Free The Bone Tree by Greg Iles Page A

killed to keep quiet (one day too late, apparently). To effectively fight these tactics, Forrest needed full control of the state police. Only then could he take over the investigation into the sniper attack on Henry Sexton—which he himself had ordered—and sandbag the FBI’s efforts to solve the old Double Eagle murders.
    Since Griffith Mackiever was virtually incorruptible, Forrest had chosen a tactic calculated to hit the man in the only place he was vulnerable. It was a dirty business, and Forrest would never forget the old man’s face after he’d seen the strangling net of false evidence Forrest had meticulously woven together while Mackiever had been working so ineptly to nail him. Only a supreme effort had allowed the old man to choke back tears. An ex–Texas Ranger, Mackiever had worked in law enforcement long enough to know that there were certain kinds of accusations from which no man ever recovered, regardless of what facts emerged in the wake of the initial smear. Forrest had given him forty-eight hours to resign, and he felt sure the old man would cave by midday tomorrow. If he didn’t, Forrest had no problem pulling the trigger and destroying the man’s career—and his personal life along with it.
    Now that he’d moved against Mackiever, Forrest’s immediate concern was finishing off Henry Sexton. Forrest could never have imagined that Snake Knox—a trained combat sniper in his youth—would miss Sexton and kill his girlfriend by mistake. The simple truth was, Snake and the other Eagles were getting too old for the work they were doing. That was why Morehouse had cracked: he was dying of cancer and scared shitless. He’d wanted to clean his conscience before he faced his maker. After Snake missed his shot at Mercy Hospital in Ferriday, the FBI had moved Sexton to a windowless hospital room under Bureau guard. Getting to him there would not be easy. But it had to be done.Sexton had spent at least an hour speaking to Glenn Morehouse in person, and then again later on the telephone, and Morehouse had known more than enough to send not only his fellow Double Eagles, but also Forrest himself, to Angola Prison for the rest of their lives, and possibly even to death row.
    Forrest also needed to know how much information Sexton had confided to Caitlin Masters, the publisher of the Natchez Examiner . The two were competitors and normally would not cooperate on a story. But Forrest worried that with Henry wounded and out of commission, he might have passed what he knew to the girl in order to hit the Eagles as hard and as fast as possible. And no mole, no matter how well placed, could tell Forrest what was inside the girl’s head.
    WHEN THE POINTED TOWER of the state capitol appeared in the distance, Forrest switched on the encrypted cell phone he’d been using to communicate with Alphonse Ozan. Yesterday he’d ordered Billy’s drug organization to begin using “Al Qaeda rules,” which meant no electronic contact, only face-to-face meetings. But that wasn’t practical for the man sitting at the top of the pyramid. Forrest felt reasonably confident that the FBI didn’t know about his satellite phone, but he had occasional nightmares about the NSA and their automated intelligence-collection algorithms. He decided to wait until he reached headquarters to talk to Ozan.
    The instant his phone found a satellite, it began to ring. As the LED read out Alphonse Ozan’s number, the hair on Forrest’s arms stood erect. Ozan should not be calling him. He had no idea what the trouble might be, but the odds were, it involved Concordia Parish. Instinct told Forrest he was behind the curve of events, and that was never a good place to be.
    “What’s happened?” he asked, holding the phone to his head.
    “Colonel, I’ve been trying to reach you,” said Ozan, sounding rattled. “Are you okay?”
    “Of course. I’ve been following the goddamned rules. You ought to try it.”
    “I couldn’t wait. We’ve got