Banner turned to Blake, but his head was down again, staring at the map as though he could trace Wardell’s exact path on it. “It feels right,” he said softly, as though speaking to himself.
“You don’t think it’ll be too obvious a target for him?” Banner said. “Assuming he even knows about Hatcher, he’ll know that we know too.”
Blake paused for a beat, considered this. “I think that’s why it feels right, Banner.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“I think I do,” Castle said. “He wants to prove he’s the best. That’s been his mission statement since day one. How better to prove it than to take out the very target we’re expecting him to?”
At that moment, Banner’s phone issued a brief fanfare, signaling a received text message. She took it out and read the message, which was from Kelly Paxon. Although she’d eschewed text speak, it was concise and to the point: Missouri gun not a match. Will call soon.
“What is it?” Castle said, noticing Banner’s look of surprise.
“That wasn’t Wardell’s rifle in the van down in Missouri.”
“You don’t say,” Castle said sharply, then murmured a brief apology to Banner. “So we’re not talking some half-assed hoax. Heckler & Koch sniper rifles don’t grow on trees.”
Blake glanced at the map again. “So unless Wardell borrowed a helicopter, there’s no way he could have dumped that van as a decoy. Which means…”
“Somebody’s helping him,” Banner finished. “But who? Why? ” The question was met with silence. It seemed even Blake didn’t have an answer for everything. “I’ll be back,” she said after a minute. “I’m going outside to call Paxon.”
“I’ll get things rolling on Hatcher,” Castle said.
Banner’s conversation with Agent Kelly Paxon lasted five or six minutes, but at the end of it she didn’t have any more information than she’d gleaned from the text message. After terminating the call, she sat down on the porch of the cabin neighboring Nolan’s and watched the red sun sink over the western ridge, pausing for a breath as the fevered activity of local cops and task force personnel continued to swirl around her.
The forensics team down in Missouri had found no trace of Wardell in the burnt-out van. No trace of anybody, in fact. The few parts of the cabin that had escaped the flames had been wiped down to erase any prints. The rifle was a Heckler and Koch PSG1, all right, but not the one that had killed Terry Daniels or Father Leary. And now Eddie Nolan.
It was an expertly executed diversion, falling apart only at the point of matching the rifle, but by then it had done its work. If the red van lead hadn’t been so convincing, the task force might well have followed Blake’s lead and Wardell might not have made it past this quiet little hunting town.
Somebody’s helping him. Her own words echoed in her head. A careful, professional somebody. But that made no sense — Wardell hadn’t had a partner before. He’d gone out of his way to avoid human contact, in fact. No, Banner couldn’t see him accepting help, even if it was offered.
Turn it around then: Who would benefit from helping Wardell? Money was a dead end; Wardell had none. There had to be another reason.
One of the other agents, standing apart from the rest of the activity, caught her eye. She realized she didn’t recognize the man, was only assuming he was FBI because of the way he was dressed. He was tall and thin, wore a dark suit, a dark overcoat, and rounded glasses. He wasn’t a local cop or one of the forensics, so by a process of elimination, he had to be FBI. How else could he access the crime scene?
Banner thought about approaching him, then decided she was just being paranoid. She looked away again, turning her mind back to things of greater importance.
37
Mike Whitford leaned back in his leather swivel chair and yawned, looking out at the cold Chicago night through scrunched-up eyes. Getting on for another eighteen-hour day, the third in a row, and his whole being was starting to feel like an old pair of socks that had been worn for a week. It was worth it, though. For the first time in twenty years, he was looking forward to coming into work every day. He was back, and he still had it. He was feeling so good, in fact, that today he’d forgone most of his usual trips to the bathroom with the hip flask. Hell, maybe once this story had run its course, he would kick the booze entirely. Of course, there was no need to rush into anything. The important thing was he knew he could do it now, because he was back.
You didn’t have to take Whitford’s word for it, either. You could see it in people’s eyes. Mandy on reception. That acne-ridden, college-fresh prick on the sports desk. Even Urich. The grizzled old bastard had fixed Whitford with a stare after reading his latest copy and said, “Good job.” Eye contact and a couple of words of affirmation. It didn’t sound like much, not unless you knew Urich.
There was a predictable undercurrent of jealousy from some of Whitford’s rivals, of course. People who would previously have considered him not a rival, but an inferior. He was big enough to forgive that jealousy, because even he had to admit that an element of luck had been involved in his renaissance. After all, almost anyone could have picked up that ringing phone two days before. He’d hesitated a beat — he’d been on his way to the bathroom — but then he’d gone ahead and picked up the handset on the hotdesk. The calls bounced through to that one when the lines at reception were all busy. And, boy, was he glad they’d been busy. That two-minute phone call had turned his career around, put him right in the middle of a national story. Caleb Wardell, escaped from death row and killing already. Even better: a government-level attempt to cover the situation up. It was manna from heaven.
He’d been skeptical at first, his coworkers even more so. But when they’d investigated a few of the details the caller had provided, everything had checked out perfectly. The clincher was a phone call to the destination Wardell had never reached: the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute. They had quickly issued a terse “no comment,” but not quite quickly enough. There had been a stunned pause of no more than a half second, but that had been confirmation enough.
From there on, the cover-up unraveled like a hastily constructed cat’s cradle. The FBI had come for him within an hour of the story hitting the networks, but he’d cooperated fully. There was no reason not to. Every detail they needed to know about that two-minute conversation with Wardell was already plastered over every major news website. The agents had made it very clear that they were unhappy with Whitford and his employer, but for the moment, that seemed to be the extent of the situation’s downside. He wasn’t naive: First Amendment or not, he was sure there’d be blowback later. But later was later.
The telephone rang. His own telephone. It had been doing that a lot these past three days. He gave it two full rings, caught it on the third. He said his name with the confidence of twenty years ago.
The voice was quiet, as though it was coming from a long way off, or the speaker did not want to be overheard. It said, “Am I speaking to Mike Whitford?”
Whitford grunted in the affirmative. “Make it quick. I’m busy.”
There was a low chuckle. “I can imagine. But don’t worry. I won’t keep you long, partner. I’m also a busy man.”
“Who is this?”
“Mike,” the voice said, elongating the vowel reprovingly. “Mike, Mike, Mike. You know who this is.”
“I’ve had a lot of people claiming to be Caleb Wardell this week, pal. So far only one of them has been the real deal, and…”