The Bone Tree (Penn Cage #5) - Greg Iles Page 0,5

of that, Jordan.”

His wife gave him a look of infinite reproof. “I was sure.”

Kaiser endured her gaze as long as he could, out of penance, but then he turned to his techs and said, “Wake everybody up, and I mean everybody. We’ve got to find Henry Sexton ASAP.”

“The Double Eagles murdered the woman he loved earlier this evening,” Jordan said. “They were gunning for him, and she died in his place. Whoever Henry thinks did that, he’s going to kill them.”

Kaiser couldn’t believe this. “Henry is the most mild-mannered guy I’ve met in all this.”

“Everybody has a breaking point, John. You know that.”

As Jordan turned to leave, half a dozen phones began to ring.

WEDNESDAY

CHAPTER 1

TONIGHT DEATH AND time showed me their true faces.

We spend our lives plodding blindly through the slaughterhouse gate between past and future. Every second is annihilation: the death of this moment, the birth of this moment. There is no “next” moment.

There is only now.

While the pace of life seems stately in the living, we funnel through that gate like driven cattle, fearful, obedient, insensate. Even while we sleep, now becomes then as relentlessly as a river wearing away a rock. Cells burn oxygen, repair proteins, die, and replace themselves in a seemingly endless train: yet from the womb, those internal clocks are winding down to final disorder.

Only in the shadow of death do we sense the true velocity of time—while adrenaline blasts through our systems, eternity becomes tangible and all else blurs into background. It is then, paradoxically, that seconds seem to stretch, experience becomes hyper-real, and flesh and spirit unite in the battle to remain breathing, conscious, aware—afloat in the rushing stream of time. If we survive the threat, our existential epiphany quickly fades, for we cannot bear it long. Yet somewhere within us, a dividing line remains.

Before and after.

Tonight time slowed down so much I could taste it like copper on my tongue. I felt it against my skin—dense and heavy—resisting every move. Mortality hovered at my shoulder, a watchful beast of prey. Chained to a cinder-block wall, I watched a man older than my father torture the woman I love with fire. I realized then that hell existed; the terrible irony was that I had created it. In arrogance, against the counsel of others, I’d wagered all I had and more—the lives of others—to try to save my father. In desperation, I cast away every principle he ever taught me and reached into the darkness in the hope of a bargain.

What did I get in exchange for my soul?

A pillar of fire roaring in the night. The pyre of three men, probably more, visible for miles across the flat Louisiana Delta. Probably even from Mississippi. Not far to the east, my town sleeps along the high ground above the river, but here all sense, all logic is suspended while the fire devours the dead. Two of those men gave their lives for Caitlin and me. Henry Sexton, reporter. Sleepy Johnston, musician and prodigal son of Louisiana. One a white man, one black. Allies by chance, or maybe fate. Either way, they’re gone forever.

Through the slaughterhouse gate.

I’ve never witnessed such brutality as that which preceded their deaths, nor such heroism as was displayed in their sacrifices. Yet all I can taste is ashes. Three months ago I felt a lot like this, as a flood of biblical scale swept over New Orleans, the only real city between the Gulf and Memphis. Three hours south of here, hazmat-suited crews are still dragging bodies from mildewed houses. That disaster, like this one, had human causes. Greed, apathy, hubris—even loyalty—all demand payment in the end. Storms will always come, and men will always do evil in the shadow of some other word.

It’s how we respond that defines us.

A FEW MINUTES AGO, gripped by a mad delusion of invincibility, I carried Sleepy Johnston out of the basement inferno where this fire was born, and not once while I staggered through the smoke and flames did I doubt I would reach the surface. I hauled a man nearly my own weight as easily as I would have carried my eleven-year-old daughter—but to no avail. Two minutes after I laid him on the ground, Johnston died of his injuries. Now he lies a few yards behind us, staring sightlessly at the smoke-obscured stars.

I did not pray while Caitlin knelt to ease his passing. Anything I said would have been superfluous, for if any God exists, he must surely fold such