“We did,” she answered. “The state did, I mean. But one of the charges Wardell was convicted on was kidnapping. That allowed the DA to bundle everything in as a federal case, which meant he was eligible for death.”
“Eligible for death,” Blake repeated thoughtfully. Then he shrugged and looked back down at the file. Banner kept looking at the road. The sun found a gap in the clouds and flashed dazzle off the wet road. Banner reached over and located a pair of sunglasses in the glove box. Blake turned more pages; the odometer notched up another three miles before she gave in again and looked at him.
“You’re familiar with the original case?”
“Just what was in the papers,” he said. He didn’t look up from the file, but she could see the edge of a small smile that told her he knew how much that counted for. “I was out of the country at the time.”
Out of the country doing what? was the question that occurred. Instead, she asked: “So what do you think now? Could you have caught him any faster?”
Blake looked up. Banner looked back at the road. He waited ten seconds before replying, and she realized it was a technique. He was letting the animosity drain out of the question before answering it at face value.
“I’d have done some things differently,” he said. “But I think you would have, too.”
“Would I?”
“It was a multijurisdictional mess. Throw in media hysteria and some lucky breaks for the killer, and you people were up against a practically impossible task.”
Annoyingly, his assessment was correct, fair-minded even. The hunt for the man the papers had inevitably dubbed the Chicago Sniper had been characterized by interdepartmental wrangling, political interference, and screwups at both bureaucratic and operational levels. The media, initially supportive, had grown impatient as the bodies piled up. When Wardell was finally run down, they had turned nasty, especially once it emerged he was the ex-boyfriend of the first victim. He was also a disgruntled ex-Marine, to whom the psych profile of the killer fit like a wet suit. Just to ice the cake, the son of a bitch had actually been interviewed live on CNN as a horrified witness in the aftermath of the tenth and eleventh shootings.
When you added those facts to the public infighting and some well-publicized slipups, the consensus opinion of the national media and a few million armchair sleuths was that a ten-year-old child could have put a stop to the killings as soon as they’d begun.
Never mind that the family of the ex-girlfriend — Mia Jennings — had never met Wardell and didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. Never mind that his home town was Birmingham, Alabama, and that there was nothing on record to place him in Chicago. Never mind, either, that he was a professional killer doing what he was trained to do, with the deck stacked squarely in his favor. None of that mattered, because it complicated the narrative the media had decided on — that the cops and the feds and the governor had screwed up, and nineteen people had lost their lives because of it.
In the end, it had been a veteran city detective who had made the breakthrough, tying Wardell to the killings and enabling the task force to make the arrest. They hadn’t expected to take him alive, so it had been a surprise when Wardell had held up his hands and gone quietly. Thinking about it, it was Banner’s opinion that his surrender had been part of the problem. If he’d fought back, gone down in a hail of bullets the way everyone had expected, it would have been a more satisfying resolution for many. Some of the shortcomings of the investigation might have been forgiven in return for a dramatic conclusion. But the bastard had just put up his hands and turned himself in, like it was all a game. Which only reinforced the belief among the media that the authorities had screwed up, rather than that Wardell had carried out his campaign so effectively. The unspoken question in the news reports and on the talk show monologues was How hard can it have been?
“How about you?” Blake asked after a minute. “Were you involved?”
Banner shook her head. “Agent Castle worked the case.”
Blake looked away from her and watched the road. “He doesn’t seem to relish the thought of another go-round.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You don’t like him.” An observation, not a question.
“He’s an excellent agent,” she said, realizing immediately that by evading Blake’s point she’d merely confirmed it.
More silence. Banner used it to think about why she didn’t like Castle, or more accurately, why he didn’t like her. It all went back to Markow, last year. What had happened there hadn’t been her fault; she was sure of it, but Castle disagreed. Another four miles passed. It was Blake who spoke first this time.
“I don’t get how this happens.”
Banner looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
“How he escapes, I mean. Only two guards in the van, pretty minimal security, really.”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Banner agreed.
“Which leaves only two options.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Somebody screwed up, or somebody was paid to screw up.”
“Any bets?”
Banner grimaced. The answer to the question was obvious, but she knew he was more interested in how candid she’d be than her opinion itself. “Those Russians knew exactly where to be.”
“I agree. But knowing how it happened doesn’t exactly help us. Just like knowing where to be didn’t help the Russians in the end.”
That made Banner consider an angle she’d overlooked. “What do you think their boss will do about this?”
“Korakovski?” Blake shrugged. “I doubt it registers as more than an inconvenience. He wanted Mitchell dead; mission accomplished. Unlike the old-time Mafia, these guys are not noted for their sentimentality.”
“Wouldn’t it be a respect thing, though? Wouldn’t he want some kind of payback for his men?”
“Maybe if we were talking about a rival outfit, but we’re not. Wardell’s a force of nature they happened to run afoul of. An unforeseeable consequence. Like… bad weather. No insult taken.”
“Bad weather,” she repeated, thinking that was exactly what was ahead of them, literally and figuratively.
There was another lull in conversation. That’s what it was now, a conversation. Progress, but she still didn’t know anything new about Blake, other than that he’d spent time out of the country and seemed familiar with the group psychology of the Russian Mafia.
“You ‘find people who don’t want to be found,’” she said, giving the quote a singsong inflection.
“That’s what would be on the business cards. If I had any.”
“Been doing it long?”
“Feels like it.”
“Have you always worked for yourself, or did you start out someplace else? The Agency, perhaps?” It was a shot in the dark, and she didn’t hold out much hope that it was on target. Banner had met and worked with a number of CIA operatives, and Blake didn’t fit the profile.
Blake smiled and shook his head, as though brushing off an unintended slight. He took a pair of sunglasses from inside his coat and put them on. Banner wondered if his intention was to shut out the glare from the road, or something else.
When he didn’t answer, she probed further. “Is the money good?”
Blake took in a long breath through his nostrils, as though giving the question great thought. Finally he nodded. “Depending on the client.”
“And who are your clients?”
“Anybody who wants somebody found.”
She glanced away from the road to give him a sarcastic look.
He tilted his head in mild apology. “Sometimes it’s police, or government. Sometimes big companies. Sometimes individual people.”
“Individual rich people,” she corrected.