Call Me Joe (29 page)

Six crimes, six guns, six different caliber bullets. It was one boy, all right; of that he was certain. But he's an unusually talented and painstaking boy whose sole contributions to his bag of clues were:  A couple of tripod scratches that had been carefully hacked at with a tool of some sort until they were unidentifiable as any brand; and a few blank, perfect, generic footprints that could have come from any leather-soled shoe ever made, anywhere. No brass, no partial prints, no cigarette butts…

Big picture, Calvert thought. When the details don't yield, go back to the landscape.

He pulled out his cell, habitually, and then laid it down and lifted the cordless handset on the side table. It was scrambled and as secure as Scotland Yard could make it.

"Leftwich," came the brisk reply.

"Lefty? John Calvert," he said warmly.

"Gunny?" Leftwich piped back. "By God, good to hear from you, lad! How is the unluckiest cop's wife in God's green Britain?"

"She'd send her love, I'm sure," Calvert smiled, "if she were not, at the moment, taking the sun on a splendid, white beach in Jamaica with her two sisters, doubtless rewriting the public decency laws even as we speak."

Leftwich's laugh was the aural equivalent of a rare t-bone, just as Calvert remembered.

"So, what's the agenda for today, chief inspector?" Lefty chuckled. "You're the one bugger I served with who would
not
just ring me up for a chat."

"I'm afraid you've made me out, Lefty," Calvert sighed. "Our topic for today is snipers."

"That Pembroke Properties debacle," Leftwich stated. "Bloody gruesome business. For a great sniper, nothing impossible, I'm afraid. I know you'd prefer that I tell you there are only three guys in the world who could make those kills and that two are dead. Fact is—and mind you I haven't seen any ballistics or case files—any one of 15-18 boys could have done it, and at least one girl."

"A girl?" Calvert grunted.

"Trained her myself," Leftwich chuckled. "She can shoot the ass off a hummingbird at 500 meters; an orange at nearly a thousand."

"What about ballistics, Lefty?" Calvert probed. "How important is the gun?"

"Well," Leftwich snorted, "it's everything innit? You can't feel it with a gun, you can't make the shot. And you'd need your favorite gun to make that long-range kill.

"What if I told you that all six kills were done with a different gun?" Calvert asked.

There was a long moment of dead silence on the phone. Calvert thought they might have been disconnected when Leftwich cleared his throat and sighed deeply.

"What I'd say is six shooters," Leftwich murmured. "I gather you've discarded that."

"No," Calvert allowed, "not altogether. At some point, though, I have to go with what got me here and that's intuition. It doesn't feel like six, Lefty, or four or two. I think it's one boy."

"Jesus," Leftwich breathed, "well, that narrows the field, surely. Now you
are
talking about three and one
is
dead. I shot the bugger myself. East German. Looked like a bloody file clerk. He only made one slip-up and I caught it. Besides him…one Russian, one American. Both still unaccounted-for, though one assumes the C.I.A. and the old K.G.B. tabs on them. In any case, interagency cooperation won't even extend to MI-6, much less the Yard.

"I'll accept that as an article of faith, Sar' Major," Calvert sighed. "It's why I called you.

"Well, officially, we at MI-6 have no proof that either man ever existed," Leftwich sighed. "One old gunney to another—ballocks. The Russian was actually a conscripted Uzbek named Osipovo. Vlad the Hammer, they called him. Bastard was 6'6" and built like a fucking Cossack, but he was a bloody surgeon with a gun—
any
gun. He won the all-Soviet pistol competition with a perfect 1600 score, using a borrowed antique Colt 45. These days, he's ostensibly a vodka-maker; boutique stuff, quite tasty. Still, whenever anyone is shot in some implausible way, Osipovo's name comes up."

"The American is more problematic. No one's sure he ever really existed, but…let's just say that, for 20 years, quite a few up-and-coming enemies of American-style democracy have been shot down by, in effect, no one. This boy-o, if he exists, may be the best gunman in human history. He's never used a second bullet on anyone, never misses, death is always instantaneous, and his nests are rarely ever more solid than an educated guess. My guess? This is a chap who loves his work, so the likelihood is that he'd be the instrument of someone with a vendetta against Pembroke, rather than the antagonist. The fact that you even found tripod marks argues against his involvement. For him, that would be an earthshaking faux pas."

"But, other than Osipovo, he's the only one capable of these murders, correct?" Calvert murmured.

"That we know of, Gunny, my old friend, that we know of," Leftwich chuckled dryly. "Babies are born everyday. Some will grow up to be shooters. It's also only a matter of time before the other side—the Brigatta Rosso, Al Quaida, Hamas, one of those, develops the long-term discipline needed to produce snipers. Those boy-o's are too much in the glare of publicity and snipers are shade-loving creatures. But it's inevitable…maybe it's here."

"You chaps would have heard…something," Calvert offered.

"You're far too kind," Leftwich laughed. "Hell, we didn't hear fuck-all about this and look what's happened. There's your very best argument for the lone gunman, my lad—no warning. The simple fact always was and always will be that one is the largest number possible for keeping a secret."

"Indeed," Calvert nodded, "just curious, Lefty. Was there ever a name or the rumor of one for the American?"

"Strictly a rumor amongst old soldiers-turned-spy, lad," Leftwich mused. "But he was always known as Joe."



"Their names were Dunbar, Beecham and Pennington. He got Dunbar outside a Munich disco at 1 a.m. and then Beecham and Pennington in a closed, moving Bentley at 9 a.m., on a country road outside Salzburg. One shot apiece, dead instantly. They haven't found the nest yet, but preliminary ballistics say it was roughly 450 yards."

"Christ almighty," Aaron mumbled. "It's like the finger of God or something."

"The finger of a fucking lunatic," Jack snapped. "Christ, Tru, do we just have to sit here and…"

I smacked the tabletop hard enough to rattle all the silverware and snap every head in the dining room in my direction.

"Jack, this is
not
one of those times when you snap your fingers and cause angels to dance on pinheads. The sad fact is that
any
half-bright asshole with a gun and no self-control can go on a spree like this, as long as he cleans up after himself and keeps moving," I growled. "Things are being done, as we sit, to stop it, including two or three of the best investigative agencies on the planet. The guy we're dealing with is definitely
not
a half-bright asshole. He is a very smart, very motivated,
very
talented marksman who obviously knows how to do what he's doing. We may not catch him. We may not even find out who he is. But that doesn't change anything. We'll go after him hard, as will the F.B.I., Scotland Yard, and the French Sureté. In the meantime, I've got work to do. You can help. Now, eat your fucking breakfast and let me think."

Aaron's eyes were as big as saucers. His fork dangled, empty, halfway between the plate and his mouth. Jack looked stalled out somewhere between furious and pole-axed.

I was just royally pissed and couldn't have explained to either of them why. The core of it was as it always is:  the arrogance and just plain rudeness of people like Jane Wright and our mystery shooter offends me right down to my follicles. The mere concept of someone inflicting unwarranted pain and suffering, or even serious inconvenience upon innocent people, makes me want to string up the agenda-blind, ego-centric, self-indulgent sons of bitches by their balls. Just fundamentally wrong for somebody to gun down the board of a paper company because of some environmental protest or to blithely behave like an arrogant slut, injuring her husband and parents. I can't even conceive of the warped reasoning or childhood trauma that might serve as a legitimate justification. When people make a conscious choice to do wrong—as opposed to someone who is actually emotionally damaged and deluded—I think they should get everything they deserve. Only that's not really enough. I want them to get the just desserts from me.

I wanted my hands around our shooter's throat. The desire was as strong as sex and a deep as heartbreak. And Jack's pissing and moaning was just not part of the soundtrack.

"Jesus," Jack mumbled, "where the fuck did that come from?"

"Jack," I snapped, "I like you, recent words to the contrary, but you are finally what you are—a guy who really thinks people should hop to when you become disgruntled. Shocking, I'll grant you, but 99-point 9-9-9-9 percent of humanity couldn't care less if you are properly gruntled or not. There are events, even events that concern you, that you are utterly powerless to control or even influence. I wasn't making a report to the boss when I told you about the murders last night. I was thinking out loud and encouraging thoughtful ideas. I am now at a stage of personal involvement in cases that I sometimes get to and I don't apologize for doing it. Now, you want to help, put that formidable brain to work and park the formidable lip."

I dug into my eggs and grappled with the ugly feeling that I was missing something obvious and crucial. I was at least mostly convinced that the Jane Wright thing and the shootings had nothing at all to do with each other, just as I was mostly convinced that the elusive Joe would prove to be the harmless recluse he seemed to be.

Still, coincidences are far more rare than the movies might suggest. There are true eccentrics who simply rail against the world's right to count them amongst us all, but reclusiveness is usually far more mundane. People have things they want to hide. To all appearances, Joe was not a genuine eccentric. He was reputed to be approachable, even cordial, and interacted easily with the community. Therefore, in my simple mind, he had stuff to hide.

"This is going to get ugly and maybe even dangerous, now," I said quietly. "Jack, I apologize for the force of my outburst, if not the content. I'm afraid I was taking out my frustration with my own lack of foresight on you. Any transcript of our conversations, since we started this thing, would read like a clumsy script for one of the Spenser T.V. movies. I've been having fun, enjoying the company, and assuming that the shootings were some separate event that we could set aside. I should have taken then some of the steps I'm taking now and I'm afraid the rising body count is at least partly my fault. Today, we have to brace Jane Wright, do it in record time, and get back to Colville to dig up this Joe character."

"Well, maybe I
can
do something concrete," Jack muttered. He fished out his cell and hit a speed-dial number. "David? Jack. Mornin'. Everything going okay? Good. Look, I want everybody on something for…let's say three hours. Then keep Dale on it all day, next day, whatever it takes. It all charges to the contingency account. Now, record this, okay? Here goes. Plot 23 of the Colville property. Need ownership records and personal on current owners.
Everything
, David. I want you to take this guy apart. I want his first grade class picture, his dental records, his family tree, okay? Unfortunately, we have first name only and we don't know if that's correct. It's Joe, so search
any
variant. First, last, middle. Yeah, sorry, that's all we've got. David? Tell Dale to be
creative
, capice? Outside the box. Way outside. And purge this chip once you've played it for everybody.
No
hard copy on any of this and update me via encryption every six hours. If Dale wants to dip into overtime, it's authorized. Anybody else who's on to something can go time and a half, too. Dale's in double-time at home. All hardware resources, buy any software, whatever it takes. Obviously, stop short of anything illegal but grey areas are fair game. This may be the most important job we'll ever do, Dave. Everybody's best work, okay? Excellent. Start now? You the man, pal. Thanks. Back soonest. Later."

He folded the phone and slipped it into his shirt pocket.