Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,87
stretches, releasing nervous energy, bounces in place like an athlete gearing up for a game. He walks over to the wheelchair that’s halfway across the room, the RANGERS LEAD THE WAY sticker on the shroud, the American-flag decal on the armrest, and pats it lovingly.
What a superb tactical advantage it’s provided. How many people he has been able to subdue and kill simply because they never imagined that he could be a threat. A man in a wheelchair? Harmless. What could he do to me?
True, it’s been a real pain in the ass, having to pretend his legs don’t work, keeping them perfectly still whenever he’s in character. Lucky for him, nobody ever suspected the ruse. But why would anyone suspect him? Who, after all, would pretend to be confined to a wheelchair?
Well, he would.
“You’ve been a good friend,” he says to the motorized chair. “But I won’t be needing you tonight.”
Tonight will not be subtle. Tonight will be hands-on. Tonight will be violent.
He’s rather looking forward to it.
If the FBI doesn’t get here first.
87
“LIEUTENANT MARTIN CHARLESTON WAGNER,” I say to the room. “Age forty-four. Honorably discharged from the U.S. Army three years ago after an injury in Iraq, an IED explosion that left him partially paralyzed. Relocated to Annandale, Virginia, eighteen months ago, where he lives on his army pension and is self-employed as a motivational speaker and political activist.”
After discovering Martin Wagner this morning, we spent the day gathering whatever information we could to present to the task force, a group joined today by lawyers from the Department of Justice, who will need to seek a warrant from a federal magistrate.
I press a button on the remote in my hand, and the video display (thank you, Pully) on the projection screen changes to a screenshot of the home page of his website, LieutenantWags. There he is in all his glory, his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, the crescent-moon-shaped scar on the side of his face.
“He gives motivational speeches, mostly to others with disabilities,” I say. “He preaches self-reliance. ‘Don’t ask the government for anything. Don’t accept handouts. Do it on your own.’ He wants to abolish welfare and Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare. He’s written a number of essays on the subject. He self-published a book. And he speaks all over the country.”
I punch the remote as I talk, displaying various articles and a copy of the book he wrote. I punch it again, and up pops Wagner’s tour schedule.
“Look at the cities and the dates,” I say. “Indianapolis. Atlanta. Charleston. Dallas. New Orleans. And Chicago. Against each of those dates, we can match the murder of some activist for the poor or the sick or the homeless. And, of course, Chicago was the bombing of the hotel for the homeless.”
“Let’s start there, Chicago. That’s why we’re here, right—the bombing?” This from the top prosecutor in the room, a woman named Amee Czernak. She’s dressed in a charcoal suit, has sand-colored hair pulled back neatly at her neck, and is looking at me over the glasses perched on her nose. “Did you confirm that he attended that speaking engagement in Chicago?”
“Yes,” I say. “There’s some video of it on his website and on YouTube. He spoke at three p.m. on Saturday. The bomb detonated twelve hours later, in the early hours of Sunday morning. He would’ve had plenty of opportunity to stake out the payday-loan store and the hotel above it that weekend and plant that bomb.”
“How do you know that?” she asks. “Do you know when he arrived in Chicago that weekend?”
“No. He didn’t fly, and he didn’t take any bus or train that we could find, so we assume he drove. And avoided the toll roads.”
“So you don’t know when he arrived in Chicago. Do you know when he left?”
“Not yet,” I concede.
“Can you account for his whereabouts at any other time that weekend in Chicago?”
“No, I can’t. Not yet. We think he began his stakeout across from the payday-loan store at six fifteen on that Friday evening. That’s when he paid off the homeless man, Mayday.”
“And you think he murdered that homeless man.”
She’s done her homework; she had this information for only an hour before we met.
“So he couldn’t be a witness later, yes. Mayday’s death is consistent with the other murders we’ve chronicled around the country on dates that Wagner was in those cities.”
“Murders that haven’t been called murders by anyone else but you.”