other thing is, these boys are pretty pissed. If they toss an incendiary grenade in there, you'll get a little preview of hell.'
'We're done,' Feur said. 'We're done.'
'Just in case, you know, something happens,' Virgil said. 'Why'd you do the Gleasons and the Schmidts?'
Feur said, 'I don't lie on the Bible, Virgil. I had nothing to do with that. And look-it wouldn't make any difference to anybody or anything if I came right out and admitted it. Not with those dead cops all over the yard. But I had nothin' to do with it.'
THE AGENTS TOOK it slowly: built a commanding view of the house from the loft of the barn, from the top of the shed, then moved in close to the house, pushed some sandbags around, built a strong point that looked right down into the wreckage.
The agent named Harold Gomez had taken charge. Another agent said to him, 'We need some chains, maybe a Bobcat. We need to move some big pieces.'
Gomez nodded. 'Get one. Get two. Get them down here.'
ANOTHER SANDBAGGED strongpoint went up at the opposite corner of the house. With an agent there, his gun trained on the wreckage, Virgil and Gomez moved in close to look at the house. To their left, another agent had spread a blanket over the forms of the dead DEA man and Franks.
The wrecked house smelled bad, raw lumber and dust and old paint, the odor of rotten eggs. A couple of other agents moving around the wreckage pointed out parts of a body, blown to pieces, under a portion of the second floor that had collapsed into the yard.
'Direct hit with a grenade,' Gomez said.
An agent put down his rifle, walked up the front steps, dragged some siding and two-by-fours to the side, and then a few more pieces. He shouted, 'Can you hear us?'
No answer.
'Careful,' Gomez said. 'Basement could be a problem.'
THEY MOVED FARTHER around the house, and Gomez said, 'You've got a cut on your scalp.'
'Piece of glass or metal,' Virgil said. 'When I was backing the truck out.'
'Goddamnit,' Gomez said. 'Goddamnit. Ah, Jesus, what do I tell Harmon's wife?'
ANOTHER AGENT HAD PUT on gloves, and was clearing debris from the other side of the house, walking carefully on an exposed piece of floor. 'Hey, you in there? Hey?'
To Gomez: 'Looks like another body, or pieces of one.'
Moved more lumber, but they'd need the Bobcat, Virgil decided. He called Feur on the cell phone. No answer.
'Maybe hurt,' Gomez said. Moved a bit more lumber. 'I gotta go into town, see my guys…' Gomez might be going into shock, Virgil thought.
More rotten eggs.
Virgil sniffed, sniffed again, then said quietly and urgently to the agent on the house, moving lumber, 'Get off there. Don't ask me any questions, just get off, right now.' And to the agent on the other side-'Quiet. Get off there…get back, get those guys out of the sandbags, you guys get back…'
He was talking quietly as he could, backing away. Gomez: 'What, what?'
Virgil said, 'That's propane. That's the rotten-egg smell.' He looked around, saw the tank next to the barn. 'They're filling the place up with propane. They're gonna blow it up.'
'Propane…' Gomez was quick. He backed away, turned away, said quietly into his radio, 'Guys, everybody get back, keep it quiet, but get the hell back, there's gas, they may be getting ready to blow it…'
TEN MINUTES LATER, Virgil was feeling a little stupid, sitting in the ditch across the road. An agent suggested that he run up next to the barn, and turn the propane off, but the barn was too close to the house, too exposed if there was an explosion. 'Give it another ten minutes,' Virgil said. 'Maybe I'm full of shit.'
ELEVEN MINUTES AFTER Virgil moved the agents off the house, the place blew. Not like a bomb, but with a hollow whump. Five tons of lumber went straight up in the air or sideways with a gout of smoke, curled at the top, like an atomic bomb. Virgil covered his head with his hands, and when nothing landed on him, peeked over the edge of the ditch. A ripple of fire was running through the wreckage: 'Now, you need the fire department,' he said.
'Holy mackerel,' Gomez said. 'Holy fuck.' A few seconds later a helicopter showed up, and when it turned, they could see the Channel Five logo on the side.
Virgil shook his head. 'That's what we needed. That's exactly what we needed. Smile, Harry, you're on TV.'
Not done yet.
Gomez made a call, said, 'That oughta get rid of the chopper,' and with the helicopter still circling, they walked cautiously across the street, to the house. An agent ran out of the field behind the barn to the propane tank, pulled off the valve cover, and Virgil could see him spinning the valve.
Gomez said, 'Gonna be another one of them right-wing legends. Last stand at Reverend Feur's.'
'Anybody look in Franks' truck yet?'
'Not yet.'
They went that way, yanked open the back panel on the camper, saw the row of gas cans. A couple of other agents drifted over. Gomez turned the cap on one, sniffed, said, 'Gas,' tipped it into the sun, to see better, then walked away and carefully poured the gasoline into the dirt at the side of the yard. A gallon or so poured out, and then a glass tube fell out, and another. Gomez kept swirling the can until he had them all, twelve tall bottles that might once have contained spices, all full of powder.
'It's all true,' he said. To one of the agents: 'What am I gonna tell Harmon's wife?'
The agent shook his head, and finally said, 'That we killed all those motherfuckers who did it.'
THE AGENTS UNLOADED the rest of the gas cans, and all carried glass bottles. They went through the shed, found five more cans, all with bottles. Feur and his friends had been moving meth twenty and thirty pounds at a time. 'Been doing it for years,' Gomez said.
They walked through the barn, knocked in the doors of the two old Quonset huts, without finding anything more. Looked into the house: the interior had been blown to flinders, and the fire was getting stronger.
'Fire department's coming,' one of the agents said. 'Not that I care.'
THE HELICOPTER WENT AWAY, the maddening thump leaving the place in the silence of insects and birds. Virgil, Stryker, and Gomez climbed into the barn's loft to look at the house from a high point; amazing, Virgil thought, what gas could do.
They were standing there when the fire truck arrived. The fireman put foam on the fire for three or four minutes, and the fire was gone.
Gomez said, 'We're gonna have to say something. Press conference up in Bluestem; we sort of had it set up for tonight. Still gonna have to do something…'
'Call Pirelli. He was still talking when I saw him, maybe…'
Gomez got on his phone, pushed a button. No answer.
Stryker came over and said, 'Get off the phone.'
'What?'
'Get off the phone. Look at this-look at this.' He led them to the loft door, looking down at the house.
'FEUR WAS a mean, feral asshole,' Stryker said. 'What's he doing committing suicide? He'd want his day in court, if we'd had him cornered.'
Gomez spread his hands: 'What?'
Stryker pointed up the hillside. 'That satellite photo that you had in the motel. One of your guys was looking at a seam that comes down to the house, and he wondered if it was a ditch that we could crawl down. We didn't know. But when we walked around the barn, right over it, I didn't see a thing. Didn't notice it. The only way you can see anything, is to get up high. Up here.'
'Yeah?' Virgil looked at the hillside, still didn't see much.
'It's that line of greener weeds,' Stryker said, pointing down and to the right. 'See it? That's what you get when you dig. New weeds. It's a dead straight line. It looks to me like somebody put down a culvert.'
'What?' Gomez, eyes wide. 'That little line?'
'All you'd need to do is get the pipe, rent a backhoe, run the line straight up the hill to that brush. Then if the
