The bunkhouses exploded into a single curtain of orange flame, fire spraying out horizontally before rushing into the sky, shredding walls, blowing off the flimsy roofs, shattering the windows in a blizzard of powdered glass. The chemical tanks in the bunkhouses exploded, vaporizing gases howling through the twisted metal carcasses of the buildings, instantly igniting into huge geysers of fire.

Seconds later, the big propane tank between the farmhouse and the bunkhouses detonated. The building disappeared in a vast ball of orange and blue, and shredded clapboard slats and roofing tiles rained down on the slope.

The buildings at the top of the slope were all ablaze, an almost continuous line of billowing flame, melting tar paper, and blackening clapboard. Despite the damp ground, the burning gases turned the grassy slope into a tilted pyre, the bodies of men and pigs charring in the intense heat, thick, acrid smoke twisting up into the sky and floating to hang in a pall out over the swamp.

The rain had stopped. The column of dense smoke rose into the night sky like a knotted black rope. Behind it, the silver moon turned the edges of the parting clouds luminous.

There was no sound but the low roar of flame, the crackle of timber.

Brodie walked out onto the slope, back toward the burning buildings, bemused and fascinated by the complete annihilation. Craine’s Volvo was charred and shattered, the windows blown out, the paint scorched and blistered, the car as riddled by wood and metal shrapnel as if it had been ambushed with a Gatling gun. Beyond it, the farmhouse lawn was showered with broken furniture—a refrigerator door here, the head-board of a sleigh bed there.

He walked across the slope. The wreckage of the bunkhouses was less refined—dented pots, shredded jeans, the neck and strings of a guitar. The fire was snuffing itself out on the damp grass, but the debris field was scattered with all kinds of charred, smoldering objects, from mattresses to bodies.

Brodie began to systematically search the slope for survivors, traveling back and forth across the field like a weaving shuttle, his pistol cocked and ready at his side; there would be no survivors tonight.

He found Smith’s left arm, the idiotic tattoo of Mickey fucking Minnie immediately identifiable. Halfway down the slope, near the periphery of the debris field, he found the rest of him. The man was barely alive, the burned skin of his face and torso so pasted with soot that Brodie only spotted him when Smith opened his eyes and Brodie saw the whites. Smith seemed to recognize him, so Brodie muttered, “It’s okay, the ambulances are coming,” and, when Smith closed his eyes, shot him in the head.

Brodie stood. That left Tarver, who should’ve been in Bunkhouse B, with all the Mexies; with a bit of luck, there wouldn’t be much of him left at all. He had a moment of satisfaction when he found Tarver’s mangled camcorder, but he needed to see Tarver’s corpse; as soon as he caught sight of that mop of stringy yellow hair, Brodie could pronounce the site cleaned, climb in his car, and go.

He moved back up the slope, skirting the heat of the flames still pouring from the bunkhouse foundations. He was moving faster now. He should get going—it looked like he’d set half of Florida on fire. There was no way anyone, let alone Tarver, could’ve survived the explosion and fire.

He was going to call it and head on home. He was crossing the ridge of the hill, thinking of his pool in Costa Rica, when he heard, “Yo, boss…”

He turned to see Tarver, one hand raised in greeting, not thirty feet away. Brodie raised his pistol.

“Wait! It’s me, Tarver! I got out!” He put both hands up and moved closer so Brodie could see it was, in fact, him. “I know you told me to stay and guard the Mexies, but I gone out the back window, to try and flank the cops again like Bentas, and then the whole fucking thing blew!”

“Come closer.”

Tarver took a wary step toward him. “You okay, boss?”

“Closer still.”

Tarver pointed behind Brodie and said, “Someone’s over there!”

Brodie glanced quickly down the slope and saw Jenner, sprinting across the road toward the dock. He’d forgotten all about them.

“Get him!”