About twenty feet below me, the trees stopped and the slope leveled out. There was a little more light down there, and I could make out what looked like some kind of weird rock formation in a clearing. I wiped raindrops and sweat from my eyes and took a moment to check myself for injuries. I had an impressive collection of cuts and scrapes, my shirt was ripped in several places, and my side hurt like a son of a bitch, but other than that, I was okay.
I picked my way down the remainder of the slope and emerged into the clearing. I realized that what I’d been looking at wasn’t a rock formation at all, but a graveyard. A very old graveyard, by the looks of it. I thought back to earlier, when I’d looked at the house plans, which had included a map of the surrounding area. I remembered seeing something about an old gold mining town, now long gone. At least, the town itself was long gone. Evidently, its dead remained.
I squinted my eyes and peered ahead into the dark. It looked like the clearing occupied a natural plateau on the hillside. Uneven rows of subsiding and fallen headstones marched ahead for a couple of hundred yards before the pines closed in once more. There was a dirt track on the other side that disappeared down a farther slope, probably leading to was left of the mining town. I cast a glance back at the upper slope and realized it had damned near turned into a cliff at the point I’d fallen. It would take Banner’s people a while either to find another way down or to rustle up rappelling equipment. That meant there was no point waiting for backup, even if waiting for backup had been my style.
I began my advance toward the dirt track. The rain washed down unabated, turning the earth under my feet to sludge. I thought about the hundred-year-old remains six feet beneath me. I put my hand on a moss-covered marker to steady myself, and my breath caught in my throat as a figure stepped from behind a large monument at the far side of the graveyard.
Wardell. Fifteen feet away. Close enough to speak to without raising my voice, too far to do anything about the rifle that was pointed at my head.
“Evening, partner,” he said. His voice contained both tiredness and pain, but also something that sounded like camaraderie. “Persistent, ain’t you?”
49
It was him: the man from the cabin. Wardell had known it would be, instinctively, when he’d heard the sounds of somebody crashing down that hill. Nobody on a fixed salary would risk following him down that lethal slalom on foot. He was pleased to see that he didn’t appear to have any serious injuries. A man this interesting didn’t deserve to go out breaking his neck in a fall. Wardell kept the Remington 700 trained on him, ready to put a round through his right eyeball. So why didn’t he? Because he wanted to know who he was first. That was harmless enough, wasn’t it? He’d have to kill him soon, before the feds had a chance to catch up, but they had a little time before that.
“Nice weather for ducks, huh?” he said.
The other man just shrugged in acknowledgment. He hadn’t put his hands up, hadn’t tried to beg or bargain. “We’re going to talk about the weather?”
Wardell felt a flash of déjà vu at the sound of the man’s voice. It seemed familiar somehow. Or was it the situation that felt familiar? Doubtfuclass="underline" Most of his targets were never aware that he had them in his sights, so this setup was a little out of the ordinary.
“Good to meet you again,” he said. “Name’s Caleb Wardell.”
The other man smiled thinly. “I know.”
“Then you have me at kind of a disadvantage, partner.”
“And here was me thinking it was the other way around.”
“Point taken.” Wardell chuckled. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Carter Blake.”
“You’re not one of them.”
“I’m not one of them,” Blake agreed.
“I know you, don’t I?”
“We’ve met.”
“Refresh my memory.”
Blake stared at the muzzle of Wardell’s rifle. “This situation was the other way around last time.”
Wardell’s mouth broke into a wide grin. Of course. Now he remembered. Mosul — right after he’d scragged all of those locals. Although it had led to his exit from the military, the episode bore nothing but fond memories for him. A dozen kills: a satisfying mix of distance shots and up-close action. Tying it up with the hit on Rassam had been smart — a legitimate target in the mix turned the civilians into straight collateral damage, gave him the freedom to go as far as he liked. Later, in Chicago, he had never been able to let himself so completely off the leash before they caught him.
“Get out of here! I knew I recognized that uptight face. I bet you’re wishing things had turned out different last time, huh?”
Blake said nothing.
Wardell nodded, remembering. Thinking about the nonuniformed man who’d appeared out of nowhere and interrupted his work, stopped him from going house to house looking for more victims. “You weren’t with them then either, as I recall. So what? Bounty hunter? Spook, maybe? You with Christians in Action?”
Blake shook his head. “Exterminator. They call me in when there’s a vermin problem.”
Wardell ignored that, flicked his eyes up at the hill and back. “How long do you reckon we have?”
“Not long.”
“Pity. You want to know something funny, Blake?”
Blake said nothing.
“I wish I didn’t have to shoot you. You were starting to make this interesting.”
“I can understand that,” Blake said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d imagine it gets boring after a while, shooting unarmed twelve-year-olds and octogenarians.”
Wardell paused. Spoke more quietly. “And unarmed exterminators. Don’t forget those, partner.”
“Why do you do it?” Blake said. He was just playing for time, obviously. Why did you do it? had been the most frequently asked question of Wardell after his arrest. He’d never given anybody an answer to it before. But now? Why not? It wouldn’t take so very long.
“You ever hear the name ‘Juba’?”
Blake used his thumb and index finger to sweep water from the bridge of his nose. Seemed to consider the question. Then he simply said, “Sure.”
“And?”
“Juba was the insurgency’s very own Baron von Richthofen. Some kind of supersniper. They say he never missed. He popped up everywhere: Baghdad, Falluja, Mosul, Basra. Took out dozens of coalition troops. Came out of nowhere and vanished back into the desert like a ghost. Or a demon. One shot, one kill.”
“Not bad, Blake. Not bad at all.”
“There was only one problem with Juba.”
“Do tell.”
“It was all bullshit. There was no Juba. No unfailing, supernatural assassin. It was a PR thing — every time the bad guys managed to bag one of our people, they credited it to Juba. Built the legend of this ghost killer. Probably worked reasonably well to inspire their own people, the more impressionable ones at least. They released videos of some of the shootings, the way they always do. The guy playing Juba changed more times than James Bond.”
Wardell laughed out loud. He didn’t let his rifle muzzle waver, of course. “Very good, Blake. Very good. I’m really going to miss you. I mean that.”
“So that’s what it’s about? You think you’re Juba?”
“Juba was bullshit, Blake. You’re one hundred percent right about that. But all the same, there was something about it, you know? The legend. Your experienced grunts never bought into it, of course. Some of the new guys, though… you could see it in their eyes even when they laughed it off. There was a little bit of fear there. Just a little bit, but it was real. Like they were trading ghost stories over the campfire.”