“Richter?” Weaver asked. Richter had taken out a combat knife and was running a whetstone along the blade.

“Whatever, man. Tag em and bag em. It’s all rock and roll to me.”

“Richter,” Ferguson said. “Gets to where you gotta show Fisher your knife, you might as well cut your own throat with it. Because he will take it away from you and open you up like a tuna can.”

Weaver was wishing he didn’t have to use Richter. He was good, former SEAL, but he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. Weaver was thin on ops guys, though. Had a couple of teams in Europe taking out Al-Qaeda targets the Agency pukes couldn’t get enough shit on for arrests, another team in South America.

“You guys need to understand what you are up against,” Weaver said. “Fisher is good. He is very, very good.”

“He’s old, and he’s nuts,” said Richter. “And we’re good, too. And there are four of us.”

Ferguson looked Richter in the eyes. “Fisher is better now than you are ever going to be, Richter. Nuts or not, old or not. I’ve worked with him, you haven’t. He’s better than I am – way better. And I’m better than you.”

Richter sat back. This was not a community in which anybody admitted second-class status. “Yeah, well, still. Four of us, one of him. Is he four times better?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” said Ferguson.

At 12.15am, Weaver was alone in his room, still looking at the maps, turning Ferguson’s plan over, trying to find something he didn’t like. Seemed solid. He heard a tap at his door. He pulled out the Walther again, checked the peephole. Chen. She was still wearing her black pantsuit, looking like she got dressed fifteen minutes ago. Weaver opened the door and waved her into the room.

“What’s up?” Weaver asked.

“Contingency plan, sir.”

Weaver nodded and sat back down at the table. No matter how much he liked Fergie’s plan, it was still Fisher they were trying to take out. Which meant there was still a decent chance that this time tomorrow, Fisher’d be headed for points south and Weaver’d have a state forest full of dead guys to explain.

“OK, Chen, what do you have?”

“I have placed traces of crystal methamphetamine and fifteen thousand dollars in cash in one of Richter’s personal bags. A number of crystal meth labs have been discovered in rural Midwestern communities. Paravola is ready to replace NCIC files on four known crystal meth dealers with the ops team’s data.”

CHAPTER 28 – CHICAGO

As soon as Lynch walked into his mother’s hospital room, he knew death had spun out of the final turn and gone to the whip. Her complexion had gone from pale to waxen to almost corrupt. Her breathing was the sound of a rasp on cheap plywood. He pressed his lips to her cheek, and it felt like something from the deli counter.

“Johnny,” she said.

“It’s OK, ma.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her mouth.

“Hurts,” she said.

“I know,” he answered. “I know.”

He remembered the bungalow up on Neenah. Summers, his mom in the plaid Madras shorts she liked and the sleeveless blouses, the smoke from the grill, the neat row of rose bushes along the chain-link fence between their yard and the Garritys’s. Mom singing show tunes as she flipped the burgers. Dad in the dark chinos and the Dago T, the nylon web yard chair sagging beneath him, a gold Miller High Life can in his massive paw. Lynch’s sister, maybe three or four, climbing up the old man’s legs and into his lap. Mom still something of a looker, like Jackie O, the way she’d sit on the wood stairs in the back, legs crossed, one sandal just dangling off her toes. The sound of the neighborhood kids – the Garrity twins, Tony Campanaro, Sean Haggerty getting up a whiffle ball game in the ally. Wandering across the yard to the gate to join them, his ma’s voice strong and high and sweet behind. Knowing supper was coming and there was no better place in the world.

“You made us a good life, ma,” Lynch said. “Couldn’t have done any better. I love you. I’m going to miss you.”

Lynch watched one tear roll down his mother’s desiccated cheek, then saw her eyes roll up. It wasn’t sleep anymore. Lynch wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t sleep. The rasping went on and on.

After a while he couldn’t listen to it anymore, and he left.

Lynch went to his mom’s, cleaned out the fridge, collected the mail. Grass was starting to grow. He went out to the garage, but there wasn’t any gas for the mower. Might be a little much today anyway. Trying not to give in to the leg too much, but it was barking at him some. He looked up at the little attic his dad had made in the rafters, plywood nailed over the cross members. Knew there was some shit up there, old Christmas lights, scrap. Knew it was coming, the day he’d have to clean all that out. The house didn’t bother him – he had a whole history with his mom in the house after his dad. But the garage felt a little like a mausoleum.

On the way back to his place, Lynch drove past Sacred Heart and found Father Hughes sweating through a Notre Dame sweatshirt next to a pile of flagstones. Lynch could see where the priest had dug out the outline of a walk leading to the Marian grotto. He’d laid down a crushed limestone base and had just started laying in the fieldstones.

“Tell me this is some kind of new Lenten penance, Father, and I’m turning Baptist,” said Lynch, coming up the walk.

“I like the eyepatch. You OK?”

“Itches some. Otherwise I’m good.”

“I was just ready for a lunch break,” said the priest. “Care to join me?”

“What are you serving?” asked Lynch.

“Peanut butter and jelly and milk.”

Lynch laughed. “No cookies?”

“Can’t abide the store-bought ones and can’t bake to save my life,” answered the priest.

“Tell you what, Father, I had a burger up at that bar off of Belmont last week, and it didn’t kill me. Can a lapsed altar boy stand you to a beer and a bite?”

The priest smiled. “I’d never dream of depriving a man of the chance to perform a corporal work of mercy. Bless you, my son.”

They settled into a booth in the back. Lynch ordered a grilled ham and swiss. The priest went with the tuna melt. They each had a black and tan.

“Father,” said Lynch, “I want to ask a favor.”

“If you’re planning on laying a walk, I think I’m retiring after this one.”

Lynch smiled. “It’s my mom. She’s dying. Should be any day now. We’ll have the funeral up at St Lucia’s, but she’s been in and out of the hospital for over a year now, and the priest she knew up there died. Couple of young guys on the staff now. Nothing against them, but I don’t know them. Actually, you’re the only priest I do know now. I need to get the funeral together, and, I don’t know, I’d just like somebody familiar to see her off.”

The priest reached across the table and squeezed Lynch’s forearm. “Tough thing, detective, burying your mom. Dad gone?”

“Years ago,” said Lynch.

“I’d be honored to do the service. Just call when it’s time. I’ll talk to the parish up there and set things up. Any other family?”

“Got a sister up in Milwaukee, nephew I don’t see enough. We, I don’t know, just kind of lost touch. Used to be close.”

“Have you called her? She’ll want to be down before your mom goes.”

“Yeah,” said Lynch. “I gotta do that. I gotta do that right now.” Lynch pulled out his cell phone, got his sister’s secretary. He had to lean on her a bit to put the call through.

“Colleen, it’s Johnny. It’s about mom. It’s any time now. You better come down.”

Lynch and his sister agreed to meet at the hospital at 7pm.

“It’ll be hard for her,” the priest said. “Not having been here. She’ll feel guilty.”

“Yeah,” Lynch said. “Hard thing to watch, hard thing to miss.”

Lynch stood in the cold, sucking on a Camel and watching the cars turn off into the hospital parking lot. When he saw the cream-colored Lexus with the Wisconsin plates swing in, he flicked the Camel into the street and started walking toward the car. Always touchy enough seeing his sister without catching shit about smoking right up front.