Redman swung the scope over and watched Walker move to his truck, climb in and drive north. He took a right just as he had the last time. If he went to the same liquor store, he'd return in twenty minutes, Redman thought. When he gets back. When he steps out of the truck. When he stops to open the door to the tool shop and becomes stationary, that's the shot. It will be just like when Michaels had opened the probation office door. He'll be a still target for one special second.
Redman was running the scene through his head, rehearsing like he always did, when his ear picked up the whumping sound. He took his eye away from the scope and looked to the south. Helicopter. Whatever the gig that was going down inside the barricades was warming up and Redman took up his binoculars and checked the helo. It was a small two-man craft and did not carry the logo of any news channels that the media shitbirds always carried.
There was the possibility that it belonged to the feds who were parked below. Who else used spotter helicopters? Redman's head was clicking. He knew that the Secretary of State was in town. He'd read the newspaper's front page. But that was supposed to be at the convention center, well south, down near the port. There was no way they would expand a circle of security this far. He knew the federal protocols wouldn't even spread a sniper sweep more than eight hundred yards. He shifted his mind to other scenarios and came up with the only possibility: a political field trip.
The goddamn publicity machine, he thought, is taking the secretary on some baby-kissing visit and it's going down near my goddamn kill zone. "I know that, Lieutenant," Hargrave said, keeping his voice in check. "But if nobody's seen Redman, and none of his SWAT friends have heard from him, it's impossible to put a motive on this guy so we can predict what he's going to do next."
Hargrave had badged his way past the police cordon and followed Walker's F-150 into a neighborhood of industrial businesses. When Walker pulled up in front of a corrugated steel warehouse and went inside someplace called Archie's, Hargrave parked across the street. First he tried to get Mullins on the reporter's cell. He was immediately forwarded to some message service. Then he called Canfield and for the next thirty minutes found himself trying to explain why he was following Walker around. Who the hell even cared?
"Wait a second," Hargrave said into the cell. "He's leaving again." The detective watched as Walker came out of the shop, looked around and then got back into his truck and drove north, away from where Hargrave now knew there was an "official visit" going down at a nursing home only a few blocks away.
"Look, Mo. Like I said, you do what you think needs to be done with this asshole Walker. To tell you the truth, nobody here in command- and not Fitzgerald either-gives a damn about yours and Mullins's theory. The priority has shifted to the Secretary of State and not on solving the deaths of a few cons that probably deserved to die in the first place," Canfield said when the detective came back. "I know how that goes against your ethic, but like I said, you're hanging your own ass out there."
"I appreciate the help, Lieutenant."
Hargrave pushed the end button and stared out his windshield as Walker's truck disappeared around a corner.
"I might add," he said to no one.
The detective opened his car door and stepped out. His inclination was to go back to the office and again try to track hotel and motel registries for Redman's name even though he knew that was fruitless. Instead he locked his door and started walking south toward the cordon that was set up a couple of blocks away. Maybe he'd shoot the bull with the uniform guys doing duty. Ask if the feds were any more antsy than usual. Try to spot Fitzgerald somewhere. Nick made it down again, thinking like a sniper. He'd always heard the SWAT guys talking about taking higher ground and the philosophy moved him to the three-story building next door. He crossed the alley that ran straight south, looking for some kind of box or board to get within reach of the first ladder rung, and settled on an old shipping pallet with the nailed crosspieces and leaned one end up against the wall and used it as a makeshift stepladder. He had to stretch to get a grip on the first rung and hauled himself up. Again, the metal had not been touched, probably in years.
But he climbed. Thirty feet up he slowly came over the roof edge. Again, there was nothing to see but tar and air-conditioning vents, though over to his left a square bunkerlike access room protruded up. From his angle he could see two sides of the structure. One side had a door.
Great, he thought, I should have just walked in, flashed my press credentials and walked up the damn stairs. His cynicism was back, along with his doubts that he had any idea what the hell he was doing up here. But he still moved low along the roofline to get a look around the third side of the access room.
He was circling when he saw, or heard, the beat of a helicopter and raised his eyes to the sky. It was a small craft, not the big Channel 7 chopper shooting pictures of his ass again. But as he watched the aircraft slide to his left, his line of sight crossed the top of the access room and from this new vantage point he noticed a stepladder leaning against it, and then an odd platform on top. It looked as if someone had mounted a sheet of corrugated metal across two sawhorses. Nick looked behind himself for space and then stepped backward, forgetting to stay low and going up on his toes to gain a few more inches of view. Between the open legs of the sawhorses he could now make out the dark curve of a man's head, bent, absolutely still, over the top of a black rifle barrel.
Maybe Nick panicked. Maybe he should have taken a minute to think it through. But he didn't.
"Redman!" he shouted. "Mike Redman!" Mike Redman was sweeping the rooftops with his binoculars and keeping his ear tuned to the sound of the helicopter in case it should expand its circle and come his way. He had cover in the form of a sheet of metal that he'd rigged to hide his shape from the sky. He was tracking left to right, and then back behind himself, using time to pick up anything odd in the landscape, and he stopped on a sight that was new. Three buildings north he spotted on a container about the size of a squared-off suitcase near the edge of the roof that had been kicked over. The sun glanced off its surface and drew his eye. He remembered it from his earlier reconnaissance, a rain cover for a video surveillance camera. Some owners used the covers to keep the pigeon shit off the units. But this time the cover lay on its side and the difference bothered him. In his experience, few people visited the rooftops in South Florida, too damn hot, unless they had a reason. He swept the rest of that building's roof, but saw nothing, no human, no evidence of one. He set the binoculars aside and was shifting the rifle scope to take a closer look when he picked up movement below and saw Walker's blue F-150 turning onto the street. He knew that son-of-a-bitch would be back and silently congratulated himself for that knowledge. He let his sights follow the back window of the truck and tracked it to the spot in front of Archie's. He could feel his breathing start to settle and become deeper and slower. Every shot, he reminded himself, is a study of concentration and focus. Excitement only gets in the way. When the truck stopped, he kept the crosshairs on the back of Walker's head and watched the man who killed Nick Mullins's family knock back one more hit from the pint of liquor he'd just bought. Walker shifted in his seat, one shoulder dipping, and then got out. Redman took one more breath and then let the air pass slowly through his nostrils and began to pull pressure on the trigger. Detective Hargrave saw the truck up ahead of him as he was walking back from the cordon.