The Devil's Teardrop

by Jeffery Deaver

  Lukas called Jerry Baker and told him to get his tactical agents to the northwest portion of the Mall. She then paged the deputy director on call for the evening. He called back immediately. She spoke to him for a moment then hung up.

  She looked at the team. "The dep director's on his way over. I'm going to meet him downstairs to brief him then I'll meet you at the Memorial."

  Cage put his coat on. Geller stood and checked his weapon. It looked alien in his hands, which were undoubtedly much more accustomed to holding a computer mouse.

  Lukas said, "Hold on, Tobe. You're going home."

  "I can--"

  "That's an order. You've already done enough."

  He protested a bit more. But in the end Lukas won--though only after promising that she'd call him if she needed any other tech assistance. "I'll have my laptop with me," he said, as if he couldn't imagine ever being more than three feet from a computer.

  Lukas walked over to Hardy. "Thanks, Detective. That was damn good police work."

  He grinned. "Sorry I fucked up with the mayor. He--"

  She waved her hand, acknowledging the apology. Offered a slight smile. "Everything's right as rain." Then she asked him, "You still want a piece of the action tonight?"

  "Oh, you bet I do."

  "Okay, but keep to the rear. Tell me true . . . You really know how to shoot?"

  "I sure as hell do. And I'm pretty good too . . . if it's not windy." The young detective, still grinning, pulled on his trench coat.

  Parker, feeling the weight of the gun in the pocket, donned his jacket. Lukas glanced at him dubiously. "I'm going," he said firmly in response to her glance.

  She said, "You don't have to, Parker. It's okay. You've done enough too."

  He smiled at her. "Just point and shoot, right?"

  She hesitated then said, "Just point and shoot."

  *

  Here it comes, here it comes . . .

  My God, look at them all!

  A dozen, two dozen agents running out of FBI headquarters. Some in bulletproof vests, some not.

  Henry Czisman took one last sip of Jim Beam and rested the brown bottle on the back seat of his rental car, which reeked of tobacco and whiskey. He crushed out his Marlboro in the overflowing ashtray.

  They ran toward their cars. One by one they started up and sped away.

  He didn't follow. Not yet. He waited, patient as an adder.

  Then Czisman saw the tall gray-haired agent, Cage, push through the front door. Looking behind him. And, yes! There he was: Parker Kincaid.

  Though Czisman had not told the FBI agents everything, he had in fact been a journalist for most of his life. And a good one. He could read people as perceptively as any street cop. And while they were undoubtedly running their retinal scans and voice stress analysis on him in their interrogation room he was running his own tests. Less high-tech and more intuitive, his were nonetheless just as accurate as the Bureau's. And one of the things he'd decided was that Jefferson was not Jefferson at all. When the man had left the headquarters in a hurry and gotten into his own car several hours ago Czisman had sent the man's license plate to a private eye in Hartford, Connecticut, and had gotten his real identity. Parker Kincaid. A simple search on the Internet had revealed he was the former head of the Bureau's Document Division.

  If the Bureau was using a former agent as a consultant he must be good. Which meant he was the one worth following. Not bureaucratic Cage. Not unfeeling Lukas.

  Pausing to zip up his leather jacket, Kincaid looked around to orient himself then climbed into an unmarked car with Cage and another young agent or officer, an earnest man in a trench coat. They turned on a red light on the dash and sped quickly west--toward the Mall.

  Czisman easily slipped into the motorcade of cars, which were moving so frantically that no one noticed him. Around Eighteenth Street though, near Constitution Avenue, the crowds and traffic were so thick that the Bureau vehicles were forced to stop and the agents climbed out, ran to the Mall. Czisman was close behind.

  Cage and Kincaid stood together, looking over the crowds. Kincaid pointed toward the west side of the Vietnam monument and Cage nodded toward the east. They separated and moved off in their respective directions, the man in the trench coat trotting away from them both, toward Constitution.

  Czisman was a heavy man and out of shape. His breath snapped in and out of his congested lungs and his heart pounded like a piston. But he managed to keep up with Parker Kincaid very easily, pausing only momentarily--to take the pistol from the sweaty waistband of his slacks and slip it into his coat pocket.

  26

  The Digger's coat is heavy.

  Heavy from the weight of the guns.

  From the weight of the clips, containing hundreds of rounds of .22 . . .

  Click, click . . .

  . . . of . . . of .22 caliber long-rifle ammunition warning bullets can travel up to one mile do not allow children to shoot unsupervised.

  But the Digger would never do that--let a child shoot unsupervised.

  Not Tye. Never, ever, ever Tye.

  Two nicely packed suppressors. Cotton and rubber, cotton and rubber.

  You're the you're the you're best . . .

  The machine guns are in the inside pockets of his nice blue or black overcoat, his Christmas present from Pamela. One of the pistols from the glove compartment of his Toyota is in the right outside pocket of his coat. Four more clips for the Uzis are in the left-hand pocket.

  No bags, no puppies . . .

  He's standing in shadows and none of the people nearby notice him. He looks for police or agents and sees none.

  Tye is asleep in the back seat of the car, a block away. When the Digger left him his sticklike arms were folded over his chest.

  This is what worries him the most--if the police start shooting or if the Digger has to shoot with the unsilenced pistols Tye might wake up from the sound. And then he won't sleep well.

  He's also worried that the boy will be cold. The temperature keeps falling. But the Digger remembers that he tripled the blanket over Tye. He'll be all right. He's sleeping. Children are always all right when they're sleeping.

  He is standing by himself watching some of the people who are about to die. He calls one last time on his cell phone and the lady who sounds like Ruth before the triangle of glass says, "You have no new messages."

  So it's okay to kill these people.

  They'll fall to the ground like dark leaves.

  Chop chop chop chopchopchop . . .

  He'll . . . click . . . he'll spin around, like a top, like a toy Tye might like, and he'll spread the bullets throughout the crowd. Bullets from two guns.

  Then he'll get into the car and check his messages and if the man who tells him things still hasn't called then he and Tye will drive until they find . . . click . . . they find California.

  Somebody will tell him where it is.

  It can't be that hard to find. It's somewhere Out West. He remembers that.

  *

  Is the Digger behind him?

  In front?

  Beside?

  Parker Kincaid, separated from the other agents, walked in a large, frantic circle near the Vietnam Memorial, lost in a sea of people. Looking for a man in a dark coat. With a shopping bag. Wearing a crucifix.

  Far too many people. Thousands of them. Ten thousand.

  Cage was on the other side of the Memorial. Len Hardy was on Constitution Avenue. Baker and the other tactical officers were making a sweep from the other side of the Mall.

  Parker was about to stop a group from walking down to the Memorial itself, send them to the safety of a cluster of officers, but then he paused.

  He realized suddenly that he hadn't been thinking clearly.

  Puzzles. Remember the puzzles.

  Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens. . . .

  Then he understood his mistake. He'd been looking in the wrong places. He stepped aside, out of the way of the crowd, a
nd examined the grounds near the Vietnam Memorial. He thought of the unsub's mazes and realized that the man would have known that by the third attack the agents would have some description of the Digger. He would've told the killer not to approach the Memorial along one of the sidewalks, where he could be spotted more easily; he should come in through the trees.

  Parker turned quickly and disappeared into a thicket of maple and cherry trees. It was still crowded with people making their way to the Mall but he didn't stop to tell them to leave the area. His job now wasn't to be a caretaker, a helping hand, a father; he was a hunter--just like that night years ago when he stalked through his house, looking for the Boatman.

  Searching for his prey.

  Searching for a faceless man in a dark coat.

  A man wearing a cross.

  *

  Henry Czisman was thirty feet behind Kincaid, walking past the Vietnam Memorial, when Kincaid turned suddenly and moved into a grove of trees.

  Czisman followed, looking around him at the sea of people.

  What a target the Digger would have here!

  He could cut them down like grass.

  Czisman's own pistol was in his hand, pointed at the ground. No one saw it; the crowd was distracted, wondering what was going on--with all the police and federal agents telling them to leave the Mall.

  Kincaid walked steadily through the trees, Czisman now perhaps twenty feet behind him. Still, there were people everywhere--dozens separated him from Kincaid--and the document examiner had no idea he was being followed.

  They were about thirty feet from the solemn black wall when Czisman saw a man in a dark overcoat step from behind a tree. It was a cautious, furtive movement and suggested that the man had been hiding. And when he walked toward the Memorial he moved too deliberately, his head down, focused on the ground for no reason, as if he were trying not to be noticed. He disappeared into the crowd not far from Kincaid.

  Czisman trotted after him.

  Suddenly Kincaid turned. He glanced at Czisman, away, then back again with a frown, realizing that he'd seen the face before but couldn't place it. Czisman turned away and ducked behind several large men carrying a cooler. He believed he lost Kincaid. He returned to his search, looking again for the man in the dark overcoat.

  Where--?

  Yes, yes, there he was! A man in his forties, completely nondescript. He was unbuttoning the coat, looking around with dull eyes at the crowds around him.

  And then Czisman saw the flash. A flash of gold on the man's neck.

  He wears a gold cross . . .

  The agents in the bar had told him that the Digger wore a cross.

  So here he is, Czisman thought. The Butcher, the Widow Maker, the Devil . . .

  "Hey!" A voice called.

  Czisman turned. It was Kincaid.

  Now, he thought. Now!

  Czisman lifted his revolver, aimed it toward his target.

  "No!" Kincaid shouted, seeing the gun. "No."

  But Czisman had no clear shot. There were too many people here. He danced to the side and pushed through a break in the crowd, knocking several people aside. He lost Kincaid.

  Twenty feet away, the Digger--oblivious to both men--looked over the crowds like a hunter gazing at a huge flock of geese.

  Czisman shoved aside a cluster of college students.

  "What the fuck you doing, man?"

  "Hey . . ."

  Czisman ignored them. Where was Kincaid? Where?

  Still no target! Too many people . . .

  The Digger's coat fell open. In one of the inside pockets was a large, black machine gun.

  But nobody sees him! Czisman thought. It's as if he's invisible.

  Nobody knows. Families, children, just feet away from the killer . . .

  The crowd seemed to swell with people. The police were directing everyone toward Constitution Avenue but many of them were remaining--so they wouldn't lose a good view of the fireworks, Czisman supposed.

  The Digger was squinting, looking for a place to shoot from. He stepped onto a slight rise in the grass.

  Kincaid emerged from the crowd.

  Czisman pulled back the hammer of his pistol.

  27

  The limo had parked beside the Mall, near the box seats reserved for diplomats and members of Congress.

  Mayor Kennedy and his wife climbed out, accompanied by C. P. Ardell.

  "You have to dog us like this?" Claire asked the agent.

  "It's orders," Ardell said. "You understand."

  Claire shrugged.

  Understand? Kennedy thought. What he understood was that he was virtually under arrest and that he couldn't even avoid the humiliation of appearing in public in his own city without a baby-sitter.

  Any hope that his career would survive tonight was being tidily laid to rest by a few glances at the people who stood near the reviewing stand watching him. The ambiguity of Slade Phillips's news report had been missed, or ignored, and it seemed that everyone here thought Kennedy was practically the Digger's partner.

  Cameras flashed, capturing the stark images that would be identified in the papers tomorrow as "Mayor and Mrs. Jerry Kennedy." He waved to some of the people on the viewing stand and, with grave tact, fielded cursory comments such as "Where've you been hiding?" "How you doing, Jerry?" No one here really wanted answers; they were hard at work distancing themselves from the soon-to-be-former mayor.

  The other question Kennedy heard was: "Heard you weren't coming to the fireworks tonight, Jerry. What brings you out here?"

  Well, what brought him out was Claire.

  The secretary of the African-American Teachers' Association had called and, only moderately embarrassed, had said it would be better for him not to attend the party he was supposed to be keynote speaker at. "Probably best for everybody."

  Well, he'd have been perfectly content to slink back home. But sitting in his City Hall office beside him on the couch, Claire had had a different idea. "Let's get drunk and go watch the goddamn fireworks."

  "I don't know," Kennedy had said dubiously.

  "Well, I do. You're not the sulking kind, honey. Go out with your head high."

  And he'd thought for a few seconds and decided it was the smartest thing he'd heard all night. She'd tracked down a bottle of Moet and they'd drunk it on the way here.

  As they wound through the crowd on the reviewing stand Kennedy shook the hand of Congressman Lanier, who obviously recognized Agent Ardell for exactly what he was--a jailor.

  Lanier probably could think of nothing to say that didn't sound like gloating so he merely tipped his head and offered a very unflirtatious "Claire, you're beautiful tonight."

  "Paul," she said and, nodding to the quiet Mrs. Lanier, added, "Mindy."

  "Jerry," Lanier asked, "what's the latest on the shootings?"

  "I'm still waiting to hear."

  "We've got room for you right over there, Mayor," said a junior aide, pointing at a deserted bank of orange folding chairs behind the other viewers. "Your friend too." He glanced at the large agent.

  "No, no," Kennedy said. "We'll just sit on the stairs."

  "No, please . . ."

  But, for the moment at least, Kennedy retained some social autonomy, even if he had no fiscal, and he waved off Lanier and the aide. He sat down beside Claire on the top step, dropping his jacket on the wood for her to sit on. C. P. Ardell seemed dense but he was apparently sensitive enough to know what kind of embarrassment the mayor would be feeling at the presence of a federal agent so the big man sat a few feet away from the mayor and his wife, didn't hover over them.

  "Used to come here when I was a kid," the agent said to the mayor. "Every Sunday."

  This surprised Kennedy. Most FBI agents were transplants to the area. "You grew up here?"

  "Sure did. Wouldn't live in Maryland or Virginia for a million dollars."

  "Where's your home, Agent Ardell?" Claire asked him.

  "Near the zoo. Just off the parkway."

&
nbsp; Kennedy laughed faintly. At least if he had to be under detention he was glad his turnkey was a loyal citizen.

  Feeling warm from the champagne, he moved closer to Claire and took her hand. They looked out over the Mall. Gazed at the hundreds of thousands of people milling about. Kennedy was pleased to see that there was no microphone on the reviewing stand. He didn't want to hear any speeches. Didn't want anybody to offer the mike to him for impromptu remarks--Lord, what on earth could he say? All he wanted was to sit with his wife and watch the fireworks blossom over his city. And forget the agony of this day. In his radio plea to the Digger he'd referred to this as the last day of the year. But it was, apparently, the end of many things: his chance to help the city, the lives of many of his residents, so horribly killed.

  The end of his tenure in office too; Lanier and the others in Congress who wanted to snatch the District away from its people would probably be able to leverage the Digger incident into something impeachable--maybe interference with a police investigation, something like that. Add in the Board of Education scandal and Kennedy could be out of office within a few months. Wendell Jefferies and all the other aides would be swept out with him. And that would be the end of Project 2000.

  The end of all his hopes for the District. His poor city would be set back another ten years. Maybe the next mayor--

  But then Kennedy noticed something odd. That the spectators seemed to be moving east purposefully, as if they were being herded. Why? he wondered. The view was perfect from here.

  He turned to Claire, started to mention this but suddenly she tensed.

  "What's that?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "Gunshots," she said. "I hear gunshots."

  Kennedy looked into the air, wondering if the sound perhaps was the fireworks, starting early. But, no. All he saw was the dark, cloudy sky, pierced by the white shaft of the Washington Monument.

  Then they heard the screaming.

  *

  Czisman's shots did what he'd intended.

  When he'd realized that nobody had seen the Digger--and that he himself had no clean shot at the killer--he'd fired twice into the air, to scatter the people and clear a line of fire.

  The explosions sent the crowd into a panic. Howling, screaming, everyone scattered, knocking the Digger to his knees. In seconds the area immediately in front of the Vietnam Memorial was virtually empty.

  Czisman saw Kincaid too, flinging himself to the ground and pulling a small automatic out of his pocket. The man hadn't seen the Digger--a thick stand of evergreens separated them.