“And the girl was Sara Evans. That’s what I’m thinking. You better call and let the others know.”
Rayfield picked up the cell phone. “We’ll never catch up to Harms now.”
“Yes, we will.”
“How the hell can we?”
Tremaine drew on thirty years of Army training, studying what the other side would do in a particular scenario. “Fiske said he saw them get in a car. Opposite of a car is a truck. He said it was an old car. Opposite of that is a new truck. He said they were going north, so we go south. It’s only been five minutes. We’ll catch them.”
“I hope to God you’re right. If they were at Rider’s office — ” He broke off and looked anxiously out the window.
Tremaine looked over at him. “Then that means the Harms brothers ain’t running. That means they were looking for something Rider had. And that sure as hell is not good news for us.” He nodded at the phone. “Make that call. We’ll take care of Harms and his brother. They’ll have to deal with Fiske and the woman.”
* * *
Because of the high-profile nature of the case, the FBI had offered the use of its laboratory to perform the analysis on the slug found in the alley. After comparing tissue samples taken from Michael Fiske’s remains, the slug was deemed to have been fired through his brain. The slug was a 9mm of a type typically carried by law enforcement personnel.
With that information, Agent McKenna sat down in front of a computer terminal at the Hoover Building and typed in a high-priority request to the Virginia State Police. Within a few minutes he had his answer. John Fiske had a 9mm SIG-Sauer registered to his name, a carryover from his cop days. Within minutes McKenna was in his car. Two hours later he turned off Interstate 95 and headed through the darkened streets of downtown Richmond. His car rumbled over the aged and uneven streets of Shockoe Slip. He parked in a secluded area near the old train station.
Ten minutes later he was standing in John Fiske’s office, having picked the locks of the building and the lawyer’s office with remarkable ease. He looked around the darkened space using a small light. He had decided to search Fiske’s office first rather than his apartment. It only took a couple of minutes until he found it. The 9mm pistol was relatively light and compact. Wearing gloves, McKenna palmed it for a moment and then put it in his pocket.
He shone his light around the rest of the office. The beam caught on something and he went over to the bookcase. He picked up the framed picture. The flashlight kicked up too much glare on the glass covering the photo, so McKenna took it over to the window and looked at it under the moonlight.
The Fiske brothers looked like any others, standing side by side. Michael Fiske was taller and better-looking than his older brother, but the fire in John Fiske’s eyes burned with a greater intensity. John had on his police uniform, so this had been taken a while back, McKenna knew. The older brother had seen much of life wearing that uniform, just as McKenna had in his career at the FBI. Sometimes those experiences gave you that fire, or else harshly took it away.
He put the photo back and left the office. In another five minutes the FBI agent’s car was heading north once again. Two hours later, back at his home in a well-to-do northern Virginia suburb, McKenna sat in his small study and alternated sipping on a beer and pursing his lips around a cigarette. He held the pistol he had taken from Fiske’s office. It was nicely maintained, a solid piece of work. Fiske had made a good choice in ordnance. As a cop he would have relied on this weapon to survive. Years ago policemen rarely had to pull their sidearm. That had changed.
Fiske had killed a man with this gun, McKenna knew. Fired the shot that had taken another’s life. McKenna understood the complexities of that journey — a journey that was typically compressed within the span of a few seconds. The heat of the metal, the nauseating smell of exploded powder. Unlike in the movies, a bullet didn’t blow a man backward several feet. A man fell where you shot him; made him crap and pee in his pants, plunged him to the dirt without a word. McKenna had killed a man too. It was quick, reflexive; he had seen the eyes bulge out, the body twist. Then McKenna had gone back to the spot where he had fired from and noted the two bullet holes on the wall on either side of where he had stood. The dead man had gotten off his own shots. They had miraculously passed on either side of the FBI agent. McKenna would later learn that the dead man had an eye disability that threw off his depth perception. McKenna had gone on, lived to see his wife and kids because the dead man had a wobbly pupil. On the drive home, McKenna had soiled his pants.