Chapter Fifteen
WALKER HAD CONSIDERED camping behind an abandoned two-bedroom house in the Lower Ninth to get a feel for the place.
He even tucked his van beneath the drooping arms of a weeping willow with branches that shielded him from the street.
His VW bus was well hidden, but not invisible, and in a place that looked dead but wasn’t, movement drew attention.
The slow-rolling cars, the flickers of light in otherwise dark homes were signs, territory markers.
And Walker could not shake the feeling that he might have parked on someone’s invisible line.
A gang leader’s turf. A dealer’s drop zone.
A place where strangers weren’t just noticed, they were shot.
This is a bad idea. You need a FOB, a forward operating base.
He decided to drive it at night before conducting a foot patrol.
Many of the houses that looked abandoned during the day weren’t empty.
Walker saw flashlights flickering behind boarded windows.
He witnessed fires in barrels. In some houses, he caught the dull glow of a phone screen or a lighter’s spark betraying the presence of squatters or addicts.
A few blocks had vehicle traffic, cars creeping up, idling, pulling away.
By day, the Ninth was a graveyard of broken promises. By night, it was something else, feral and alive.
The district stretched wide, hemmed in by the Mississippi to the south, a twelve-foot levee wall to the west, and swamp to the north.
Leigh Ann had managed to decode street names from Connor’s notes, but no addresses.
Walker still had ground to cover before he could pinpoint the drug houses Connor had written about, those tied to Officer Slate.
He noted white NOPD vehicles with crescent-star logos and COPE on their doors. He thought they might pull him over as the van looked out of place. He was prepared to tell them he was driving from Washington to Florida and had gotten lost without a GPS.
Having pushed his frogman luck enough for one day, he steered the van north, hugging the edge of the swamp along Florida Avenue.
He rolled over a crumbled curb, tires crunching over a broken sidewalk, and picked up a dirt track that snaked across rusted rail lines and into a patchwork of neon-green grass and stagnant brown water.
Out here, cover came easy: switchgrass towered like sentries, and shaggy gum trees leaned in like they were listening. It was just what he was looking for.
He fed Paladin and boiled water to make ramen noodles before cracking Connor’s journal and going to work, his finger tracing over the smeared pages.
Leigh Ann had already mapped out some patterns: phrases, symbols, fragments of street names. Walker suspected a Vigenère cipher, the kind that needed a key, maybe a book or phrase.
He fell asleep in the roof tent, the journal open on his chest, the swamp air drifting in through the mesh triangle of the pop-top. It might’ve been a decent sleep, the air cooled by the swamp, if Paladin hadn’t nudged him awake.
The dog was rigid, ears forward, eyes locked in silent alert. Walker knew that posture all too well. He had seen it in a hundred bivouacs across Iraq and Afghanistan.
Walker stayed still on the elevated mattress, hand on the dog’s flank. The van was locked, but the windows were cracked for airflow. He listened.
A rustle in the brush.
His first thought was wildlife. The swamp was alive after dark with animals that might be unfamiliar to Paladin.
Earlier that evening, Walker thought he had seen the glint of alligator eyes floating offshore while Paladin drank.
He had stood watch with a pistol in hand, just in case. Maybe it was an animal now. Maybe.
Then the rustle shifted and he heard a whisper. Two voices. Trying to be quiet.
Fuck.
If he killed someone, even in self-defense, he would have to answer weeks of questions, maybe even be charged with something in the process.
That would defeat his purpose for being in New Orleans.
If he could, it would be best to defuse this situation.
And if he had to kill, then he would find out if those eyes in the water really belonged to gators.
Maybe the locals did not like a strange van parked on their turf.
Their attempt at stealth and the time they chose to visit said it all—they weren’t here to talk.
Walker slipped his hand around the grip of his Glock 19 and rolled to the side, careful not to silhouette himself.
Through the mesh, he caught the silver glint of moonlight on swamp water.
Then, across Paladin’s back, he saw an old Chevy Blazer on the other side of the train tracks. Eighties-era, fat tires.
He whispered a command to Paladin, instructing him to stay still. Then, like doing a dip in a gym, he positioned his arms on the sides of the hatch and lowered himself into the van. The shift in weight made the vehicle shake.
An audible laugh from outside. “Guess he heard you. He’s up!”
A shout very close to the van. “Ay, man! Get out here! Let’s go!”
Walker pulled on his jeans so he could holster the Glock and quickly pulled on a T-shirt to conceal it. He didn’t want to kill anyone. He had done enough killing.
Walker saw the 12-gauge shotgun barrel poking through the cracked window on the driver’s side. A light shining down its barrel as the gunman scanned the inside of the van.
He spotted another gun barrel at the window on the starboard sliding door, one that belonged to an AKM. It was like seeing a ghost.
“Get the fuck outta there!” one shouted. “Come on! Move!”
They were young, mid-twenties. The one with the shotgun had a slack mouth, ribbed black tank top, Florida Marlins hat, and a gold chain.
The other, wielding the AKM, wore a beanie and sported a wispy beard.
The way they held their weapons told Walker that they were amateurs.
Still, he remembered an adage from one of his instructors at the Farm: a bullet from an amateur will kill you just as dead as one from a professional.
If they knew the area and were looking to score, maybe they could be useful.
“Get out here!” Beanie yelled. “Hands where we can see ’em! Don’t fuck with us!”
“What do you want?” Walker called out. “Just camping here for the night.”
“Whatever you have. Now get your ass out here, bitch!”
“Negative,” Walker said. “You come in here.”
They hadn’t expected that. The pair traded a look. Tank Top tried the sliding door and found it locked while Beanie cupped his hands to the window. “It’s just him!” Beanie called.
“Open it,” Tank Top shouted. “Do anything else, and we splatter you all over this piece of shit.”
Walker leaned forward, unlocked the van door, and slid it open.
“This is a classic,” he said.
“Out!” Tank Top called.
Walker stepped through the door and stood barefoot on the dirt. Tank Top’s slack mouth twisted into a sneer. “Cover him!” he said to Beanie before stepping inside the van.
Walker waited for Tank Top to cross the van’s rear quarter. He would be blind in that moment. Only for a half second, but enough. Three steps… two steps… one.
“Fass!” Walker shouted. Bite.
Paladin leaped down from his roof perch, a hundred pounds of muscle and fury. He flew into the man with the shotgun. Paladin compressed his jaw over the gun arm, snarling, teeth flashing, neck thrashing. The shotgun fell to the floor of the van.
Walker lunged at Beanie, spinning him into the corner of the van with bone-jarring force.
The rifle was trapped between them, barrel pointed skyward.
Walker’s knee shot up, slamming into his assailant’s groin, and as Beanie doubled over, Walker ripped the weapon free.
In one fluid motion, he reversed it and drove the stock into Beanie’s face with a sickening crunch.
Beanie screamed, hands clutching his shattered nose, blood pouring through his fingers as he crumpled to his knees. Walker hit him twice more in the face with the butt of the rifle before turning to Tank and smashing it into his jaw.
“Los,” Walker barked. Let go.
Paladin backed off as Walker snatched up the shotgun and pulled the man out of the van. His Marlins cap was gone, his cheek torn open in a ragged flap that exposed the gumline, an ugly wound, bleeding like a spigot.
Walker delivered a Thai kick to the side of Tank Top’s leg, causing him to buckle and drop to the ground. Both assailants lay bleeding and moaning at Walker’s feet.
“You broke my jaw, man,” Tank managed.
“Consider yourself lucky.”
The AKM had a sling, so Walker ran it over his shoulder and press-checked the shotgun, a Mossberg pump-action. A shell was chambered.
“What did you two think you were doing?” he asked Tank Top.
“Scoring, asshole.”
“You thought you’d rob me?”
The man didn’t answer. He cupped his hand to his cheek. Blood poured through the fingers. Walker asked a different question. “Where’s a good place to get Snowball around here?”
“He’s a fucking narc!” Beanie yelled. “Don’t answer him!”
Walker whirled around and bashed the shotgun stock into Beanie’s neck.
“Fuck!” Beanie screamed. “Get that shit anywhere. This is the Ninth.”
“Dealers pay off any cops?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Walker lowered the shotgun barrel. “Give me your wallet.” The man dug into his pocket and tossed his nylon-Velcro wallet to the dirt.
“You too,” he said to Tank Top.
Walker picked up the wallets and ensured they had IDs.
Then he pointed the shotgun directly at Tank Top’s head. “Take your buddy to a hospital. Remember I have your wallets. If you talk about this to anyone, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“Maybe. But if I ever see you again, I’ll skin you alive before I feed you to the gators.”