had something very different in mind. Finally, after a couple of shots of bourbon, even Snake began to sense something amiss. When he finally stopped talking, everyone sat in awkward silence, which was unusual at Valhalla, where family members and Double Eagles had always felt completely at home.
Forrest looked at each man in turn: Billy, Sonny, and finally Snake. Then he began to speak, softly but with absolute authority, as if it were understood that no one would interrupt him. This was no mean feat when Snake and Sonny were a generation older than he. Billy could never have pulled this off without his father butting in, but Forrest was different. He always had been.
“We’re under attack from at least four different directions,” he began, “and probably more. The FBI is after us, both for what the Double Eagles did back in the day and for our current operations. The Masters girl is trying to crucify us with her newspaper. Penn Cage wants us because of the threat to his father. And Walker Dennis wants revenge for the cousin he lost a couple of years back. To that you can add a whole department that wants blood because of the deputies that died from the bomb in the warehouse this morning.”