“I think he is, but I want to talk to somebody in New York.”
“Blake—”
“Sorry, but it’s better I’m vague about this one for the time being. You might call the gentleman ‘high value.’”
53
Wardell was hurting.
The shot fired by the FBI bitch had grazed him high up on his left leg. He’d been lucky that it hadn’t been a direct hit, but it had carved a wicked trench three inches long across the outside of his thigh. He’d lost some blood, but not too much. Despite being slapped on in a hurry, the four-by-four-inch gauze bandage with tie straps from the blowout kit had held. If nothing else, the night had confirmed two more names for his list: Elaine Banner and Carter Blake.
His pack and the rest of his equipment were still where he’d stashed them the previous afternoon: under a camouflage tarpaulin three miles from Hatcher’s lake house. It had felt like three hundred miles in the dark, with the leg wound, but the distance had been a necessary precaution, to keep things well out of reach of his pursuers.
He’d stopped hearing the sounds of people searching for him on the ground about a mile from the house, although every so often one of the helos swung overhead, casting its beam over the treetops. That was no sweat. He could always hear them coming a good minute before they appeared, ample time to make himself invisible. He reached camp around three in the morning, allowed himself forty minutes of rest after he’d redressed his wound, then changed out of the soaking BDUs and into a dry pair of blue jeans and a plaid shirt. He’d purchased both from a factory outlet store in Rapid City before he’d gone to the diner.
He kept rubbing the outside of the dressing on his leg compulsively, wincing at the sharp pain each time. To distract himself from the compulsion, he unfurled the tarp again and laid his remaining weapons and clips on top of it in perfectly squared rows. He’d kept the AK and the SIG and the Rem, as well as the Glock 23 he’d taken from one of the feds in the big truck. He arranged each gun in a separate row, with its spare magazines to the left. The rifles at the top, then the SIG, and finally the Glock. The order calmed him, soothed the niggling pain in his leg.
As he worked, he thought about the night. It had not been an unqualified success. He’d killed his stated target, sure, but if what Blake had said was the truth, maybe he’d had inside help.
You’re being used.
But used for what? Wardell acted according to his own agenda, killing whomever he pleased, whenever he pleased. How could someone be using him to kill people if he was choosing the targets? An unfamiliar, unpleasant feeling was stirring in his gut. It was like the feeling after he’d missed the outright kill on the deliveryman. Could it be that someone was actually predicting his actions? Somebody who knew how Wardell would act before he himself did? Was it possible that he was that predictable?
He shook his head and felt a new experience: self-doubt. The answer was no; it wasn’t possible. Edward Nolan? Sure, he could see how that could have been foreseen. John Hatcher he’d actually gone ahead with because it could be foreseen through the combination of shared history and proximity. He’d figured they’d predict him as a target and had even called that reporter about it to make sure they didn’t vanish on some wild-goose chase this time. Because he’d wanted the challenge, because he’d wanted another shot at Blake.
But who would gain from the deaths of Hatcher and Nolan? They had nothing to do with each other, beyond their tenuous connections to Wardell. Neither held any real power or influence. And the others, the truly random kills in Cairo and Fort Dodge and Rapid City — who benefited from those deaths? Nobody, that was who.
But somebody had set up the red van as a decoy. Somebody in the know had tipped off the media that he’d escaped.
You’re being used.
Wardell grabbed his pack and started jamming spare magazines and supplies into it, trying to banish the doubts with activity. They’d want him to have doubts, would want him to be distracted from his mission. Well, that was too bad. Whoever was helping him or using him could keep on trying. Wardell would do his own thing. He put the SIG in his side holster, tucked the Glock into the back of his belt, and slipped the rifles inside the long bag. He was ready for the hike.
54
I awoke to the sound of the alarm on my phone and hauled myself out of bed with a Herculean effort. It felt as though somebody had borrowed my body during the night and stuffed it into a tumble dryer on maximum spin. I stepped into the shower and turned on the water as hot as I could stand it.
I emerged five minutes later and toweled myself down, surveying my new outfit. Despite being officially removed from the action, Banner still had people loyal to her, and they were continuing to provide assistance below the radar. I dressed in the clothes one of them had conjured up for me: black jeans, black T-shirt, polo shirt — navy blue of course. It wasn’t emblazoned with the FBI logo at least, and everything fit me. I knocked on Banner’s door at 6:25 and she answered immediately, looking pressed and groomed and like she’d just stepped out of wardrobe.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Is it?” Her voice was sharp, like she didn’t like mornings a whole lot. “Plane leaves in two hours. Let’s go.”
55
I drove this time. Things would have been a lot easier had we still had access to the full resources of the Bureau, but Banner’s removal from active duty meant we’d have to start making some compromises on convenience. First example: commercial flights instead of the Lear, which meant separate flights and making connections. It also meant passing through regular airport security.
We made the airport in good time and hopped on a short flight to Minneapolis. Banner’s FBI badge allowed us to take our weapons, although they had to be stowed with baggage. A thirty-minute layover, and then the flight to NYC would take a little less than three hours. Banner worked most of it on her phone, talking to the people she could trust, getting updates on progress, and keeping tabs on how Edwards was running the task force. She spoke to somebody named Paxon a number of times.
I used the time to do some of my own work: think about the case, let things percolate a little in my brain. The confirmation that there was more at work here than just one madman had thrown up a whole lot of complications that I could have done without. It cast new light on many of the events of the past four days — my attempted mugging in Cairo, for one. I had a few ideas about what might be happening, but so far the only motive I could come up with felt wrong.
At the midway point of the flight, we were served an in-flight breakfast that tasted like all in-flight breakfasts — as though it had been stored for a month inside an old suitcase and then microwaved, still inside the suitcase. The coffee, at least, was okay. I drank three cups in quick succession, sharpening myself up for the hours ahead.
When Banner took a break to drink her own coffee, sensibly forgoing the breakfast, I told her who we were going to see and why we had to go alone. She wasn’t exactly happy about it, or convinced about the use of our time.
“What if Wardell hits somewhere else while we’re in New York?”
“It’s a possibility,” I agreed. “But it’s the same problem we’ve faced all along. If we don’t know where he’s going to strike, how can we do anything about it? Hell, we didn’t stop him when we did know where.”
She thought about it for a long minute, finally nodding. “You’re right, unfortunately. All we can do is identify danger zones and try to cover them as best we can.”