moved to the side, and a highway patrol car passed them and swung through a U-turn. Virgil reached over and clicked on his own flashers, front and back, and when the cop stopped behind them, Jenkins started to get out and the patrolman yelled, “Stay in the car, sir.”

Virgil was done with Coakley, clicked off, and clicked through on his speed dial to the duty officer at the BCA: “We might want to borrow a highway patrolman for a heavy-duty issue in Homestead,” he said. “I’ll get you the guy’s name in a minute. Can you make the connection?”

“Give me the name,” the duty officer said.

The patrolman shined a flashlight in the back window of the truck, saw the two naked M16s on the floor, and Jenkins stuck his hand out the window with his ID and said, “BCA. We’re on an emergency run to Homestead.”

The cop eased up and took the ID, and Virgil said, “We’re calling the patrol headquarters right now. We may need to take you with us.”

Now the cop came to the window. “What do you mean, take me with you? I was going home for dinner.”

“That may have to wait,” Virgil said. “We’re on our way to Homestead, and we’re gonna need some help.”

“Ah, for cripes sakes, what are you guys up to? Driving near ninety miles per in a fifty-five . . . Are you that fuckin’ Flowers?”

Virgil said, “That’s me. And hey, give Jenkins a ticket if you want. You can write it up on the way, would be better—but you’ll be getting a call.”

He got the cop’s name, Andersson, with two s’s, called it in, and Andersson, who walked back to his own car, got a call, talked for a moment, then walked back. “Well, I guess I’m going with you. If we’re going fast—”

At that moment, Brown and Schickel came screaming over the hill, at ninety per. The driver saw their lights and as Andersson shouted, “Holy shit,” they swerved to the side of the road a hundred yards ahead. “More of us,” Virgil called to him. “Take the lead. We’ll be right behind. We’re in a hurry. Go. Go.”

WHEN THEY WERE back on the road, Jenkins said, “Thanks a lot, asshole. You think he’s really going to give me a ticket?”

“Depends on how bad he wanted to get home for dinner,” Virgil said. “We’ll keep him occupied, maybe he’ll forget. But nah . . . he wouldn’t do that.”

“Had a mean voice,” Jenkins said.

Virgil got himself patched through to the highway patrol car and asked Andersson to call in to patrol headquarters and see if they could get more patrolmen to rendezvous at the Warren County sheriff’s office.

“What the hell is going on?” Andersson asked.

“We’re busting the biggest child sex ring in the history of the state,” Virgil said. “You’re gonna be a highway patrol folk hero.”

Jenkins started to laugh, and Andersson, maybe pissed, but maybe not, took them up close to a hundred and held them there, and they flashed through the night, heading south and then west.

19

Virgil said, “Go,” and Coakley put down the phone and called the judge: “I’m bringing the search warrant over right now.”

“So it’s true. I hoped it wasn’t,” he said.

“It’s true. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

The judge’s house was five minutes away, but she took five minutes to call in the patrol deputies. Three were already off-duty, two were working, in their cars, and Schickel was with Virgil. Not that much to work with, if there were a hundred families involved in the World of Spirit. Brown had loaned her two city officers, and she called them, and then called the sheriffs of Martin and Jackson counties, with whom Warren County had co-op agreements, to tell them that extra jail space might be needed.

Beau Harrison, from Martin, asked, “What the hell you up to over there? Border Patrol stuff?”

“Worse than that, Beau,” Coakley said. “I’ll tell you about it if we need the space. We don’t know how this will work out yet.”

THE JUDGE WAS SITTING in his kitchen, drinking orange juice and talking to his wife, while his wife played a game of Scrabble solitaire. Coakley knocked on the door, said, “Good evening, John,” when the judge answered, and “Hi, Doris,” to his wife, and gave the judge the papers. He looked them over, said, “Bless me—I hope you don’t find any of this stuff. I wouldn’t want to have a trial like this in my court. Murder, yes. Child sexual