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  “Alrighty, then,” he said, “we got a long drive back to Cleveland, so we’ll just be on our way to O-hi-o. Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I guess this little visit wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

  “You think?” she said, and slammed the door in both their faces.

  On the way down the walk, Mitch looked like he wanted to cry.

  “It sucks, Denny. She’d be proud if she knew what we were doing. I wanted to tell her so bad —”

  “But you didn’t.” Denny threw an arm around his shoulder and spoke close. “You stuck to the mission, Mitchie, and that’s what counts. Now come on — let’s hit ourselves a Taco Bell on the way out of town.”

  While he walked around to the driver’s side of the car, Denny reached inside his jacket and flipped the safety on the Walther nine millimeter holstered there. As it turned out, Mitch was more of a hero than he’d ever get to know. He’d just saved his own daughter’s life.

  Alicia may have been fairly cunty, but she was clueless; and there was no way in hell Denny was going to shoot a five-year-old girl who didn’t even know who Mitch was. The whole point of the assignment was threat assessment, and there was no threat here.

  If the man back in DC didn’t like it, he could find himself another contractor.

  Chapter 61

  ACTUALLY, IT HAD been kind of a fun day — relaxing and surprising, especially Mitch’s pretty ex-wife. It was just after dark when they reached Arlington that night. Mitch had spent most of the trip watching the side of the road, sighing and tossing around like someone who couldn’t sleep.

  But now, as they came up on the Roosevelt Bridge, he sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead through the windshield.

  “What the hell is that, Denny?”

  Cars were backed up on the highway in either direction. There were cruisers with lights flashing on both sides, and uniformed officers out on the road. It wasn’t just a traffic jam, and it didn’t look like an accident either.

  “Traffic checkpoint,” Denny said, realizing what it was.

  The city had been instituting them for a few years now, but only in the really violent neighborhoods. He’d never seen anything like this before.

  “Something big must have happened. Like, really big.”

  “I don’t like this, Denny.” Mitch’s knee started bouncing. “Ain’t they been looking for a Suburban since we made that hit in Woodley Park?”

  “Yeah, but a dark-blue or black one. Besides, they’re stopping everyone, see? Hell, I wish we had some papers to sell in this traffic,” Denny said, as upbeat as he could make it. “Might earn back some of that gas money we spent today.”

  Mitch wasn’t buying it. He stayed all hunched down and tense as they crawled along toward the head of the line.

  Then, out of the blue, Mitch said, “Where did we get the gas money, Denny? And that envelope for Alicia? I don’t get how we’re paying for this.”

  Denny gritted his teeth. The one thing Mitch could usually be counted on for was a distinct lack of probing questions.

  “You know what happened to that curious cat, don’t you, Mitchie? D-E-D, dead,” he said. “You just focus on the big stuff and let me handle the rest. Including this.”

  They were coming up on the checkpoint now, and an NBA-size officer motioned them forward.

  “License and registration, please.”

  Denny reached into the glove compartment and handed them over without a blink. Here’s where it paid to work for the right people. “Denny Humboldt” had a record as clean as a show cat’s ass — even that parking ticket would be history by now.

  “What’s going on, Officer?” he asked. “It looks big.”

  The cop answered with a question, while his eyes played over the piles of junk in the backseat. “Where are you two coming from?”

  “Johnsonburg, PA,” Denny said. “Nowhere you ever want to go, by the way. The place is a hole.”

  “How long have you been gone?”

  “Just since this morning. Day trip. So I guess you can’t tell me anything, huh?”

  “That’s right.” The officer handed him back his items and motioned them on. “Move along, please.”

  As they pulled away, Mitch pried his hands off his knee and heaved a big sigh. “That was too damn close,” he said. “That sonofabitch knew something.”

  “Not at all, Mitchie,” Denny told him. “Not at all. He’s like everybody else — none of ’em have a clue, not a clue.”

  It didn’t take them long to find some coverage on the radio. Word was coming in fast that the DC Patriot sniper had struck again. An unnamed police officer had been gunned down from a distance, right there on the DC side of the Potomac.

  Sure enough, as they crossed the Roosevelt Bridge into the city, they could see a whole mass of law enforcement parked along Rock Creek Parkway off to the left. Denny hooted out loud. “Check out the piggy convention! Looks like Christmas came early this year.”

  “What are you talking about, Denny?” Mitch still looked a little glazed from the checkpoint stop.

  “The dead cop, man. Aren’t you listening?” Denny said. “It’s all going down exactly like we hoped. We just bagged ourselves a goddamn copycat!”

  Chapter 62

  NELSON TAMBOUR HAD been shot just before dusk, on a grassy strip of no-man’s-land between Rock Creek Parkway and the river. The highway was already shut down by the time I got there, all the way from K Street to the Kennedy Center. I parked as close as I could and walked the rest of the way in.

  Tambour had been a detective with NSID, the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. I didn’t know him personally, but that didn’t make this incident any less of a nightmare. MPD had just lost one of its own, and horribly so. Detective Tambour had been found with his skull blown half open — a large-caliber bullet had passed right through his head.

  It was dark now, but several klieg lights had the scene lit up like the inside of a football stadium. Two tents had been erected off to the side, one as a command center, and another for evidence collection out of sight of the pesky news choppers circling overhead.

  We also had Harbor Patrol on the water, keeping pleasure craft at a good distance from the shore. And command staff were everywhere.

  When I saw Chief Perkins, he motioned me right over. He was huddled off to the side with the assistant chiefs from NSID and Investigative Services, as well as with a woman I didn’t recognize.

  “Alex, this is Penny Ziegler from IAD,” he said, and the knot in my stomach tightened right up. What is Internal Affairs doing down here?

  “Something I should know about?” I said.

  “There is,” Ziegler told me. Her face was just as creased with tension as ours were. Murdered cops tend to make everyone wiggy.

  “Detective Tambour’s been on no-contact status for the last month,” she said. “We were going to be filing criminal charges against him later this week.”

  “What charges?” I said.

  She looked to Perkins for a nod before she went on. “Over the last two years, Tambour oversaw an undercover operation at three of the big housing projects in Anacostia. He’s been skimming half of everything they’ve seized, mostly PCP, coke, and Ecstasy. He was reselling it through a network of street dealers in Maryland and Virginia.”

  “He may have been on a drop right here,” Perkins added with a shake of his head. “They found a key of coke in his trunk.”

  Four words flashed through my mind: Foxes in the henhouse.

  Suddenly Tambour was a lot more in line with the snipers’ victim profile than he’d been a minute ago.

  At the same time, though, he was an unknown to the general public. He hadn’t been in the headlines like the others, at least not yet, and that was a difference.

  An important one? I couldn’t be sure, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe something was off here.

  “I want to impose radio silence on anything to do with the investigation,” I told Perkins. “
Whoever made this hit obviously has some kind of inside line.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “And, Alex?” Perkins put a hand on my arm as I turned to go. His eyes looked strained. Maybe even a little desperate. “Work the hell out of this,” he told me. “This is close to getting out of control.”

  If this hit wasn’t by our sniper team, it already was out of control.

  Chapter 63

  FBI PERSONNEL STARTED showing up right after I did. That was definitely a double-edged sword for me. Their Evidence Response Teams bring some of the best toys in the business — but it also meant Max Siegel wouldn’t be far behind.

  In fact, we bumped heads over Nelson Tambour’s body.

  “That’s a hell of an exit wound,” Siegel said, coming into my airspace with his usual sensitivity. “I heard the guy was dirty. Is it true? I’ll find out anyway.”

  I ignored the question and answered the one he should have been asking. “It was definitely long-range,” I said. “There’s no stippling at all. And, given the body position, the shots probably had to come from over there.”

  Directly across from us, maybe 250 yards offshore, we could see flashlight beams crisscrossing the underbrush on Roosevelt Island. We had two teams over there, scouring for shells, suspicious footprints, anything.

  “You said shots, plural?” Siegel asked.

  “That’s right.” I pointed at the slope behind the spot where Tambour had gone down. Four yellow flags were stuck into the ground, one for each of the slugs that had been recovered so far.

  “Three misses and one hit,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not sure we’re looking at the same gunmen here.”

  Siegel peered back and forth between the river and Tambour’s body several times. “Maybe they were firing from a boat of some kind. There’s a decent chop out there today. Could explain the multiple shots, the misses.”

  “There’s no cover on the open water,” I said, “and all kinds of risk for an eyewitness. Besides, it’s always been one shot, one kill with these guys. They don’t miss.”

  “The sniper’s motto,” Siegel said. “What about it?”

  “I think it’s a point of pride for them. If nothing else, the work’s been immaculate. Up until now.”

  “So it’s more likely that we have another wackjob with a high-powered sniper rifle running around out there?”

  I could just hear the disdain rising in his voice. Here we go again.

  “Isn’t that exactly the contingency your office has been working on?” I said. “That’s what Patel told me — at the meeting you blew off.”

  “I see.” Siegel rocked back on his heels. “So are you working up any theories of your own these days — or just going by what you overhear at the office?”

  My guess was that he felt threatened by me, and it helped him if he could goad me into some kind of unprofessional behavior. I’d already put a toe in, but I pulled back now and focused on the ground around Tambour’s body instead.

  When it became clear I wasn’t going to respond, he tried again from a different angle.

  “You know, it’s possible these guys are just that good,” he said casually. “Terrorism One Oh One, right? Best way to stay ahead of the police is to keep everything unpredictable. That’s a valid perspective on this, right?”

  “I’m not ruling anything out,” I said without turning around.

  “That’s good,” he said. “It’s good that you learn from your mistakes. I mean, isn’t that what tripped you up with Kyle Craig?”

  Now I did look up.

  “He basically just outthought you, right? Just kept changing up his game? I mean — that’s what he’s still doing, isn’t it? Even today?” Siegel shrugged. “Or am I getting that wrong, too?”

  “You know what, Max? Just — stop talking.” I stood up to face him now, getting closer than I needed to be. I wasn’t trying to “manage” Siegel anymore. I just needed to say what I was going to say.

  “Whatever issues these are that you need to work through, I can recommend some professionals. But in the meantime, if you haven’t noticed, we lost an officer here today. Show a little respect.”

  I guess I’d given him the rise he was looking for. Siegel took a step back, but still kept that obnoxious grin on his face. It was as if he always had some kind of private joke going on.

  “Fair enough,” he said, and motioned over his shoulder. “I’ll just be over here if you need me.”

  “I won’t need you,” I said, and went right back to work.

  Chapter 64

  BY NINE O’CLOCK, I’d had an emergency phone call with the Bureau Directorate and the Field Intelligence Group; a briefing with the mayor’s office; and a separate report-in with my own team from MPD, who were all on the scene by now.

  The important question at this point was whether we were dealing with the Patriot snipers or someone else. Ballistics was the fastest way to prove a connection, if there was one, and Cailin Jerger from the FBI lab in Quantico was brought out by chopper for a consult.

  It was an amazing sight, watching the black Bell helicopter come in for a landing right there on the deserted parkway.

  I ran out to greet the chopper and walk Jerger back in.

  She was in jeans and a hooded Quantico sweatshirt; they probably pulled her right out of her living room. You’d never guess to look at this small, unassuming woman that she knew more about firearms examination than anyone in a three-state radius.

  When I showed her where Tambour had gone down, and the spread on the four shots, she looked back at me with a knowing glance. I didn’t respond at all, not a word. I wanted Jerger to draw her own, unfettered conclusions.

  At the evidence tent, the whole world was waiting for us. Outside, there was a crowd of cops and agents, including most of Tambour’s unit from NSID. Inside, we found Chief Perkins, Jim Heekin from the Directorate, Max Siegel, various assistant chiefs from MPD and assistant SACs from the Bureau, and a few reps from ATF. Jerger looked around at the sea of expectant faces and then dove right in as if she and I were the only ones there.

  Each of the four slugs was bagged separately on a long folding table. Three of them were in relatively good shape; the fourth was badly mangled, for obvious reasons.

  “Well, they’re definitely rifle shot,” Jerger said right away. “But these weren’t fired from an M110 like the previous incidents.”

  She took a pair of tongs off the table and plucked one of the good slugs from its bag. Then she used a magnifier from her pocket to look at the base.

  “Yeah, I thought so, .388,” she said. “And see this ‘L’ stamped here? That tells me it’s an original Lapua Magnum. They were developed specifically for long-range sniping.”

  “Can you get any kind of weapon report off of these?” I asked her.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Depends. I’ll look for rifling patterns back at the lab, but I have to tell you ahead of time — these puppies have some pretty tough jackets on them. Striations are going to be minimal.”

  “How about first impressions?” I asked. “We’re really in a jam here.”

  Jerger took a deep breath. I don’t think she liked speculating. Her job was all about precision.

  “Well, outside of equipment failure, I don’t know what the motivation would be for coming off an M110 and using something else.”

  She held up another evidence bag and looked at it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. This is damn fine ammo, but in terms of long-range shooting, the 110’s a Rolls-Royce, and everything else is just… well, everything else.”

  “So you think this was a different gunman?” Chief Perkins asked, probably leading her more than he should.

  “I’m saying it would be kind of strange if it wasn’t, that’s all. I don’t know the shooter’s motivations. As for the weapon itself, I can tell you that some possibilities are more likely than others.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  She rattled them right off. “M24, Remington 700, TRG-42, PGM 338. Those ar
e some of the most common applications, militarily anyway.” Then she looked right at me, with a grim kind of smile on her face. “There’s also the Bor. Ever heard of it?”

  “Should I have?” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” she said, and continued to stare at me. “Just that it would be a really weird coincidence. The .338 variant on that one’s called an Alex Rifle.”

  Chapter 65

  KYLE CRAIG WORE a ridiculous grin on his face — on Max Siegel’s face — all the way home to Second Street. He couldn’t help himself. In his entire career and all of its incarnations, he’d never had such a good time as tonight.

  Big kudos went to Agent Jerger for picking up on the Alex Rifle reference, and so quickly!

  Maybe the Bureau still had a few sharp knives in the drawer after all. These arcane little clues of his had become something of a hallmark, but to actually be there when one of them was discovered? A unique thrill, to say the least. A total blast.

  But also just a prelude. This little drama down by the river was the “one” in a one-two punch that nobody was going to see coming — and no one would feel more than Alex when it landed.

  Brace yourself, my friend. It’s on the way!

  Kyle checked his watch as he closed the front door behind him. It was only twelve thirty, and the sun didn’t come up for hours. There was still plenty of time for what he had to get done.

  Chapter 66

  FIRST THINGS FIRST, he unlocked the basement door and let himself down the narrow stairs to the cinder-block-walled workshop underneath the house. It wasn’t exactly his father’s old walnut-paneled den, with the twelve-foot fireplace and rolling ladders, but it did the trick and would work just as well. A big bulkhead door at the back had allowed him to bring down a new chest freezer the other day, and he went to it now.

  Agent Patel was sleeping peacefully inside. She still looked basically like herself, but she’d grown quite stiff, which seemed fitting. The girl had been pretty much the same way when she was alive.