The Killing Season

by Mason Cross

  The day was cold, and Wardell wished he had gloves, but at least it was dry. He made good time, reaching the road by just after three o’clock. The highway glided through the woods on a raised causeway of struts and supports, and Wardell had to scale a thirty-foot dirt embankment to reach the crash barrier. He approached the crest of the embankment flat on his stomach, just to be safe, and peered under the steel barrier. Nothing. No police or government cars, no foot patrols, no traffic at all in fact.

  He’d expected this to be the case, which was why he’d chosen to exit the woods so far from the search area. Securing the road for the length of its journey through this area would be like securing the border of a small country. He waited another thirty seconds, conscious of the dull pain in his thigh. A car approached from the north, doing seventy or eighty. A station wagon, packed with kids and baggage for a cross-country trip. It shot past him, unaware, and continued on its way down to Colorado or Texas or wherever.

  Wardell stood up, slung the pack on his back and placed the rifle bag on the ground by the crash barrier. He waited, rubbing a hand over his goatee and two-day stubble and mildly regretting the fact that they knew what he looked like now. The waitress in Rapid City would have given them an up-to-date description, one that would be corroborated by Blake, if he’d made it. And that meant hitchhiking was risky.

  He looked up at the cold gray sky, scanning the hills back the way he’d come, looking for helos. They didn’t have the manpower to guard the length of this road, but they could sure as hell run a few flybys. Best not to stay out here too long.

  Minutes passed. A couple more cars passed heading south, no other vehicles on his side. He kept ignoring the pain in his thigh, kept watching the sky. He thought about killing Hatcher and thought some more about the two new names on his list.

  Wardell had often wondered why individuals in his ­position never seemed to go after the people chasing them. It was a mystery that it didn’t happen more often in fact. It was so simple, when you thought about it. So . . . symmetrical? No: practical. That was what it was. A kill that was more than just for the buzz.

  Practical in the same kind of way he’d most likely have to kill the driver of the burgundy sedan that was now approaching from the south, still about three-quarters of a mile distant. He couldn’t afford to be recognized, not now. If Wardell stuck his thumb out and the guy in the burgundy car just blew by him without a second glance, then both he and the driver could live with that. If the guy stopped? Great. They’d take it from there. But if the guy took a good look at Wardell and then kept going, he would be signing his own death warrant.

  Without taking his eyes off of the burgundy car, Wardell crouched to the rifle bag and snapped the zipper back the full length. The Rem 700 was on top, ready to reach down and grab.

  The burgundy car was about half a mile away now. He was cruising around seventy. Twenty-six, twenty-seven seconds maybe. Wardell rehearsed the action in his head: As soon as the car passed him, he’d have the Remington in his hands in less than a second. Up to his shoulder and taking aim in one point five. Locking the target and squeezing the trigger in two. Two seconds after the driver passed Wardell, even assuming he maintained his current speed and didn’t slow to get a better look, he’d be seventy yards away. No challenge at all. Wardell could blow out one of the rear tires, chase down the car as it slewed onto the shoulder, and put the second round in the back of the driver’s head. Then it would just be a matter of fitting the spare and dumping the body off the side of the road. Simple. Practical.

  The burgundy car was eighteen seconds away, seventeen. Wardell angled his body sideways, kept his head down, and held out his arm, thumb pointing in the direction of travel. But as he turned his body, something caught his eye on the edge of his peripheral vision. Approaching from the east, hovering over a patch of forest ten miles back. A black helicopter.

  Shit.

  No time for changing a tire now. From that altitude, they’d know for sure something was happening out on the road, which would be enough reason to come investigate. But wait—the driver of the burgundy car was already slowing. Wardell could see him peering out at him. The burgundy car swept past, its speed cut to thirty, now twenty-five, brake lights glowing in the dull midafternoon light. Wardell had caught another break: Whether he had to kill this Good Samaritan or not, there would be no need to change the tire now.

  58

  3:45 p.m.

  The office was unoccupied, illuminated only by the dull light sidling in between gray vertical blinds.

  Banner’s first thought was that it was laid out like a ­spacious waiting room. Two wooden-framed, padded chairs in front of a wide, low coffee table, both angled slightly inward to face a third chair on the far side. After consideration, she rethought her initial impression. It wasn’t a waiting room. It had been set up for a meeting. This meeting. Almost certainly the only meeting that would be held in this office under its current lease.

  A side door opened and a man in a black suit and a dark gray open-necked shirt stepped into the room. It took a second, but then Banner recognized the face from blurry surveillance photographs. She wasn’t altogether convinced she would have, had she not known whom to expect.

  Korakovski was in his late fifties and had about him the air of a European statesman. He was around six feet and slim, with black hair streaked with silver and a mildly tanned complexion. In stark contrast to his henchman, he didn’t look like a gangster. In his own way, he was as unassuming on first glance as Blake. Banner realized that this case had opened her eyes to some strange subworld of nondescript killers, of quiet, dangerous men who blended in.

  Korakovski crossed the floor and nodded at both Blake and Banner, unsmiling. He shook hands first with Banner and then with Blake. His handshake was light and gentle with Banner, but she saw his fingers grip tightly as they closed around Blake’s hand.

  “Mr. Blake,” he said, an accent barely discernible. “You come highly recommended.”

  Banner shot a glance at Blake, remembering his admonishment to let him do the talking.

  Blake smiled briefly and perfunctorily. “Yuri is too kind.”

  “I think he—and, of course, his daughter—would disagree, but I applaud your modesty in any case.” His eyes flicked over to meet Banner’s, and she saw recognition there. Castle had been the FBI’s public face on the task force, but she’d been in the background of enough newscasts over the past couple of days. And then there had been that interview with the New York Times last year, of course. Just ten minutes ago, she wouldn’t have thought of pegging a brutal Russian gang lord as a Times reader, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “And I’m pleased to make the acquaintance of your friend. Agent . . . ?”

  Banner said, “Elaine. Just Elaine.” She didn’t elaborate. She wasn’t thinking of Blake’s advice anymore. She was too busy trying not to think about what Donaldson might say if her attendance at this—meeting? Summit? What the hell was it?—ever got out.

  Korakovski kept looking at her, unblinking, as though testing her resolve. She didn’t blink right back at him. Eventually, he said, “Good, good.”

  He snapped his fingers and the rhino-sized flunky shuffled to the side door and opened it again. Immediately, a petite, dark-haired women in her twenties stepped through carrying a tray: coffee in a French press and three china mugs, along with a sugar bowl and a small jug of milk or cream. She avoided making eye contact with anyone in the room. She set the tray down on the low table as the three of them took their seats: Blake and Banner on one side, Korakovski on the other. Without asking, Korakovski reached out and poured coffee into the three cups. First Banner’s, then Blake’s, then his own. The small woman slipped away without an apparent signal and closed the door softly behind her. The rhino moved back into position behind Banner and Blake.

  Blake ignored his coffee, fixing Korakovski with a stare. “We’d like you
to help us make a couple of clarifications.”

  “I see. And this would relate to . . . ?”

  Blake paused and smiled. “To the ambush on a prisoner transport vehicle your men carried out in the course of an assassination attempt on one of your former employees.”

  Korakovski didn’t blink. Banner wondered if he ever blinked. She couldn’t remember it happening since he’d entered the room. He took a sip of coffee.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps you have, as you Americans say, the wrong guy?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Thirty seconds of silence, easily, as both men stared at each other.

  “You’re aware of the Caleb Wardell situation,” Blake said finally, reaching for his coffee for the first time.

  “It’s difficult to miss. You have quite a voracious appetite for the exploits of murderers in this country.”

  “And yet we always seem to have room to import more. Like the three men you lost to Wardell.”

  Korakovski leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms. Amused, not offended in the slightest. “Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course not. But Clarence Mitchell, he worked for you, right?”

  Korakovski sighed. “Sadly, yes. A regrettable fact of business: When one unwittingly employs a criminal and then terminates his employment, he must expect the criminal to spread lies about his entirely legitimate activities.”

  “So you must be happy he’s out of the picture.”

  “It makes certain things simpler; you are correct.”

  Blake watched him for a minute. “I need to know how the hit was set up. I need to know so I can catch Wardell. We’re not interested in anything else right now.”

  Korakovski’s stare flitted to Banner again. She returned it. He looked like he was going to ask her a question, but then changed his mind and turned back to Blake.

  “If I were able to cooperate with you, to offer my advice on a purely hypothetical basis . . . perhaps you could do a favor in return for me.”

  Banner breathed in through her nose, watching Blake carefully. This was the moment when the devil produced the expensive fountain pen and asked you to sign on the dotted line. She wondered how he’d handle it.

  Blake shook his head slowly. Like Korakovski, not angry but amused. “The favor has already been done. Your debt to Yuri Leonov is wiped clean from today.”

  For the first time, Korakovski showed some teeth, a wide grin that defied Blake to blame him for trying.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “As you say, a fair return on a modest investment, in this case information that costs me nothing. And, of course, I’m always delighted to help the authorities.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Blake asked.

  Korakovski looked at Banner again. Sensing that now was the time to speak, she reiterated what Blake had said. “We’re not interested in anything else at the moment. In fact, we’re not even here at all.”

  He nodded, seeming to find this acceptable.

  “The man you mentioned, Mitchell, was, as you say, a poten­tial thorn in my side. We’d been trying to . . . reach out to him for some time. To convince him of his mistake. Initially, it did not prove easy. We were told that this par­ticu­lar goal was impossible to satisfy.”

  Banner was pleased to hear it; it showed witness protection did some things right. But she wondered what he meant by “initially.”

  “And how did you change that situation?” Blake said.

  “We didn’t. We were approached by a man who proved to be most helpful.”

  “Paul Summers?” Blake suggested.

  The prisoner transfer coordinator—the guy who’d shot himself. Or had he? Banner was beginning to question every­thing about this setup.

  Korakovski shook his head. “No. We did speak to Mr. Summers later on, but this first man was someone else.”

  “Did he have a name? Who was he working for?”

  Korakovski spaced his hands apart. “Names and jobs do not interest me. The only thing that interests me is what someone can do for me. This man promised he could deliver something considerable.”

  “Clarence Mitchell on a silver platter.”

  Korakovski nodded. “We were furnished with all of the intelligence we needed. We were also assured that the path would be cleared for us. That was when we were put in touch with Mr. Summers.”

  “And you paid him a hundred thousand dollars. Why did you do it so obviously? I mean, a wire transfer into his regular bank account? That can’t be how you generally do business.”

  For the first time, Korakovski looked mildly irritated. It seemed you could impugn his character, but not his professionalism. “It is not how we do business. We did not pay Summers a hundred thousand. We did not pay him anything.”

  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 mos
t 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.