Penance

Lynch took a breath, not sure where to step. “I haven’t talked to Dickey in weeks, first off, so if he’s getting shit, it isn’t coming from me.”

“He’s getting it from somebody.” A little tone in her voice said she wasn’t sure.

“And somebody’s go

Silence. “Oh Jesus, John, why didn’t you call me?”

Lynch feeling like shit, having put the knife in and no way to take it back.

“Look, I’m sorry, Liz. It was late, I was with my sister. Then I got the callout on this first thing. Probably shouldn’t even be on this. Honest to God, whatever Regan’s getting, it’s not from me.”

“Oh Jesus, Lynch, I guess I knew that. I was just pissed.”

“Look, Riordan’s old man used to run the Red Squad for Hurley the First – might make an angle for you, not that it’s a secret. And you can quote an anonymous source saying it’s the same guy.”

“John, I just… I feel like shit.”

“Me too. Look, I got to go.”

“Yeah. No harm no foul?”

“Sure. We’re good.” Not sure they were.

Lynch thought for a moment after Johnson hung up. No way McCord was leaking shit. Novak. He’d have the info, and he felt right. Lynch scrolled through the directory on his phone, found Regan, hit dial.

“Hey, Lynch,” answered Regan. “Hear you’re sleeping your way through the press corps. Hope you’re not looking to get in my pants, too.”

“Why would I want to when Novak’s already in there?”

Little pause, all Lynch needed to hear. “What the fuck you talking about?”

“Just tell me why I shouldn’t have the asshole ca

“Ca

“Got all I need. Better start shopping for a new snitch. I’m shutting his act down.”

“Whatever, Lynch. Hey, saw the video feed from the Riordan shoot. Like the Kojak look. You just need a little lollipop.”

“Fuck you, Dickey.”

“Right back at you. You gotta buy me lunch soon.”

CHAPTER 36 – CHICAGO

Cu

It was a 54mm casing, that was the thing. Only one long gun Cu

That, and even through the plastic bag, Cu

So a pro. Knew that already. But the Dragunov? Not the type of thing a pro would choose.

Except one.

You didn’t spend twenty years playing scout/sniper for the Corps without getting out some. Cu

OK, so Cu

And he’d heard about the Dragon.

First time was around 1980, just when Afghanistan was heating up for the Reds. Arms dealer in Peshawar named Abdul the Fat, an honest one, which pretty much made him Mother Teresa in that neighborhood. You name it, he could get it. SAMs, Stingers, C4, Claymores, M-whatevers, from Garands to 14s to 16s to 81s. Probably had more Lee-Enfields in his shop than the Brits had in the Raj when Kipling was stomping around. You made a deal, it stayed made. You set a price, it stayed set. Didn’t matter if you were Mujahideen, Ivan the Red, some Agency puke, a Kurd with a bug up your ass. Abdul the Fat was the honest broker, the market-maker for mayhem. Among certain circles, he was probably the best-loved man between Riyadh and Delhi.

What Cu

OK. So that was so much fun, they start using the same gun and the same guy on lots of hits that make the Politburo look like they have their heads up their zhopas. He plugs some Solidarity guy in Gdansk, pretty much handing the keys to the Warsaw White House to Walesa. Couple dozen hits on priests and other lefty troublemakers in a fruit salad of banana republics in Central America. People start calling the guy the Dragon. Thinking is he’s Soviet, or ex-Soviet, but either way he’s got Ivan seeing, well, red.

Then the wheels came off the Big Red Machine. Nobody needed a fake Russian anymore. But the shooter? He gets some weird religious attachment to his Dragunov. He is doing God’s work, and the Dragunov is God’s instrument – some such shit, like it’s Excalibur or something.

Dead guys start turning up with clean rounds in em. No rifling, no nothing. Word among the Fort Campbell types was that the Dragon was saboting his rounds so he could keep using his toy.

And now you got people pierced by magic bullets turning up outside churches in Chicago. You got a 54mm casing that somebody who loves bullets more than he loves his mother has honed like a fucking scalpel. And Cu

On the one hand, it was a no-brainer. Cu