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me.”
    “Because, despite your many enormous personal flaws, character weaknesses, and innate criminality, you’re too much of a gutless coward to cook meth,” Virgil said.
    “I wondered about that,” Johnson said. “Thanks for the explanation.”
    Virgil tested all the locks and found them solid. He took out his camera, made a few photos, and then saw, farther down the slope, a hump of raw dirt, like the fill from a double-long grave. When Virgil went to look, he found a dump: trashed containers that once contained the raw materials for methamphetamine. He took somemore photos, then put the camera away and walked back up the slope to Johnson. “Can you get a GPS reading here?”
    “Maybe,” Johnson said, looking up at the canopy of maple leaves. He had one a minute later, and saved it to the receiver’s memory.
    “Let’s go upslope and see if we can find a way out,” Virgil said.
    “What about the dogs?”
    “This operation is more important than the dogs,” Virgil said. “They could be taking a ton of meth out of here. Johnson: this is sort of a big deal.”
    “I’ll give you that,” Johnson said. “I still want the dogs.”
    “We’ll be back,” Virgil promised. The trail had ended at the shed, and following the points on the GPS, Johnson led them to another of the openings in the bluff line. When they got there, the slope was still too steep, and they moved along to the last one, two hundred yards farther along the valley. This one was steep, but had saplings growing all the way up, and by using the trees to pull themselves along, they managed to climb to the crest.
    Twenty minutes later, they were back at the truck.
    “Now what?” Johnson asked. He cracked his second Bud as they did a U-turn and headed back toward the river.
    “Got to think about that,” Virgil said. “To tell the truth, I don’t entirely trust your trusty sheriff.”
    “You’re more perceptive than you look,” Johnson said. “Not to say that he’s an outright criminal. He may accept a little help now and then.”
    “Okay. I’m thinking DEA. I’ve got a good connection there.”
    “It’s your call,” Johnson said. “I’m just in it for the dogs.”
    —
    V IRGIL’S MAN WITH the DEA was named Harry Gomez, and he was now working out of Chicago. He’d directed the biggest shoot-out Virgil had ever seen, and one of the biggest he’d ever heard of.
    Back at the cabin, Virgil called Gomez, who was a modest-sized big shot, and had to talk his way through a protective secretary. “Just tell him who’s calling,” Virgil said. “He’ll take it. I’ve saved his life on many occasions.”
    She didn’t believe him, but Gomez took the call. “Hey, Virg. Please, please don’t tell me you found another meth lab.”
    “I was calling to shoot the shit for a while,” Virgil said. “I’m not doing much, and I was wondering, what’s Harry Gomez doing? I mean, other than blowing some higher-up—”
    “Really?” Gomez sounded almost hopeful.
    “No. I found another meth lab. A big one.”
    “Ah, shit. Why do you keep doing this, Virgil? It causes a lot of trouble for everyone. Couldn’t you just shoot the cook and call it a day?”
    “That would be unethical,” Virgil said. He explained how they’d found the sheds, and about the dogs. “Anyway, they’ve got three fifteen-foot metal sheds hid out in the woods, along with an ATV trail to haul the stuff out. It’s nothing like the first one we hit, but it’s substantial.”
    “All right. They cooking right now?”
    “Not at this very minute, but they were at it not long ago. I could smell it yesterday. . . .”
    Virgil told him about the layout, and Gomez said that he’d movein a six-man team to do surveillance, and then fire off the raid when the cooking began again.
    “When do you want to start?” Virgil asked.
    “The team can be there tomorrow morning. They’ll go in like you did, from the top. We can stash them up in Winona, so nobody’ll know.