The Third Rail (10 page)

"I'll be right up," I said. The detective grunted and started to climb the stairs. I turned back to the woman, who used long purple fingernails to turn the pages of her paper. She settled on something that looked suspiciously like Michael Sneed's column.

"Not too busy today?" I said. It was half past nine, still rush hour, and I hadn't seen a commuter yet.

The woman snorted, but didn't bother to look up. "Been
here three hours, sweetie. Usually have maybe a thousand come through by this time of morning. Another five hundred by noon. Today ..."

The woman looked over at a computer screen and hit a few buttons.

"A hundred thirty-five so far. That doesn't include cops." She nodded in the direction of the departed Rodriguez. "Hell, we got more cops up there than commuters. That's for damn sure."

"You here yesterday?" I said.

"Already told your pals. Didn't see much. Just a single pop and a lot of screaming."

"Pretty big deal, huh?"

The woman shrugged. "I live on the South Side, honey. We get people shot up all day, every day." She moved her eyes to the right. For the first time I noticed a small TV. It had the sound turned down and was tuned to Fox's morning news. The extended edition.

"My neighbor has a little girl," the woman said. "Hit by a bullet last summer while she was sitting on her living room floor, putting together a goddamn jigsaw puzzle. Girl's ten years old and gonna spend the rest of her days strapped to a bed. You hear about that on the TV?"

I shook my head. The woman was awake now. Maybe more than I needed, but there it was.

"That's 'cuz it wasn't on the TV. Not so you'd notice, anyway. Listen, I feel bad for that poor woman yesterday. And the girl downtown. I'll pray for them and theirs. But, goddamn, they got an army walking those tracks."

She dropped her eyes to the little screen again. I did the same. A reporter with plastic hair and a freshly painted grin
stood at the corner of Eighteenth and Halsted, in the heart of Pilsen. Behind him, kids flashed gang signs and mugged for the camera.

"That's all they talking about this morning. Hispanics gonna demand some answers."

"Hispanics?" I said.

"Sure. The lady up on the platform yesterday was Hispanic. So was the girl downtown. Hispanics say it's a conspiracy. City doesn't give a damn."

The woman in the CTA booth opened her mouth and laughed. Not a pretty, musical laugh, but harsh. A twisted and cramped sort of thing. Filled with anger. Filled with payback.

"City doesn't give a damn about Hispanics. Shit, Hispanics don't know nothin' 'bout being nothin'. Come down to my neighborhood. Don't get no army of cops down there when the black girl gets shot."

The woman was right, at least from where she sat. But there wasn't anything I could do about it, and we both knew it. So she just shook her head.

"The hell am I telling you for? You a cop. You know how it is."

"It's okay," I said.

"Yeah, it's okay for you. Heading up?"

I nodded. She popped the gate a second time and I walked through it. The woman went back to her paper, clicking her nails and humming softly to herself.

Up on top, the platform was deserted--that is, if you didn't count the twelve cops stationed on both sides of the tracks. A uniform stopped me as I got to the top of the stairs.

"I'm going to have to give you a quick pat down, sir."

"No kidding."

"Yes, sir."

"You going to do this with every person taking the L today?"

I saw a touch of anger in the eyes, a flare of the nostrils. A lot of cops don't like it when people ask them questions, especially when they have someone running around shooting people for no apparent reason.

"Yes, sir," the cop said. "Until we get some metal detectors, it's going to be a pat down for every person who wants to ride the train."

I wondered who came up with that brilliant idea, but decided to keep the rest of my thoughts to myself. "I'm here with Detective Rodriguez," I said. "Got a nine millimeter on my hip. The license to carry it is in my back pocket."

The cop took a half step back at the mention of a gun and jerked his hand toward his shoulder mike. I pointed to Rodriguez who had his back to me, about twenty yards down the platform.

"That's Detective Rodriguez right there. Why don't you call him over?"

"Yes, sir, please keep your hands where I can see them." The uniform hadn't pulled his gun yet and shot me, but I figured it to be just a matter of time. Fortunately, Rodriguez picked that moment to turn around.

"He's with me, Officer." Rodriguez motioned me in. The cop studied the detective. Then he stepped aside and I walked across the platform.

"Nice atmosphere up here today," I said.

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know, but this isn't going to work."

"You haven't seen the worst." Rodriguez walked me over to the railing. From Southport the elevated tracks snaked due east, bending down alleys and across people's backyards, before turning south toward the Loop.

"Can you see them?"

Rodriguez pointed to a row of rooftops. I saw them, small mounds, at least one hunkered down at the corner of several buildings along the run of tracks.

"So they really put them in?" I said.

"Yup. Federal snipers, covering selected stations and then scattered along the entire route. They're not fully deployed yet. But, of course, they started here."

"Press is going to love this." I glanced up and down the street. "By the way, where is the Fourth Estate?"

Rodriguez grinned. "Wilson did get his way there. Pushed the fuckers back two blocks and completely off Southport. A security perimeter. No pictures of any of this. No bullshit live shots, either."

I shook my head. "They'll get their pictures and they'll take the city apart for trying to keep them out of it."

Rodriguez turned away from the street. "Right now, no one really cares. The mayor just wants to get through today with no more bodies."

"And you think this is going to work?"

The detective shrugged. "Will it prevent him from hitting us again? Maybe not. But if he hits here, he's a dead man. That much, I can guarantee."

"That's nice to hear, Detective." We both turned to find Katherine Lawson walking toward us, badge around her neck, face pale and pinched. "Kelly, you want to walk with me for a minute?"

Lawson kept moving toward an empty end of the L platform. I fell in step.

"You want to put a bullet in this guy?"

I glanced at Lawson, who kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke.

"Good morning to you, too, Agent Lawson."

"Answer the question, Kelly."

"I'm guessing a lot of people would like that," I said.

Lawson stopped walking and jammed her hands into her pockets.

"I know it's your mayor's preferred solution," she said. "And I don't think my boss would mind it very much, either. Problem is ..."

"Problem is, I'm not a hired gun. Even if I was, you have no idea who this guy is, where he is, or what he's going to try next. And, by the way, for my money we're talking two people here."

"Maybe. Rodriguez already knows this, but I wanted you to hear it from me."

"What's that?"

"Most of the team wants you cut out of this investigation altogether."

"And then there's the people who want to put a bull's-eye on my back and use me as bait."

"There is that faction, but the prevailing sentiment seems to be that you're a distraction. Someone this guy picked out to screw up our focus."

"And?"

"And therefore you're going to be discarded."

"At least you didn't snicker when you said it."

"Don't take it personally. Well, maybe you should take it personally. For what it's worth, I disagree with their assessment."

"How so?"

"Sometimes the Bureau skews facts to fit their theory of a case."

"And you think that's what they're doing here?"

"Could be. This guy went out of his way to put you in the game. My gut tells me it's not something we should ignore."

"So how can I help?"

"The phone call yesterday. You said he mentioned something about Homer."

"You mean glory and suffering? Zero-sum game?"

"Yeah, what was that all about?"

"You really want to know?"

"I asked."

"He was talking about the
Iliad
and the ancient concept of honor. According to the Greeks, you only earned honor through action, by defeating your opponent. And your measure of honor was in equal measure to the amount of pain you inflicted."

"Zero-sum game?" Lawson said.

"Exactly."

"So this guy is going to extract as much pain as he can."

"If we were in Greece in the eighth century
B.C.
, yes, that's exactly what he'd do."

"Great. And I assume you have no idea how any of that connects up to what we've got going on here?"

"If it was that easy, I'd have spoken up yesterday."

"Not sure I believe that." Lawson leaned a hip against the railing and looked out over Chicago's rooftops. A federal agent looked back at us through the scope of his weapon.

"People are going to go crazy when they see this," she said.

"Yes, they are."

"I dug a little dirt on you, talked to people who have actually worked with you in the field."

"And?"

"Some say you have good instincts. The rest say you're just lucky. And those are your friends."

"What do you say?"

"I say we need a little luck." Lawson turned her back to the street and folded her arms across her chest. She kept her eyes fixed on the wooden planks of the L platform as she spoke. "It has to be low-key. You work the case as an unofficial consultant. Your contacts are Rodriguez and myself. Above all, you stay away from the main investigation."

"I'm getting that warm, tingling feeling inside."

"You want to do this or not?"

I wanted to tell her about the mayor, about how he had already locked me up as the city's "official" unofficial consultant. But then I figured what the hell, double-dipping was practically a birthright in Chicago.

"You want to pay my daily rate?" I said. "Or a flat fee?"

"Work it out with Rodriguez. If you turn up any leads ..." Lawson stopped and looked over again. "I mean anything of significance, you report it to me. Immediately. And then we decide what to do together. Are we clear?"

"One more question. Why take the chance?"

"With you?"

I nodded. "My experience with agents from the Bureau is they like to play it by the book. Even when they don't agree with their boss."

"How many female agents have you worked with?"

"You're the first."

"Exactly. The Bureau is only slightly less misogynistic than the Catholic church. Women have to work twice as hard and be three times as smart just to stay afloat."

"And they need to take chances?"

"After a while, you figure, 'Why not?' Especially on the big ones. Now, what are you going to need?"

I held up a finger. "One thing." I wrote down Hubert Russell's
name and number. "I need to hire this guy. He's a little unorthodox and not really an investigator, but he understands computers and he understands stealth."

Lawson looked at the name. "Should I meet him?"

"I don't see why."

"What does he do?"

"What do we have so far? A woman shot at close range with a forty-cal, a sniper shooting, and a knife attack. No real pattern, except they all involve the city and, one way or another, the CTA. What else?"

"The bad guy reaches out to you on the phone."

"That's right. So we know he's got an ego. Big surprise. But where's the focus? What's the overall pattern?"

"Maybe there isn't any," Lawson said.

"Maybe not. My guy will create a profile."

"I got a team at Quantico doing that right now."

"Not like Hubert will. Look, it might not work, but I think it's worth a shot."

"When can you get him up and going?"

"He already is."

"Thanks for talking to me first, asshole. Keep me informed."

My new favorite federal agent turned away just as my cell phone buzzed. I reached for it and a half dozen police radios exploded with sound.

I
t was 9:45 when Nelson sent his text message. Robles checked it and turned the phone off. The morning rush along Lake Shore Drive was still in full throat, a solid line of cars creeping south at twenty miles an hour. Robles had moved forward a bit so he was under the overhang of a tree and scanned the line of cars with the zoom lens of his Nikon. Then he pulled out a small set of binoculars and gave the road a second look. Robles didn't know exactly what he was searching for: a face, a gesture, a moment, something that would tell him who lived and who died.

At 9:51 he stowed the camera back in his duffel and pulled out a rifle with a scope. He was used to the weapon now and it felt good in his hands. Using the trees as cover, Robles ran over the rifle quickly. He had checked it before he left, but wanted to make sure. Then he loaded it and leaned it against a tree. From his bag, the shooter pulled out a folding bipod and set it up with a clear view of the Drive. He threw a small bean bag behind the bipod, dropped to the ground, and lay there for a minute or more, using his binoculars to review the sight lines a final time.

At 9:55 Robles put his binoculars away and crawled back to
where he'd left the rifle. He slung it over his shoulder and moved forward again to the shooting stand. Gently, he lifted the weapon onto the bipod and seated the rifle butt in the bean bag. The morning sun was glancing off the lake, partially blinding the drivers headed south and providing even more cover. Still, Nelson wanted no more than a minute's worth of shooting time. Robles let out a slow, even breath and eased his eye to the scope.

The first face he saw was that of Jessica Morgan, twenty-three years old and driving a Ford Focus. Jessica was a single mom, working as a paralegal at a Loop law firm and taking classes at night to earn her college degree. Jessica would never know about the law degree she'd have earned from the University of Chicago, her subsequent clerkship with a federal judge, and, eventually, her own seat on the Illinois Supreme Court. Instead, Jessica smiled in Robles' scope and pulled an invisible strand of hair back from her face. Then she got an education in execution. The round shattered her windshield, hit her steering wheel, and struck Jessica just under the chin, killing her instantly. Robles, however, never saw the fruits of his handiwork. The clock was running, and his rifle was searching.