“No, I showed him I could evade. That is not a victory. I should have killed him, as I believe it will save me a great deal of trouble in what comes next. But if I’d fired, the sound of the shot would have drawn police in seconds. If I’d paused to strangle him or to smash him with the gun, I would have extended my vulnerability. So even after knocking him to the ground, my first instinct was to evade. I made the right decision, but it feels very wrong.”

46

Meetings, Wichita, Kansas

Swagger was released on the third day and got to the morning meeting on the fourth day.

It was the first get-together for Chandler, Neill, Nick, Swagger, and Mr. Gold in over a week, and, as usual, Nick had Chandler—hobbling on a walker but game—go through the APB responses and other communiqués from the police net, particularly those provoked by the circularized police artist portrait of the fugitive, under Swagger’s direction.

There were summaries from the interrogations—to no effect. And, as per usual, no possibilities from monitoring bus stations, the airport, the train station, even taxi, Uber, and Lyft drivers. Of the six or seven stolen cars reported, only one had been recovered, and it was almost certainly not Juba’s, as forensics found no trace of him in it.

“Sooner or later, one of the commandos will disclose where they staged the operation, and we can bust and vacuum that site,” said Nick. “But everyone on the other team is operating at a very high professional level and will probably not make the kind of stupid mistake that brings down most criminal initiatives. These people are first-class. Everything is done through cutouts far from the order giver and his inner circle, always using laundered money, accounts that lead nowhere. No wire intelligence, and nobody monitored radio transmissions, so clearly they used sophisticated masking. Neill, anything in cyber? Any little thing?”

“Sorry, no intercepts. Even put NSA on it, and they went through all their satellite stuff. I have a tech full-time in D.C. going after their fall guy. If and when a phony Brian Waters email or Dark Web site or blog hits, we’ll know.”

“We’re fucked,” said Bob. “He’ll do that just before he shoots. Whatever he wants the world to know about Brian Waters will hit then, you can bet on it.”

“Anything else?” asked Nick.

“Did you find the other rifle? Meaning the rifle he used here in Wichita?” Bob asked.

“How did you know he didn’t use the Accuracy International?”

“No point in risking the weapon dedicated to his big shot for some sideshow.”

“Well, you’re right—yes, a different rifle. He dumped it behind the chancel,” Nick said. “I looked at it pretty carefully before we sent it off to Firearms Division. It appeared to be straight-out-of-the-box standard, which is to say, without information.”