sideline observer with a too-clean desk; then, three glorious weeks sleeping in the woods and eating what tasted like chipped horsemeat and Kennel Rations, riding shotgun on The Rook (whom Ace had dubbed “Haircut”) as they searched the gorge. All that time and effort building to the biggest moment of his career, and now he was stuck in the Appalachian equivalent of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
“Jim…” Derek Samford’s voice came from the handheld radio somewhere below him. The radio had slipped from his belt when he’d fallen-or more precisely, when the earth had moved.
If Castle could have reached the radio, he would have told The Rook to stay on point, to take Goodall down first and then worry about his partner. They needed a nail in the Bama Bomber. That’s the only way this ending would be happy. Because Castle had screwed the pooch big-time, the kind of boondoggle that would make them howl with laughter back in DC.
But only after Goodall was locked away, of course. No one would laugh before then, especially the older veterans, who would see their own decline mirrored in Jim Castle’s bad judgment. Not the fresh faces, the new agents who thought scars and kills were the measure of a man. And certainly not the higher-ups, who were getting reamed by Southern Congressmen and the press over their continued inability to nab a fugitive with a recorded IQ of ninety-five.
Castle moved his legs. Nothing broken, though his hips were jammed tight between two molars of granite. He had some nasty scrapes along his thighs, and a tickling sensation down his shin signaled a line of oozing blood from his knee. He arched his neck and looked at the diminishing funnel of daylight ten feet above. The opening in the earth was raw and jagged, and pale roots poked from the soil like sick snakes. Specks of dirt sprinkled down and bounced off Jim’s face and shoulders. A piece of grit lodged in the corner of his left eye, and he blinked it to mud.
The sides of the opening didn’t appear in immediate danger of collapse, so Castle figured suffocation wasn’t the biggest danger.
No, friend, suffocation is not your biggest danger. Your biggest danger is Robert Wayne “Ace” Goodall walking up to the edge of the hole, whipping out his baby-maker, and showering you with a tender stream of golden humiliation. Just before capping your ass and bringing the Bama Bomber back into the national headlines.
Good agents avoided headlines, even those like him who were scrambling down the final rungs on the FBI ladder. They didn’t wear dark glasses just for vanity. Speak to the media only when necessary, and only when higher ranks were dodging the microphone. He’d wanted one of those doors to open that led into the Puzzle Palace, the field agents’ fond nickname for DC headquarters. But he was far too old already, and this wasn’t a good time to get his name in the papers. No matter how you cut it, showing up as a casualty in the first paragraph wasn’t such a hot career move.
He had a. 357-caliber Glock in his shoulder holster, but his upper torso was too contorted to reach the pistol. He was in no shape for a shoot-out.
“What’s your 10–20?” came The Rook’s modulated voice. Though the broadcast was muffled, the words somehow echoed, as if a small cave yawned below him. That was just fucking wonderful. If he managed to wriggle free of his rocky vise grip and slide down, he had no idea how far the drop would be. Another ten feet, no problem, maybe a twisted ankle. Twenty feet, in that kind of terrain, meant broken bones, deep contusions, and the real possibility of head trauma.
Then relying on The Rook to find him and drag him to safety.
Derek Samford wasn’t technically a rookie, and wasn’t all that much younger than Castle. He’d put in three years as an Army officer, aced his courses at Quantico, and then eased into the unit known as Behavioral Sciences. He was more cerebral than hard ass, more Jodie Foster than Edgar G. Robinson, but The Rook had endured twenty-two-and-three-quarter days in the backwoods without a complaint and only a slight case of butt-crack rash. He consulted his wrist compass a little too often, tracking the sun’s path and acting the part of Nature Boy, though the wristband was of the blaze-orange variety that warned hunters not to shoot because a two-legged hairless monkey was on the other end. Castle could forgive him for the silly instrument because his partner knew north from south.
The Rook would make the grade one day, keeping his hair groomed to whatever standard the FBI brass decreed, working overtime in exchange for having a life, and succeeding whether or not he lost a partner along the way. So Castle’s probable death meant nothing to the outcome of the case.
Death? Assuming Goodall doesn’t blow your brains to scrambled eggs, you’ll probably live hours. Long enough to regret it.
Castle’s decision to outflank Goodall and his companion had seemed like a solid strategy. The book on the Bama Bomber was “armed and extremely dangerous and likely to take a busload of nuns with him.” In a showdown, Goodall would use the woman as a shield, or kill her on the spot. While Castle and The Rook would be limited in their gunplay because of an innocent bystander, Goodall had nothing to lose. Rampant homicide was a blank check.
Not that Castle believed the woman was truly innocent. Everybody was guilty of something, and then it was just a question of degree.
A stone the size of his fist bounced within inches of his shoulder. The opening above him shivered again, as if bracing for the onslaught of winter. But the ground wasn’t cold yet, so it shifted and settled. A runnel of dirt sloughed down from his left, adding another few inches of weight against his waist.
Suffocation was the most likely outcome, for sure. If Goodall didn’t come back to finish the job first.
Castle had been edging up to the camp, guided by the thin thread of smoke from the fire. He’d gone from tree to tree, moving the way they’d taught in Hogan’s Alley. But shooting at cutout targets was a little different than shooting a breathing human being. Even when this particular human being deserved it, if “human” even applied to someone who taken at least four lives. Five if you counted the fetus.
Castle had gone over every possible detail with The Rook before they made the approach. Every detail except the possibility of a booby trap. The plan was to capture Goodall alive if at all possible (though they both knew no one would question a kill), make sure the woman didn’t take one for posterity, cut off any escape routes, and use the cliff edge to block Goodall’s retreat. Castle from the left, with the sun at his back, and The Rook closing in from the east, aided by his hunter’s compass. No way could Castle have foreseen a trip wire.
No way, because the brass hadn’t expected Ace Goodall to actually be in the Unegama. Otherwise, why would they have sent me?
A bomb that matched the previous attacks had detonated in San Antonio a month ago, shifting the manhunt from the Southern states to Texas. The tip placing Goodall in the Southern Appalachians was one of those believed to be a complete waste of time, but one that had to be followed up nonetheless. Since experienced, knowledgeable agents were in short supply and needed for the primary investigation, mop-up was left to burnouts like Castle. The FBI hadn’t bothered to set up a regional command center or a communications post, and their radio batteries were all but dead.
This was one mission he’d been stuck with, for sure. Castle was wedged tighter than a cork in a parakeet’s ass.
“10–20?”
The Rook. On the radio. Probably hunkered down behind a tree somewhere, analyzing the situation, measuring Goodall’s probable reaction with the blunt instruments of psychology and guesswork. No shots fired, so the situation was still under control. That was the book, and The Rook went by the book. Under control.
“Control” was a military word, the delusion of a former officer. Over the past three weeks, The Rook had taught Castle plenty about Robert Wayne Goodall. The personality assessment was crafted from bits of the Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, and Imaginary cases and boondoggles.
Something tugged on his boot, somewhere in that numb space below.
Must be a loose rock falling, putting more pressure on him. That meant the little cavern was shifting. Another palm’s worth of dirt sprinkled onto his shoulders from above. So the bomb-spawned earthquake hadn’t finished its business yet. The mountain hadn’t settled. God still wanted to play with his latest plaything, like a cat batting a crippled mouse.
The tug came again.
“Jim.”
Castle heard The Rook both above him and on the radio’s speaker below him. “Down here.”
The Rook’s head appeared in the opening, silhouetted against the dusk. “Are you hurt?”
