After returning to the hotel and couriering off various packages, everyone decides that whatever that unpleasantness was, it wasn't their fault and they had behaved well, and so the group rejoins for dinner at Mudbug Hollow. The drive there is perhaps a bit quiet, as is the dinner, but no one slaps anyone or accuses anyone of being not human. Strained is a relative term, so this is positively balmy.
At the restaurant, they order mostly fish dishes to eat, and BBQ dishes to push around their plates and take home later. They even order the jalepeno-portabello hushpuppies, which aren't very good. The rest of the food justifies its high price, however.
Since the party is being quiet, they have plenty of time to observe. It seems that the restaurant has gotten a fair amount of positive publicity in the local papers, which has brought a lot of these yuppies and other upper middle class types out into the swamp. Alexandra does observe one older man with younger girlfriend who seems to have come just for the ribs - he never opens the menu.
On the way out, they look at the pictures in the lobby, including the owner with famous bluesmen from the area, and observe the cars in the parking lot - generally expensive. They return to the hotel and mail off samples of the barbecue items and resolve to return and dumpster dive that night.
Returning to Chateau Rouge around midnight, a few cars are still in the lot of Mudbug Hollow, so they decide to check out the barbecue shack. It doesn't have a dumpster, but they poke through the garbage cans and find a food service invoice for some pork. Thielo realizes that there is no smokehouse or BBQ pit in the building, and they wonder where it is. A trail leads back into the bayou, so the follow it. Swamp monkeys shriek and chitter in the brush as they walk.
After a quarter mile or so, they come into a clearing with a small building in it. Thielo opens the padlock and gets them in to a little room (mostly empty) with two doors. One door leads to a large room with facilities for cutting up meat and a big BBQ oven. Everything is very well kept, and there is no trace of meat. Nice and sanitary.
Upon opening the other door, they are confronted by a headless human body hanging on a hook. Alexandra immediately runs out, followed by Thielo, but those who are more stalwart find a small smoke room with four human bodies smoking. The bodies are all headless, naked, and gutted. They take a few pictures and decide it's time to leave after a little desultory poking about for the heads or possessions of the unfortunate victims.
After leaving the smokehouse, Gavin, Esteban, and Angelina realize just what the strange meat in the barbecue they ate must have been. Gavin is pretty stolid about it, Angelina loses her expensive dinner, and Van takes off to get the hell out of the creepy woods, yelling. He runs smack into a tall man with a John Deere cap and a shotgun, who asks him what he's doing out in the woods. Van reaches out with his mojo and snuffs out the mans interest in him for a little while, and creeps back to the others. He then once again magics the man to make him want to stop standing around in the dark and go back to his wife. Team SILVER sneaks out of town with no further incident.
Upon returning to the hotel, Alexandra has a note under her door. It appears to be from Jennifer, arranging a meet in the swamp near Chateau Rouge the next evening. Everyone goes to sleep - Angelina on the floor in Van and Gavin's room. Gavin does call in to Ryan and report what's going on (although not the note, because he doesn't know yet). Ryan thinks it's not a matter for the police, yet, because they couldn't handle anything supernatural. But if the team can clear that up, TNI can drop the State Police on the town with their connections.
In the morning, they discuss meeting Jennifer, and for a while are going to but more paranoid heads prevail. The ghost is still around watching them, and they use it to convey a message that they will meet, but only at a public place. It returns and tells them to meet at a McDonald's near the interstate at 8 PM. Esteban has a pretty clever plan to call Ryan and ask for backup he promised earlier, but is nearly thwarted by the rest of the party. Somehow Ryan is called and though backup is explicitly not requested he says he's sending it anyway and won't take no for an answer. Later he tells Gavin that the backup with be a little Chinese guy and a big lug, and Gavin tells no one else for fear of the ghost hearing.
Also that day, they get the lab reports on the shack barbecue - there is in fact human meat in it... the long ribs, for example, and some of the pulled meat. There has also been a preliminary exam on the swamp monkey, which appears to be an extremely old, extremely shrunken human. The tattoo ink, in particular, is a very old type - perhaps from the 19th century. Everyone ponders these results, but they mostly confirm what the team already thinks.
The team arrives at the appointed place a little before 8, and Angelina spots the backup and plays a vigorous game of phone tag with Gavin before Ryan calls her and tells her that that is her backup. Cellular phones are clearly an integral part of this team... perhaps they should get a sponsorship from Sprint. A little after the hour, a beat-up red pickup drives up and parks facing out of the lot. Jennifer gets out and comes in.
The meet gets weird almost immediately when Jennifer confesses to killing and eating her comrades to live forever. Everyone shows remarkable restraint at that. Gavin presses her further, but she won't say who else, or how, except to say that TNI shouldn't mess with this. She does confirm that being immortal means turning into a shrunken little swamp monkey if you're not strong enough - and she thinks she is. They press a bit more, and she says that there's a time to play and a time to fold, and she claims this is time for TNI to fold. Gavin asks her to surrender, but she laughs and leaves. A police car coincidentally shows up and the cops come in to grab some food.
When she gets back into the truck, Thielo gets into the other side, surprising everyone, and tries to get a little more information. She threatens him and then peels out. He seizes the wheel and points the truck back towards the McDonald's, and it barrels right on in before being stopped by a structural beam at one end of the counter. Thielo is thrown out through the windshield and hits a McFlurry machine, ending up seriously damaged with a lot of skin ripped off his face and a dent in his head. Jennifer gets an air bag and escapes with a couple of bruises.
After this point, it degenerates into total chaos. Alexandra throws some smoke bombs, Van slings blasts on Jennifer, she slings blasts on a bunch of people, hurting Van and Angelina pretty badly, and various people shoot with little effectiveness. In the end, the relentless shooting of Angelina and the backup sniper and Gavin's swordsmanship force Jennifer to use up her charges avoiding bullets, and Gavin cuts her down with some help from Van's blasts. Thielo realizes his damage is pretty severe and flees in one of the rental SUVs.
At the point the police emerge from where they've been trying to control things inside the restaurant and try to control things in the parking lot where we've ended up. Gavin takes all the blame on himself with his channels, allowing everyone else to escape. The backup team picks up Gavin after a smoke bomb stuns the police, and lead the police on a merry chase before heading for Texas.
Everyone else heads back to the hotel with the severely hurt Jennifer. On calling in, they are also instructed to head for Texas. Unfortunately, Thielo hasn't turned up, and Alexandra won't go. Various people try to lie to her and get her to go with them to Texas and then home, saying that Thielo has gone ahead, but she's not buying it.
Finally Ryan talks with Gavin who refuses to say what's up to anyone but Abel. Abel does call him back, tells him that next time he can tell Ryan, and arranges for a mimic to call Alexandra and tell her that he's Thielo and he's heading back to Oregon after driving off in the wrong direction somewhat hurt but not that badly. Alexandra buys it, and the team is able to head to Texas. There they meet with a cleaner team that takes Jennifer off their hands, and they head back to Portland by private plane.