“These are drawings of the attack locations,” I said. “This one’s the factory where they killed the meth makers. And this one shows an aerial view of the tobacco-drying sheds and the road coming down the middle.”
Condon said, “Before you say anything, there is no way those are mine. This was supposed to be a diversion. Kill me and plant evidence. Keep you guys off the trail of the real vigilante crew.”
The more I thought about it, the more I thought Condon was right-unless, of course, he’d shot his dummy-on-a-rope and put the evidence in his saddlebag to keep us from suspecting he was part of the vigilante group.
For the time being, however, I was going to trust him.
“So whoever they are, they think you’re dead,” Sampson said.
“A fair assumption,” Condon said.
“Let’s let them think it,” I said.
Mahoney looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What for?”
“Make them believe that they’ve succeeded and the investigation has shifted to looking at Condon’s circle of mercenary friends.”
“And we start quietly looking for a victim of a dog bite,” Sampson said.
“Among other things,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this entire incident. Why implicate Condon? Why not someone else? Why attempt to kill him?
The only solid answer I came up with was that they knew of Condon’s past and had decided he would be the perfect fall guy.
“I thought of that while I was waiting for you to get here,” Condon replied. “But maybe it was more than that. Maybe they were trying to kill me because I do know something about your vigilantes. Two of them, anyway.”
67
THAT MORNING, AS Alex, Sampson, and Mahoney were talking to Condon, Bree was struggling to make connections between the late chief of detectives Tom McGrath, Edita Kravic, and a competition pistol shooter.
She had the late Terry Howard’s service records up on her computer screen. Four times during Howard’s career, he’d failed his annual shooting qualification test. On his best day, he was evaluated as an average shot.
Hardly the competitor, Bree thought and shut the file.
But lots of police officers did compete. It kept their marks-manship sharp. So she couldn’t discount the possibility of a cop or a former cop or a former military guy, perhaps someone McGrath and Howard knew, being the shooter.
Her desk phone rang.
“Stone,” she said.
“Michaels,” the police chief said. “I’m not happy.”
“Chief?”
“I’m hearing rumors that you’ve reopened the McGrath case.”
“True,” she said, her heart starting to race.
“Goddamn it, Stone, I’m going to get crucified over this. Howard’s our guy. You said so yourself.”
“I believed it then, Chief,” she said. “But not now.”
She recounted her visit to the FBI lab and finished by saying, “So I think the way we look at this is, we take some lumps for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but we’ll get applauded when it comes out we were dogged enough to recognize our mistake and find the real killer.”
Chief Michaels sighed, said, “I can live with that. Any suspects?”
“Not yet.”
“We’re at square one on a dead cop?”
“Definitely not,” she said. “We’ve got new leads we’re actively working.”
“Keep me posted, will you please?”
“You’ll be the first to know everything, Chief,” she said, and he hung up.
Bree set her phone down, thinking that that had gone smoother than she’d expected. Maybe she was getting better at the job, not as rattled by every crisis.
After Sampson and I got back from talking to Condon, I stuck my head into Bree’s office. “We’ve had a couple of breaks you need to know about.”
Bree smiled. “I could use some good news.”
“Oh, we’ve got lots of news,” Sampson said, coming in behind me. “Can’t figure out if it’s good or bad.”
As we told her about our trip to Nicholas Condon’s place, the planted evidence, and the possibility that the sniper knew two of the vigilantes, I sent two pictures to a screen on Bree’s wall.
One photograph showed a wiry man in a nice suit with a face that was a fusion of Asia and Africa. He had a quarter-inch of beard and was leaning against a car, smoking a cigarette- he looked like the kind of guy who would fit in anywhere. The other picture showed a U.S. Army Green Beret officer with pale skin and a battle-gaunt face.
“The suit is Lester Hobbes, ex-CIA,” Sampson said. “The soldier turned mercenary is Charles Fender.”
Both men had contracted with international security firms operating in Afghanistan early on in Condon’s time there. They hadn’t worked directly with the sniper, but they all knew one another well enough to have a drink or two occasionally. Both Fender and Hobbes were hard-liners who thought the U.S. was bungling foreign policy in the Middle East and going to hell in a handbasket back home.
“Condon says he didn’t see Hobbes or Fender for years,” I said. “Then, after the death of his fiancée, the investigation in Afghanistan, and his exile on the Eastern Shore, Condon gets a call one day from Lester Hobbes.”
Hobbes told Condon he thought he’d gotten a raw deal and offered his condolences. He asked the sniper if he’d be interested in having lunch sometime. Condon agreed. They met one day at a restaurant in Annapolis.
Charles Fender was there too. They all had a few too many beers as they recalled old times, and the talk turned to what was wrong with the U.S.A. Hobbes and Fender had said that people’s lack of conviction and action had allowed new forms of slavery to take hold in the country.
“Slavery?” Bree said.
“‘People harnessed by other people in a criminal manner’ was how they put it, evidently,” Sampson said. “As in a drug user is enslaved by the drug cartels or a prostitute enslaved by her handlers. Or ordinary U.S. citizens enslaved by corrupt politicians.”
I said, “Hobbes and Fender told Condon they were part of a growing group of people who thought this way. They compared themselves to John Brown and the men he led in an armed uprising against slavery.”
“Violent abolitionists,” Sampson said. “Willing to kill and die to free others.”
“Jesus,” Bree said.
“Right?” I said. “They’re calling themselves the Regulators, and they asked Condon to join them. Condon declined, said he was looking to lead a quieter life, and they left it at that.”
“Why didn’t he tell you this the first time you talked to him?” Bree asked.
“He claims he didn’t put it together until after the second attack. Even then, he couldn’t see the harm in having fewer drug cartels and human traffickers in the world.”
“Until Fender and Hobbes decided to frame and kill him,” Bree said.
“Correct,” Sampson said.
Bree sat there a few moments, absorbing it, before she leaned forward and said, “They’ve killed drug dealers and human traffickers, but no corrupt politicians.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Which is why we need to find Lester Hobbes and Charles Fender sooner rather than later.”
68
JOHN BROWN SAT with several others at his home, his arm throbbing from the dog bite. He tried to ignore the pain as he watched the footage on the local evening news of the medical examiner’s wagon rolling through the gate of Nicholas Condon’s place in Denton.
A young female reporter came on in standup and gushed, “WBAL-TV Channel Eleven brings you this exclusive report. FBI and local law enforcement officials are telling us that evidence gathered at the scene of the gangland-style murder indicates a connection between the victim, former SEAL Team 6 sniper Nicholas Condon, and the massacres of drug dealers and human traffickers in the past month.
“The FBI also says the evidence has pushed the multistate investigation in a new direction, and all of Condon’s known and former associates will be coming under increased scrutiny in the days ahead,” the reporter said.