There was an antique grandfather clock in the south corner of the study. Banner eyed the clock face as the minute hand clicked up to read quarter to twelve.
“You think he’ll really come at midnight?” she asked.
“We’re expecting midnight,” I said, “so the smart thing to do would be to let us wait, get tired, come in at two or three. But I wouldn’t bet against midnight.”
Castle’s cell rang. He answered it immediately. He listened for a second, asked a couple of questions, and then said he wanted the last of the boards up on the lake-facing windows. The windows on the other three sides had been attended to hours before. A minute later, a dressed-down agent with his sleeves rolled up beneath a Kevlar vest arrived, holding a cordless drill. We watched as he screwed sheets of plywood into the PVC window frames.
“How’s Hatcher?” Banner asked.
“Why don’t we go see him?” Castle said. “You can ask him yourself.”
As the three of us left the study, I cast a glance over my shoulder in time to see the last rectangle of rain-soaked night shut out as the final piece of plywood fitted into place. It made a sound like the lid closing on a coffin.
44
Now, this was more of a challenge.
The rain, the woods, the pursuit, had all created a different environment from that which Wardell was accustomed to. He had experienced similar conditions during basic training in Virginia, but never during actual warfare. In Iraq, rain had been as scarce as mercy. He was no meteorologist, but he guessed it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that South Dakota had soaked up more precipitation in the last twelve hours than that godforsaken dust hole saw in the average year.
The ponderosa pines closed around him, blotting out the sky and filling his field of vision with shadows and random movement — again, the diametric opposite of the blinding, blazing desert heat. And he was alone. In the war, he’d fought in a small unit, often with just one partner, and that had been against impersonal, almost random targets. Now he faced an army of a different kind. Without backup.
He couldn’t think of anywhere in the world he’d rather be.
He’d chosen his observation position that morning, a couple of hours before he’d made his midday trip to town. The spot was ideaclass="underline" a tiny crevice under an overhang created by the gap left by some long-forgotten landslide. The ground that had given way had exposed the roots of a fifty-foot pine that still stood, reaching out over a sixty-degree incline, defying gravity. Wardell had nestled between the roots, camouflaging his position with sticks and dirt. He’d smeared mud on his exposed skin and around the hollows of his eyes. From the crevice beneath the tree, he could see only the southwest corner of the house. That meant it was no good for taking the shot, but it was an excellent spot from which to sit and patiently survey the feds laying their traps and looking in vain for traces of him.
They were doing a decent job, to give them their due. The FBI tactical teams patrolling the strike zone were well drilled and were leaving no easy gaps. Maneuvering out of range of one team would bring him too close to the next. It was a tight net. They had countersnipers of their own, too. He’d spotted a few of them hunched down in makeshift hides. It had been tempting to kill one or two of them, or maybe a member of a patrol, but Wardell had held off all day, keeping his powder dry. He wasn’t hunting brain-dead shoppers now, and taking out one of the feds would put an end to the evening’s performance.
They’d made the house pretty secure, all in all. Boarding up the windows — all of the windows — had been an excellent move, if not an unexpected one. It meant he was going to have to find a way of flushing Hatcher out, and perhaps more worthy targets.
More worthy targets; he paused to think about that again. His initial list was getting shorter. Nolan was history, and if all went well, Hatcher would join him within the hour. That left two names, and he’d discovered earlier today that one of them — the late Detective Stewart — was entirely beyond his reach. Room for some new recruits.
Agent Castle from the television interviews seemed like a good candidate, him and perhaps the woman who sometimes appeared alongside him, Banner. Wardell was almost positive that had been her back in Rapid City, the one who’d returned fire from the kill zone. He’d had her in his sights; she was even wearing blue. It was a pity he’d already claimed his six victims. On the other hand, there was always next time. Taking out one of the task force leads would certainly throw a wrench in the works of their manhunt. And then there was the man from the cabin, of course.
He wasn’t sure if they’d managed to sneak Hatcher out of the house, but in truth he’d started to question whether Hatcher was even worthy of killing. He was a phony, a minor irritation when you really thought about it. Wardell was more interested in taking out somebody of substance this time, even if it meant relinquishing his stated goal, diverging from the plan. Dwight Eisenhower once said that plans are often useless, but planning is indispensable. Wardell had no great liking for generals, still less for presidents, but as a motto he couldn’t fault it.
He’d had the germ of that plan before he’d seen the house in real life. He thought back to the truck stop in Kentucky, the morning after his escape, how he’d flicked through Hatcher’s book with amusement.
The selection of photographs reproduced in the middle of the book had been predictable, some from the aftermaths of his shootings intermingled with pictures of the key players and a whole lot of pictures of Hatcher himself. The final one had shown Hatcher in front of his house: a sprawling wood-clad building on the shores of Pactola Lake. Wardell’s eye had been drawn by the small outbuilding visible in that shot. Having had time to think and to survey the house, he was convinced that this outbuilding would give him the opening he’d need. But only if he could get a little closer — because this was one task he couldn’t guarantee executing at long range.
The major problem was the tac teams. The net around the house was a little tighter than he’d anticipated. That was his own fault, of course. He’d told them exactly where he’d be this time, allowing them to focus their manpower without spreading themselves as thinly as they had before. Had he been overconfident? He doubted it. Confidence and overconfidence were essentially the same thing. It was only after the fact that you could tell one from the other. No, he would adapt and triumph once again. After all, he’d been looking for a challenge this time, hadn’t he?
He checked his equipment again. Much of what he’d taken from the steel trunk in the shack was stashed at his camp, deeper into the hills, but he’d brought the essentials. The most important item was, of course, the Remington 700. It was a top-of-the-line civilian model, and Wardell had to admit Nolan had done well on this: It bore a close similarity to the M40 that Wardell was accustomed to from the Corps. Nolan had accessorized it with a high-spec bipod, a decent scope, and a sling, too. Whether or not the Remington was superior to the PSG1 was a matter of opinion, but Wardell preferred it. It just felt better in his hands.
Added to the rifle were tools for a variety of jobs. For close-range encounters, he’d stowed the AK in favor of a SIG Sauer P226, chambered for nine-millimeter Parabellum rounds, which was holstered at his hip. If things got even closer, he had a stag-handled bowie knife strapped to his boot. He was dressed in woodland combat BDUs with a multitude of pockets containing all kinds of useful things, like a compass and utility knife and what they’d referred to in the Corps as a blowout kit: a first aid pack specifically for treating gunshot wounds. In a green waterproof drag bag, he had four decently assembled pipe bombs. He’d inspected all of this equipment earlier, of course, and had concluded with some surprise that Nolan had actually done a pretty good Boy Scout job.