Without Warning (20 page)

Drazen’s body wasn’t recovered, but I never doubted for a second that he was dead. There were many hundreds of miles between where he jumped and the nearest land, and he had a bullet in his leg.

I hadn’t thought about Richie Drazen in years, not until Jimmy Osborne located him, in a photograph, four years after he died in the ocean.

He had a scar on his face from the wound that I remembered, but missing was that crazed look of anger and fear.

What replaced it was a look of determination.

“You might want to start killing people you don’t have a grudge against,” Agent Bennett said. “You know, add a few in, just to throw us off the track.”

He was in my office because I called him and told him we needed to talk. “Is that a standard FBI murder joke?” I asked. “Is it in the manual?”

“No, I just made it up. By the way, is there anything that goes on in your department that doesn’t make it into the newspaper?”

“Apparently not. You want some coffee?”

He declined, so I poured myself a cup as he continued talking. “You’re turning that reporter, Higgins, into Woodward and Bernstein rolled into one.”

“And it’s having something of a negative effect,” I said.

“No shit. I just got a call from the number two man in the Bureau, asking me what the hell is going on. Which is why I’m glad you called, because I was about to call you.”

“I don’t think I can function effectively anymore,” I said. “Not on this case.”

He thought for a moment, then, “Boy, I don’t hear those words too often.”

“I’m going to make the announcement that I’m recusing myself from the case, taking sort of a leave of absence, and I’m calling in the FBI to take control. That means you.”

“We were going to take control anyway. You know that.”

I nodded, because I did know that it was inevitable. The state might have come in as well, but the FBI would have dominated. They always do. “But you were going to come in on your terms,” I said.

He seemed amused. “And now?”

“Now you’re coming in on mine.”

He pointed to my cup. “You got something stronger than coffee in there?”

“You think I’m killing these people?” I asked.

“Zero possibility.”

The definitive answer surprised me. “Why?”

“Who do you think you’re dealing with, Mayberry PD? We’ve got a whole battalion of shrinks, sitting in shrinkland, analyzing stuff. You’ve been their favorite subject for a week; they know you inside and out.”

“So?”

“So you’re a straight-ahead guy. If you wanted to kill those people, if you had a real reason to, not this bullshit, then you would have gone ahead and killed them. You wouldn’t have done any of this capsule crap.”

“So you do think I’m a potential murderer, just an honest one?”

He smiled. “That’s an interesting take on it.”

Hank came in at that point, not realizing that Bennett was there. I asked him to come back later, and I think he might have been surprised and a little disappointed that I did. But if I was going to cut the deal I wanted to make with Bennett, it would be in private.

Once he left, I said, “Okay, here’s how I see it. The facts beyond the newspaper stories are basically correct; they just lead to the wrong conclusion. But I am certainly at the center of the whole damn thing. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Agreed.”

“So if you’re going to figure it out, and stop any more killings, you need me. It’s my life we have to dissect, and nobody knows my life like I do. I’m crucial to the process.”

This time he just nodded; I hadn’t said anything controversial yet, but I was getting there.

“So I’ll make myself completely available to you. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. I won’t act like a suspect, and I won’t lawyer up. You’re going to want to talk to me. You’re going to need to talk to me. I’ll make that completely easy for you.”

“So much for the quid; let’s hear the pro quo.”

“I want to be in the loop; I want to know what’s going on. Especially when it comes to Katie Sanford.”

“I can’t sell that. Not with the way things are.”

I nodded. “So I’ll make it easier for you. If you’re investigating me, that can be exempt from our deal. I don’t need to know about it; I don’t want to know about it. You want to spin your wheels, fine with me.”

“So that’s it?”

“No, there’s more. If I need information about something I’m looking at, I call on you and you give it to me.”

“So you’re going off on your own?” he asked.

“Just in one area, which is nothing more than a hunch. If it turns out to be anything, I’ll bring you in.”

“How do I know you will?”

“You mean other than the fact that I’m telling you I will? Because I want to catch this guy, probably more than you do. And I want to get Katie back, definitely more than you do.”

Bennett thought about it for a while, and I really didn’t know which way he was going to go.

“You told me yourself you think there’s zero chance I committed these murders,” I said, “so what’s the worst that can happen if you go along with this?”

“What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t?”

“You lose access to the person you need to talk to, in this case, me.”

Finally, he nodded. “Okay, but this is just you and me. Nobody else knows about it.”

“Agreed.”

“And we do it until we find out it’s not working, and then we don’t do it anymore.”

“Perfect,” I said, and we shook hands on it. “Now, I need some information.”

The first noise that Katie heard was the sound of footsteps on stairs. Since there were no windows in her prison, she had assumed she was underground, but couldn’t be sure. This tended to confirm it, but she felt no satisfaction in having figured that out.

What she felt was fear.

The next sound was that of a lock being opened, in fact, more than one. The door was obviously double locked from the outside, which again did not come as a surprise.

The door opened and in walked a man that Katie knew very well, so well that for a brief instant she believed that he was a prisoner himself and was going to join her in captivity.

“Hello, Katie,” he said, and in that instant she knew that he was not her fellow prisoner, but her captor. The realization was stunning, made more so by the fact that he was pointing a gun at her.

“What the hell is going on? Why do you have me here?”

“Hello, Katie,” he said again. “How are you?”

“Why have you done this?”

“Katie, what I am looking for right now are answers, and obedience. Not questions. Now, let’s try it again. How are you?”

“How could I be? I’m a prisoner.”

“You could be worse, believe me. And if you don’t do exactly as I say, you will be much worse.”

“What do I have to do to get out of here?”

He frowned, as if saddened by her response. “There you are again with the questions. Do you want me to shoot you?”

“No.”

“Good, because I would much rather not. You are an innocent victim here, nothing more. It’s unfortunate you have to be drawn into this.”

She had a thousand questions but knew asking them would only get him angry, and it wasn’t as if he would supply answers anyway.

“I’ll do what you say, if that will help me leave unharmed.”

“Oh, you’ll definitely do what I say.”

He reached into his pocket, very casually, but something about the motion scared her. What he took out of the pocket was a cell phone.

“Time to make a phone call,” he said.

“His name is Richie Drazen. I need whatever you have on him.” “You don’t waste much time,” said Bennett. “You think he’s the murderer?”

“He’s been dead for eight years.”

“That’s a pretty good alibi. Might be tough to sell him to a jury.”

“Lucky I don’t have to.”

“Why are you interested in him?” Bennett asked.

“Let’s stick to our deal; I’ll tell you if I get something worth telling.”

I asked him again for everything the government knew about Drazen and suggested he check the Department of Defense files as well. I particularly wanted to know where he had lived and who his friends and relatives were. He agreed to get right on it.

“How about you give it to me at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“Why then?” he asked.

“That’s when our press conference is.”

I was pleased with the outcome of the meeting. Without a doubt, pressure was going to build to put me on administrative leave. I could have fought it off for a while, but eventually the governor would have agreed with the mayor that the time had come, and the council would then have had to cave as well. Certainly, when the news came out about Sandman’s murder, with me on the scene, that would have pushed everyone over the edge.

By pushing myself over that edge, I was able to play my cards to stay on the case, pursuing the only lead I felt worth anything at that point. I’d also be able to keep looking for Katie, and of course I hoped that lead would help me to find her.

I called Hank in when Bennett left, and told him what I had done. He argued with me about it, until I cut him off by telling him that the boat had sailed, and I was off the case.

“My arrangement with Bennett is just between us, and now you. Don’t share it with anyone.”

“You can count on that.” Hank was even more upset with the leaks out of the department than I was.

“You’re in charge now, and the mayor is going to tell you to keep me as far from the case as possible.”

Hank nodded. “I’ll tell him I’ll do that, and then I won’t.”

“Thanks. I may need you.”

“You think it could be this guy Drazen?” he asked.

“At the end of the day? No. I saw him go overboard, and there is no possible way he could have survived. Not even if he didn’t have a bullet in his leg.”

“But that was him in the picture?”

I shrugged. “Or his twin. That’s why I can’t just let it drop.”

Hank left, and I called the department’s publicity guy, Zack Kimbrel. “I want to set up a press conference at ten tomorrow morning, right here.”

“What about?” he asked.

“Just say it’s an announcement about the capsule murder case. That will bring them in.”

“The mayor is going to want to know more than that,” he said.

“Ask me if I give a shit.”

“Do you give a shit?”

“As it happens, I don’t.”

My next call was to Mike Hutner in the Judge Advocate’s office at Quantico. Mike and I had served together, and he was one of the guys I pulled out alive on that awful day in Afghanistan. He brought me a case of beer in the hospital, which I figured made us even, but for some reason he still thought he owed me.

“Sounds like you’ve got a situation up there,” he said, when he heard my voice.

“How did you know?”

“Are you kidding? You’re national news.”

I knew Mike had close ties with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which happened also to be at Quantico. “You remember Richie Drazen?” I asked.

“Drazen,” he said, trying to remember. “Is that the guy you chased overboard?”

“That’s not exactly how it happened. He took a dive.”

“After you shot him, and were prepared to shoot him again.”

“That’s more like it,” I said, and then made the same request I had made of Bennett. I wanted to know everything the Navy had on him, before and after the incident.

“After the incident?” he asked. “There is no ‘after’ that kind of ‘incident.’”

“If there is, I want to know it by tomorrow morning.”

I knew that Mike would come up with whatever they had, just as I asked. But even then, he wouldn’t consider us even.

It was the eighth time the Predictor had gone through the motions. Each time was the same. He would go to the tiny airfield in Bremington, Maine, on Friday, at seven in the morning, when it opened. There he would meet Gerald Hines, the owner of a Cessna 152 that he would rent out to local pilots in four-hour segments.

“Morning to ya,” Gerald would say. “Coffee?”

The Predictor would smile and decline, saying, “Don’t need it. Been up since five.” Then he would point to the plane and say, “She ready?”

Gerald would say, “Ready, fueled up, and anxious. I ran the checklist, but you’re welcome to do it yourself.”

“Not necessary. If you say it’s done, it’s done.” That was the truth; The Predictor knew Gerald to be meticulous in his preparation of the plane.

“Come on in and sign,” Gerald would say, and they would go into the small, otherwise unoccupied building. The Predictor would sign the book, and then present his pilot’s and driver’s licenses. It was mandated FAA procedure, even though Gerald had seen the licenses many times before.

Gerald would hand him back the licenses and say, “Have fun up there, Jake.” He called him Jake, because that’s what he wrote in the book. And he wrote it in the book because Jake Robbins was the name on both fake licenses.

“Will do,” said the man pretending to be Jake Robbins.

And then he would take the plane up, though only for a couple of hours. There was no need to practice; he knew how to fly quite well. And there was no need to fly over Wiscasset, as he had done the first few times. By now he knew the terrain perfectly.

When the Predictor brought the plane back, more pleasantries were exchanged, and he paid in cash for the rental.

He didn’t care that Gerald knew what he looked like, because when the time came, he was going to kill Gerald.

It was one of the longest nights of my life, and I’ve had some long ones. It certainly wasn’t that I was worried about the press conference; that would be a piece of cake. What kept me up was having to wait, because it was only after the morning session that I’d be able to start doing what I needed to do.

Even though I was incredibly anxious, I didn’t show up for the ten o’clock press conference until nine fifty-seven. That was by design, of course. I wanted Mayor Harrick to not have the slightest advance inkling of what I was going to say. I also wanted it to drive him crazy. The only downside was that by not being there, I didn’t get the pleasure of watching him take that drive.