“I did eighteen months of chemo. I went through four procedures. Maybe I was slow to getting around to facing it, but that’s how I dealt with cancer. I didn’t beat it by running away from it. And I won’t run away from this pathetic little psychopath.”
A heavy silence filled the room like a tangible thing. I held Randall’s gaze for a long minute.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “When did it come back?”
Randall leaned back in his chair and breathed out a long sigh. “Maybe it never really went away. I went for my six-month checkup in September. They told me it’s back and this time there’s too damn much to cut out of me.” He let out a low, dark laugh as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should have seen that as some kind of… omen.”
Banner swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. How long do you have?”
“Not long. Six months, a year at the outside. Long enough to get reelected, maybe even to do a little good, I hope.”
“With all due respect,” Banner said, “that makes it even more important that we keep you safe tonight.”
“Then do so, Agent Banner. Catch this killer. But I will not cancel the rally. I’m not afraid of death, and I’m sure as shit not afraid of Caleb Wardell.” He looked us both straight in the face in turn, holding our eyes and daring us to offer resistance. “All right?”
Banner said nothing.
“All right,” I said.
“Excellent. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I have an election to win.”
68
I watched the red neon digits descending, feeling Banner’s glare burn into me. I watched from floors fifteen to eight before I relented.
“What?”
“Why did you let it go?”
“Didn’t seem like we had much of an option, short of hitting him over the head and locking him in the trunk of your car.”
“Wardell’s going to kill him.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“And how are you going to help it?”
“I’m not convinced he’s the target.”
Banner blinked in surprise. “You’re not?”
“No.”
“If anything, I’m more convinced he is now,” she said.
“How so?”
“We’re working on the assumption somebody is using Wardell, that they’re hoping he takes out someone important. Like you said, Randall is the best target on paper for this day and this location. But after speaking to him, it seems even more likely. You heard him. He’s got nothing to lose. Politicians like that scare the crap out of vested interests.”
“But his cancer isn’t public knowledge. Nobody knows about it.”
“His doctors know. Maybe he’s told other people. Come on. You have to admit it. After meeting him in person, don’t you see Ed Randall as being more worthy of assassination?”
“Banner, that is the both the strangest and most sincere compliment I’ve ever heard paid to a politician.”
“Well, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I allowed. “But I’m starting to wonder if we’re wrong about what Wardell wants. And it’s something Randall said that’s got me wondering about it. Wardell doesn’t care about politics; he cares about only one thing: fear.”
Banner looked up at the ceiling. “Then maybe Randall still fits. The man sounded like he’d declared war on fear.”
And that was when the circuit clicked into place and the lights began to come on in my head. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Banner started to step out and stopped when she saw I hadn’t moved.
“What is it?”
“Say that again.”
“War on fear?”
“That’s it,” I said. “Like War on Terror or War on Crime.”
Banner was searching my face for clues, her brow furrowed. I made another few mental connections and knew what the next step had to be.
“Banner, I need you to get me something. A list of dead FBI agents going back for the last five — no, ten years.”
“Slow down, Blake. What—” she began, stopping as my cell phone beeped to indicate a text message received.
I tapped on the animated envelope and read the message.
Somebody’s been digging. Will call soon.
“Who is it?” Banner asked.
“A friend.”
She glanced at the text, read it out loud. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
69
Wardell sat with his back to the wall and closed his eyes, focusing on the murmur of the crowds arriving below. Although there were no windows, he knew that darkness had fallen outside. It was pitch black in this small space, just as it had been when he made his entry, nine hours before.
It had been easy enough to gain access to his chosen vantage point, but then he hadn’t expected otherwise. There was an extractor vent in the ceiling. Through it, he could hear the soporific noise of the traffic. He wondered how many of those commuters out there were thinking of him right now. How many were sitting hunched down in their seats, one eye on the fuel gauge hoping they could make it to their destination without having to stop and leave the imagined shelter of their cars to fill up.
Listening to the talk radio stations in the car that morning, Wardell had been mildly amused that he was expected here in Chicago this evening. Mike Whitford had never had the chance to file his story this time, of course, but somehow the media and the populace had managed to intuit the stage for this final act of the drama. Perhaps some eventualities were just inevitable — like a final face-off against Blake.
Circumstances had clicked into place perfectly for that, and now Wardell knew how to make sure they were in the right place: both Blake and the FBI bitch. He’d make his initial kill; then he would take out Banner. After that, the location was perfect for one last dance.
Wardell spun the cap off a bottle of water and took a sip. The Remington 700 was set up on its bipod, trained on the stage. He squinted through the scope and swept it over the kill zone once again.
As he watched, two techs wandered across the stage, ticking off positions of cables and checking that everything conformed to safety regulations. Wardell closed his eyes and savored the anticipation. Not long now.
He watched the crowd as it built, waiting until that one very special person took to the stage.
Not long now.
70
It wouldn’t be long now. One way or another, Banner thought, it ends tonight.
She took her eyes from the crowds milling around the atrium and raised them to the sky. Or, more accurately, to the vast glazed ceiling. The lights inside rendered the sky beyond a thick, tarlike black, dimming the clouds and the stars to nothing at all. She had caught herself doing this more and more often over the past few days — looking up.
With Caleb Wardell, death came from above and with no warning. She understood the practical reasons behind shooting from an elevated position, but part of her couldn’t help but wonder if Wardell struck from on high so regularly because it tied in with his god complex. Earlier in the day, she’d finally listened to a recording of the waitress from Rapid City being interviewed. Her recollections of what Wardell had said had chilled Banner, knowing what had happened less than twenty minutes after he’d left the diner.