The Killing Season (28 page)

Blake’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Summers was already fully cooperative. He needed no persuasion. We assumed he had been appropriately compensated, or persuaded, by the other party.”

“And you didn’t think that was strange?”

“Come now, Blake. Do you forget my background?”

Banner thought about that, sized him up. If Korakovski was in his late fifties and had arrived in America within the last two decades, that meant he reached adulthood well before the final decline of the Soviet Union.

Blake was nodding, interested. “Go on.”

“Citizens in my country were and are, even today, strongly discouraged from questioning the activities of the state. Sometimes the Kremlin and the KGB allowed certain activities to proceed that benefited their long-term interests. I was not interested in their motives then, and I’m not now.”

Banner couldn’t hold it in any longer. “The state? Surely you’re not suggesting—”

“I suggest nothing, Elaine. I’m speaking figuratively. I’m speaking about power. The state. The Kremlin. The US Government. The police. The media. The so-called Mob. All powerful forces—nothing more, nothing less. Occasionally their goals . . . converge.”

“Except this time they didn’t,” Blake said. “Not quite. Whoever greased the wheels for you wasn’t interested in a hit on Mitchell. Mitchell was just the carrot they dangled in front of you to get you to carry out the ambush.”

Korakovski just looked back at Blake. Not offering confirmation, but not looking as though this came as any kind of revelation to him.

“You don’t like being used.”

“I am a realist, Mr. Blake. We are all used by forces greater than ourselves from time to time.” He paused and pointed a finger at Blake’s chest. “Even you.”

Blake said nothing.

Korakovski continued. “I entered into a business arrangement, and I gained what I wanted out of it. However, the party with which I entered into this arrangement was not entirely candid with me, resulting in the loss of three valued members of my staff. While this was still a net gain, I would not be . . . displeased if problems were caused for the other party.” He drew himself back up in his chair and looked at both of them. “I hope this meeting has been useful to you.”

Blake said, “It has. One last thing.”

“Yes?”

“The first man, the one who approached you. Did you meet him in person?”

“On two occasions.”

Blake produced the picture card from the
FBI
identification he’d taken from the body at Hatcher’s house. He held it up for Korakovski to examine, covering the half that said
FBI
. The Russian stared at the picture for a moment and nodded.

Blake put the photograph back in his pocket and stood up. Banner followed suit. Korakovski stayed seated. As they turned to head for the door, he stopped them by speaking Blake’s name.

“Yes?” Blake said.

“Notwithstanding the arrangements you made with Leonov, I would be most interested in retaining your services. From time to time, I have need of certain talents that you seem to possess in abundance.”

Blake shook his head, almost amiably. “Sorry, Korakovski. No deal. I don’t work for bad guys.”

Korakovski seemed to think about it and then shrugged. No harm done. The rhino scowled and opened the door for the two of them.

“Then I apologize. I was misinformed,” Korakovski said in parting. “Perhaps I too have the wrong guy.”

59

4:17 p.m.

Interstate truck stops: just about the only place you could reliably expect to find a pay phone these days. Wardell didn’t suppose it would be hard to get hold of a cell phone, but then he only needed to make the one call.

Unlike the one he’d used to call Nolan the other day, this pay phone didn’t have Internet access, but that was fine. He dialed the number from memory. It was answered on the second ring.

“Bellamy.”

“Is Mike Whitford there?”

“Who is this?”

“His great-aunt Petunia. Put Whitford on the line.”

Wardell heard a muttered
asshole
and the sound of the receiver being passed to someone at the next desk.

“Whitford.” The voice sounded anxious, on edge. Like he knew who’d be on the line and why he’d avoided calling Whitford direct.

“What’d you think of Rapid City, partner?”

There was a pause. “I thought you said you were just going to kill Hatcher.”

“Just Hatcher? When did I say that? Come on, partner. Nobody minds getting a little extra value, do they? Thanks for the color, by the way. Good choice. I’d have been screwed if you’d said lilac.”

Wardell heard the hint of a trembling intake of breath. Like something was weighing on Whitford’s conscience.

“I never wanted you to kill those people.”

Wardell feigned surprise, mild indignation. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought that’s what sold your newspapers. Maybe I was mistaken.” Whitford was coming across even softer than Wardell had anticipated, and he wondered if maybe they’d tapped his neighbor’s phone too, just to be safe. It didn’t matter. If Wardell’s estimation of Whitford was correct, nobody would get to listen to a replay of this call.

“What do you want?”

Wardell couldn’t help but grin. Whitford was trying to sound as though he was so disgusted with Wardell that he could barely stand to keep speaking to him, but it was no good. His desperation to have his question answered showed through like a pornographic magazine covered by tracing paper.

“What do I want? I want you to relay another message for me.”

“Yes?” Pathetically eager.

“Whoa there. Not so fast. This is becoming kind of a one-way street, don’t you think, partner?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You talk to me, I give you something and you get your story.”

“And you get the attention you want, right?”

“Well. Ain’t neither of us averse to that, are we?” When there was no reply, Wardell continued. “Yeah, I thought so. I want you to do something for me, Mike. You do it right, I’ll call you back. I’ll call you with the big one.”

“The big one?” Whitford repeated before remembering the first part of what Wardell had said, his voice switching from intrigued to suspicious. “Do what for you?”

Wardell counted to five in his head, let Whitford sweat. “Maybe you’re not interested. I’m sure Gabrielle Wood over at the
Sun-Times
would be . . .”

“No!” Whitford said quickly, then seemed to regain his composure. “I’m interested.”

“Good. That’s good, Mike. You got a pen?”

“Of course I have a pen. I’m a reporter.”

“Careful, Mike.”

Wardell heard an audible swallow at the other end of the line as the other man remembered there might be worse consequences to displeasing Wardell than a hang-up.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay, Mike. I understand. We’re all on edge here. Write this down.” He gave Whitford the webmail address he’d set up back at the truck stop in Kentucky. He repeated it to make sure he’d taken it down right.

“You want me to e-mail you something?”

“You’re on fire this week, Mike. I want you to find everything you can on a couple of people who’ve been causing me some problems. Special Agent Elaine Banner and another guy who’s been helping the feds. Goes by the name of Blake.”

“Wait a minute. I can’t—”

“I’m not asking here, Mike.”

“You don’t understand . . .”

“No, you don’t understand, Whitford. You do what I tell you to. You don’t do it, and I’m not just going to cut you off, I’m going to find you and I’m going to cut your fucking throat. Do you believe me when I say that?”

Another swallow. “Ah . . . I . . .”

“Do. You. Believe. Me?”

“Yes.”

Wardell hung up without another word.

60

4:29 p.m.

“That wasn’t exactly what I expected,” Banner said as we stepped out onto the street and began walking east.

“What did you expect?” I asked. “A vodka bar above a strip club in Little Odessa?”

She thought about it and the ghost of a smile appeared at the corner of her lips. “Yeah. I guess that is what I expected.”

While we’d been inside the building, the sky had grown dimmer and the volume of traffic had intensified. Diagonally across the street from us was a jewelers with a big, ornate clock hanging outside it. Half past four. We both stopped to look at it, then turned to each other.

“We have to get back to Chicago,” Banner said, reaching for her cell phone.

We decided to take a single cab the whole way to the airport this time. The unbroken journey would give us time to discuss how Korakovski’s story had changed the dimensions of the game.

“So what do we know now?” Banner asked as the cab pulled away from the sidewalk. She kept her voice low enough to sail under the talk radio show the driver was listening to. They were replaying the clip of the governor at the press conference the day before:
You’re not safe anywhere.

“You know what we know,” I said.

Banner looked back at me. “Wardell’s escape was no accident. Somebody specifically wanted him broken out.”

I nodded. “Who?”

Banner thought about it, looked out at the darkening rush hour streets as they crawled by. “Somebody very well resourced. Somebody connected.”

“Connected is an understatement,” I said. “They played Korakovski. They got to Summers. They infiltrated your task force.”

Banner visibly bristled at this. “I got a call earlier about our Mr. Edgar. They weren’t able to identify him from dental or from facial recognition from the
ID
photo. But he wasn’t one of us.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Based on the autopsy and the photo, we came up with a list of current agents fitting Edgar’s stats: approximate height, weight, age. There are a couple dozen names—all of them are accounted for. We have dental records for them all, too. Have to. Bureau regs.”

“He was able to pass as one of you,” I said. “That demonstrates resources and connections again. Whether he was actually a paid-up agent is basically irrelevant.”

“It’s not irrelevant to me.”

“I know that.”

“Do you think he was working alone?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. This is too big.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Banner said. “You’re talking about some big conspiracy to break Wardell out.”

“You don’t think there’s a conspiracy?”

She looked irritated, but she knew it was pretty hard to deny that now.

“But to what end? Who benefits?”

“That’s the problem I’m having,” I admitted. “I stopped thinking Wardell’s escape was just happenstance two days ago, after the red van decoy. But the best explanation I can come up with doesn’t wash.”

“Let’s hear it,” Banner said. “It’s got to be better than nothing.”

“That’s just it. It
is
nothing.” I stopped and tried to arrange hours of brainstorming into some kind of coherent stream. “Okay. Let’s start with why somebody would want to break a clinically psychotic murderer out of death row.”

“Exactly. Why the hell would they?”

I shook my head. “You’re still thinking motive, Banner. Think about it literally.”

She paused, furrowed her brow, shrugged. “To kill people, obviously.”

“That’s right. And that’s what’s happened. Wardell was freed a little less than five days ago. Since then, by my count he’s killed eighteen people.”

Banner motioned for me to continue. “Go on.”

“All right, go back to what we know about whoever set this up.”

“Well resourced, well connected.”

“That’s what they are, yeah. But what’s the only other thing we know about them? What do they do?”

Her brow furrowed again. She didn’t take long. “They use people. Korakovski. Summers. This ‘Edgar’ guy, maybe. And—” Banner stopped midthought and looked at me. “And Wardell himself. Like you told him in the graveyard.”

“Bingo,” I said. “So what’s the logical conclusion?”

“They’re using Wardell. They’re using him to do the one thing they know for certain he’ll do. Which is kill.”

“That has to be it,” I said. “That’s why they went to such lengths to break him out. That’s why they misdirected the media and the task force to guarantee his safe passage.”

“Wait a minute,” she said, holding up a hand to stop my flow. “Why does it have to be him? Hired killers are a dime a dozen.”

“Not professionals of Wardell’s caliber,” I said, “but point taken.”

“It’s a hell of a lot of trouble to go to when other options would be available.”

“Agreed,” I said. “For some reason, it’s important that it’s Wardell. We don’t know what that reason is yet, but that’s not the main problem with this theory.”

Banner played along, refusing to cave in and ask me straight out. She ran through the problem in her head again.

“Who’s the target?” she said after a few seconds, her tone conveying her full knowledge of the implications of that question.

“Exactly.”

“Whoever it is broke Wardell out because they wanted him to kill someone. They knew it would all look like a coincidence, like it was all fallout from the Russians’ ambush. It’s a great idea, when you think about it. You want someone out of the way, what’s the best camouflage? To have them fall victim to a crazed serial killer. Nobody looks for another motive.”

“It’s tried and tested,” I said.

“Sure,” she agreed. “People try it from time to time. They want their spouse offed, so they make it look like it’s part of a random series. The guys in Behavioral Sciences call it a ‘leaf in a forest killing,’ as in the best place to hide a leaf is in the middle of a forest.”

“But this would be even better. Not just making it look like a serial killer did it—actually having the serial killer do it for real.”

“Except there’s one big problem with that theory, Blake.”

I held up my hands. “Your killer is unpredictable,” I said. “You know he’s going to kill, but you don’t know
who
he’s going to kill.”

“So we’re left with this: Somebody broke Wardell out of death row to achieve an objective. The objective was to kill someone. That objective is not yet complete.”