“Don’t let him fool you,” Heekin said. “I spoke with the chief here, and with Director Burns at the Bureau before that. Your name was the
only one
that came up in either meeting.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very nice, but I’m good where I am.”
“Yes, exactly. Major Case Squad’s a perfect fit for this position. If anything, it’s going to make your job easier.”
This wasn’t an offer, I realized, so much as an assignment. When I’d rejoined the force, Perkins had given me just about everything I’d asked for. Now I owed him one, and we both knew it, and
he
knew that I liked to play fair.
“No title change,” I said. “I’m an investigator first, not some kind of administrator.”
Perkins grinned across his desk. He also looked relieved. “Fine with me. Keeps you in the same pay grade.”
“And my cases take priority over anything else I might have to do?”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Heekin said, already standing up to go. He shook my hand again at the door. “Congratulations, Detective. You’re moving up in the world.”
Yeah,
I thought.
Whether I want to or not.
DENNY LED THE way, and Mitch followed like the man-child in that old Steinbeck book
Of Mice and Men.
“Right up here, bud. Let’s keep it moving.”
The tenth floor was also the top floor. Sheets of plastic hung over sections of two-by-four wall frame, with nothing but raw plywood underfoot. A stack of pallets by the Eighteenth Street windows made a good roosting spot.
Denny unrolled the plastic tarp and spread it on the floor. They dropped their packs. He put a hand on Mitch’s back and pointed to where they’d just come up.
“Primary exit,” he said, then turned ninety degrees to face another door. “Alternate exit.” Mitch nodded once each time. “And if we get separated?”
“Wipe down the weapon, dump it, and meet you back at the car.”
“That’s my man.”
They’d been over it maybe fifty times, beginning to end. Drilling was the key. Mitch had all kinds of raw talent, but Denny did the thinking for both of them.
“Any questions?” Denny asked. “This is the time to ask them. Later on, it won’t matter worth a damn.”
“Nah,” Mitch said. His voice had gone flat and distant, the way it always did when he was concentrating on something else. He’d already set the M110, fitted with a sound suppressor, on its bipod and was zeroing it out, calibrating the scope.
Denny assembled his own M21 and slung it flat against his back. If everything went according to plan, he’d never have to use it, but it made sense to have a backup. The Walther was also holstered on his thigh.
He used a compass-set diamond blade to cut a perfect two-inch circle in the window, then pulled the section away with a small suction cup. The streetlights outside sent up a glare that made the window act like a mirror from below.
While Mitch got into position, Denny cleaned another small spot just up and to the left, where he could practically look over Mitch’s shoulder and down the rifle barrel. Even their difference in height worked well.
He took his sighting scope out of its case. From here, they had a clear line to the entrance of Taberna del Alabardero. With the scope’s 100x magnification, Denny could practically see the pores on the faces of the people coming and going from the hot-shit restaurant.
“Here, piggy, piggy, piggy,” he whispered. “Hey, Mitch, you know when a pig knows he’s had enough to eat?”
“Nope.”
“When he’s stuffed.”
“Good one,” Mitch said, in the same dead voice as before. He was in his stance now — a slightly freaky looking, ass out, elbows cocked kind of thing, but it worked for him. Once he hit the position, he would not move or look away until it was over.
Denny made his final check. He eyeballed the steam coming from a vent across the way — how it traveled straight up. The air temperature was approximately sixty degrees. Everything was a go.
All they needed now was a target, and that would be arriving real soon.
“You ready to let this genie out of the bottle, Mitchie?” he asked.
“Who’s Jeannie, Denny?”
He chuckled low. Mitch was a beautiful piece of work, he really was. “Just the girl of your dreams, man. The girl of your
wildest
goddamned dreams.”
AT AROUND 7:35, a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up in front of Taberna del Alabardero, a hotsy DC eatery for the stars.
Two men got out of the back on either side and another emerged from the front, while the driver stayed in the car. All three wore dark suits, with barely distinguishable ties.
Banker’s tie,
thought Denny.
Wouldn’t wear one to my own funeral.
“The two from the backseat. You got it covered?”
“I got it, Denny.”
Everything was dialed in. The scope’s bullet drop compensator would account for the two biggest drags on any bullet — wind, if there was any, and gravity. From this angle, the barrel might be pointing high, but the crosshairs would put Mitch’s eye right where it needed to be.
Denny watched the targets through his own scope. This
was the best seat in the house.
Second best anyway.
“Shooter ready?”
“Ready.”
“Send it.”
Mitch slowly exhaled, then pulled off two shots in the same number of seconds.
Vapor trails showed in the air. Both men went down — one on the sidewalk and the other flat up against the front door of the restaurant. It was kind of visually spectacular, actually — two perfect head shots to the bases of two skulls.
People were already freaking out in the street. The third man literally dove back into the car, while everyone else ran or ducked and covered their heads.
They didn’t need to worry. The mission was over. Mitch had already begun to break down — the man was as fast as a speedway mechanic.
Denny unslung the M21, pulled off the magazine, and started packing. Forty seconds later, they were both on the stairs, double-timing it down to street level.
“Hey, Mitch, you weren’t planning on running for elected office, were you?”
Mitch laughed. “Maybe president someday.”
“You did perfect up there. You should be proud.”
“I am proud, Denny. That’s two dead crumbums nobody’s got to worry about no more.”
“Two dead piggies in the street!”
Mitch squealed, a pretty good imitation of swine, actually, and Denny joined in until their voices echoed up the empty stairwell. Both of them were drunk on how well it had gone.
What a rush!
“And you know who the hero of the story is, right, Mitchie?” he asked.
“Nobody but us, man.”
“Damn straight. We did it ourselves. A couple of real live American heroes!”
THE SCENE OUTSIDE Taberna del Alabardero was a total zoo when we got there. This was no ordinary hit or rubout. I knew that much without even getting out of the car. The radio had been blaring about a long-distance hit, from a gunman that
nobody had seen,
firing shots that
nobody had heard.
And then there were the victims. Congressman Victor Vinton was dead, along with Craig Pilkey, a well-known banking lobbyist who had recently dragged both of them into the headlines. These homicides were a scandal wrapped in another scandal. So much for quiet times in Homicide.
Both dead men were the subject of a federal inquiry regarding influence-peddling on behalf of the financial services industry. There were allegations about backroom deals and campaign contributions and all the wrong people getting rich — or richer — while middle-class citizens had continued to lose their homes in record numbers. It wasn’t
hard to imagine someone wanting Vinton and Pilkey dead. A lot of people probably did.
Still, motivation wasn’t the first question on my mind right now. It was method. Why the long gun, and how did someone pull this off so effortlessly on a crowded city street?
Both bodies were covered on the sidewalk when my buddy John Sampson and I reached the awning in front of the restaurant. Capitol Police were already there, with FBI on the way. “High profile” means “high pressure” in DC, and you could all but cut with a knife the mounting tension inside that yellow perimeter tape.
We found another of our own, Mark Grieco from Third District, and he briefed us. Given all the noise in the street, we had to shout just to hear one another.
“How many witnesses do we have?” Sampson asked.
“At least a dozen,” Grieco told us. “We’ve got them all corralled inside, each one more freaked out than the last. No visual on the shooter, though.”
“What about the shots?” I asked in Grieco’s ear. “We know where they came from?”
He pointed over my shoulder, up Eighteenth Street. “Way over there — if you can believe it. They’re securing the building now.”
On the north corner of K Street, a couple of blocks away, there was a building under some kind of renovation. Every floor was dark except for the top one, where I could just make out people moving around.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “How far is that?”
“Two hundred fifty yards — maybe more,” Grieco guessed. The three of us started jogging in that direction.
“You said these were head shots?” I asked as we went. “That’s right?”
“Yeah,” Grieco answered grimly. “Dead on, pardon my pun. Someone knew what the hell he was doing. Hope he’s not still around somewhere, watching us.”
“Someone with the right equipment, too,” I said. “Considering the distance.” With a suppressor, the shooter could have gone completely unnoticed.
I heard Sampson say under his breath, “Damn, I hate this thing already.”
I looked back over my shoulder. From this level, I couldn’t even see the restaurant anymore — except for the red-and-blue lights flashing off the buildings around it.
This whole MO — the distance of the shot, the impossible angle, the murders themselves (not one perfect hit, but two in a crowded environment) — was completely audacious. I think we were meant to be impressed — in a strictly professional capacity, I was a little stunned.
But I also had a sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. That ton of bricks I’d been wondering about — it had just fallen.
BACK AT HOME, I high-stepped over the second and third porch steps, avoiding the squeak with my long legs. It was just after one thirty in the morning, but the kitchen still smelled like chocolate chip cookies when I came in. They were for Jannie, who had some kind of school function. I gave myself half credit for knowing she had a function but points off for not knowing what it was.
I stole one cookie — delicious, with a hint of cinnamon in the chocolate — and took off my shoes before I snuck upstairs.
In the hall, I could see Ali’s light was still on, and when I looked in, Bree was sleeping next to the bed. He’d been running a slight fever before, and she had dragged in the ancient leather armchair, aka laundry stand, from our room.
A library copy of
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
was open across her lap.
Ali’s forehead was cool, but he’d kicked off the blankets
in the night. His bear, named Truck, was upside down on the floor. I tucked both of them back in.
When I tried to take the book from Bree, her hand tightened around it.
“And they all lived happily ever after,” I whispered in her ear.
She smiled but didn’t wake up, as if I’d worked my way into a dream of hers. That was a nice place to be, so I slipped my hands under her knees and arms and carried her back to bed with me.
It was tempting to help her out of her pajama bottoms and T-shirt, and everything else while I was at it, but she looked so beautiful and peaceful like that, I didn’t have the heart to change a thing. Instead, I lay down and just watched her sleep for a while. Very nice.
Inevitably, though, my thoughts returned to the case, to what I’d just seen.
It was impossible not to think about those dark days in 2002, the last time we’d witnessed anything like this. The word “sniper” still strikes a bad chord with a lot of people in Washington, myself included. At the same time, there were some scary differences here, considering the skill of this shooter. It all felt more calculated to me, too. And then, thank God, I was asleep. Counting bodies instead of sheep, though.
NANA MAMA ALREADY had the
Washington Post
spread out on the kitchen table when I came down at 5:30. The case was right there on page one, above the fold: “Sniper Murder Downtown Leaves Two Dead.”
She double-tapped the headline with one bony finger, as if I might miss it.
“I’m not saying anyone, no matter how greedy, deserves to die,” she told me straight-out. “This is absolutely awful. But those two men were no angels, Alex. People are going to take a certain satisfaction from this, and
you’re
going to have to deal with that.”