The Killing Season (4 page)

“We’re wasting time,” I said. “So I’m going to lay everything out for you: I’m not here to take your case away. I’m not here to show you how to do your job. I’m not here to take the credit. I’m here to offer my skills and get paid in return. All right?”

Castle opened his mouth to say something, but Donaldson, obviously tiring of the delays, cut him off. “You’re leading the task force, Agent Castle. That hasn’t changed.” He shot Castle a lingering look that supplied the unspoken coda:
but it could
.

Castle sat back in his chair. He looked like he was mentally organizing his worry list and deciding that, for the moment, this new element wasn’t near enough to the top to dwell on any longer.

In the break in conversation that followed, my eyes were drawn to Wardell’s mug shot, lying where Edwards had dropped it on the table. Like the name, the face was reasonably familiar. Or rather, the likeness was familiar. I guessed it was the picture they must have used on the front pages and the nightly bulletins around the trial.

But was that really what had drawn my attention back to the picture? There was something about the eyes. Something from the past that I couldn’t quite put my finger on . . .

“Is there anything else we need to know at this time?” Banner asked Donaldson, snapping my attention back to the present.

“Not at this time,” Edwards said.

Donaldson smiled coldly, wordlessly signaling that the meeting was over.

“Then he’s right,” Banner said. “We’re wasting time. Let’s get moving on this.”

As if to underline the point, Donaldson’s phone rang—a brief businesslike chirrup. It was an almost retro tone, like the way cell phones sounded in the nineties.

Donaldson tapped the screen and held the phone to his ear. He said his name and paused while the caller spoke. Then he took a sharp breath. He stood up slowly, turned around to face the plate-glass windows overlooking West Roosevelt Road, ten floors below. “When?” He paused again and swallowed after hearing the response. “How many?”

Edwards’s jaw tensed as he watched Donaldson’s face. Banner and Castle shared a glance. Donaldson cut the call off without saying anything else.

“There’s a mall in a town called Cairo, about twenty miles south of the crime scene. Somebody just shot a deliveryman in the parking lot. Witnesses didn’t see anyone approach him. They say he just fell down.”

6

9:57 a.m.

Too soon, that was the problem. Too soon, or too early.

Wardell glanced at the sign as he passed it by at a scrupulously legal fifty-five miles per hour. Truck stop five miles, bus station seven, it told him, which meant that the truck stop was five and a half minutes away, give or take. Good. He needed to make a phone call, and he needed to change. Wardell was hardly slight in build, but the Russian’s clothes were almost comically big on him.

A white car emerged from behind a bend in the road ahead and sped past. White, but not a police car. That reminded him that he should probably change the car as well, come to think of it. A pity—the Ford Taurus had only fifty thousand miles on the clock. It was a smooth ride and had reasonable trunk space. He even liked the color.

What had he been thinking about before the sign for the truck stop had distracted him? There were so many distractions on the outside, so many colors and lights and signs and . . . variations. It would take some getting used to. Oh yes—
too soon
, that was it. That was what he’d been thinking: He had broken his long fast too soon.

Wardell regarded the killing of the fat delivery driver as an embarrassing failure. It had taken two shots to kill the man.
Two
. The first shot to the chest had missed the heart, catching the driver midway between that point and the left shoulder. Luckily, the guy had been too confused to fall down, giving Wardell the opportunity to place the second bullet on target and finish the job.

Two shots
.

Sure, he could make excuses. He was out of practice, natur­ally, and firing an unfamiliar weapon cold-bore, but still . . . he’d jumped back in too soon, acted too early. That had to be the problem. He ought to have bided his time, put a few hundred miles between himself and that field where he’d left dead men like unharvested crops. The
PSG
1 from the prisoner transport van had come with a full twenty-round detachable box magazine. Not a lot of ammunition in the scheme of things, but for a former United States Marine Scout sniper it was plenty. He ought to have hunkered down in the woods somewhere, spent a while investing some of those rounds using deer or squirrels for target practice, gotten properly acquainted with the weapon.

But then again, that’s exactly what they’d have expected him to do: play it safe, lie low, slink away like a chastised schoolboy smarting from a punishment. No, that didn’t figure into his plans.

He thought back to that first shot. Visualized the ritual: breathing in and out, regulating his heartbeat, selecting the target, taking aim, squeezing the trigger. In the mental reconstruction, he finally found himself able to admit what it was that had made him miss. It hadn’t been a lack of practice, or even the new weapon. It had been something that Wardell had not encountered in a long, long time: fear. Fear that he’d lost it, that he wouldn’t be able to make the shot.

Fear was the cold sweat that had prevented him from blanking his mind, the nagging voice that had whispered in his ear and broken the ritual.

But when that first round had gone a little wide of perfect, something had clicked back into place. All of a sudden, there was an urgent, time-sensitive task before him. A job to be finished. And so his mind had cleared and he’d waited for the next space between breaths, made a microscopic, instinctive adjustment, and put the second bullet where the first should have gone: right through the fat man’s overworked heart.

He still had it; of that there was no doubt. The next one would prove it.

Wardell flicked his blinkers on and slowed to make the turn into the truck stop. It was a small, down-at-the-heels operation. An expanse of cracked and pitted concrete surrounding a series of squat, one-story buildings: a diner, a gas station, a convenience store. The buildings looked like they’d been thrown up in the midsixties and left to their own devices ever since, the only cosmetic update the rising gas prices on the sign. Wardell’s eyes scanned the lot and the buildings, surveying the location for warning signs. He saw none, but still, he’d seen more inviting premises in Baghdad, post-shock and awe.

He made a wide, slow circuit of the lot. It was all but empty: three big rigs, a smattering of cars, no people in evidence. He parked the Ford at the far end facing a grassy slope and a line of trees. Almost, but not quite, the farthest point from the main buildings. He twisted the ignition key, cutting off both the engine and the radio midway through a local news report.

He’d been listening all the way down, flitting from ­station to station, looking for news. The death of the fat man hadn’t made any of the bulletins yet, not even the local ones. That was no surprise. In Wardell’s experience—and he had a lot—it generally took two, three hours minimum for a one-off murder to make the news. Less for the latest in an established series of killings, of course.

But there was no mention either of his escape, and given that more than seven hours had elapsed, that
was
a surprise. He should have been the lead story on every channel by now. His prison mug shot should have been flashed across the morning papers and on the news channels and the Web since the early hours. The fact that it hadn’t been indicated that the cops or the feds or whoever were sitting on the information. They probably thought they could run him down before anybody noticed.

Wardell smiled, musing that his freshest kill would most likely cost some middle-echelon public servant his job. Not the guy who’d actually decided to cover up the escape, of course, but probably the next link down the chain of command.

“Hoping I’d keep out of trouble for a day or two?” he said aloud, adjusting the rearview mirror to examine his reflection. He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, boys.”

Looking into his own cold blue eyes, it occurred to Wardell that this was the first real mirror he’d seen in half a decade. It was less forgiving than the shiny plastic in the prison. It showed the new wrinkles, the occasional lines of gray in his straggly beard. The eyes had stayed the same, though. He’d never picked up the glaze of defeat and regret that he’d seen in the other long-term inmates.

The media blackout wouldn’t last much longer; he was certain of that. And so a change in appearance was necessary. He fumbled in the glove box and came out with a pair of sunglasses. They were feminine in style, but not overtly so. The frames were dark brown and conservative. They would pass. He’d have liked there to have been some kind of hat, too, but he was out of luck on that score.

Not that it particularly mattered, of course. Covering his tracks had once been a necessity. Now it was more like good practice, something that would allow him to operate more freely. He’d be traced to this place—Lord knew his current appearance was memorable enough—but he knew how to make the trail go cold from this point. Until the next kill, of course.

He got out of the car, locking it using the key remote, and walked toward the gnarled knot of buildings. It was cold, and there was a light but nagging breeze. He felt the oversized clothes flap around his body like some kind of gown.

He passed the diner and stopped at the convenience store, pushing the glass door inward and hearing a little bell toll at his entrance. At the far end of the store was a female clerk behind a counter. She was small and doughy and frumpish—could have been anywhere between twenty-two and fifty. Her gaze lingered on Wardell for a second longer than average. Which was about right for somebody looking at a man with clothes three sizes too big, a bum’s beard, and DIY bandages made from clothing strips on his wrists and forearms.

Wardell watched her for signs. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t look down to compare his face with a recently received police wanted sheet.

He nodded to her and moved into the store. He made his way from section to section, efficient but not hurrying. He selected a first aid box and a men’s grooming kit, which included a pair of nail scissors, and also a razor and a can of shave gel for sensitive skin. He found the section that sold souvenir clothing to tourists and selected a pair of jeans in his size, together with a lime-green T-shirt with a hot-pink motif. Lastly, he stopped by the chilled section and chose a sandwich—tuna on rye—and a caffeine-free Diet Coke. He didn’t like any substance that affected his moods, coordination, or reaction time.

He was turning toward the counter when a red and black jacketed book, one of many similar paperbacks on a swivel stand, caught his eye. He grinned and plucked it from its slot. It was called
Summer of Terror: On the Trail of the Chicago Sniper
, by Sheriff John Hatcher. He thumbed through it, smiling at the memories evoked by the glossy pictures in the middle. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the picture of the house Hatcher had bought with the proceeds of his celebrity. He wondered how much Hatcher would relish a rematch, given that he appeared to be taking all the credit for stopping him the first time.

Wardell shelved the idea for later and put the book back. His ultimate goal was still the same, but it wouldn’t do him any harm to line up some warm-up targets, aside from the one he already had in mind.

He approached the counter, letting the clerk see him up close now. She was trying not to stare, but was plainly curious. No doubt about it: He’d be identified later. If he hadn’t been already, that was. If he had been, there was a cheap ballpoint pen tied to the counter with a length of string, and that would be all he’d need to resolve the immediate problem. Wardell studied the clerk’s face until she looked away. He was reasonably convinced he hadn’t been recognized. That was good. Wardell hated a mess.

She scanned the items he placed on the counter, raising an eyebrow at the green shirt, and told him how much it came to. He took four tens from a brown leather ladies’ wallet and paid, giving her a knowing smile. That puzzled her.

You’ll be telling the grandkids about this moment, girlie
, Wardell thought as the woman returned his smile with visible unease.

7

10:13 a.m.

The truck stop’s public bathrooms were cold and filthy and they stank. But they were also deserted, and they had sinks and running water. Real mirrors again, too.

Wardell stripped to the waist and washed up in one of the sinks. It was porcelain, not stainless steel like the one in his cell. There was a choice of chilled or scalding water, but he managed to achieve a balance by blocking the drain with paper towels and filling the sink. He ducked his head in, soaking his face and beard and holding his breath. He held it for two minutes, enjoying the sensory deprivation.

After years of holding his memories in check, he let them flood back in. Toward the end of his submersion, as the pounding in his temples rose to a crescendo, he could almost hear the gunshots echoing across the years. He remembered blood and heat and dirt. He remembered pulling the trigger again and again, seeing the blood spray up close, hearing the cries of pain and fear. And he remembered being interrupted.

Slowly, he raised his head out before expelling a long, slow breath. He’d been thwarted twice now. Once over there and once in Chicago. He felt like a bowstring, pulled taut and then held interminably. This time, no one would stop him.

Some target practice first—and target practice was an end in itself, as far as pleasure went. And then some scores settled, to send a message as much as anything else. And then the finale. Before they’d caught him, he’d planned on hitting a mall or a movie theater or a subway station—the venue didn’t really matter, as long as there were lots of people in a confined space. And then? Then he’d keep shooting until he ran out of ammunition or was cut down himself.