‘He’s not at home, his sister says he’s gone to work. Unfortunately he’s left his cell behind so we can’t track him that way. And he’s taken his rifle with him.’
‘God. He’s at the stadium. Gomez... or, yeah, the guy the cameras picked up there yesterday while he was doing reconnaissance. He’s going to shoot someone there.’
‘Someone?’
‘The most obvious target would be Mayor Patterson. Any minute now he’s going to be speaking in front of 60,000 people, and it’s going out live on TV.’
It was Bob’s turn to join up the dots.
‘It is Patterson,’ he said quietly. ‘His masterpiece.’
‘What?’
‘He told his sister he was going to unveil his masterpiece today. I thought he was referring to this Labrador he’s been working on.’
‘What?’
‘Mike Lunde is going to crown his work with the unveiling of his last masterpiece. And an unveiling needs an audience.’
Bob heard a change in the acoustics around Kay and realised she must now be sitting in her car.
‘Give me a description,’ she said. ‘I need to ring Walker and warn them they’re looking for the wrong man.’
Bob gave Kay a quick description of Mike Lunde and the few bits of personal information he had about him. She repeated after him, he confirmed it, then she hung up.
Saturday traffic was light and Bob had already reached the city centre. He stopped at a red light. Hesitated. A left turn would take him to the store, a right to the stadium. Kay hadn’t queried why Bob hadn’t mentioned this Mike Lunde before. Maybe because there wasn’t time. Maybe because she didn’t want to know. No matter which way he turned now, he would still have a lot to answer for. But right now he didn’t care a damn about that. Right now all that mattered was to make the right choice, chop the tree down from the correct side and let the splinters fall where they would.
The light changed to yellow.
48
A Beer Outdoors, October 2016
O’Rourke’s men were in position outside the door of the box. On the frosted glass he noted the logo of one of the Vikings’ sponsors. Two men stood ready with the little battering ram, three others behind them with weapons trained on the door, the lights on the gun barrels lit.
‘Kilo and Lima are ready,’ he whispered into a walkie-talkie.
O’Rourke breathed slowly as he waited for a response. Could feel in his pulse that this was the good kind of tension, on the right side of being nervous. It brought a strange feeling of safety to know that he was so alert. They were totally prepared for just about any eventuality. On the other hand they could never know exactly what lay in store for them. But that was what he loved about the job. The combination of the intoxication of control and the thrill of the risk. It was like fucking and being fucked at the same time.
Then Springer’s voice was coming through the walkie-talkie.
‘Alpha. Do you have to use stun grenades?’
‘Have to,’ said O’Rourke.
‘We’re worried that might create panic in the stadium.’
‘Tell the band to play louder.’
‘Nothing plays louder than a stun grenade, and the flashes of light will be visible all over the stadium. Sixty thousand frightened people. You see what I’m getting at...’
O’Rourke saw all right. Not using stun grenades would deprive them of a tactical advantage and increase the risk of loss. On the other hand, nothing SWAT did was free of risk, and if only one man had been observed in there then the risk was acceptable. His decision was easy.
‘OK then, we go in without the stun grenades,’ said O’Rourke.
Brenton Walker stood in a corner watching Springer talking into his walkie-talkie while the female member of the mayor’s own security team explained the situation to Patterson. Walker’s phone rang and he saw it was Myers calling. He pressed Reject. Seconds later the phone gave a slight tremor, like a shudder. He read the text message:
Gomez is a white man, 58, real name Mike Lunde.
Walker tapped the Call symbol and Myers answered before he had raised the phone to his ear.
‘I found Gomez’s body,’ she said. ‘He’s been flayed. Mike Lunde has been using his face as a mask.’
Walker — who liked to think he was capable of calm in moments of crisis — heard his own response, explosive and involuntary: ‘What?’
‘Lunde is a taxidermist. He’s left his house and he’s carrying a rifle, that’s about what we know. I’m on my way to the stadium now. JTTF have people working round the clock on this who can locate a photo of Lunde and send it to you.’
‘Good, JTTF are here.’
‘OK. So the name is Mike Lunde, address 1722 Erie Avenue, Chanhassen.’
He hung up at the same time as he heard Springer speak into his walkie-talkie:
‘OK, let’s go, Kilo.’
O’Rourke followed directly behind the five who went in front. By the time he was round the corner they had already surrounded the man sitting alone at the table and were pointing their automatics at him. The man’s eyes were wide and black with fear, his mouth was open and his hands raised, though no one had given him the order. In front of him on the table was an open beer bottle with a handle that O’Rourke identified as a local brew, an Utepils. In a cupboard with a glass door behind the man he saw several more bottles of the same beer. O’Rourke wasn’t sure if it was the bottle or the look on the man’s face that told him straight away this was neither a sniper nor a terrorist. But rules are rules, so he nodded to his men and they took up position behind the chair in which the man sat. They lifted him up, laid him on the floor on his stomach and handcuffed him. O’Rourke squatted in front of him.
‘Where are the others? Tell me right now or we’ll blow your head off and say you attacked us.’ The routine empty threat was delivered without its usual conviction.
‘What?’ the man stammered. ‘I’m on my own. I’m the janitor here. I’ll pay for the beer, I promise!’
Walker stood beside Springer and listened to O’Rourke’s voice over the walkie-talkie. The band had stopped playing out there, and now there were a few whistles from the crowd as a clearly impatient Patterson kicked his heels at the exit.
‘Owen Ruud,’ said O’Rourke. ‘He’s got an ID says he’s the stadium janitor. Looks genuine. And he’s not Latino, looks more like a squarehead. It’s his day off today, he says. Came along just for the mayor’s speech and to have a beer.’
‘Owen Ruud is on the list!’ called one of the JTTF men sitting at the rear of the room with an open laptop in front of him on the table. ‘Can someone ask them to take his picture and send it to me so we can be one hundred per cent certain?’
‘OK! Ready to go again,’ Springer called out to the room. ‘Mayor Patterson, when you’re ready, sir.’
‘Wait!’ called Walker. ‘I’ve just received a message from one of my colleagues. It seems that Gomez is a white man and—’
‘Mr Mayor!’ Springer interrupted. ‘If the janitor is the man we’ve been looking for we have him now and we won’t be letting him go. You’re quite safe, so go ahead!’
‘We can’t know if it’s the same man!’ Walker shouted, aware now that all eyes were on him, including Patterson’s.
‘We’re grateful to the Homicide Unit,’ said Springer. ‘But we’re in charge here and this situation is under control. Mayor, all 60,000 people out there have been thoroughly searched, regardless of ethnicity, religion, sex or sexual orientation. But the final decision must, of course, remain yours.’
The whistling had increased in volume.
‘Announce through the loudspeakers that the mayor has been held up in traffic,’ said Walker. ‘That’ll give us time to get a picture of the suspect and check if his face shows up on any of the security cameras.’