The long field in front of Condon’s house was shoulder-high in corn. His grass needed mowing, and the air smelled of stale dog dung and urine.
Condon turned off the ATV, tugged the rifle from the black scabbard, and got out. He walked with a slight hitch in his stride to retrieve one of the toolboxes.
“Nice gun,” I said.
“Designed it myself,” he said, grabbing one of the toolboxes and showing me a .338 Lapua with a Timney trigger, a Lone Wolf custom stock, and a Swarovski 4 to 18 power scope.
No wonder he’d been able to read my credentials at ninety yards.
“How far can you shoot something like that?” Sampson asked.
“Wind’s calm and I’m right, a mile,” Condon said, and he went with a slight hitch in his gait up a cracked walkway to the front porch.
He came up with a heavy ring of keys and used them to open three dead bolts. Opening the door, he called, “Denni. Azore.”
The dogs streaked into the house. Two minutes later, they returned.
“Kennel up,” he said.
The dogs trotted over to cedar beds and lay down.
Condon gestured for us to follow him inside and flipped on the light in a small living area off a kitchen. The place reeked of marijuana. Beer cans and an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s crowded a coffee table between a couch with busted springs and a large TV on the wall. An image from Game of Thrones was frozen on the flat-screen.
The drapes were drawn. Condon crossed to an air-conditioning unit mounted on the wall and turned it on.
“Beer?” he asked.
“We’re on duty,” Sampson said.
“Suit yourself,” Condon said, and he went into the kitchen.
I looked around, saw Sampson had gone to a small table in the corner and was looking at several framed photographs, all of the same beautiful young woman in a variety of rugged outdoor settings. In the largest picture, an eight-by-ten, she was in Condon’s arms and he glowed like he owned the world.
“That what you’re here about?” Condon asked. “Paula and all?”
Even with the limp, he’d come up behind us so quietly we both startled.
When I turned, the sniper popped his Bud can, looked at us coldly.
“We’d heard about her. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Condon softened slightly, said, “Thank you.”
“What’s it been? Four years?”
“Four years, six months, three days, nine hours, three minutes. Was this what you came all the way from DC to talk about?”
In the car, Sampson and I had hashed out how best to approach him. Trying to bull or bluff a guy like Condon wasn’t going to work, so I opted to come at him from the side.
“We need your help,” I said. “Do you keep up with the news?”
“I try not to,” Condon said.
“There was a mass murder in a methamphetamine factory in Washington, DC,” I said. “Twenty-two people died. The assault seemed professional, as in highly trained. Probably ex-military.”
As if he were seeing an enemy in the distance, the sniper’s eyes hardened.
“I know where this is going,” he said. “I’ll save you some time. I had nothing to do with that. Now, unless you have a warrant, Detective Cross, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of my house and off my land.”
“Mr. Condon—”
“Now. Before I get all loony and PTSD, start thinking you’re the Taliban.”
Part Three
MERCURY RISING
CHAPTER
36
MERCURY RARELY RODE his motorcycle in broad daylight.
He generally took the bike out only at night and on patrol. But heading south on Interstate 97, he felt like nothing could shake him today, as if more balance were coming into the world, and into his life. He had been the avenger now in more ways than one, and he rather liked the role.
Hell, he loved everything about what he’d been doing these past few weeks—taking charge and acting when no one else would. Certainly not the police. Certainly not the FBI or NCIS. Do-nothings, one and— Mercury noticed a beige Ford Taurus weaving in the slow lane just south of the Maryland Route 32 interchange. He hung one car back and one car over.
The Taurus drifted, and the Porsche SUV in front of Mercury honked at it. The Taurus wandered back into its lane.
The Porsche accelerated. Mercury sped up as if to pass the Taurus too and got just far enough to see what was really going on.
“Stupid bitch,” he muttered, anger beginning to build, boiling away all that good feeling. “Don’t you read? Don’t you listen?”
He backed off, telling himself that this wasn’t the time or the place.
But as he entered a long, slow, easterly curve in the four-lane highway, Mercury realized that, except for the Taurus, the southbound lanes were clear in front and behind him.
He made a split-second decision and zipped open his jacket. With his right hand he twisted the throttle, and with his left, he drew the pistol.
The motorcycle sped up until it was right beside the Taurus. The stupid bitch driving didn’t look at him, and she wasn’t looking at the road ahead.