Chapter Forty-Seven
THE TRUCK HAD to be ditched. All these modern vehicles had some sort of trackers installed.
Walker parked on the west side of the Ninth Ward, near the tall levee wall, one of the few improvements since Katrina. He found the same overgrown backyard he had used on his first visit to the abandoned neighborhood. The willow tree concealed the truck from the street.
“Sorry, boy. One burrito a day is enough.”
He opened the door and stepped outside. Paladin followed, hopping over the center console. Walker dropped the SSE material on the far side of the willow.
“Blijf,” he commanded.
He returned to the Ford and lowered the tailgate, emptying out the contents of the 7-Eleven bag.
He smoothed the hand towel he bought from the automotive section of the convenience store and pumped hand sanitizer onto it until it was soaked.
Then he opened the fuel door and stuffed the coiled rag into the tank.
To ensure it reached the fuel, he unscrewed an antenna from the front fender and used it to push the rag deeper down the pipe.
When the rag hung six inches below the fuel door, Walker checked on Paladin. The dog was exactly where he was supposed to be, staring at Walker, his eyes bright.
He remembers what it was like to be a working dog. He wants more targets.
Walker flicked the lighter and touched it to the rag.
“Come on,” he said to Paladin, slinging the trash sack full of SSE over his shoulder. “We need to hustle.”
They moved out through the gathering dark.
Walker heard the explosion two blocks away.
“Where’ve you been?” Belle asked. “I’ve been waiting for you to call all day. Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” Walker said into his burner phone.
She paused. “Well, what happened? Did you get anything useful?”
“I think so. Sorry I didn’t call sooner. I had to take care of a few things. I could use a lift back to my van.”
“Let me close up. Where are you?”
She rolled into the Ninth twenty minutes later in the AMC Eagle.
“Big take?” she asked as Walker climbed in and Paladin settled in the back seat.
“I don’t know. I grabbed what I could. I’ll go through it tonight.”
“We can go through it,” she corrected him. “Gloria is making her death-by-gumbo tonight. It’s poured over a roasted quail.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Why? Got a date?”
“Let’s just say we poked the bear pretty hard today. I just want to protect you, Belle. Things are heating up.”
She glanced sideways at him, accelerating toward the river.
“The best way to protect me is to let me help finish Connor’s story and expose this thing so there is no point in silencing anyone else. Let’s compile what we need and get it to that reporter, Greer, who’s been covering the story on Leigh Ann’s death.”
Walker knew she was right.
“Rain check for tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll take a crack at this SSE tonight and brief you up tomorrow. Hopefully death-by-gumbo will keep.”
When the Eagle braked near the railroad tracks at the southern reach of the Ninth Ward, Walker nodded to the SSE material.
“A lot of the product at Dorado was refined cane sugar. The sacks had hummingbird logos on them. I think those binders are shipping records. I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but it’s something. ”
“You look like shit, by the way. You need some rest.”
“Thanks.”
“I have an idea. Let’s divide and conquer. Isn’t that what you say in ‘The Teams’?”
Walker rolled his eyes.
“You let me take a crack at the binders,” she continued. “You go through whatever else is in your Santa garbage sack there. Tomorrow, we compare notes.”
Walker paused. It wasn’t the worst idea.
“Okay,” he said. “Deal.”
He removed the binders from his sack and set them on the back seat.
“Chris, take care of yourself tonight,” Belle said, as he exited the vehicle. “Call me if you want to talk.”
At midnight, Sergeant Dupuis rolled his 2007 Chevy Silverado 3500 dually to a stop near the railroad tracks, headlights off. He put the big truck, with its four wheels on the rear axle, in park and hopped out, approaching a black Dodge Charger through the rain. Its driver’s-side window lowered.
“When do we do it?” he asked Gormley, who sat behind the wheel playing solitaire on his phone.
“I already texted Bates. He said to wait until three a.m. Shift change for the patrol units.”
“Time for some payback.”
“Fuckin’ right it is.”
Due to the weather, Walker had pulled the van’s back seat down into a bed and was sleeping next to Paladin. The river passed by off his starboard side, unencumbered by the events of the day or any day.
Walker had not gotten much from his SSE haul, nothing he would have considered actionable intelligence in his former profession. A lot of bills and unintelligible notes and phone numbers on yellow stickies. He hoped Belle had fared better.
Earlier, he had pulled Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness from his shelf.
The pages were dog-eared, the spine cracked from years of use.
Walker had read it countless times, but tonight, one line had held him captive: Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
As he shut his eyes, he debated the truth of Sartre’s claim. Was he truly free? Or had his path been carved by trauma, war, the ghosts of men he had killed and those he had lost in battle? Men like John Staub.
Man is condemned to be free.
He thought of Paladin’s utter lack of conscience. Was that what separated man from beast? The dog snored softly next to him.
It was then that his mental debates segued into determinism, the idea that every action was inevitable, shaped by prior causes.
If that were true, then perhaps he was not to blame for the blood on his hands, John Staub’s blood, and, by default, the blood of Connor and Leigh Ann.
But Sartre wouldn’t let him off so easily.
Freedom, Sartre argued, was a burden, a responsibility that could not be escaped.
Walker’s ruminations grew fuzzier until they morphed into his dreams.
Man is condemned to be free.
At 2:59 a.m., across the tracks, Detective Gormley checked his watch. He rolled down his window. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly.
Dupuis had been ready and waiting. He started the Silverado and shifted into drive. The heavy dually, fitted with a thick grille-guard bumper, nosed forward. When it was aimed at the leafy growth hiding the van, Dupuis shoved his right foot down, pinning the accelerator to the floor.
Walker felt the broadside hit before he heard the vehicle behind it.
His VW Westfalia van toppled sideways, slamming him against the sliding door’s rectangular glass window. Paladin barked in the darkness. Walker felt the dog clawing to escape. He had just gotten to his knees when the van was bashed a second time.
An engine roared. The vehicle it powered backed up and then accelerated again, smashing into the van’s undercarriage. He was thrown into Paladin, the dog’s body shaking uncontrollably, clawing, barking.
This time their tormentor did not back up. Instead, the vehicle pushed them toward the river.
The van was sliding, moving over rocks and grass while the engine of the vehicle being used as a weapon thundered outside. Walker tumbled and smashed his head into the swing-out table when the van rolled again.
Maybe we can break the opposite side window and climb out.
The next roll felt different.
Rather than flip, the van dropped and hit the water, nose up, weighed down by its rear engine. Water poured in through the windows and jagged holes in the metal. Walker felt it rising all around him. Cold, fast, and dark.
The van rolled again before it submerged, becoming one more wreck headed for the bottom of the Mighty Mississippi.